 Follow these five insights for successfully expanding your online business globally. The potential for exponential growth associated with global expansion is alluring for online businesses — particularly services-based companies. Gaining a first-mover advantage in new markets is often a more cost-effective way to secure market share than penetrating a cluttered and highly competitive marketplace. Global expansion offers diversification and reduces geographic risks by generating revenue from different regions. These economic benefits can make a business – especially a start-up — more secure, with greater potential for survival. Based on my experience over the past five years in expanding into multiple diverse global markets, including Japan, Taiwan, Spain and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, I've gained these five insights to expand your online business globally successfully. 1. Avoid one-size-fits-all strategies When rolling out an expansion strategy, consider that the global marketplace is not homogenous. While the internet provides a single platform to scale a business across geographic borders, there is no one-size-fits-all approach that companies can apply. Every territory has specific characteristics, from the local economic, market and competitor landscape to unique cultural traits, consumption and usage trends, and different mannerisms among local consumers. 2. Identify market potential upfront When it comes to market development, it is vital to understand whether a target market holds growth potential. There are two approaches when identifying possible new regions. As a start-up, we tend to focus on the less resource-intensive and time-consuming option by conducting our own analysis. This starts with desktop research, and we will commission more extensive qualitative and quantitative analyses if the initial research identifies growth potential. When conducting our desktop research, we consider five factors to determine a region's market potential:
The second approach entails paying an agency to conduct research but the costs and time to completion are generally prohibitive. Furthermore, these involved research projects can take 2-3 months to complete, and the market might change during that time, which is a strategic risk. Ultimately, both approaches will deliver more or less the same answer: Either a 'yes' or a 'no' because it is a binary option. We prefer the lower cost and quicker route to understanding the potential market and its net present value (NPV). 3. Test potential expansion markets After identifying a potential new market, it's time to test it. It typically takes two weeks to generate and convert leads in regions with similar languages and cultures to existing markets. For example, when we entered Chile, we mirrored our Spanish Latin page from our Spanish parent area, allocated teachers, some budget and some remote staff from the Spanish sales team to test it. This process meant we had our first customers within two weeks. In contrast, entering unique regions dissimilar to any other region takes more time as we need to customize and localize elements such as our landing page and basic parenting area. In these instances, it can take up to two months to launch. A pilot test is always the first step, regardless of the region, as it enables us to identify strategically significant trends and test specific approaches. In this phase, we often fail, but the more we fail, the more we learn and can make the right decisions. 4. Invest in performance marketing tools In every new region, we allocate a dedicated person to manage marketing. In our experience, investing in performance marketing tools is key to market penetration. You will quickly determine whether the region offers a viable market by tracking the correct metrics. However, it is important to understand that the important metrics may differ between regions. Common metrics we track include:
If the data indicates slow uptake or a lack of interest, businesses can adapt their approach or choose to fail fast to reallocate resources to other identified regions. 5. Ramp up quickly in the new territories Once we decide that we are ready to invest, we implement multiple initiatives concurrently to launch the business. This includes investing in broader marketing opportunities and the best-performing online channels alongside influencer marketing, public relations in local media and affiliate partnerships. Partnering with a local marketing agency in regions where you have no experience in launching online ads is often a prudent approach to maximize ROI and achieve critical metrics early on. Other necessary steps include establishing infrastructure such as telephony and messaging services so customers can engage with the business. We also implement standard workflows to ensure a minimum standard of customer service. From a human resource perspective, building a local team to support the remote team that implemented the pilot testing phase is important. Key local resources should include salespeople and a client service manager. While the team can remain small initially, their goal should be to work through the sales funnel, process every lead and booking, and identify reasons for poor conversions or customer attrition. Customer development also becomes critical to success in this phase. The business must talk to customers to monitor satisfaction levels and get feedback that identifies potential technical issues and informs product development and marketing. In this regard, we conduct a care call procedure to get customers' feedback after using our service for a set period. For example, in Korea, we identified issues around lag times on online classes due to very high-speed internet speeds there. With this feedback, we escalated the issue to developers, who worked to fix it to meet customer expectations. This ongoing testing also informs business strategy in the region. For instance, despite generating numerous bookings in India, we could not achieve conversion targets. Research identified pricing as the major barrier - average pricing in other regions was expensive for consumers there. We determined that success in India would require 2-3 years of continuous investment in marketing and product development to individualize the offering. While the region offers huge growth potential, we ultimately determined that the business could not allocate these resources to the market and exited after six months of testing. Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com
