Considerations before taking your business international

Today, more than ever, we have all means at hand to start international expansion. Global expansion offers an interesting opportunity to tap into new markets and build a world-class team. Globalization, the internet, and the momentum of online shopping provide us with the most favorable conditions for this.

We break down the complex topic of expansion into digestible sections so you can feel confident in your decisions and move forward with the right plan.

Choose your new markets

Your chosen market needs to include the customers you want to reach. Conducting market research will let you know whether or not there’s a market for your services and products in that area.

This might involve looking at the size and growth of potential markets, consumer preferences, competition, and availability of talent, political risk, and cultural, but also language barriers.

Choose the right language

The ability of a language to succeed will depend on your product range and the target nation. At the same time, simply reaching a large market may be your goal. Still, some languages are naturally better investments than others, e.g. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language, so having your business content available in Spanish can open many doors.

Understand your audience

Before you even consider entering a new market, you need to understand it. You also need to ensure you have a method for translating your content and messaging accurately, and with confidence. For example, did you know that the color red in China symbolizes happiness, success and good fortune, while white is usually seen as an unlucky color? Be cautious when making jokes. What is funny in one part of the world may be offensive in another. While irony and sarcasm work well in England, across the channel, it is less appropriate. Countries like Switzerland, Germany or the Netherlands prefer jokes that are clear, direct, and to-the-point.

Different countries use different currencies, so you need to make sure your product or service can handle them all. The same goes for date formats: In the US, people write dates in M/DD/YYYY format (e.g. 3/14/2015), while for most other countries, DD/MM/YYYY (e.g. 14/03/2015) is the norm.

Customer journey

From the moment a customer clicks onto your site or opens an email, you should be speaking to them in a way that resonates with them.

For example, Chinese customers go online to spend time browsing content and interacting with friends, so Chinese e-commerce platforms should focus more on engagement by integrating social functions, games, and news on top of e-commerce. Western customers choose internet shopping simply because it is more convenient than buying offline.

Multilingual client service

Customer prefers to communicate their inquiry or complaint in their native language. Your response in their language will help them troubleshoot problems properly.

When customers are forced to communicate in a language they are not comfortable with, their overall customer service experience is worse, no matter how good your support staff is.

Providing multilanguage support means making your business unique to take the competitive advantage of the market and connect different regional customers, bring cash in for you.

Regulatory requirements

Every country has its own set of business laws and regulations, so ensuring legal processes are in place to minimize legal issues is crucial. In the European Union, for example, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires companies to obtain explicit consent from users before collecting, using, or sharing their personal data. This means that if you are planning to expand your business to the EU, you need to make sure your product or service is GDPR compliant.

Consider Multilingual Search Engine Optimization

The online success of a company is very much dependent on its ability to rank highly on search engine result pages. The higher up your website pages rank on search engine pages, the more likely consumers will see them.

Many of you may be fully aware of SEO on a domestic level. The key is to not only translate your site’s content, but also to have it optimized for the multilingual SEO. You can find how to do this at: https://janusww.com/publications/seo-translation-for-your-global-website/