Expanding an E-Commerce Business from One Market to Another: A Guide by the Council
By Waleed Najam, head of NEO Innovations, a seasoned digital marketer with over 10 years of experience in e-commerce and business, specializing in digital marketing and sales.
You've built a fantastic e-commerce site or brand that effortlessly caters to your local clientele. Now, it's time to scale your success globally by providing a seamless shopping experience for international customers. As reported by Forrester, global e-commerce retail sales are projected to hit $6.8 trillion by 2028, driven by factors like growing internet accessibility and the emergence of new selling channels.
To replicate your top-notch products in the international market or even tailor them to meet specific regional demands, you'll need a strategic, well-thought-out approach to make this transition as efficient and scalable as possible for future growth.
Evaluate the Next Market
Before commencing campaigns in any market, ensure you incorporate multilingual options and currency converters based on geolocation. Many CMS platforms, such as WordPress, Shopify, and BigCommerce, offer plugins and settings to assist you in this task. Once these features are operational, keep tabs on the order ratio outside your primary market.
Due to the expansion of your brand and the improved presence on social media, customers will discover your e-commerce site regardless of location. Identify the country with the second-highest sales after your primary market and prioritize it based on sales performance.
The following are five tried-and-true strategies to help you expand into your new market:
1. Set Up Independent Regional Websites
Earning trust in a new market begins with creating localized websites. These websites allow you to modify key elements, including language, currency, and design, to meet the preferences of the target market.
Localized websites can boost SEO by using regional top-level domains (TLDs), local languages, and keyword optimization, which increases the likelihood of search engines favorably ranking your site for local users.
It's important to have one website and pixel-level ad account for each market, as these variables contribute to improved targeting and tracking. You may need to customize products and adjust pricing for each country you're targeting. This approach allows you to modify your offerings and marketing strategies to meet the distinct needs of each market.
2. Team Up with Local Influencers
Influencer marketing has the potential to significantly contribute to your business growth, as local influencers can help your brand gain credibility and authentically connect with new audiences. The endorsements of local influencers carry more weight as they understand the preferences and culture of their followers.
To locate the right collaborators, research influencers in your target market by utilizing platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, as well as databases such as Upfluence, Mentoga, and Grin. Focus on micro-influencers with niche audiences, as they often have higher engagement rates in culturally distinct markets.
Campaigns featuring local influencers showcasing your products in authentic, local contexts can create genuine and reliable connections with new audiences, helping to convert skeptics into customers.
3. Allocate Funds to Regional Marketing Campaigns
Engaging local audiences is most effective through regional marketing. Utilize data to understand cultural nuances, key shopping seasons, and the most popular platforms in your target region.
Invest in targeted PPC campaigns on search engines, website, and social shopping sections (such as Google's). Emphasize regional keywords to improve relevance and search visibility. Customize ad copy and visuals to emphasize how your product addresses local issues or aligns with cultural values.
When your brand conveys its understanding of the local audience, your campaigns are more likely to resonate and drive conversions.
4. Keep Separate Local and Global Audiences
To maintain the effectiveness of your ads across the globe, it's essential to consider the concept of globalization while still catering to local preferences. Your international campaigns might be based on a general brand image, but your regional campaigns should focus on recognizing regional requirements, cultural nuances, and consumer habits.
Utilize data analytics to categorize your fans and followers by geography, which will assist you in designing targeted email marketing campaigns, social media feeds, and promotions tailored to specific territories. For instance, a skincare company could emphasize moisturizing products for areas with dry climates and sunscreen use in sunny areas.
By providing a localized approach to your messaging, customers can trust and value your brand while still being captivated by the unchanging core of your brand identity, ensuring consistency without straying too far from your goal.
5. Hire Local Talent
Hiring local talent is always one of the best choices when expanding your business into new territories. They provide a unique perspective on customer behavior, local culture, and language, which can be extremely beneficial.
Cultivate a customer service team that speaks the local language, content writers to produce content in the local language, and marketers to offer on-the-ground insights into how your brand is perceived. When customer service representatives engage in the local language and are in the same time zone, it's easier for customers to trust your brand, and for them to contact you more effortlessly.
Maintain a positive relationship with your colleagues to ensure that your shared vision is adhered to globally, while also enabling them to contribute creative changes to campaigns that cater to the specific market. You may discover that their local content expertise is invaluable.
Expanding into new markets presents both an opportunity and a challenge for e-commerce brands, but by implementing these strategies, you can ensure you are well-prepared to engage diverse customer bases and thrive in an international market.
To succeed in today's robust e-commerce market, meticulous planning, a tailored strategy, and insightful data analysis are crucial. By utilizing these elements, your brand can simultaneously achieve a worldwide reach and the local significance necessary for success. This strategic expansion can fortify your business for continuous growth in various regions.
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To further expand your digital marketing efforts with Waleed Najam, the head of NEO Innovations, you could consider collaborating with him for a consultation on your global expansion strategy. His expertise in e-commerce and business, coupled with his successful track record in digital marketing and sales, could provide valuable insights and guidance during this transition period.
Given Waleed's extensive experience and ability to navigate the complexities of the global e-commerce landscape, working with him could potentially enhance your chances of replicating your products effectively and identifying untapped markets for growth.
