Tom Chapman — December 3, 2016 Follow @ThemusingsofTCWhether you’re relocating your business abroad or simply expanding it, there’s a lot to consider. Do it successfully, and the financial rewards can be huge, but making a simple mistake can be costly. That’s why it’s vital to get it right.
Here’s what you need to consider when moving a business abroad.
Research the culture
Culture doesn’t just vary from country to country, it can differ from area to area, too. The USA is a good example of this – Californians are bound to have a very different lifestyle to Texans. The last thing you want to do is upset your audience by accidentally offending their way of life.
Do your research and make sure your brand is right for the community. It might be worth employing a local expert to help you out, especially when it comes to language differences. If your slogan needs to be translated, you want to ensure the translation is correct and not offensive!
Create a buzz around your business
To have a successful launch in your country of choice, you need to ensure people know your product/service exists. Use social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to create a buzz around your business and try to encourage people to spread the word, perhaps through a competition.
Research your audience and find out what types of media channels they use. Utilise this information to take out adverts where necessary, including local TV channels, newspapers, magazines, radio channels, popular blogs and more.
In all your messaging, make sure you’re telling people why they need your product/service. How will it change their lives? Who would want to purchase it and why? Answering these questions is key to your success.
Keep doing what made you successful in the UK
Whatever you did that earnt to your business success in the UK, whether that was a focus on excellent customer service, offering great value for money, or something entirely different, keep at it when you move abroad!
If you have a winning formula, why change it? People love what you’re doing, so keep doing it and try and replicate that success.
Make sure your SEO and PPC is up to scratch
These days, having a functioning, eye-catching website is more important than having a physical store in many ways. However, your website will be worthless if it isn’t easy to find via search engine. To ensure your site is visible in the region you’re moving the business to, you need to employ a search engine optimisation (SEO) expert. They’ll be able to move your website up the rankings, so you’re one of the first results for your product/service in the area.
Per-per-click (PPC) advertising is also a good investment, especially in the early days when your site is so new it’s unlikely to appear at the top of Google organically. With PPC ads, you don’t pay for the ad itself, just the leads it brings to your site. You can take out PPC ads on almost any social media site as well as search engines. We recommend hiring an agency to determine which channels would be most effective for your business and manage all your PPC campaigns for you.
Have an end goal in sight
How big is your international business going to get? You should have a growth plan so you know how much to invest in staff, training, technology, stock and more. Businesses that grow too quickly can crash and burn – managing your progress is important.
Start by hiring a small handle of trusted team members and evolve your business from there. Keep an eye on how things are running and make sure your employees don’t have unbearable workloads. Scale and recruit when necessary.
Get the website ready for launch
We mentioned earlier just how important the website is, and that site needs to be ready long before you plan to launch your business abroad. Don’t think that you can get away with putting it live a week or two afterwards – you should be driving potential customers to it before the launch and capturing their data by asking them to ‘register their interest’.
That way, when it comes to launch day, you’ll be making money early on. You also need to test the site can take the strain of a sudden rush of traffic. It would be rather embarrassing if your site crashed on day one!
Sort out your finances and forecasts
We’ve saved the most important point until last: getting your finances in order is crucial to any business’s success, as you’ll already know. The difference is, this time you’re having to move your money from the UK to abroad, an additional cost you didn’t have to endure before. Using a broker, rather than a high-street bank, will ensure you get the best international transfer rates possible, which means you’ll hang on to more of your money.
Don’t forget to forecast your finances to make sure you can cover staff wages, marketing campaigns and all your other outgoings. Get a local financial advisor to help you if necessary – remember, the costs will be different in this new country.
We wish you luck on launching your business in a new country and hope everything goes smoothly.
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