How Upstart Carmakers Can Discover Their European Target Customers

How can international automotive companies convince potential customers to consider their brands? In part two of our How Emerging Markets Can Succeed in Europe series, we explain the importance of understanding target consumers and how to overcome the biggest barriers to entry.

Knowing your target customers and how to reach them is a quintessential step of a market entry strategy, especially when aiming to appeal to cultural and economic specifics outside of your own borders. To convince customers to trust foreign brands and embrace innovative products (particularly those from emerging markets), you have to really know what makes customers tick, going beyond a handful of demographics such as age and social status.

One common error is to apply a one-size-fits-all strategy across countries, having identified target customers at home and expecting a new market to yield similar success. What this new group of customer values and how much they are…