3 Tips for a Successful International Business Expansion Plan

If you trust your products or services, it’s only natural to want them to reach the whole world. You want to be able to offer them to as many people as possible. Now, to successfully expand overseas, first, you need to outline an international business expansion plan. Companies that work with a well-defined international business expansion plan can focus their efforts on reaching their business goals and on obtaining relevant and valuable results.

Benefits of Expanding to New Markets

Expanding to new international markets is the next chapter for many successful organisations that are looking for their next challenge. And, if carefully planned, it can bring many benefits to businesses. Some include:

• An increased revenue potential. The more territories you cover, the more sales and income you’ll see.
• Connecting with new customers and markets. This is appealing for the opportunities it represents not only business-wise, but also for your brand’s growth and awareness.
• Reducing international competition and recruiting new talents from these countries. This will bring fresher ideas and greater synergy to your company.

There are many other benefits of international business expansion; however, taking this step is not a simple process at all. To attain the benefits that come with it, your company needs to prepare itself and adapt its image and approach to match those of the new markets so as not to seem alien. If you consider these details, your company will grow and become successful in new lands.

#OptimationalTip: Work with a translation partner who understands the language, needs, and culture of your new target markets. This will help you assure your brand’s voice communicates properly and your audience is correctly addressed.

Tips for a Successful International Business Expansion Plan

1. Consider Content Localisation

It’s difficult to get a foreign customer to trust your business if they have been a long-time customer of another company that offers the same products or services. While being an international brand is dominating, it’s better to put in the work to improve your reputation and convince the international market that you are a reliable partner that offers quality goods.

To this end, your company needs to have a makeover and leave the home country’s headspace to consider a foreign perspective. One that better aligns with your potential customers’ interests. And content localisation can help you exactly with that.

Content localisation is a process that involves adapting your product or service into the language of a new region or country to account for the differences. These differences may be not only in language but also in culture. If you don’t localise your content, your brand might give the impression of being self-centred and careless. It’ll also present itself as being insensitive about certain topics. As a result, this may lead to it being looked down on or purposefully ignored by potential clients.

#OptimationalTip: Look for a translation partner to help you design a multilingual content strategy plan. One that reflects the importance of being culturally appropriate so that your product is well received.

2. Invest in SEO Translation

To prepare for an international business expansion, focus on technical aspects. For example, the labelling and packaging styles that prevail in other countries, and legal requirements. In addition, immerse yourself in the market. Do it in such a way that stands out among the international competition in the virtual world.

SEO Translation (SEO stands for search engine optimisation) is a process that involves the optimisation of your company’s translated webpage to rank better in search results. This can be done by adding the right keywords, metatags, and strings of language to its composition. As a result, more people will find your brand online.

This number one method of business marketing and growth on the internet can help boost your business—customers will find your brand more easily online. In addition, potential clients that find your webpage are more likely to stay on it and hire your services if it’s in their home language.

#OptimationalTip: Work with a professional translation partner to ensure the ultimate optimisation of your content and meaningful communication. Remember, multilingual content is your company’s selling point to the foreign market.

3. Establish an International Social Media Presence

We already stated that it’s necessary to adapt our company’s content and translate it to call potential customers’ attention and expand your business internationally. But how much of it should we translate? Well, the more, the better. Localising your content and making sure your target audience finds your webpage is a great start. However, it won’t have been worth the effort if you don’t translate other marketing content. For example, newsletters, e-mails, videos, and social media content. Why? Because your company wouldn’t be fully communicating with its clients.

From the clients’ perspective, social media has become one of the principal outlets to investigate a company’s reputation and quality of service before sealing a deal. From the company’s perspective, it’s a great place to create a community and engage directly with it. Because of this, creating social media in your new target market’s language and establishing a strong social media presence in this virtual space should be at the forefront of your expansion strategy.

By being active and responsive to your foreign followers on social media and working with your translation partner to offer professionally translated content on all your platforms, your brand will seem more approachable, trustworthy, and legit.

Final Thoughts on International Business Expansion

An international business expansion is exciting and can bring many advantages. So, it’s worth the shot. However, you must keep in mind that new challenges come with each new country. And you might need to adapt your company’s image or product to meet your new markets’ requirements. This means, doing so without losing brand distinctiveness while at the same time attending to the foreign consumers’ demands.

To successfully overcome possible obstacles, you need to realise that you don’t have to do everything on your own, with only the help of your original home country’s team. It can be more profitable to set up another team and rely on a translation partner to manage and optimise your content and pages in foreign languages. Also, to guide you through making informed decisions in the way your company introduces and presents itself on new shores.

If you are looking for a content translation partner, contact us today. We can help you develop a plan for your multilingual content strategy.