5 Key Strategies for Expanding Your Brand Internationally

Suraj
8 min readSep 24, 2024

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With global economies becoming more interconnected, expanding your business presence internationally can open the door to exciting opportunities to fuel long-term growth.

Going global offers access to new markets, an untouched customer base, and high revenue potential. Despite several advantages and opportunities, there are certain challenges in taking your business to new international markets.

Photo by Sebastian Herrmann on Unsplash

To succeed, businesses planning to go global must build robust digital marketing strategies, partner with local influencers, and prioritize excellent customer experience and localization for select global markets.

In this article, we will discuss the top five business expansion strategies that will help you expand your products and services internationally, helping you effectively address the challenges of international markets and increase your chances of business successful product launch.

Top 5 Strategies to Expand Your Business Internationally

1. Create a Go to Go-to-Market Strategy

While conducting market research to launch your product or services in international markets, creating a robust go-to-market (GTM) strategy is important.

However, it’s only possible once you define potential markets and understand market conditions, existing players in the industry, and market barriers, including regulatory compliances, trade agreements, and tariffs.

Once you are done with market research, create a tailored go-to-market strategy that effectively answers the following questions:

  • Business Goals: What are your business goals for select international markets, and how will you convert these into key performance indicators?
  • Product and Service Localization: What changes will you make to tailor your products or services to local audiences?
  • Fulfillment Strategy: How will you ensure an effective distribution network to ensure the timely delivery of products or services to customers in the target market?
  • Market Entry Method: Which market entry method from exporting, licensing, franchising, joint venture, local partners, or subsidiaries would you select to enter the target market?
  • Marketing Method: which marketing mediums will you use to send the brand message and its value proposition to the local audience? What pricing strategy would you adopt to ensure it’s suitable for local market conditions and customer’s purchasing power? Which marketing channels can be most effective for targeting the international market?
  • Launch Strategy: Would you aim to make a soft launch of your product or services to gain market response? Or will you launch during the festive season or cultural events that impact the market?

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2. Incorporate Robust Digital Marketing Strategies

Developing an advanced digital marketing plan is one of the most important strategies to launch your business globally.

Whether newly launched startups or mature organizations, almost all utilize digital platforms and marketing channels to ensure their customers can easily find them and discover brand messages to make successful purchases and stay connected with the brands for a longer time.

If you also want to launch your brand in international markets, it’s paramount to leverage strategies for digital marketing and branding, such as:

  • SEO: Optimizing a website for search engines, including Google and Bing, can ensure your website is easily accessible to the local market audience
  • Social Media Marketing: Research region-specific social media platforms and globally used social platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook to interact with local audiences.
  • Influencer Marketing: One of the cost-effective internet marketing strategies that will present your brand to a highly targeted and convertible audience. Influencers in respective domains have large audiences based on constantly searching for relevant information to consume and benefit from.
  • Paid Advertising: Despite SEO for organic traffic, brands should also leverage paid advertising through Google Ads or social media advertising to drive short-term growth and promote brand visibility to a large audience.
  • Email Marketing: Since launching a website tailored to a new market, brands should build an email list to promote the latest deals and occasionally convey brand messages.
  • Video Marketing: The increasing importance of video streaming platforms like YouTube hints at why brands should include video marketing in their digital marketing efforts. Creating a YouTube channel to share educational and authority-building video content can drive immense traffic and a loyal audience base.

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3. Partner With Local Influencers and Brand Ambassadors

With the rise of social media platforms and digital content consumption, creators who produce specialized content for different social platforms and have amassed a large niche following are recognized as influencers.

These content creators are categorized as nano, micro, macro, and mega influencers based on the following counts. Here is the table explaining this clearly:

Influencer Category

When expanding business in new markets, it seems paramount for brands to partner with niche influencers to promote their product or services to local audiences.

According to Marketing Dive data, around 69% of customers report they trust recommendations from influencers who give product information, reviews, and demos on various social media channels, including YouTube.

In fact, global influencer marketing was worth $13.86 billion in 2023 and is anticipated to secure a market value of $139 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 33.40%, reported Skyquestt.

These stats show how important influencer marketing is becoming for global brands, especially for creating brand awareness and showcasing their top-tier products to a relevant audience base.

Some top brands already using influencer marketing strategies include Microsoft, BECCA Cosmetics, Subaru, and Swisspers.

