With many years of marketing under your belt, you’ve essentially become an expert in your field. You understand the importance and role of data behind every decision making process, and you realize that details do really matter for any marketing campaign, big or small. You’ve also faced many difficult marketing decisions with a lot of uncertainty and probably had to go with your gut on a number of them.

Tough Questions

One of those many decisions is whether you should venture into new markets and if so, which ones? You’ll wonder is the timing is right? Do you have the capabilities on your team to even execute? You’ll also have a hard time justifying any spend without confirming some sort of a return.

Ask Yourself Three Things:

When faced with this dilemma, ask yourself three questions to validate whether entering new markets should be considered:

1. Are you facing stiff competition? If you’ve been competing with the same players day in and day out, you may need to try something new. They know what you’ve been up to and can quickly pivot to counter against your marketing efforts. It’s almost a zero sum gain as you pivot against their pivot to regain what you’ve lost. And the cycle just keeps going and going. This is an unfortunate outcome when you’ve been battling in one market for quite some time. In this case, consider expanding into a different market! The barrier to entry can be high and being a first mover has a huge advantage in winning marketshare.
2. Are there opportunities to market your product or service in another market? This sounds like a no brainer, but it’s not. You’ve got to understand your audience before you can confidently say yes. And even then, your team has to follow through and execute well. Not every market behaves like the one you’re currently in and we all know culture heavily influences market decisions. As a result, knowing the culture and customer habits is a must when building out a localization plan.
3. Is demand for your product and service growing on a global scale? If so, localization is a must. Just don’t forget that certain English phrases, idioms, and assets do not translate into other markets, which is exactly why you’ll need a native approach to translating. Localization and transcreation are that native approach and help preserve the intent of your language across different languages and markets.

The Bottom Line

If you’ve answered yes to the above three questions, then localization is right up your alley! Localization enables you to penetrate new markets and to align your messaging and product with your end users. Communication is key and by localizing your products in a new market, you’ll get the most out of important KPIs, such as customer acquisition, customer engagement, and ROAs. Check out our transcreation and localization services to get the most out of your buck. We’ll help you maintain the intent, tone, and messaging of your original message, and to identify and convert returning happy customers from any market.