Expanding your business into different foreign markets can be an exceptional way to gain new growth and increase the impact of your services. However, a lot of people fall down when it comes to launching in a new market because they haven’t done enough research or localization work and they assume that the new market will work in much the same way as their existing ones.
Even when it comes to entering markets where the language is the same as your own country, there can be some substantial differences in terms of how the market operates and what customers expect. This makes the research and planning phase of any kind of foreign expansion very important. If you are currently planning to launch in another country, here are three important things that you should be looking into.
Localizing Your Website
Website localization is one of the first things you will need to plan. Knowing the scope of any kind of localization before you plan it will allow you to budget effectively and seek out any third parties you will need to help you do it. Localization can often mean translation of course, but even when you are only working in English language markets, you may need to alter your content. You may also need to take different approaches in terms of SEO because the general search terms used in different countries are often different. You should also consider things like localizing for units and currency, which can vary in different markets. You may also have some regulatory or legal things to consider when doing this, depending on the market you are entering.
Local Marketing
You will also need to plan your initial marketing push. This will mean some local marketing in your new country, naturally, but you may also want to consider how you do your general global marketing to include information about your operations in a new country. You may find it best to work with a digital marketing company based in the country that you want to enter, such as internet marketing services Bangkok, as they will have the best understanding of which approaches work for getting good traffic and conversions in their own country.
Pricing For Your New Market
A third thing that you will want to plan in advance is the pricing strategy for your new market. While it is possible to simply convert your existing pricing, this may not be suitable for your new market, for instance, if the cost of living in the country you are entering is very different, or if it would be better to round amounts down to more comfortable figures rather than using the exact translation of a US price. Remember to consider things like shipping costs if you are selling physical products, or if you are a services company, you may want to consider the differences in labor costs in delivering services in your own country or theirs.
Once you have a handle on these things, you should be ready to design a good strategy and budget for launching into a new market. More importantly, these things will give you an indication of whether launching in this region will offer a reasonable return on investment.
