Build Social Media Accounts

The first step to expanding your business overseas - especially, when you don't yet have any infrastructure in that country -is to start building your social media accounts. With social media, you can quite easily analyse the demand for your product before officially launching in the area. At the same time, a positive social media presence can build brand awareness in the targeted region.

The social media platform of your choice will vary by region and target audience. If you're aiming to attract professionals and new hires, then you'll want to create a LinkedIn account. This professional social platform features businesses from all industries and allows you to find talent that may be outside your network.

Find Local Partners

Your product might suit the new region's demand perfectly, but you cannot assume to know everything about the region when your company is still new to that specific area.An article by Merlin Jobs explainsthat hiring locally can help in this regard. Not only will these employees be aware of the region's needs and expectations from personal experience, but this strategic move can also create good press in the expansion region, help build your local network, and lower employee turnover. Of course, this is not to say that hiring locally is the only option for a company; however, it is definitely worth considering it - in particular, when new to the area.

An example is the global gaming company Activision, which publishes Call of Duty and owns Candy Crush Saga developer King. Activision makes games for a mostly English audience but has studios in many regions. One of these is Quebec, Canada, and its producer job listing asks candidates to speak both English and French in order to be a perfect fit for the region. A further example is Mr Green, another online gaming company that is hiring marketers who speak Spanish, Italian content creators, and Nordic affiliate account managers. The need for a variety of languages goes hand in hand with Mr Green's presence in a high number of countries. Again, the LinkedIn query reflects the company's adaptation to the regions they are targeting. Finally, EA, the publisher of Battlefield and FIFA, consists of developers from all around the world, which is why the company hires multilingual speakers and asks candidates to have experience working within international teams.

Do Your Market Research

Before you take steps to enter a region, you need to do your market research. Doing sowill allow you to adapt your product and marketing technique in order to suit local tastes.Market research can be done in just a few steps, as Disruptive Advertising explains. Know your target audience, look at your competition, and begin to engage with your audience to ask them what they want. Use that data to start the expansion process.

There is much to be gained from expanding into other areas. You can grow your profit, form new bonds with international companies, and find new customers. It's not easy, of course, but with an open approach, a business can flourish thanks to such an expansion.