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 The way people make purchases has changed over the years. Today, customers usually prefer buying products or services online and that's one of the major reasons why businesses consider having a digital presence. Growing a business digitally may sound fascinating but it's easier said than done, as you face many challenges. Some of these challenges are easy to overcome whereas others demand patience. If you're thinking about stepping into the digital realm but don't know how to get started, here are a few tips that can help. 1. Know Your Product The first step to growing your business digitally is knowing yourself. And that means getting acquainted with your product attributes. People don't buy products; they seek solutions for their respective problems. And without knowing your product characteristics, it would be difficult for you to present it as a fitting solution to the right people. Knowing yourself enables you to connect with a relevant audience and that's essential for your business growth. 2. Know Your Customers The second most important thing to consider when growing your business digitally is knowing your customers. Exploring the needs and preferences of your potential customers is the prerequisite for devising fool-proof targeting strategies. Plus, knowing what makes your customers tick lays out the groundwork for you to reach out to a relevant audience and pitch your solution in the best possible way. Customer insights enable you to tailor your marketing messages as per the targeted interests which in turn helps you generate quality leads for your sales funnel. 3. Do Competitor Research When striving to grow your business digitally, gather as much information as you can about your competitors. Your target audience is similar if not completely identical to the one targeted by your competitors. So competitor research gives you some helpful insights when getting started. Moreover, studying your competition helps explore the competitor strategies that worked and the ones that didn't. That's extremely helpful and saves time as you don't have to devise your targeting strategies from scratch. You can take inspiration from what's working and come up with stellar strategies of your own ensuring that you don't make the same mistakes your competitors did. 4. Create Relevant Content Content is king. It's not possible for you to grow your business digitally without an efficient content strategy. By creating relevant content, you generate awareness and provide your audience with the answers that they seek. This in turn enables you to build trust and authority in your respective niche. People don't make purchases on a whim anymore. They make informed buying decisions based on their research and recommendations. Content enables you to target the queries used by your target audience and helps present your brand as a worthy alternative to consider. 5. Search Engine Optimization What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you don't know an answer to a question? Google it. Right? Search engines help us find answers to our questions and explore fitting solutions that best serve our needs. And that's why they play a key role in helping you grow your business digitally. By targeting the right queries, you can leverage search engines and attract a relevant audience without having to break the bank. All you have to do is produce relevant and informative content best suited for the targeted search intent. Keep in mind that search engines rank content as per its usefulness and user experience. So, sticking to the quality guidelines and SEO best practices helps you rank higher than your competitors on a particular query. 6. Social Media Marketing When expanding your business digitally, producing relevant content isn't enough. You have to make your content accessible to your target audience. And social media can help you with that. There's been a surge in the popularity of social media over the years. More than half of the world's population is active on different social media platforms—and the number is continuously growing. This has led businesses to consider social media marketing as a reliable strategy to reach out to a relevant audience. Ideally, you should be active on all leading social media platforms or at least the ones where your audience is readily found. Leveraging different social media platforms, you can easily connect with your target audience and generate awareness by sharing relevant content. Interacting with your audience increases your brand's acceptance as you become a trusted name in your respective niche. And that's extremely helpful for your business growth. Final Words Having a digital presence is a must for all businesses whether they're established companies or just getting started. If you've been thinking about it lately, try out these recommendations and see if they work for you. Source: https://www.forbes.com Image Credit: Getty Images  The first step towards building a successful small business is keeping yourself aware of the latest industry trends and adapting to changing situations. In this post, we will share four trends that new business owners must look out for in 2023. #1. Digitization Investments Will Grow Although small businesses have come a long way in adopting digitization and tech products, 57% of small business owners believe they still need to upgrade their IT infrastructure for streamlining their operations. Implement tech solutions that would make lives easier and help your business achieve its goals. For example, an upcoming SaaS business can use a dedicated tool to design an effective product management process and monitor the project process. Similarly, an eCommerce business can leverage a shipping route optimization platform to facilitate faster deliveries. #2. Sustainable Packaging Will Be More than Just a Buzzword Contribute to creating a sustainable future by adopting environment-friendly business practices. 32% of small businesses surveyed by QuickBooks believe that environmental sustainability is important for the economy. Source raw materials from local suppliers to reduce transportation and support the local economy. Use eco-friendly packaging and ship multiple products in the same packaging to reduce the number of packages. Encourage bulk purchases by offering additional discounts to customers. #3. Immersive Buyer Experiences Will Attract and Engage Customers Better Positive experiences add emotional value that fosters customer loyalty and helps small businesses stand out amidst the competition. 80% of customers feel the experience a business provides to its consumers is as important as its products or services. Leverage modern immersive technologies, such as AR, VR, and more to deliver engaging experiences and efficient support to customers. #4. Flexible Work Model Will Be Widely Adopted The flexible work model is gaining popularity because of its benefits. A flexible workspace is the first step toward adopting this work model. Coworking spaces offer the best flexible work solutions for all kinds of businesses. No wonder, the global coworking market is expected to rise to $13.03 billion by 2025 from $8.14 billion in 2021. Sign up for a private office in a coworking space and get started with your business operations in less than a week. You could save up to $2700 by leveraging coworking space for setting up your office. Source: https://smallbiztrends.com Image Credit: https://smallbiztrends.com  Every year, new technologies are introduced or improved upon that have a major impact on the business world. From major to minor innovations, and from physical machines to complex code, each advancement has the potential to change the way the world does business—and this year was no exception. There were a multitude of technological innovations and improvements within the last 12 months, and to share a few of their favorites, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council chime in below. Here, they each share one technology that they think has the most exciting implications for business in the coming year and why they believe its impact will be so great. 