With the ever-changing global market, there has never been a better time to begin the path to global expansion. If you’ve been thinking about the possibility of international marketing for your business, Reload is here with a guide to get you started!
Key Considerations for Global Expansion
The most important question to ask when beginning the global expansion process is ‘why?’ Is it because your brand has performed a market assessment and identified opportunities? Does your product have clear customer demand in another country?
Understanding why your business should begin expanding internationally and what success could look like with a global strategy is key when assessing this market. Having a clear goal for global expansion is essential for a successful outcome. That’s why it’s important to consider the following questions.
Assessing the International Market
Once you have established the ‘why’ for your brand’s global expansion, the next step is assessing the international market. Knowing which specific opportunities exist in relevant countries and how timing can affect this will be the foundation for building an international marketing strategy.
How to Assess Market Suitability
Assessing market suitability can go one of two ways — top-down or bottom-up.
The top-down approach involves conducting a broad campaign in various countries to evaluate initial performance. You do not need to sell at this point, simply see what campaigns can work for that specific county, using similar messaging and lookalike audiences.
Facilitating the decision through market analysis is the bottom-up approach. Breaking down the impact and effort needed to expand into each country allows you to map out which locations are worth global expansion. Factors to consider here are distribution channels, culture, regulations and competitors.
What is your export strategy?
You also have to consider what export strategy will be ideal for your business. Is your brand totally new to a country or are you increasing investment in countries that already spend with your business? Cementing this will influence international marketing tactics down the road, therefore it is important to cover.
Is Your Business Ready for Global Expansion?
It can be useful to assess your readiness and willingness to invest resources into a global project. Localisation, customer experience, payments and logistics all need to be considered when beginning the global expansion process.
To start, create a scorecard to assess each country against these key areas, allowing you a chance to evaluate if you are business ready.
Using An International Growth Agency
Reload knows that guidance in this part of the global expansion timeline can be crucial. As a Google International Growth agency, we understand how to assess and launch in the complex international arena.
With key connections and experience in business global expansion, the benefit of an expert team can go a long way when setting up your international marketing strategy for success.
Scaling Your International Marketing Strategy
So, you and your team have identified global opportunities for your brand and are ready to plan an international marketing strategy. Where do you start?
Commonly, we see brands copy and paste their current marketing strategy into a new country, hoping for the best. From experience, the Reload team knows this doesn’t work—at all!
Pivoting your marketing tactics to fit the new nation is essential for long-term success, even if that country’s audience is already greatly aware of your brand. Below we highlight key marketing tactics where international growth can thrive and yield positive results.
Entry Strategy Optimisation
Entering a chosen region takes research and time. To enter a new market successfully you need to begin from the ground up to capture brand awareness and market share for first-time customers.
In order to optimise tactics for an international market, a comprehensive analysis of the chosen country/s is essential when developing a specific international marketing strategy.
Once you have identified this key research you can begin planning local campaigns with the following information:
- Who and where to target
- Creative to match the brand and local area
- Key messaging to position against competitors in the local market
- Channel and budget allocations
- Your product focus with aligning price points, preferences and local customer buying behaviour
It is also important to consider that growth takes time and international expansion requires an investment that may not be profitable in the short term. This is why implementing international best practices for strategic planning is crucial for global expansion success.
International SEO
Arguably the most important tactic when going global is international SEO.
This process of optimising a website to compete in different international markets will allow search engines to easily identify the countries and languages your brand needs to target. And, if you have a new website in mind, this needs to be a focus when expanding globally.
A key focus for international SEO is selecting the right domain strategy for your new market. Consider how many markets you will be entering and if you will have local teams and services to choose which type of international domain structure is right for your brand.
If organic search is a large revenue driver for your business, using key international search strategies is recommended. There are many tactics to consider here including:
- Hreflang tags for country and language targeting
- Optimising you content delivery networks for faster load times
- Switching current, language and location on your website
- Establishing backlinks and authority that come from the same country top level domain (ccTLD) as the website version your audience is seeing
Content Localisation
Localised content is more than translation — it’s the process of creating a website that is relevant and easy to understand.
Creating localised content, whether it’s written or visual, is valuable for both the user experience and, of course, the SEO performance of the site. This is why content localisation is essential when entering a global market.
Key considerations for localised content include
- Location-specific keyword research due to the differences in language and slang that users read and search for
- Seasonality opposites in each part of the hemisphere – Summer in the US is Winter in Australia
- Types of visuals used to make sure the people in images and background suits the new country/s
International Performance Marketing
Digital ad spend accounts for over 60% of global ad revenue. Source: Zenith Media
The first steps when establishing an international performance strategy include
- Understanding how language differences impact ad copy and chosen keywords
- Being aware that population size differences may require significant changes in budget allocation and planning
- Researching which paid search, shopping, display, and social strategies will work best in the nation in terms of the most relevant platforms
From SEO to content to paid media, evaluating your international marketing tactics from a top level is essential when deciding to go global — the good new is Reload is here to help your international growth trajectory!
International Marketing with Reload Media
Reload Media excels in aiding the transition from a local brand to a global business. As a certified Google International Growth agency, Reload Media is the agency you need on your side.
