If you’re an eCommerce retailer, the expansion of your market reach into new countries is a great way to grow revenue and increase visibility.
But launching your marketing efforts in a country where you don’t have any history or understanding of the culture (or previous sales history) can be daunting.
So what is the best strategy to follow when feeling out new markets and opportunities?
Stay tuned because in today’s blog post, we’ll discuss 5 key areas to consider before expanding into new regions with your digital marketing.
1. Understand the culture
If you’re not familiar with a country’s customs, it can be hard to know how to market well in that country. Researching and understanding the cultural differences will help you create marketing campaigns tailored for these audiences.
Some of the best sources for this are:
– The World Factbook, which is published by the Central Intelligence Agency. It’s a tremendous resource with lots of demographic data on countries and territories around the world
– Company research into your new region, like focus groups or customer interviews to understand how they think about shopping online or what their biggest pain points might be specific to their local region
– Local experts in that country who work closely with eCommerce stores from other markets (e.g., accountants) so they can help you navigate any cultural nuances specific to the region
2. Define your goals before starting any ad campaign.
Before launching ads into new markets make sure that you have clear goals of what success looks like there.
You should also define which KPIs (key performance indicators) need to change in order for this goal to happen as an outcome from your expansion efforts.
Goal: increase the number of new customers who start their shopping session on your website from a targeted country.
KPIs that need to change in order for this goal to happen as an outcome from marketing efforts: new sessions and conversion rates (new visitors converting into paying customers).
Solutions that will move these KPIs towards success: developing a strategy around how you present more relevant offers or content, customizing keywords with specific intent such as ‘shopping’ so they can better target potential shoppers near them, targeting mobile users through video ads since many people use their phone while shopping online at home.
3. Understand limitations/potential issues with shipping and fulfillment
When launching your product into new markets, one of the biggest bottlenecks can be shipping restrictions and high costs.
Can your supply chain and logistics sustain the growth?
What about the shipping times?
Are there any potential barriers to ship the products, like customs tax, long delays, import duties etc?
If so, plan on how to handle this.
4. Consider smoke-tests before scaling up in new markets
This allows you to run small scale litmus tests in order to feel out messaging, offers and market fit.
Some examples of an early smoke-test could include:
Testing messaging and offers in a few specific countries, or targeting users during certain events. or with a bespoke landing page to share a specific test offer.
It is important to know what you want to learn from the test before running it so that you can decide on how many markets/users you need for your test.
5. Analyze customer segments by purchase intent instead of demographics or geography
When targeting customers who haven’t yet purchased anything on your site, don’t just target based on age/gender /location.
Instead, target customers by purchase intent. It’s important to understand that what motivates buyers in one market, may not translate perfectly to others.
The three main categories of purchase intent are:
– Low Intent (people who have not yet purchased or shown any interest)
– Medium Intent (responding to an offer, but still unsure about making a purchase)
– High Intent (ready to buy now and would be interested in promotional offers).
Understand where your new customers are in their purchase journey and tailor your messaging accordingly.
By combining these 5 strategies to understand your new markets and the potential customers residing in there, you can continue to grow your business and take advantage of the ever-expanding global economy.
At Dash Activate Online, we have specialized in working with multinational brands. Our international team, located in 5 different countries across Europe, Oceana, and North America, lets us execute campaigns in virtually any local language.
We make sure that seed markets get as much attention as developed ones so that you grow your brand’s potential to the fullest.
If you’re planning on expanding onto new countries, talk with us and we’ll help you craft the right strategy for new conquests!
