It’s not easy to manage any business in any market, but the truth is it’s easy to rest on your laurels and stay in your comfort zone once you find one that works for you. That’s not necessarily a faulty business strategy, as having an audience and actively serving it is hardly a bad idea.
That being said, we can’t always rely on markets. They’re known to be fickle, which can be a problem in the long term. Opening your business in a new market, then, may take a little time and effort to achieve, but it can help consolidate your position and add another point of backup should your main market withdraw over time.
Luckily, even small businesses can open their presence in a new market if they’re careful and attentive about it. But how might that work in practice? Let’s consider that, below:
Research The New Market
Ultimately, it’s important to know what the new market is. Don’t just assume it’s the same as your older one, especially if you’re hoping to operate in a new location or through a newer delivery method. Researching the new market means conducting surveys, researching businesses operating in that same space, and even releasing samples to gauge interest. Consider the demographic and salary influences on your potential development. It all has an effect.
Identify Target Audience & Competition
Unless you’re profoundly lucky or serving an ultra-niche market, there will no doubt be other fish in this pond. For this reason, taking a clear-eyed view of what they offer, how they deliver it, how their inventory and services have developed over time, and what those market trends have developed can help you inspire your change, and offer something new as you enter the space. It will also help you curate a better, more impressive introduction, being able to directly address the pain points of a market going unheard.
Analyze Local Laws & Regulations
We can’t expect a certain location to simply remain as accommodating to business, or your particular business, as your old market was. In some cases this might simply mean a little more red tape, but those you can easily skirt around. In some other cases, it might impede your entire operational capacity. As you might expect, it’s good to know the difference between both. For example, the foremost option might mean your cheesemaking enterprise is going toe-to-toe against the only firm licensed to produce a kind of cheese native first developed in that area – we see this often in Europe, for example. Knowing this ahead of time can help you weigh up if a new market, even a ripe one, is worth your time or not.
Consider Your Ecommerce Delivery
Note that you won’t necessarily have to enjoy an actual physical presence in a new market to serve it well. It may just be that the ecommerce fulfillment centers you use can be a vital extension of your logistical network, allowing you to quickly and easily deliver the products you need, no matter the increase or decrease in demand.
This process can also help you reach out and test markets that you may not be sure about setting up full-time. With a test period of three to six months and the marketing campaign to match, you can implement a bitesize launch into a market that may or may not be suitable to you. At the very least, you can recall products where appropriate and shift to other organizational centers.
Customize Marketing Strategies For The New Market
It’s easy to think that a marketing strategy will work in one location as well as it does everywhere else, but that’s not necessarily the case. People respond to different outreach methods, be that over social media, in print media, or relating to certain concepts. For example, one town might be fanatical about their local sporting team, another not so much. These minor cultural differences may seem slight, but they do have an impact.
Think of how a brand might launch in Hawaii and use “Aloha” in their copywriting, or how spelling may differ between certain modes of speaking English. In some cases, seeing a native represented in the graphic design you put out can be more relatable than anything else. Customizing your marketing message is not only fun and a good way to learn about your chosen operational area, but it can show you’re making an effort to reach out and connect. You’d be surprised how many consumers appreciate that.
Tease Your Entrance Into The Market
If you have something of a presence elsewhere, it can be helpful to tease your presence a little, to grow suspense and fanfare for the local area. For example, many US brands such as Wendy’s and Taco Bell have come to the United Kingdom in the last decade, and you can bet there was some excitement for their opening, often teased for months on social media, leading up to a large launch day with free samples and celebrations.
You might not have the cultural purchase of a given market, but you might find some value in curating a coherent social media package and outreach, perhaps even working with local movers and shakers, to announce your presence with fervor. Hitting the ground running is always a helpful mode of success.
Dedicate Staff To This Sole Task
It’s important to have skilled staff members highly familiar with your process, values, and goals to oversee the new interaction with a novel market. This is because in the early days, managing client relationships, overseeing your marketing campaign, putting together a coherent message, and ensuring all the administrative tasks are well-curated is essential for a worthwhile outcome.
Without this, you might find that staff are absent-minded, distracted between two essential projects, and unable to respond to difficulties as they might others. Consider placing your most experienced and higher-level staff on the task, they will be able to smooth out errors and direct those working under them, without taking all of your time for the privilege.
With this advice, we hope you can move into a new market with confidence and care.