Entering a new market isn’t simply about renting offices in a different country. The world might be globalized, but there are still huge differences between consumers across the globe. Before moving your business to the next level, be sure to take a moment to consider the most crucial aspects.
New Market Research Is a Must
It might sound like a cliché, but it is a fact. Enter a new market before learning as much as you can about it and your grand entrance will likely result in terrible marketing faux pas. Do your research and you’ll be surprised:
- In Germany, credit cards won’t help you very much. Germans prefer cash!
- Icelandic people use one website for almost everything.
- Don’t even bother doing business in Vietnam unless you have an e-shop.
Translated Website? Bummer.
Hiring a mediocre do-it-all translating agency might sound tempting. After all, it’s just linguistics, right? Wrong. There are nuances between languages that go far beyond mere translation. What you want to do is to transcreate. What does that mean? Simply put, create a new language version of your original website that has the same effect on its visitor as the original one. Still unconvinced?
- In Poland, trust but verify. What might seem to mean basic (ordinary) actually means offensive (ordinarny). These words are so-called fake friends and Polish is rich in them.
- Be careful when it comes to idiomatic expressions. After all, the “@” symbol has three different animal names in European languages
Learn From the Best (And Worst)
The era of globalization and internet comes brings many advantages. And no, this time we don’t mean food delivery. We mean that these days everybody’s failures and successes are free to be inspired by. All the biggest companies have their data out there, you just need to go and pick it. And the best thing is, you don’t even have to do that. We’ve already done that for you:
- Dress code matters. And so do cultural differences. Puma learned that the hard way when failing in Emirates.
- Japan is a tough nut. Even Walmart haven’t managed to crack it.
- On the other hand when you’re as good as Starbucks, you can do whatever you want. Even sell coffee to Italians.
- You need to care about cultural differences and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly. Cultural differences destroyed Uber’s kick-off in France.
And there’s much more, feel free to look below. Or if you prefer, check what GFluence can do for you to start creating a story of your own!
