Streaming Forum Preview: Expanding Your Market from Europe to the USA
The streaming media space continues to defy gravity, seeing double-digit annual growth in times of double-dip recession. Yet even these companies want to take advantage of economic uncertainty by extending their leads into different markets and key market verticals
This is especially true for European companies, many of which focus on language-specific markets limited to two to three countries. To grow the business, these companies often set their sights on expanding beyond Europe to other key markets. One market many European companies consider is North America, with the majority focusing on the United States of America.
A new Streaming Forum session will focus on this very issue. "Expanding your Market from Europe to the USA" will offer advice and tips to companies that want to expand their presence beyond Europe.
As the presenter for this session, my goal is to help companies—from device manufacturers to service providers to rights holders—consider their options within the United States market, emphasizing the opportunities and pitfalls within the USA.
While many readers of Streaming Media magazine and StreamingMedia.com mainly know my work with Information Today and a few other media publications, my background is in strategic marketing, technology transfer, and technology development.
Through Transitions, Inc., a consulting company I co-founded in 2003, I've had the honor of working on both European multi-institution framework package projects as well as with numerous Fortune 50 and startup companies. Transitions consults to a number of companies, offering go-to-market strategy, competitive landscape analysis, and white paper services.
In addition, I've helped launch a World Trade Center in the southeastern USA, in conjunction with the World Trade Center Association, and two business incubators designed to help launch both low- and high-tech products.
The USA is actually made up of at least five distinct geographic markets, yet my past experience in assisting European and Asian companies is that they tend to focus on one or both of the extremities—the East or West Coasts—ignoring potential windfalls in underserved heartland markets.
In the session we'll explore examples of companies that have taken a one- or two-coast approach, look at areas of opportunity within the five distinct geographic markets, and flesh out opportunities for companies to target language-specific secondary markets within the USA.
We'll also talk briefly about the difference between CE and UL certifications for device manufacturers, exploring some of the technical differences between 50/60 Hz devices, and dissect the question of universally appealing products designed in Europe, sourced in China or India, and sold into the USA.
Finally, we'll look at service providers and rights holders, exploring issues such as third-party billing and micro payments, which differ widely between the EU and the USA. With a number of changes occurring, such as ESPN's decision to exit the European broadcast market, we'll also briefly explore potential opportunities to license rights beyond both the USA and Europe into emerging markets.
While this session is the last event of the second day of Streaming Forum Europe, I hope to be able to assist a number of attendees with their specific questions on expanding into the USA.
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