Entering the Japanese market through online media

Since Google expanded its AdSense program to Japan and Japanese language, there has been tremendous interest in targeting the Japanese market.  We had identified Japan as an attractive market as early as 1999 and launched our Japan-focused portal MYNIPPON.  In line with our expectations, the website has seen explosive growth since then.  While we have since broadened the focus of the website and it is now a more global website, we continue to receive at least 20% of our traffic from Japan.

Targeting the Japanese market is not always easy.  Many companies in all kinds of sectors have struggled to come up with the right value proposition for the Japanese customer.  Here are a few things that we have learned about the Japanese market and you might want to consider these in developing your Japanese market entry strategy:

• Japanese consumers are obsessed with quality.  If you develop content for Japanese readers (the English language market for Japan is relatively small; the majority of Japanese readers still prefer content in Japanese language), make sure that it is of the highest quality.
• Japanese people are voracious readers and several data sources confirm that per capita consumption of written content in Japan is the highest in the world. 
• Japan has innumerable publications (both print media and online) and unless you have something unique to offer to the Japanese reader, don't even bother.  Japanese media and publications do not face the kind of cost pressures as American publications do.  As a result, Japanese publications often have reporters in all major locations, they rely on their own staff to cover major stories, and often use high quality photography in their publications.

How to win in Japan?

1. Research carefully.  Study your target audience.  Ask carefully the question:  What are you doing that a Japanese publication is not doing or is incapable of doing?
2. Do not just translate your publication into Japanese.  You might be able to leverage some of your research but the bottom line is: you will have to develop unique content for the Japanese market.
3. Provide customer service of the highest standards.  Japanese consumers are more likely to pay for subscribing to your content website but in return they expect only the best.