1. Virtual Reality One technology that has the most exciting implications for business in the coming year is virtual reality (VR). VR has been around for a while, but it is only now that the technology is becoming more affordable and accessible to businesses and consumers. There are a number of reasons why VR is so exciting for businesses. One is that it provides a new way for businesses to engage with their customers. For example, businesses can use VR to create immersive experiences that allow customers to try out products before they buy them. This can be particularly useful for businesses that sell expensive products, such as cars or houses. - Abhijeet Kaldate, Astra WordPress Theme 2. Hyper-Accurate Positioning Technology Hyper-accurate positioning technology is one of the great achievements of this year. GPS tech has revolutionized both our personal and professional lives; however, future ultra-precise locating systems have a few centimeters or millimeters accuracy, whereas current GPS is only accurate to within five to 10 meters. New opportunities are available, including delivery robots, self-driving cars and landslide warning systems, but it will likely impact the shipping industry the most. Hyper-accurate positioning redefines the shipping industry today because it allows ships to be positioned more accurately than ever before. It means that shipowners and operators can know exactly where their vessels are at all times, which is crucial for the safe and efficient operation of the shipping industry. - Candice Georgiadis, Digital Day 3. Smart Business Cards For many years, exchanging contact details at a conference meant searching through your pockets for a physical business card that may or may not be up to date and that you may have forgotten to bring along with you anyway. Digital business cards, like the extremely popular Popl, change all that. Updating is simple via an app, sharing happens instantly with a tap or scan and there's an opportunity to express yourself through photos, video and other media. As the world becomes increasingly paperless, and Gen-Z in particular search for ways to reduce their environmental impact, it makes sense that business cards will be replaced by their digital counterparts en masse over the next 12 months. - Greg Ashton, GROW 4. Cloud Technology I think cloud technology will continue to prosper in the year 2023 and facilitate businesses to build advanced and secure system infrastructures. Over the years, we've seen a major paradigm shift in the corporate world pertaining to information sharing. Cloud technology has made it easier for businesses to access data on demand and share it with concerned stakeholders without the fear of information infiltration. Cloud technology is responsible for the digital transformation of businesses and has facilitated them with agile processes and easy scalability. Cloud technology is evolving and becoming more secure with each passing day. We have seen a surge in its popularity due to the need for information security, and it will continue to serve the purpose in the future, but even better. - Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms 5. Comprehensive Digital Finance Tools We're excited by the trend toward more comprehensive digital finance tools for businesses and the people who run them. The landscape looks totally different now than it did five years ago, when most businesses still had no choice but to use expensive corporate bank accounts and clunky credit or charge cards that often required personal guarantees. Fast forward to today and small- to medium-sized businesses have a ton of high-limit credit cards (based on revenues, not credit score) and low-cost, high- or no-limit bank accounts. That means a lot less time and personnel to manage your working capital. - Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance 6. Smart Contracts One trend that I think will grow quickly in the next few years is smart contracts. This is one of the most practical applications of blockchain technology. Smart contracts allow for secure agreements between parties without the need of third-party help such as lawyers or banks. Smart contracts can be useful in many industries, including real estate, publishing and finance, to name just a few. They allow for faster, more secure and less costly contracts that can accelerate business deals for smaller and larger companies. This technology is already advancing rapidly, so its adoption is largely a matter of education as people realize the benefits of using smart contracts. - Kalin Kassabov, ProTexting 7. AI For Content Creation Staying ahead of the competition is more important than ever, so one technology that has the most exciting implications for businesses in the coming year is artificial intelligence (AI). This innovative technology has a wide range of applications that can help businesses stay competitive and optimize their operations. One area where AI can have a significant impact is in creative work. Thanks to advances in machine learning algorithms, AI systems are now capable of generating high-quality content at an incredibly fast rate—far faster than human writers or designers could ever hope to achieve. This makes them an invaluable tool for businesses that need to produce large quantities of content on a regular basis, such as marketing teams, PR firms and advertising agencies. - Adam Preiser, WPCrafter 8. 3D And 4D Printing Advancements in 3D and 4D printing could bring so many opportunities to businesses in the future. It’s exciting to think of the innovative applications and how 3D and 4D printing could change business operations, manufacturing, distribution and more. Businesses already use it for printing prototypes as well as final products, including homes. As new features, materials and tools are introduced in the future, 3D and 4D printing will become less of a novelty and more of a must-have for businesses of all sizes. It truly will be transformational for businesses—and consumers—in a wide variety of industries and markets. - Jonathan Prichard, MattressInsider.com Source: https://www.forbes.com Image Credit: Photos Courtesy of The Individual Members |
Membership is open to businesses and organizations interested in increasing visibility and brand awareness in Westchester County and surrounding areas.
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