3 practical ways to bring business to foreign markets: approaches and techniques of real companies

For many business owners, one of the main goals is to conquer the global market. The problem is that there is no common “world market”, each country has its own specifics, and even entering neighboring regions involves a lot of difficulties and costs.



Today we look at several working tactics of international expansion, which are used by world giants, Russian and foreign companies.

Method # 1: introduce yourself as a local company

In order to succeed in the market of a new country, it is best to make sure that for local customers your company does not look international, but is perceived as “your own”.



For example, energy producer Red Bull is an Austrian company. But, as HubSpot writes , for many Americans it is a local brand. How did the company manage to achieve this?



The answer lies in a well-thought-out marketing strategy. In particular, Red Bull devotes a lot of time to event marketing. The company sponsors many local events - from races to festivals. This allows the company in each country to be closer to customers.



At the same time, the product packaging itself is also made in a universal style. At the beginning of the journey, the company tried to avoid visual elements that could associate it with a particular country. For example, in the USA, 12 ounce cans (~ 354.8 ml) were traditionally used, soda was also sold in bottles (remember the classic Coca-Cola), the font did not use the logo, like Coca-Cola and Pepsi . According to a market analysis published by Harvard Business School, Professor Nancy F. Koehn, all this simplified the perception of the product in any local market.

Method # 2: a flexible approach to pricing

A common approach that retailers often use when entering foreign markets, especially in developing countries. In these regions, population incomes are lower than in the developed world. This must be taken into account and try to play on it.



For example, when Coca-Cola actively went to India at the beginning of the 2000s, a bottle of soda in 300 ml cost 10 rupees. At that time - this is the average daily earnings in the country. As a result, according to company estimates, only 4% of the population could afford to buy Coke regularly.



To cover the remaining 96% of the market, the company developed a 200 ml bottle, which cost half the price. This helped to seriously increase sales.

Method # 3: search for partners in new markets

This tool is actively used by IT companies. There are many vendors who use local partners to enter new markets. This scheme is especially common in the field of B2B software. It is difficult for companies to take into account all the details of the local market on their own, so it seems logical to find a local partner who will take over the sales.



According to this scheme, even 1C is moving abroad! But an interesting case from Neil Patel, how to build a working affiliate network, allowed a startup to increase revenue by 1983% and “grow” its user base by 1000% in just six months.



At the same time, in recent years, partnership schemes have emerged that work not only in the b2b sphere. For example, the start-up service Gmoji - an application for sending gifts encoded with emoji that can be "cashed" offline - uses franchises to enter new countries. Under this scheme, the Russian project has already entered six countries.



It sounds logical - the vendor provides software and applications, is engaged in integration. The local partner remains to find shops, cafes and other businesses that will be ready to connect to the platform. As a result, the project does not spend money on international expansion, and local entrepreneurs can get into the IT business even without a serious technological background.

Conclusion

Global expansion is a difficult process that must be approached wisely. Different methods and approaches can successfully work in different business segments. Three main exit tips might sound like this:

• It’s important to analyze user preferences - sometimes it’s better that the product looks “geographically neutral”, so that people in different countries find it easier to perceive it as local.
• Pricing is one way to gain a foothold in a new market. If you can give people a cheaper, but at the same time high-quality alternative to existing products, this will cover a large part of the market.
• Without local partners it will not be easy . If you have a b2b company, someone will need to help you with local specifics, and in the b2b segment, your own franchise can help get new users.