When it comes to your business, there are endless factors that could impact your success. As anyone struggling with the fast pace of emerging technology adoption can attest, socio-cultural elements external to your specific business environment can have a particularly strong impact on your products, clients and even the survivability of your business. Lifestyle and cultural trends hold significant sway over consumer and business to business patterns and are essential to not only be aware of, but to adapt to throughout the course of your businesses life.
My Business Diagnostics co-author, Mike Thompson and I recorded a series of short videos explaining the key elements of our Business Diagnostics book. The following is a transcript of my video outlining socio-cultural elements of the Business Diagnostics Framework. Scroll down to find the video in this post. The rest of our videos can be found on the Business Diagnostics YouTube channel.
What are Socio-Cultural Elements?
Today I’m going over the socio-cultural factors that you need to consider in your ‘PEST-C’ external scan which is part of the Business Diagnostics Framework.
In the Business Diagnostic Framework, socio-cultural trends are part of an external scan, though in reality they also have to be part of your ongoing marketing considerations. They’re so powerful that they not only affect existing businesses but also have the impact on creating new services, businesses and business models. There are a wide variety of socio-cultural elements that we have considered in our Business Diagnostics book, though I have only included a few for this post.
Population
Everyone knows population can be broken down into countries, but you also need to know whether there is growth or contraction in each geographic are where you operate or within the area of influence on your suppliers.
Demographics
From raw population data, you can break down (data) into demographics which include factors like age, cultural identity, gender, economic status, level of education, income level and even employment. That is who your market segment might be, but the next socio-cultural factor, psychographics, tells us the why behind the buy.
The Why behind the Buy
Psychographic data tracks attitudes, values, opinions, and interests. All of these are items that can provide a difference to your business and help you provide better products and services.
Cultural Identity
Cultural identity could be a part of psychographics as well, though identities can be found in clusters, both in the physical and online world. You want to take a broader view of what a cultural identity is, as it may not be as simple as an ethnic heritage – it may also be a lifestyle.
Social/Lifestyle
Finally, be aware and sensitive to social and lifestyle changes. This is a critical piece of how you operate your business and is a knowledge factor for you. Regardless of your business or product, your clients, employees, suppliers and stakeholders are all part of social, cultural, lifestyle and interest groups. You need to to identify them and be sensitive to their needs.
To wrap up, with your prospects and clients, you really want to know who they are and where are they, along with finding out what they care about and how can you better serve them.
These are the elements of an external scan that are really going to make a difference to you and help find those “aha” moments and keep your head above water.
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