Boosting your reach in your country of origin is quite impressive but when you have the ability to expand internationally, you increase your potential audience to a massive 8 billion people. Sales could skyrocket, brand awareness could soar, and your business objectives could be achieved but…
How do you smartly penetrate overseas markets?
Nail Down Demographics
How can you branch out to an entirely new audience if you have no idea who they are or what makes them tick? Before beginning to expand to overseas markets, conduct extensive research in each area you plan to offer your products. Get to know the culture, location, needs, preferences, and a slew of additional data that could help you create a customer avatar for marketing content development.
Up Your Marketing Game
Not only does an increase in marketing focus help you reach your new target audiences from demographic research, but it will also offer a new perspective and feedback on the success of your international reach.
Every corner of the world celebrates, values, and needs different things. It’s your job to find out what those things are and personalize your marketing approach. Just like shoes, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to marketing your offerings internationally.
Localize Your Efforts
Needs, preferences, and culture can differ not only between global areas but also within one specific country and even individual provinces. It’s a smart idea to localize your efforts to really get a good grasp of each localized market to cater directly to them.
For example, clients in the western provinces of China may live differently and have different needs than those in or around the country’s capital Beijing. Find the exact problems and issues that your product or service can help to solve and capitalize on that information in order to truly localize your efforts when branching out internationally.
Multilingual Content is a MUST
While much of the world speaks English, it’s not a guarantee that your brand voice will reach them in the way you think it would. Cater your marketing content, blog articles, and virtual ads to the local people your business is marketing to.
Ensure that it’s grammatically correct and fluent in the language, does not cross any cultural boundaries, and watches for multilingual words that have multiple meanings. The last thing your new-to-location brand needs is a massive mix-up and becoming the butt of the joke before they’ve had a chance to see how your product or service can better their lives.
Networking and Partnerships are Key
Partner and network with those companies or individuals who are very familiar with the area you wish to expand to and ask for crucial data, assistance, or promotion.
Consider contacting internationally-known or locally-known influencers to offer a hand with vouching for your goods and services. When the person that your new audience trusts also trusts you, the result could be incredible for your business.
Additionally, partnering with local manufacturing facilities in other countries that can produce your products of the same quality can be a massive cost and time-saver for any business looking to sell internationally.
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