For example, Microsoft employed influencer marketing to raise awareness about its Make What’s Next campaign, encouraging young girls to pursue careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

On International Women’s Day, Microsoft partnered with National Geographic to feature 30 images of renowned wildlife photographs on National Geographic’s five Instagram handles. These shared photos got over 3.5 million likes in just one day and improved the brand image of both organizations.

Related: Why is Storytelling So Important in the Growth of Your Business?

4. Ensure Compelling Customer Experience & Localization

One of the most important elements of a successful business expansion in new markets is to ensure tailored customer experience and localization. This includes ensuring your products and marketing materials properly meet the needs and preferences of audiences based in new markets.

Effective localization and customer experience strategies include the following:

  • Multilingual Support: Your international brand must present customer support and product documentation in their local language. It’s also important to ensure the website and its user interface are available in multiple languages in the target market.
  • Cultural Adaptation: to provide a better customer experience, it is crucial to understand and respect local customs, traditions, and values. You must avoid messaging that may be considered inappropriate or offensive in the local market.
  • Revamped Pricing Strategy: The pricing strategy should also be adapted to match the market conditions, customer’s purchasing power, and competition from existing brands.
  • Customization in Offering: the product introduced in a new market must be customized to meet the new market and customer needs. It may include changes in product features, design, and packaging.
  • Feedback Mechanism: to offer the best customer experience, it is also important to receive feedback from customers buying or using your products and services. This will help you improve your offerings and ensure they stand relevant per market conditions and customer preference.

Related: How to Write a Blog On a Company?

5. Build Long Term Local Presence

When planning your global expansion strategy, it’s important to focus on launching products or services in international markets and develop a long-term strategy for establishing a local presence. This should involve how your existing teams adjust their processes and collaborate with local partners in international markets.

For instance, if your product team frequently introduces software updates. With international expansion, the frequency must be restructured to give enough time for localization efforts. Your international expansion should consistently focus on providing the best possible localization to strengthen your portfolio in the local market.

All teams, including sales, customer support, marketing, and product development, will be involved in localization. Tailored content marketing and internet marketing strategies must be adapted to create focused blogs, articles, white papers, and other marketing materials specific to the market environments.

You have various options for local expansion, such as listing your business on local marketplaces, hiring local sales representatives, establishing a subsidiary company, or forming a joint venture with a key player in target markets.

However, to simplify these processes, your brand first needs to establish a local presence, which can be achieved in various ways, including:

Marketplaces

Selling products and services in international markets through online marketplaces can be relevant for small and medium enterprises looking to adopt a swift and low-cost international expansion. This mode is particularly beneficial for testing product performance in select international markets.

Pros

  • Use existing customer base and infrastructure of online marketplace
  • Enhance brand visibility and credibility
  • Enjoy efficient logistic and fulfillment services

Cons

  • Highly competitive
  • Have to bear platform fees

Local Sales Representative

Hiring a local sales representative helps you identify the market response toward your offering before making a big investment decision. This test can be run through trusted local partners, which may lead to a successful hard launch.

Pros

  • Purely contractual promise
  • Gain a firm understanding of possible challenges
  • Local sales representatives hold significant knowledge of local markets

Cons

  • Scaling over time might be a big hurdle.
  • Challenges in maintaining the company’s value for independent sales representative

Subsidiary Company

Consider launching a subsidiary company if you aim for a more significant local presence. It will be considered a legal entity for accounting purposes, but the parent company will hold the major equity stakes.

Pros

  • Build a robust presence in the new local market
  • Gain fiscal advantages in tax-favorable countries

Cons

  • Commit a big investment decision to set up a new subsidiary
  • Need to adapt local taxation and regulation requirements frequently

Joint Venture

Setting up a joint venture can be a great decision to tackle new market challenges and increase the chances of a successful product launch. In some countries, for businesses it has become crucial to form a joint venture to enter new markets.

Pros

  • Partner with reputed and well-established brands
  • Establish networks in new markets

Cons

  • Involve shared decision-making
  • May cause cultural barriers between partner organizations

Conclusion

Expanding your business internationally requires thorough market research and advanced marketing strategies. Focus on localization, customer experience, digital marketing, and strategic partnerships to increase the chances of successful product launches in the international market.

As your international business grows, refining digital marketing strategies, optimizing supply chains, strengthening customer and brand relationships, and focusing on brand building and local influencer partnerships are important. By implementing these advanced marketing strategies, you can thrive in international markets and gain access to the ample opportunities they offer.

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Suraj
Suraj

Written by Suraj

An freelance content writer and blogger I'm passionate about tech, finance, marketing and writing hacks, and I love to share my knowledge and tips with others.

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