What Percentage of Discretionary Spending is Spent by Expats? Answer:

We just recently got a French luxury travel website as a new client. They are opening a Seoul, Korea based sales force and targeting Koreans with disposable discretionary income. When they came to us, they were dead set on only advertising through Naver — NOT Google.

I find that most clients who speak with our Sparkah Asia team come to us with the same mind set. They look at the naver media kit and sure enough, the numbers don’t lie:

Only 1.8 Percent of the Population in Seoul Korea and the rest of the Country does NOT use Naver.

In other words, only 1.8 % of Koreans exclusively use Google.

So it would be a logical choice to solely focus on web marketing via Naver. But you’d be wrong.

Everybody is thinking along the same lines. All your competitors are also targeting that same 98.2% of the pie. Every industry and every business is competing for the limited disposable discretionary income of that 98.2% of the pie. So you see our argument: You should seriously consider targeting that 1.8% of the Korean population.

WAIT.

Before you laugh and walk away at the seemingly insignificant market size we’re advising you to focus your marketing and business strategy on, do you know who that 1.8% is? If you tighten the geography and ask what percent of the people just in the city of Seoul, not all of Korea, exclusively use Google, that number almost quadruples to 5.7%.

Why You Should Target Expats and Foreigners with Google – Not Naver

The people who make up that 1.8% of Korea are mostly all in Seoul. And they make up 5.7% of Seoul. They are Expats and Foreigners.

Their culture, their buying habits, their spending habits (totally different than buying habits), and disposable income is completely different than that of native Koreans. Native Koreans, especially Seoulites are aggressive savers. Its common for a mid 20′s Korean female to have over 100,000 USD in liquid savings. Westerners, especially Americans, can only survive for about 6 weeks if they lose their job. And they are typically about $40,000 in credit card debt.

So here’s the multi billion dollar question (literally): What percentage of the discretionary spending in Seoul Korea do you think expats and foreigners command? What percent of the luxury hand bags, movie tickets, Ferraris, and bottles of Soju is purchased by NON-Korean Expats? What is the expat spending in seoul korea?

You’ll have to watch the video: Google SEO Expert Consultant in Seoul Korea Reveals Expat Spending in Korea and How to Get to Page One of Google.

Being a love child of the dot-com and the dot-bomb, I’ve seen a lot of money made and I’ve seen it all lost. I remember my team working on e-toys, pets, and e-grocer dot coms. I remember them buying Porsches and Range Rovers at 23 years of age. I also remember seeing them leave their car keys with in their cars with a note saying, “please don’t hurt my credit too bad. I’ve moved back home to St. Louis.”

Through all this, I learned two things:
1. To make any kind of real wealth, you have to be at the spearhead of a financially disruptive shift.
2. Country western songs are real.

These Girls Are A Tremor In The Waves of Disruption

Fortunately for me, before the dot com totally deflated, I retired and moved to Europe. When I got back (I ran out of money), I looked for the next big disruptive shift. I happened to move back to Del Mar, California. This is right next to the starting point of Qualcomm. I found what I was looking for rather quickly.

I started a website featuring all the insider information I got from Qualcomm Engineers about 1xrtt. Then EvDO (Originally it was: “Evolution version: Data Only). The site got me featured or mentioned in the NY Times, Wall Street Journik, BoingBoing, Engadget, Etc… As soon as the Sierra Wireless AirCard Hit the streets, I was selling them like donuts to NYC Cops. I sold them bushels.

My Clients included the US Federal Marshals, HBO, US NAVY, Pentagon, Whitehouse Press Staff, SF Giants, LA PD, Paramount Pictures, etc. For those of you who know that these corporations already have direct accounts with Verizon and are wondering why they went with me instead of their direct sales rep, their direct sales reps were wondering (read: scheming to shut me down) the same thing.

It was simple. I had a 2 year knowledge base advantage over anyone in Verizon about THEIR new technology. In fact, it wasn’t until 1 whole year after they got a court order to take over their trademarked verizonevdo.com that they launched their FIRST wireless internet sales training course.

Rain is another tremor in the financially disruptive influence of Korea in 2010

So this is what I see now: International trade with Korea.

No. Not at the level that’s been going on since Japan fell behind Korea in the 90′s. Not at the Hyundai, Samsung, LG Level. I see the next financially disruptive shift happening at a totally pervasive level – at our level. To make wealth happen, I see working with Korea and Koreans as a requirement.

Here’s why:
1. Koreans always get the newest everything. Faster than the Japanese.
Koreans had video phones 5 years ago! They not only see but live in the future.

2. Koreans, ESPECIALLY IMMIGRANTS, are an extremely networked.
You make one person your business partner or client, and their entire church or dojo comes along. Hell, my own mother can’t speak English 100% fluently yet after 41 years of being in the USA because she spends so much time with the Immigrant Korean Community! Untapped Market.

3. If you work with people like @okgosu … Koreans start working when you clock out.
4pm NYC Time is 8am Seoul Time.

4. Koreans web developers are cheaper than Americans.

5. Koreans web designers all went to the best art schools.

6. Korean culture is finally hitting the American mainstream.
You may not immediately see the business relevance to “Rain” starring in an American action movie or “Wonder Girls” being the first Koreans to hit Billboard’s Hot 100. But it’s a big one. Koreans are gaining social and financial clout like the Japanese did in the 80′s on every golf course.

7. Koreans are hungry.
Koreans want to work with you. You don’t have to push and prod Koreans. They want to do business with you and some Koreans actually want to date you.

BONUS: Koreans Speak English!

What Are You Going To Do About It?
So… to make business and personal relationships between Koreans and the rest of the West happen even faster than it would anyways, I built http://koreanovernight.com/friends

Join it. Meet and work with the people who are fast disrupting the way business works now.

PS. I never did tell you how I got my wireless internet site so big – fast. I offered to answer any question about Verizon’s EVDO. When people called in asking for coverage, latency, data packet sizes and all manner of question I didn’t know, I said, “Do you mind holding for a moment?” And I speed dialed Qualcomm’s internal 2G and 3g Engineering Team.

I am good at spotting emerging teams. I know who’s going to kick ass. I want you to join me: Join http://koreanovernight.com/friends