Driving International Expansion Through Search

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This is a live blog post from the Performance Marketing Insights Conference in NYC. These are my personal notes and thoughts from the session Driving International Expansion Through Search, presented by well known affiliate, Sri Sharma, Managing Director of Net Media Planet.

My notes and thoughts:

  • Internet sales and opportunities have grown by 100%
  • 47% Growth in China within the middle class
  • Europe sees a 65% increase of purchasing moving online in 2012.

Challenges to international expansion

  • Customer
  • Competitor
  • Operational
  • Regulatory

How can search help you?

  • Drive incremental sales
  • Build the international expansion business case.

Quick Stat: Google owns 89% of search and 97% of mobile search.

Don’t forget social media advertising space, such as Facebook in North America, V Kontakre in Russia and Qzone as the leading platform in China.

Understanding the Local Customer

  • What do they buy online?
  • How do they start their shopping journey?
  • How do they search?
  • What customers experience is important to them?

The Chinese Market – where we worry about quality of products made in China, they worry about brand credibility. An ongoing trend in China is paying by Cash On Delivery.

Identify primary competitors by product category.

Understand trends, customer needs, and market saturation by keyword.  Understand your competitors because it will help you figure out how to differentiate yourself in the market. Compare your pricing to competitors by product. Analyse messaging that your competitors use.  Analyse the competitor customer profile.

Messaging localization increases traffic and conversion rate. On-site localization increases conversion rate. Think about currency, words used in local areas, and language.

Use the Google Global Market Finder to understand local traffic trends and opportunities.

Develop the international business case

  • Grow brand awareness – phase based budget, channels in PPC, display and remarketing
  • Maximize direct response – channels: PPC, Remarketing, Display (RTB)
  • Develop insights – Trends: customer, competitor, multi-channel sales
  • Create recommendations – On-site experience, resourcing

If you take this approach, you can build a business case for any brand.

Top Three Tips

  1. Take an incremental approach
  2. Localise your marketing
  3. Call on experts to support your strategy