When starting a business, one of your main intentions will always be to expand it and ensure it reaches a global audience by building an international brand. But you will need to overcome some hurdles to get there.

Not only do you have to face the internal challenges of growing your international brand, but you will also face several global challenges with the macroeconomy. Countries worldwide are currently experiencing harsh economic times, and customers face cost-of-living challenges.

So, how do you overcome this and become an international force? How do you expand your business to reach a global audience and take place in foreign territories? We looked at what some of the more successful brands are doing globally and how they have successfully penetrated their markets. Let’s take a look.

Adapt your business to other territories

Let’s start with your website. When targeting other countries, your website must reflect your international brand. Your foreign customers will want to see content and pages that reflect their language, currency, and time. Still, if you genuinely want it to succeed, you will want to take it a bit further than that and implement a localization strategy.

Localization goes beyond merely changing currency and time zones. It adapts your website and content to the culture and language of people in a target market. Speaking their language is one thing, but appealing to them means you know something about their culture.

It is also important to know the difference in price points across various countries worldwide. Direct currency conversions may not be totally effective, and you may need to consider adjusting your pricing depending on the territory you are targeting. You might be pricing yourself out of the market in some countries while not making enough of a profit in others.

Target your content very specifically

Let’s delve into content, SEO, and paid ads. You will want your content to show up in the organic searches of your new territory, so you will need to create the right content on your site and in your marketing.

Keyword research is your way in. The right keywords must be on each landing and product page across your site, appear in your blogs, and, of course, appear in your marketing. However, it will also need to have some money put into it for Google to push you up the search page, and this is where paid ads come in.

Think about searching for products or services online and the first few suggestions that come up. These are paid for and strategically designed to push organic traffic to the site. If you need assistance with getting them started, look at hiring a Google advertising agency that can perfectly kick off the strategy for you.

Know who your customer is

When entering different territories, you will need to know something about them before you start advertising to them. As mentioned, basic demographics like region, age, price points, etc., are essential. However, knowing what they are interested in and how they behave online is also necessary so that you can effectively engage with them.

Take time before you enter a new territory to develop a customer profile. You will want to gain a comprehensive insight into a customer’s interests and online engagement to create a marketing campaign around them. By knowing what interests them and what they engage with online, you can mould a strategy to get the same responses.

There is tons of data and information online that provides you with these insights. You can also work closely with various local agencies that have insight into the audiences. With this, you can create content that will appeal directly to them.

Measure, monitor, and test everything

Going into a new territory can be daunting. But, it can also mean that you will have to do a lot of experimenting, from your content to changing your marketing strategy to evolving your products and services. You will need to keep going back to see how successful everything is.

When it comes to digital marketing and monitoring your online activities, there are a few ways of gathering metrics to see whether you are on the right path. Firstly, you can gather data from Google Analytics, which will provide you with insight into what is happening on your site and how your customers are behaving on your site.

You can integrate that with metrics from your social channels, paid ads, and email platforms. You will see what converts customers and what you can focus on when creating your marketing strategy.

The Bottom Line

To build your international brand, get to know your customers. Know what their cultures are, what they are interested in, and what they engage with online. Without proper research and development, you will likely fall flat when entering the market. So, spend that time getting accustomed to your new region.