These days, most businesses have global ambitions. However, taking your product overseas and cracking a new market can seem like an impossible task. For success, there are several steps every business should take – from knowing which social media sites to use to localising all of your content.

  1. Get to grips with social media

While social media is often described as a global platform, you should take into account that not every site is used globally. Facebook is nearly universal, but not quite – it’s overtaken in China and Russia by QZone and V Kontakte respectively.

Social media is vital for getting your brand out there, so it’s important that you make the most of the relevant sites for your new target market. Research what each platform does, and get a feel for the kind of demographics that are most likely to use it. Taking this time now will ensure you’re not wasting time and energy later on.

  1. Know your online market places

As an e-commerce business, chances are you will be using sites like eBay, Amazon, or Etsy to sell your products. The popularity and usefulness of these sites can vary from country to country, as can the selling policies for global marketplaces like Amazon. Make sure you know the online marketplaces most relevant to your new target market, and use these to sell your products to your new customers.

  1. Localise your brand

The importance of localisation can’t be overstated. It’s the key to helping your brand to translate from one area of the world to another. Here are a couple of ways that you can localise your online content and your brand overall.

Product, website, and content design

This is not something that all businesses think to do – but it can have a big impact on success overseas. Signs, symbols, and even colours have different connotations across the world. While in the Western world, we often think of white symbolising innocence and purity, in China it connotes something very different – death. When it comes to these cultural differences, it’s important to think carefully about the designs you use across your product and branding materials.

Translation

Translation is one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle. You always need to make sure that your website copy and marketing materials are translated correctly. It’s no good using free tools to translate, it needs to be done by experts in the field that can make sure every last word makes sense.  Doing this correctly will help to boost your sales, no matter what part of the world you’re taking on.