It is good to know that you are willing to secure a place in the global market because for you to have an online business that is successful, you will be needing an international marketing strategy that is international.
It is true, there are numerous opportunities for businesses waiting to be explored. This is since the use of internet has gone viral more than ever before and the concept of globalization is on the rise.
Nowadays, it is easy to gain access to information from any part of the world. You can browse through market places that can be found online, explore the influx in the use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. This makes the wise use of availability of various choices of payment gateway that is accessible from different parts of the world, and even employ delivery services that are widely available today. This is the reason why so many businesses today have decided to go global. The result is evident as the businesses that have refused going global have witnessed slower growth when compared to those that have joined the global sail.
For example, the statistics below speaks volume:
- Southeast Asia now have over 360 million internet users. (i.e. two-third of the population of people in that region)
- Facebook now performs about 20 billion of translation in a day.
Between a periods of two years from 2010, users of Facebook in Portuguese language witness a whole lot of 800% increase.
Before getting deep into how you can be successful with international marketing, let us define the term.
Any commercial act that fosters marketing and make the conveying of resources, goods, services, products, ideas, or people across any national boundaries easy is known as international marketing.
Now after considering the definition of international marketing, let us dive in to what you can do to promote your international trades.
Reasons your company should turn a global one
The benefits of getting into an international market place or making your company a global one are numerous and can never be overemphasized. Some of these benefits are:
- You will have the opportunity of making an extension of your reach and thereby gain access to a more broad market.
- When you brand is international, your brand will be held at high esteem, respected and be seen as reputable one.
- The more you have an extension of your business, the more potential of increasing your market share.
- You will have the opportunity of widening your professional networking and thereby increase your opportunity of collaborating with renowned brands across the globe.
- Including many other benefits…
Building an international market for the first time
Consumers in the foreign market place are readily available to accept new brands that is from their home country, although that may not always be the case but it still remains a fact. Entering international market on mere impulse will be very disastrous.
More than ever before, international market place have witnessed an increased over the last ten years as a result of the increase in the numbers of eCommerce shops, online stores, and borderless market places.
What then will help you to build an international market? You should have a well-designed international business plan. The truth is that it will not be easy for small or medium scale businesses to build an international marketing plan especially when they are doing that for the very first time. The reason is that they don’t have sufficient expertise, enough material and financial resources to lay the foundation on which they can build and maintain the desired international marketing campaigns.
Where to start with international marketing
The first and foremost step that international marketing should start with is creating and maintaining a multilingual website for your brand. It is a part of any international strategy that should not be held with levity hand. However, if you will want to create a multilingual website by using manual translation method, you will have to expend much time and money.
Is there any solution to help with this? Yes. ConveyThis is an easy to use plugin that can take charge of this task for you. Without having to be stressing yourself, ConveyThis will easily and easily translate your website for you within minutes. It has an approach know as hybrid approach i.e. the combination of human and machine translation to produce an accurate and well refined translation output for your project so that your audience can enjoy localized contents. If you want to make it more polished, you can even invite members of team and/or order skilled human translators to help with your project right inside your ConveyThis dashboard. It is that easy, fast and flexible.
How to create an international business strategy
Reasons everyone enters the international market varies from one individual to another. That is to say each business have a unique global marketing strategies. Owners of businesses can therefore be confident of their unique tactics, goals and plans.
For example, an entrepreneur may choose to use the services of foreign distributors to examine what and how doing business in the targeted market will be like. While another may decide to sell concurrently to different locations having the same or similar language.
Now, let us discuss some suggestions that can help you apply and develop principles of marketing that is applicable to building a sustainable international marketing plan.
Suggestion 1: Research the Market
You should have an extensive knowledge of the concept of the local and cultural orientation of the market. Such a research will help you gain insight on the behavior and needs of your potential customers and thereby you can tailor your international market strategy towards the outcome of your research.
Also, your research should cover searching for your prospective competitors whether they are indigenous to the targeted market location or not. You should be able to identify and evaluate how well they are doing and what is making them do better. Also, try to isolate what their drawbacks are and check how you can capitalize on that for the success of yours.
The needs, purchasing behavior, priorities, preferences, and demographics of international markets differs from one place to another. In fact is going to be very different from the market at home. Ability to note and isolate these differences is instrumental to identifying the most appropriate way you can reach your desired audience.
Suggestion 2: Define or clarify your local presence
Clarifying your local presence means that you will have to make a decision of:
- Either opening a subsidiary of your brand or partnering with locals
- The way you will care for project development
- The delivery services and/or companies you will likely employ
- Finding and using local suppliers or not.
…. And many more.
You will likely, at this point, want to reappraise both online and offline frameworks. With that you will be able to identify any prospective dangers and troubles, thereby make advance preparation and plan that will help you cater for them.
Suggestion 3: Customize your international marketing
After researching and clarifying your local presence, what you should do next is thing is to find the best way you can adapt or align your marketing activities. Your pricing, promotions, products and services should be tailored towards the targeted market in the foreign location.
How you can do this is by employing the services of local agencies for your communication and marketing plans. This will make it possible and easy for you to adapt your strategy in the concerned location.
Suggestion 4: Invest in contents that captivates the local audience
To invest in contents that will make local audience get attracted to your brand involves translation as well as localization. Localization refers to the process of creating as well as adapting your content to a certain location in such a way that the natives can easily relate to the contents.
Translation transpires beyond rendering texts in another language from the source language. It goes beyond ability to speak more than one language. It involves putting cultural norms and values, political and economic differences, varying different practices into consideration. With that, you will be able to ensure that all is captured in your localization process.
Do not forget that with the help of ConveyThis, you can take your brand global easily and quickly as we have done with brands that employ our service.
Suggestion 5: Make a review of your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and adjust accordingly
At intervals, probably in quarters, ensure your KPIs are reviewed. With that, you will be able to take control of what you have achieved comparing it with your expectation and when you will be able to reach your stipulated goals.
Remember to have a backup plan that you can always fall back at in case there is a change in your plan or it doesn’t goes as expected. Whatever issues or roadblocks that comes your way in your international marketing, see it as stepping stones and work on how to step up your strategies.
Finally, if you want to be successful, you will be needing to blend your international marketing with domestic marketing. It is true that going global may appears challenging, but it is much easier when you employ the right tool. Are you trying to get yourself established in the international market?