The rise of digital platforms and social media has paved the way for smaller brands, obscure products, and new-to-market services to find their way in front of global audiences. The kinds of worldwide breakthroughs previously reserved for industry giants like Apple and Microsoft can now be seen in greater numbers, an opportunity opening that the pandemic has only accelerated.
Consumers are increasingly becoming accustomed to moving most of their product decisions and shopping experiences into the digital sphere. The barriers to global operations are smaller than ever, and over the past many months, we’ve watched companies become a consumer’s top choice—a worldwide sensation. Generally, that’s happened in one of two ways: the company has grown big and loud enough to expand, or the company has started small, researched carefully, and built quiet but reliable international networks using digital technologies to secure their new market niche. Both paths have been traveled to get to the global stage, but the latter is the kind of company that stands the best chance of survival in the long term.
The Internet and the digital mobility it offers have democratized the global economy. And it’s a trend that applies in the B@B and B2C space alike.
It’s now possible to communicate with customers, ship products, and expand services to any corner of the world where there’s someone listening and interested. Introducing a brand to the global market now requires minimal capital investment.
But once they’ve invested, their marketing choices make all the difference in whether or not they’ll stay as a major player on the global stage.
Below are three critical areas of focus for achieving and securing a global audience.
Culturally Sophisticated Consumer Motivations
Too easily, brand ‘success’ can be understood only in the language of numbers—views, searches, hits, length stayed, conversions, and sales. But behind every number is the mind of a real person, and that’s where successful global brands keep most of their focus. Billion-dollar, big-stage brands provide a compelling and consistent brand promise, a proposition that improves daily life wherever that takes place, and a promise that resonates cross-culturally. Consistent and coherent messaging is best achieved through audience-aware marketing—allowing for small, sophisticated branding changes and regional message variations that tailor the brand promise toward different cultural languages.
Consider the example of Starbucks’ expansion into China, which is now its second-largest market with locations in 90 cities and more than 25,000 employees.
Source – Seeking Alpha
Starbucks has built a brand around creating a peaceful, tranquil experience in which friends and families can come together over a wide selection of drinks and desserts. Starbucks has made brilliant marketing decisions to tell and retell that story, catering it to families and professionals’ experiences and the unique pain points in Chinese culture, using relevant social media strategies to reach more than half a billion potential customers. Ultimately, their audience in China creates the same image as their audience in America, providing a similar understanding of Starbucks in both cultures. But different words, colors, images, and culturally-relevant storytelling were needed to get them there. In this way, Starbucks sets an incredibly successful example of tailored branding, one that smaller brands can adopt to ensure their message is sensitive, relevant, sophisticated, and well-received.
Rights, Rules, and Regulations
The diffuse nature of the Internet can be confusing, but it helps if brand leaders consider their digital presence as a geographic phenomenon; if they’ve expanded their branding and product/service offerings to an international market, they’re in a new place. That new place requires new considerations around intellectual property, foreign rules, and corporate regulations. Patents and copyrights, both for marketing assets and for the actual products, differ from country to country. If a product or message is easily reproduced and the brand expands to a location where their copyright protections don’t hold, they’re highly vulnerable to intellectual property theft and consumer disillusion.
Similarly, a brand needs to ensure its marketing and product offerings have the requisite legal protection to contend with foreign markets that might have more red tape. Consumer privacy, data use laws, and international sales regulations are by no means consistent. These considerations need to make up a part of a brand’s core global expansion strategy; bringing brand communications into new markets means understanding the changes in regulation and playing by the new country’s rules.
Behind the Scenes: The Devil in the Long-Distance Details
Along with brand messaging and regulatory considerations, global brands also need to consider some of the more minute details of offering an international e-commerce experience. A few minor details, when amplified, can make an international business go disastrously wrong. If, for example, the product has a significant lag time from purchase to payment, currency fluctuations can turn a margin upside down. As a result of simple overnight shifts in the relative strength of different currencies, companies could incur enough losses to put their operations behind. Hedging currencies is one option, but it requires experienced professionals. These are among the essential areas of consideration that brands should confront before their international campaign goes live.
Similarly, credit card translations can be a realm where more costs are incurred. Also, taking payments may be less common in various foreign markets. Many countries haven’t adopted credit cards as the preferred form of payment. Leaving an international audience with fewer payment options than they’re used to is a factor that the great global brands don’t overlook. Small details like time-zone differences, providing 24-hour service, and the added cost of international tax, tariffs, and duties—all need to be carefully considered when a brand translates its offerings into a national campaign.
Successful international brands are differentiated and sustained by the same things that make a local brand great: a clear vision, a breakthrough offering that serves a human need or desire, and the grit to fight through the inevitable obstacles that stand between the offering and its success.
A useful tool for analyzing an opportunity is PESTLE, a macro-environmental analysis that helps an organization understand the key forces at play. It’s an important navigational aid for companies planning their expansion and attending to all the details of achieving their aim.
Translating the brand message to cater to and account for cultural differences is fundamental. By planning for the change in rules and regulations of foreign markets, solving the details of payment processing, and accounting for cross-cultural customer service, brands can do what they do best—improve the quality of life—on the global stage.
About the Author: Kyle Mani is the Founder and CEO of OWDT, an Internationally acclaimed, award-winning web design and marketing company that offers a robust roster of design and development services. With industry-leading solutions in the realm of brand incorporation, digital experience architecture, and multi-disciplinary design, OWDT helps its clients realize conversions far beyond the industry average.