7 Marketing Tips to Reach International Customers

Why you should enter a global market?

Before entering the global market, it is a good practice to establish your brand at home. Smooth and functional business operations and loyal customers will serve as good fundamental blocks, before going beyond borders. But why should you even consider going international, and not just be successful in the local market?

There is nothing wrong with the local market, but expanding internationally will have a few advantages. 

Operating in an international market and serving international customers will accelerate your business growth. Entering a new market will open a large number of opportunities for you. From landing new international clients, to attracting better talent and high-quality partnerships. 

Have you heard the phrase: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket?" Operating in more markets will reduce the risk of financial and economic troubles. Serving global customers will improve your buying power and protect you from market challenges. For example, if your local market is facing a severe economic downturn and the foreign market is flourishing, you will still have enough clients paying for your service/product. 

Becoming a global brand will help you attract talent worldwide. Once you start growing and stop limiting your business only to your market, you will need additional hands in business operations. The global team will help you serve international customers and help you build a well-diversified and highly skilled company culture.

7 marketing tips go beyond the border and reach international customers

1 Research the target market

Before entering a new market, you must first understand the market needs. Therefore, you should do market research. It is a good practice to research all competitive businesses already operating in this specific market. Learn the benefits they are offering, their market share, and what problems are they solving. Understanding this will help you get ahead of the competition and acquire new international customers. But before launching your business in a new market, you must also understand your target audience. 

To understand your customers, make sure to answer those questions:

• What are the demographics of my target audience? 
• What are their interests and buying habits? 
• What pains are they facing?
• Is the pain severe enough that they are willing to pay for it?
• How communication channels are they using?

2 Establish business operations

To start operating in a new market, you must establish your business operations first. This includes following the regulatory policy, and legal requirements and successfully following your daily operations. Entering a new market and dealing with legal troubles will massively damage your brand reputation. To acquire international customers, creating a great first impression and establishing a good reputation should be a priority. Put yourself in your customer's shoes. How would you feel about a new unknown foreign brand entering your market and having legal troubles straight away? However, if you already had a bad experience in your first stint in the new market, this article by Fast Company might help.

3 Translate all your marketing materials

No matter how good your branding is, translating all your assets into the local language is a no-brainer. Translating your marketing content will break language barriers and help international customers align with your brand. You should translate:

• Website
• Social media pages
• Pitches
• Emails
• Sales decks
• Price lists
• Product manuals and descriptions

Translating your assets to the local language will allow you to communicate clearly and more efficiently. Translation efforts will also signal to international customers that you care about them.

Translating all your content can be a very rigid and expensive process. Hiring a translation company is expensive, and translating on your own takes ages. Avoid this time-consuming process, and use machine translation (MT) technology. MT enables you to translate your content into multiple languages instantly. 

Linguana offers an advanced solution to translate and localize your Webflow site. Weglot offers the service for websites made in WordPress and other web builders. Both tools offer high-quality translation in real-time and can help you improve localization workflow.

4 Localize your website

A website usually serves as the first destination when new potential leads to discover you on the web. Localizing your website is one of the best marketing strategies to raise brand awareness and build trust. Localization doesn't mean translating your copy word by word, but it means adapting your whole website to a new audience. Localization includes converting currencies, design, and tone of voice to the local context. 

To provide a great localization experience for your new audience, you should:

• Adjust your messaging for the local context. Some cultures are more laid back than others. The US audience will appreciate humor and direct communication, but the Japanese audience will value formality and politeness. 
• Add a language switcher to your site. Enable visitors to find their preferred language effortlessly by putting the language switcher to a prominent location.
• Avoid setting up preferred language. Allow every user to access your website in the language they prefer.
• Stay consistent in branding in every new market. No matter the audience, or the number of markets you are in, you should always stay true to your brand.
• Customize your URL. Create a custom URL for each country or language where you will build your online presence.
• Keep in mind the right-to-left languages. When reaching out to international customers keep in mind that they will use a different alphabet. Optimize design for every language.
• Use visuals that fit the culture. Some visuals may work well in one market but be perceived offensive in another. 

Check out this Linguana article to learn more about localizing your website for a local audience.

5 Show social proof

Showing local social proof and displaying customer reviews is one of the best ways to build a good reputation. There is no better way to build trust than showing new potential leads that you already have happy clients. 

Your goal should be to get local social proof for every market. Local social proof will help you build trust and encourage new leads to convert into paying customers. Put yourself in your customer's shoes. There is a high chance you always check customer reviews before buying a product, and so are your potential customers. 

A new way of showing social proof is influencer marketing. Influencer marketing means using influencers to promote your product to their audience across various social media channels. Check out this article by Influencer Marketing Hub to understand how powerful influencer marketing really is. One of the key statistics that stood out for us is influencer marketing's global market size. It grew from $1.7B to more than $16B in only years!

According to some sources, reviews also serve as a ranking factor in Google. Showcasing positive reviews on your page leads to a higher SEO score and a thus better position in the Google search engine.

6 Reach out to international customers with special offers.

When you reach out to international customers you are a new kid in town. Lining up next to the local competition will not be enough to gain a fair market share. You will have to bring in better features for a better price to get ahead of your competition. 

One great way to get your first users is to set up special offers. Some great examples of special offers are:

• Promotions for first-time purchases. Such promotions are "buy one, get one free" or exclusive discounts for new customers. 
• Create giveaways and raffles for all your new or existing social media followers. A common tactic is to request a follow and a comment in exchange to participate in a giveaway.
• Offer free shipping on orders above a certain price point.
• Offer special promotions to everyone that joins your newsletter.

Set up those promotions, localize them, and distribute them to your new audience. Here is a great article with 24 marketing strategies that can help you gain new customers.

7 Offer high-quality customer service

Customer service is the direct connection between your customers and your business. Providing high-quality customer service establishes trust and creates a community of loyal customers. It also grows customer lifetime value and improves customer retention rate. 

A report by XM institute shows that 89% of businesses with premium customer service perform better than their competitors. 80% of consumers say they would pay more for a service when there is better customer service.

Offering customer service in the local language can be a great advantage when interacting with your new audience. Solving their problems fast and effortlessly can improve your company's reputation. Building brand loyalty and consumer trust will help you access a bigger market.

Conclusion

Entering a new market can be scary and overwhelming. Going beyond the border will require you to change your marketing strategy and how you approach new clients. 

We described seven tips to enter a new market and reach global customers. To do this successfully, you should:

• Research the target market, analyze the competition and understand your target audience.
• Establish business operations and avoid all legal troubles.
• Translate all your marketing materials across all media channels.
• Localize your website and follow good SEO practices to help users discover you.
• Show both local and international social proof with Google reviews.
• Create special offers for your new potential customers.
• Offer high-quality customer service and build brand loyalty and trust.

When it comes to attracting global customers, Linguana can help you localize your website with a few simple clicks. With the help of MT technology, it allows you to translate your page into multiple languages without the assistance of human translators. Sign up for early access here, and experience the power of Linguana.

Frequently asked questions

Why are customer reviews important?

Customer reviews are important because they help a customer make purchasing decisions. Reviews help customers consider the product and compare it to other alternatives. 

Why should I localize my marketing materials?

You should localize your marketing materials to better align with the new audience. Speaking to your audience in their local language will help you build trust and appeal.

How do I translate my entire website?

You can translate your website by hiring a translation agency or using machine translation technology. Two powerful tools that will help you localize the entire website are Linguana and Weglot.