Marketing a Business in Italy

The transition of a business to international operations requires a careful planning of costs, procedures and resources. Despite appearances, one of te very first moves is actually cultural in the sense that it is necessary to assess your product or services fit the inclinations and idiosyncrasies of a nation. A company needs to ‘culturalise’ their business if they want to achieve results in the country they are planning to expand. At this stage effective marketing means understanding the population of a country, their social approach to products and services, what is considered convincing and how to touch their sensibility and practices in order to develop a feeling of necessity around your products and services.

These considerations are particularly true for a country like Italy. Over 60 millions of educated, well-informed and discerning citizens. Italy is the eighth economic power in the world (International Monetary Fund data) and if the country boasts a high public debt, just as much true that private debt is extremely low, Italians are famous for the consistency of private savings and home property. Italy, all considered, is a stable country. Despite the criticism at its volatile politics and legislation, the country is fundamental for the European Union being its third biggest economic contributor after Germany and France and before all the other EU countries. Additionally, Italy is pacing forward within the rules and boundaries set by the European Union. While the Eu strongly needs Italy, the country strongly adheres to the EU as it demonstrated in all its history (don’t forget Italy is one of the few founding partners of the EU). The result is a country moving towards the future yes slowly but yes also constantly.

The Italian population is all considered rich, has property and buys products and services. However they are very discerning and have a particular approach and sensitivity that requires an appropriate marketing.

Marketing your business in Italy is difficult but the results if you succeed are worth the work and promising . Italy may grow and become more heterogeneous, but the foundations of its culture rarely budges for anything: their sensitivity, practices, traditions, humour, discourses, tastes are essentially unchanging and stubbornly unaccommodating. Therefore, the identity of your product or service needs to seamlessly fashion itself upon a nation.

Don’t expect your marketing strategy will apply just as well in Italy. Don’t expect translation will simply work. Italy is a strong western democracy, it looks favourably and with respect towards english-speaking countries, but they will not receive positively your products and services unless you play their rules and you talk their language. Understanding this can make or break your business.

These considerations are true also for those businesses that sell themselves out of necessity or innovation. Yes, they will find a vast market in Italy and certainly succeed but so many times we’ve seen – including famous brands – enormous margins of improvement lost ore gone unseen only because of an inappropriate marketing and communication.

The power of images and even more so of video is enormous in Italy, after all this is the country that invented the use of images and colours, dating back to the Roman Empire and all the way up to Giotto in the 1300’s and Fellini in the 1900’s.

DMA International’s value are our screenplay authors. They are professional authors coming form the film, news and publishing industries with an extensive knowledge and experience in turning your product, service and brand into something that has appeal to the Italian audience, touching exactly the right cords.