How to Select New Global Markets for Your Business (Part 2)

Introduction

In the first part of our two-part guide to selecting new global markets for your B2B brand, we introduced two key criteria to identifying expansion-worthy global markets: attractiveness and accessibility.

Once you’ve established a baseline viability for your business in a global market by evaluating how attractive it can be as well as how easy or difficult it might be to do business there, you’ll want to dive more deeply into market research. Here are a several advanced questions to ask as you evaluate new markets.

What’s the Profile of Your Ideal Customer?

If you’re successful in other global markets, take a look at what makes those markets viable for you, and what those customers have in common. Are they in specific industries or roles? Do you find that you’re a great fit for a certain size of company but maybe not others?

Compiling and evaluating detailed ideal customer profiles can ensure you not only understand the customers you have, but know where to find them in new countries, cities and global markets.

Examine your existing website analytics to determine:

• From which countries are customers visiting?
• What languages do they browse in?
• What do engagement metrics like bounce rate and time on-site look like, per market?
• What is the conversion rate and average value per conversion?

These numbers can also help tell you where you have opportunities to better serve global markets, or regions where it can pay to test the viability of your brand through localized websites.

Where are Competitors Doing Business?

Competitive intelligence can be a very informative tool when you’re entering new markets. Examine how your competitors are positioning themselves in other countries. This can help you determine which markets may be over-saturated or ultra-competitive.

And don’t forget to look at markets where there is no competition. Sometimes, this can mean opportunities are waiting for you. However, it can also be a sign that a market isn’t ready or willing to invest in the products and services in your category yet.

Should I Pay Attention to Technology Trends?

When you’re planning to enter a new market, it’s important to have a handle on both current technology advancements and future influences that can affect your potential success.

Are there key technology trends that are affecting how you might serve different global markets? From artificial intelligence to machine learning and advances in medical research, nanotechnology, environmental technologies and more, global markets are constantly influenced by the role that innovation plays.

Understanding the impact of innovation can help you find markets where your offerings can enhance, build upon, and leverage advancements in the market to better serve local customers.

How Do I Plan for the Future?

Change is the one constant in a modern business. What economic, political or sociological changes might affect your business in a year? Five years?

Changes in international laws and regulations can make business easier for some and more difficult, if not impossible, for others. Marketers, for example, must look carefully at the recent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulations in the EU and ensure that their customer data practices are compliant.

Industrial trends and indicators from economists, journalists and analysts can also help you plan for a number of variables that can impact your business both in the short term and in the long run.

Test, Test and Test Some More

Now that you have your global map, your attractiveness / accessibility analysis and information about what markets might work for you, the best investment you can make is to test those markets through cost-effective, low-risk initiatives that can inform your next steps.

Start by evaluating your online presence and looking for opportunities to localize your existing marketing efforts for global markets. Consider the low-cost, low-risk act of translating your website and digital content channels—such as email and social media—to provide content in the local languages of the markets you’ve targeted.

Or consider establishing distribution partnerships with local partners or wholesalers—or even popular virtual marketplaces—to test product sales in specific countries. By providing them with accurately and comprehensively translated content, you can accelerate your time to market and get feedback, fast.

The best website translation solutions can help you localize your website and omnichannel content, as well as provide technologies like proxies and APIs to integrate your content into third-party systems and marketplaces. This can deliver seamless launches in new markets, and effortless content updates.

Conclusion

Going global poses challenges for B2C businesses, but you can make it less daunting with careful analysis, planning and smart testing. By…

• Smartly evaluating target markets
• Taking a critical look at your current efforts, as well as those of the competition
• Testing the waters in new markets through a comprehensive, localized digital strategy

…you’ll be well informed about the markets that hold the most promise for your business.