5 Tips to Boost Your Business on a Global Scale

Sooner or later, the growth of almost any business will become restricted by geographic location or region. At that stage of local business maturity, the current business model and target audience simply cannot support future growth at a realistic scale. When that stage occurs, global expansion can become a crucial hurdle to take on the way to continued scalability.

Of course, turning yourself into a global business does not mean simply applying the same methods to different audiences. Several nuances, from cultural differences to unique business environments, become crucial considerations for business leaders looking to international markets as a source of business growth.

In other words, this type of expansion success requires careful thought and strategic consideration. These five tips can help you boost your business to global audiences, ensuring continued relevance and appropriateness for your core business model and target demographics.

Table of Contents

1. Diversify Your Decision-Making Inputs

The first step in any type of international business expansion is the removal of assumptions. Instead, global business growth must come with enough inputs related to the country or countries you're looking to enter to make confident, fact- and research-based decisions.

These inputs can come from a wide range of potential sources:

• Employees and team members familiar with and experienced in the culture of the market you're looking to enter

• Customer and audience research specific to the geographic area you're looking to reach

• Facts and insights from reliable third-party sources, including government sources like the CIA World Factbook

A mix of all of these sources is ideal for gaining an in-depth understanding of the country or countries you're about to enter, as well as their language and cultural customs. Local business intelligence can also help you understand the marketplace and industry in which you will be competing, price indexes, and other vital information to provide decision-making and strategic context.

2. Embrace a Product Localization Strategy

Very few companies succeed with the same product in a global environment. The audience, languages, and cultures are too unique to adapt to the same product. Even a globally ubiquitous brand like Coca-Cola, for example, changes its drink formula depending on its audience and market research from various global regions.

The key, then, is product localization. The concept refers to adapting your product or service to meet the needs of a specific locale, which according to the Globalization and Localization Association, can refer to several processes:   

• Adapting the design of a product to the needs and pain points of the local audience

• Translating any text, accounting for local and colloquial nuances the audience might pick up on

• Changing the formats for date and time, addresses, numbers, currencies, etc. to match the target locale

• Adapting any product and visual designs to suit the expectations and tastes of a target locale

If your global audience feels like the product has been specifically designed for their needs and preferences, your chances of successfully breaking into and succeeding in that market increase drastically. 

3. Reduce Language Barriers For Your Audience

Especially when planning an expansion into non-English speaking countries, the language barrier will be among the most significant challenges your business faces. But even when expanding into other English-speaking countries, nuances in dialect will require a concerted effort to reduce the language barrier and make your audience confident in your brand and product from the moment they're introduced.

According to The Common Sense Advisory, 55% of global consumers would only purchase a product from a website that provides information in their mother tongue. Achieving that goal is complex and requires more than a direct word-for-word translation using an automated service. However, a few essential tips can help:

• Research and understand your audience, including not just their native language but any local dialects or industry jargon they might prefer. 

• Translate not just your website but also your key product information, tutorials, content, and worksheets to build a more local experience.

• Use visual means of communication to reduce the chance of grammar or context errors.

• Entrust translation and language-based needs to professionals familiar with the culture and language of your target audience.

Audience input can also be vital in reducing the language barrier. Test your website and product language with local audiences and ask for their reactions to make any tweaks and improvements necessary before rolling it out on a broader scale.

4. Research and Embrace Cultural Differences

The cultural nuances of global business expansions cannot be overemphasized. When dealing with international audiences, almost everything can be different. The marketing world, for example, is full of cautionary tales in which even the world's biggest brands failed to consider their target audience's culture in rolling out new or localized products. 

Cultural differences and nuances can range widely from country to country. They can include anything from different meanings of the color white (pure and clean in Western economies, death in Southeast Asia) to varying expectations in business culture when it comes to timeliness or politeness. Instead of avoiding them, embracing them can go a long way toward your target audience reciprocating that embrace with your product.

That might mean focusing your product differentiators and value proposition on things that matter more in your new audience's culture. It could also mean embracing different imagery in your marketing. Finally, consider building a customer support network (including the potential of automated chatbots and digital assistants) that can be available for your audience on their time, adjusting to their unique cultural expectations.

5. Adapt Your Payment Methods

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the actual transaction of a product or service purchase by your global audience should be smooth. That means accounting for the currency of the country or countries you're trying to enter, as well as making their preferred payment methods available through your website and other points of purchase. 

Make sure you accept payments in your global audience's preferred currency. Any effort on their end to translate prices in your home country's currency increases friction and negatively impacts your UX. The same is true for any complications with shipping that might arise due to moving your product to a different country.

Payment options can also differ based on the international market(s) you are trying to reach. For example, 71% of U.S. shoppers prefer using their credit or debit card to make an online purchase, with 17% preferring to use a mobile wallet like PayPal or Apple Pay instead. In China, however, WeChat Pay and AliPay far outrank any of these payment methods. Meanwhile, a plurality of Indian online shoppers prefers Google Pay. 

When shopping on your website, your new target audience expects their usual and customary payment methods. If they can't find them, they might prefer to go with a more local option, significantly increasing the difficulty of global business growth.

Enhance Your UX to Ensure Successful Business Growth

Your global expansion strategy comes down to a few core truths: you need a keen understanding of your market and audience, and the user experience you offer, should be built with that target market in mind. The details of going global can be complex, but as long as they follow these core truths, your chances of a successful expansion increase drastically.