It’s exciting – and a little daunting – to expand your small business into a bigger company. However, there is always room to branch out further. One of the most limiting things you could do to your startup is restrict your business to a national level. When the time is right, perhaps your should look into branching out to international customers. This might seem a little terrifying, but who is to say that your products and services aren’t needed in other parts of the world. Here are a few suggestions to help you move from a small startup to an international corporation.
Translate your website
The best way to test whether your business is economically viable outside your home country is to translate your website into different languages. Of course, this is only the first step; just because your business concept works well at home, doesn’t mean it will be received the same way in a country with a vastly different culture.
Learn a new language
Although foreign business owners are likely to have a good grasp of other languages, or access to a translator, you should never assume that everyone speaks English. There are many different ways to learn a new language, so it’s easy to find one that works for you. While it would be really impressive if you managed to become fluent in Chinese, your potential partners will still hold you in high esteem if you make an effort just to say a few key business phrases in their language. Make it clear that you’re still learning the language, however, as this might forgive any unfortunate mispronunciations.
Take advantage of mobile connectivity
Thanks to technology, there are more channels of communications open than ever before. With platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Whatsapp, we can reach people halfway across the world with a single press of a button. Take advantage of this as much as you can; after all, it’s doesn’t cost you a penny.
If you have a social media page for your business, use your existing business connections to put out some feelers for international connections. Alternatively, you could put your new language skills to the test and start posting your content in at least two different languages. This will let potential customers know that you are interested in expanding to their country, and someone might get in touch with you.
Narrow your options down to a perfect fit
You might have a vision of your product being successful in a certain country for personal reasons, but your priority should be finding the right market for your business. Various factors could be whether he country’s economy is growing or shrinking, a market’s digital marketing capabilities, marketing infrastructure and average consumer expenditure, among other variables. Getting the right market is essential for the expansion of your business, and for financial reasons. If you get it wrong, you could waste a lot of time and money.
Perfect your pitch
Once you’ve removed a few language barriers, and determined whether there’s any international interest in your services, you can start working on a new pitch. Regardless of however you’ve sold your business previously, when entering a new market in a new location, the pitch needs to be adjusted to meet local standards. This could mean either a massive overhaul of your current pitch, or just a few tweaks to make it comprehensible to a foreign audience. It’s also important to look at the market you’re hoping to broaden to. Do some research into cultural barriers, assumptions, and biases that could endanger your business abroad. When possible, talk with, learn from and spend time with people who represent the audience you’re hoping to reach. Learning about and respecting other cultures will help you localize your brand’s message.
Understand regional laws
You may have a basic understanding that marketing standards will vary from country to country, but you won’t realize quite how much until you start doing your research. To do conduct your business as effectively abroad as you do at home, you need to fully understand the advertising regulations, product laws, and regulation of sales tactics in your target countries. Even if you intend to have partners in said countries to do most of the actual selling for you, as the head of the company, you need to know everything so you don’t commit faux pas at best, or break laws at worst.
Optimize your SEO
You might have perfected your SEO strategy at home, but now you need to come up with a whole new strategy for your international bases. International search engine marketing is a mixture of choosing the right search engines, localizing content and understanding keywords. You first need to find out which search engines are used by your target countries – most English-speaking countries will use Google, Yahoo, or Bing, but this might not be the case everywhere else. Often, local markets are best served via local search engines, because the English-language search engines don’t always suffice for niche, local content.
Secondly, while it might seem easy to just translate your keywords into foreign languages, this isn’t the most effective strategy. After all, keywords are shortened thoughts used by the Internet browsers, and influenced by culture, to try and find particular types of content. To make sure your international customers are finding the correct content, you should work with native speakers trained in search marketing to figure out native keywords that would be best associated with your website and its content.
Always remember your current success
Breaking into a new market is scary, and there will be no shortage of challenges on your way to establishing a secure business abroad. However, you should never forget that you’re able to attempt this because you’re already successful in your current market. Of course, your track record in your previous market doesn’t automatically guarantee success in this new venture, but it does make your pitch stronger, it makes you more confident, and as a result it does generate new success.