You might be surprised at how common it is for B2B companies to follow the tried and tested route of starting out as a small, local business before growing into a national business and eventually into an international one. In fact, we often hear about B2Bs which were born out of one person creating a product or service to solve a need for themselves before realising that other people have those same needs and would also want to use the service.
There are a lot of benefits to taking this approach. After all, it allows you to grow at the rate that you want to grow at, testing and refining along the way. But many companies hit a roadblock when they try to grow internationally, and that roadblock can stop them from becoming as successful as they could be.
The problem is that people aren’t always aware of how to adapt their company to make it work internationally, and that applies to marketing too. Sure, some people will start to filter through if you open up international shipping, but you need to market to specific regions and tailor your content towards them if you want to reach new markets in significant volumes.
How to tailor your marketing
International marketing is a whole new ballgame. International SEO is similar to local SEO whilst simultaneously being totally different, a statement which might sound crazy but which you’ll probably also agree with if you’ve ever had experience of it. And this is true both from a technical point of view and when it comes to content creation.
Content creation is difficult for international marketers because they need to deal with all sorts of new challenges, from translation and localisation to the cultural nuances that can lead to misunderstandings if they’re not carefully managed. Even the colour scheme that you go for can have a huge impact on how your brand is perceived. For example, reds mean danger in some parts of the world and prosperity in others.
As a general rule, it’s a good idea to work with freelancers or agencies who are on-site in the countries that you’re trying to reach, especially when it comes to content creation. That’s because they’ll understand the market better and help to guide you towards the most relevant messaging possible. Translation is a no-brainer, but it has to be a good quality translation and you may also need to tweak content instead of just publishing a word-for-word translation.
Conclusion
Ultimately, marketing is all about personalisation and delivering the right message to the right people in the right place at the right time. That means speaking to them in the language that they’re most used to and talking about topics that are relevant to them. Hopefully this post has started you thinking about how you can achieve that.
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.