Are You Ready to Market Overseas?

Although you may have your domestic marketing plan worked out, marketing overseas is an entirely different ballgame.

From properly targeting different cultures to adapting your campaigns to foreign languages, overseas marketing can be a tricky process.

In order to help you better navigate international waters, here are just a few overseas marketing tips:

Segment Your Audience

Before you unleash your overseas marketing campaign, it’s important to first segment your international audiences accordingly. Audience segmentation is arguably the most important step of the overseas marketing process.

Why?

Well, unlike your domestic marketing practices, your overseas campaigns will likely reach a wide range of countries and cultures.

If you’re marketing in Great Britain or Germany for example, then research that audience and make sure your marketing materials are aimed toward those individual cultures.

However, if you’re casting your marketing net a little wider to, say, all of Europe, then you need to segment your campaign to the different European countries or your marketing content may literally not translate.

Test Marketing Materials

Once your overseas audiences are segmented, you’ll want to give your marketing materials a test run before releasing them to a wider audience.

As the following article looks at, ranging from digital marketing to email and mobile marketing, a small-scale test run will ensure the content within your campaigns is on target.

Give the testing stage enough time to produce the proper amount of feedback. Your initial test campaign might take time to produce results, but it’s worth the wait.

The right amount of marketing data will provide valuable insights that can help you fine tune larger scale marketing campaigns.

Learn the Culture

Targeting overseas audiences is one thing, but actually catering your campaigns to a broad range of cultures is something else entirely. That’s why it’s crucial to learn about popular culture in the country in which you’re marketing to.

Are there cultural differences in the way your marketing is received? Could the way in which you present your products and services offend some cultures?

By doing a little research and studying the competition, you can avoid any marketing pitfalls that may come about.

Adjust Your Prices Accordingly

Just because you charge X amount for a certain product or service in the U.S. doesn’t mean you’ll have success with the same price plan overseas. Studying the competition in your target country will help you come up with reasonable pricing.

With that said, you should also take currency rates into consideration.

Factoring in whether your dollar is stronger or weaker in your target country will help you come up with the best possible price for your goods.

If your dollar is weaker, you may have to make some pricing sacrifices until your business gains speed with local consumers.

Hire a Local

If you’ve segmented and studied overseas audiences and you’re still unsure whether your marketing materials are on target, you may want to hire local help.

Hiring local marketing and social media professionals is a great way to get first hand opinions and translation assistance with your overseas marketing campaigns.

Before you go overseas with your marketing campaigns, consider some of the international marketing pointers mentioned above.

About the Author: Adam Groff is a freelance writer and creator of content. He writes on a variety of topics including marketing and social media.