Every step of international marketing needs to be considered carefully because your customers overseas have very different requirements

Proving a big success nationally can make business owners hungry to expand further and while approaching the international market is something many businesses have the capacity for, it is important to look at factors that influence the success of trying to "go global" too soon. The strategies and practices that were a huge success at home may not suit customers in a different country or countries, and therefore it is vital that business owners are fully prepared and ready to tackle any differences head-on before launching on a global scale. [si_guide_block id="150284" title="Download our Business Resource – Balancing global and local campaign development" description="This guide's goal is to help senior marketers toe the line between maintaining a global brand voice and tailoring content to local markets."/] Moving into new international markets has many…

Exporting is nothing new, but overseas markets continue to present opportunities for companies to grow

Advances in technology, internet communications and travel, mean we understand cultures and countries better than ever; making trading outside of your domestic market one of the most accessible strategic options available to businesses today. Let’s face it: twenty-first century business opportunities are global. If you have a domestic market, you could have markets everywhere. After all, it’s much easier (and less costly) to sell your existing specialism to new audiences, rather than creating new products and services. Yet, finding the right customers in new markets, and selecting the right key accounts in which to invest resources, can be tricky if you don’t have a strategy and a plan to engage them. You can’t ‘wing it’ when it comes to international marketing - or any form of marketing for that…

The brand marketing campaign that defined Nike

Nike has done it again. They've turned heads, they've shown their brand mentality and they have got people talking about them. This week they celebrated the 30 year anniversary of their "Just Do it." slogan. They had bags of content that they could've used for it, not to mention sports stars. Nike for the first time have stepped into the social arena of current events and made Colin Kaepernick, the outed NFL Quaterback who knelt during the national anthem, the face of the campaign. This is an amazingly bold move from Nike as even President Trump stood against it along with Kaepernick's team and the NFL themselves. It came to light that Nike had not dropped him from their books and in fact went into talks to make him the face of the anniversary. They even aired the advert at half time in the first game…

Absolut vodka and their marketing campaign have stood the test of time

Sometimes a simple marketing campaign can far outshine a complicated and expensive one. This is the same for more than just marketing campaigns and usually is true across a lot of things in life in general. Simple and effective is more often than not the way to go. Let us see how Absolut vodka did that. [si_guide_block id="29978" title="Download FREE Resource – Essential marketing models" description="15 classic planning tools to inform strategy development."/]

The history

Absolut as a company was founded in 1879 by Lars Olsson Smith and is produced in Åhus, Sweden. He challenged, and beat, the city of Stockholm's liquor marketing monopoly with his vodka. He sold it just outside the city border at a lower price than the monopoly's product. Smith even offered free boat rides to the distillery and "Rent Brännvin"…

4 strategies to help your agency expand abroad

As recently reported by The New York Times, the world market has finally escaped the throes of the economic crisis, as we now see every major economy enjoying simultaneous growth. While the reasons for this growth are manifold and far-reaching, one thing is clear: Businesses finding success at home in the United States are beginning to view the idea of opening offices abroad as a more viable opportunity. It’s not hard to see why. There are 28 countries and 500 million consumers in the European Union alone. To say opportunity exists in Europe is an understatement. But once you get to the EU, you need to have access to all those countries. Achieving this requires a carefully planned strategy.

[si_guide_block id="67467" title="Download Premium Resource – Running successful international marketing campaigns guide" description="A practical guide for running and structuring International Marketing…

Key trends on how brands are building trust in China

As we have just updated our China Digital Marketing Strategy Guide, Lei Chien, the author of the guide, has produced the article below on how brands are building trust in China and outlines the key marketing trends to be aware of.

1. The Latest Trends in China

With 2018 Lunar New Year around the corner, many marketers in China can finally take a deep breath and enjoy a break from a very busy year. To the world, the growth of China's digital economy is no longer a mystery. To say it's a force to be reckoned with can arguably be an understatement. China's continued progress in the digital space is contributed by innovations, fearless attitude towards failure, tech-friendly regulations, and of course its massive consumer market. As of February 2018, some of the latest trends in China include: Cryptocurrency: China mines more Bitcoins…

Localization means more than just translation, you must adapt to meet your audience's needs

Selling to a worldwide audience at first might seem like the ideal way to increase your profits, but if you don’t get your messaging right you could end up talking your way out of increased revenue. Retail E-commerce sales reached 7.4% of all retail sales in 2016, and is set to continue rising for the foreseeable future. It is predicted to  increase to over $4 trillion by 2020, making up 15% of all retail spending globally; much of this percentage comes from international sales. Currently the UK holds the highest percentage of online shoppers at 15.4% of all retail sales, followed by China (13.8%), Norway (11.5%) and Finland (10.8%), and the leading destination for those sales is the United States, followed by China, the UK and Germany. By 2020, nearly…

Chart of the Day: Benchmarking digital media and technology adoption of the UK with eight developed countries

At one level, it's simple. The online opportunity for businesses to reach and influence their audiences online depends on the levels of use of the web by different types of individuals and businesses. Defining the Opportunity, Creating a Digital Strategy and taking action works best if you can define how many of your target audience are actively using digital media and technology to inform their buying decisions. At another level, it's now highly complex to define this opportunity. While we can still use search engine gap analysis to assess the number of people searching for information about products online and review our 'share of search' or search impressions, many other platforms are involved. These include cross-device use from mobile to desktop and use of social media and influencers. Plus, we shouldn't forget that, even in developed…

How to develop a marketing strategy for expanding globally

Globalisation is no longer an obscure term reserved for academics: it is a very real and ever growing phenomenon affecting most people and businesses all over the world. In the digital arena, this means that a company's website also needs to be a part of the global mix. If you'd like to focus on trading and exporting your products and services worldwide, you need to have a solid international digital marketing strategy in place. The aim of this post is to highlight a wide range of considerations that need to be addressed in order to tailor your strategy to a global target market. The areas that will be focused on are: website design, international SEO, international PPC and international social media marketing.

International Digital Marketing Considerations

Before looking into the international best practices of each of these areas, there are some important points to bear in…

A case study on growing a startup to a billion dollar company

7 years ago Zalando was just an inspiration; it was born from Robert Gentz'z fascination of the recently sold German startup StudiVZ which fetched €85 million. After a failed attempt of their first startup, Unibicate, a social media site for Universities in Mexico, David Schneider and Robert Gentz, with the backing of Rocket Internet’s Oliver Samwer, launched Zalando. It was a well-executed clone of the US Zappos, which quickly expanded beyond retailing shoes. Once a novel single-country startup, Zalando has become a 6-Billion-Euro company and Europe’s top Fashion retail platform. In 2008, Zalando served only Germany, five years later they were serving fifteen European countries.

So Zalando gives an excellent international Ecommerce and digital marketing case study of how digital media and technology can be used to…