Top 3 reasons on why you must expand your small business globally

Insights from 2022 International Growth Summit

Google hosted an online webinar – The International Growth Summit 2022 that explained the importance of expanding a small business globally. As per the insights shared by Google, the opportunity is HUGE, and this is the right time to take advantage of it. Digital marketing is on its upward trend with new apps and software’s being built each passing day, 2023 offers a great chance for Australian small businesses to take their brands GLOBAL for all the right reasons!

You must have heard of Booking.com right? Do you know it is based in the Netherlands? Now that you know where it is based, will it affect your usage of it? Probably not! Therefore, it is clear that your customers do not care where the product or service is originated from as long as it is good.

Global expansion is in the DNA of an online small business. It’s quicker and easier than ever to leap into new markets and expand exponentially.

The key takeaways from the webinar were as follows:

The Export Opportunity- Why there’s never been a better time to expand your business overseas.
Market Entry & Competitor Analysis- Accessing exclusive market research & local insights that are critical for successful expansion plans.
Operational Excellence & Whole Business Solutions– Discover the tools & solutions that will help you master your go-to market operations. Including how to access Google’s global partner network to achieve international excellence.
Market Scaling: Effectively Reaching International Customers- The marketing and creative best practices to give your business the competitive edge it needs to realise results in diverse global markets.

As per Google, it doesn’t matter where a business is based, as long as the product or service is good.

The keynote speakers included representatives from two very popular Australian Businesses we all love and have been forever inspired from – Liz Capitani & Natalia Pereira from Petal & Pup and Patricia Tan & Sunil Subhedar from Canva

Annie Byrne, Arshad Mirza, and John Ball from Google led the webinar by sharing valuable insights from the biggest search engine on Earth on why NOW is the time to expand your business globally.

Google has forever been helping businesses by providing free tools and services to help them grow in ways that are now uncountable. Although the information is EVERYWHERE, it can leave one overwhelmed. We at Dreamworx, continue to make it easier for Australian Small Businesses to get the most out of all resources through our value-packed articles, one at a time. This post will share the knowledge you need to grasp before taking your small business global, as taken from the 2022 International Growth Summit.

TOP REASONS ON WHY YOU MUST EXPAND YOUR SMALL BUSINESS GLOBALLY

The following list includes key takeaway points from the International Growth Summit 2022, an online webinar hosted by Google.

1. Engage with a wider audience

While you may consider expanding your online small business to the next state, it might shrink the reach of your product or service and worse of all, after a certain time it will reach a plateau when you would no longer be able to grow your business any further. As per Google, global digital purchase behaviour is expected to increase 14% over the next five years and international shopping will exceed 1 trillion dollars.

With up to 1 trillion expected expansion, you sure would like to have a piece of the pie, won’t you? Therefore, sky is the limit. It’s time to put together a strategy and implement it in the coming New year.

2. De-risk your business

When you are operating in a single market, many times you are subjected to functioning only as per the behavior, economic factors, and policies of a single place which put a risk on your business growth.

By expanding globally, you not only increase your brand reach but also increase options for your business strategy to evolve and thus bring in desired results.

3. Find profitable customers overseas

Get the most out of your online marketing by reaching high-ticket customers that are present overseas. If you are a handbag business owner, the insight below will surely blow your mind.

While this is the case with one niche, you can use Google Trends to find out trends related to your niche product or service and start with one location.

HOW TO EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS GLOBALLY?

At the summit, three main key points were discussed that a small business should focus on when starting to venture out globally. We will be expanding them a little bit just so it brings more clarity. Here they are:

1. Market Entry & Competitor Analysis

It is critical to understand “your market” in order to cater to an ideal audience who are best suited to your niche product or service. One of the best ways to go about it to build a buyer’s persona. This helps in prioritizing your marketing efforts to that specific audience group which will bring 80% profits to your business. One of the best online tools to build a buyer’s persona is Make My Persona by HubSpot.

As per Google, 70% of businesses said they lack the skills needed to acquire international customers. Hard to believe right? Many would argue that you simply have to open doors for international shipping, promote your products overseas and there you go! It’s that easy! However, in reality, it is not that easy.

To make sure your business brings revenue from international customers, it is wise to put across a marketing strategy that is well planned and if possible has also been ‘tested’. This way, you will not burn your marketing budget but instead grow your business the way you desired.

Market Finder

The best FREE tool to test your product, perform your market research and start selling to overseas customers is Market Finder by Google.

Market finder not only helps you research by creating reports with real time data but also helps in developing your international marketing strategy. What more could you ask for right? To top it all up, you can dig deeper into identifying your global competitors, discover their advertising and get a rough estimate of amount needed to market your product in that area to get success.

A business can succeed globally if it understands their market preferences.

2. Go-to-market (Operations)

Once you’ve chosen the markets that you wish to enter, it’s time to focus on the operations side of things. Let us start with payment methods.

Payment Methods

While popular payment methods like PayPal work globally, it is no longer the preferred choice of online shoppers for obvious reasons. When you enter a global market, it is important to find out the preferred “local” payment method customers like to use.

With the help of Google tools, you can build your brand’s go-to market operations in the following three steps:

1. Learn best practices for setting up local logistics. – Supply Chain & Logistics Solutions | Google Cloud

2. Learn to optimise consumer journey and cater audience specific website experiences. – Website, A/B Testing & Optimization Tools – Google Optimize

3. Learn to improve checkout experiences and increase transactions. – Checkout requirements and best practices – Google Merchant Center

Planning Customer Experience

Customer experience includes the plans that are put in place to provide positive experiences at each customer touchpoint along the customer journey and the purposeful ways to measure them online. The following are the keypoints to remember:

Provide a good discovery experience through app store or ads.
Provide a seamless website navigation and search options.
Provide sticky Call-to-actions at every important section of the website or app.
Remember to cater to post purchase customer support journey through automated emails etc.

Shipping Methods

68% of Australian consumers prefer free shipping. Now for all valid reasons, when a consumer is buying something from your brand at an exclusive rate, they hope to get some bargain for shipping. Offering “Free shipping” or “Discounted Shipping” can be a great launch offer to attract customers to your global shop.

Whatever the offer may be, it is important that the shipping experience is seamless and time effective. Therefore, look for ways you can reduce your shipping overheads and offer such discounts to your customers.

Export Partner Hub

Google Partner Marketing Hub is a one-stop shop for Google advertisers to connect with international partners. It provides 70+ fully vetted partners with international coverage for various services such as Customer Care, Logistics, and Payments. Exploring the Partner hub while doing your research is a great way to make informed advertising decisions later on.

3. Marketing

Last but certainly not the very least is digital marketing for your products and services in the new markets.

With popular Google tools such as Google Translate, you can change your website language to the language spoken in the target market and
Through Google Ads, you can easily translate any ad in the country specific local language.

As per Google, 76% of consumers are more likely to buy a product with information in their own language.

Through well targeted Google ads, you can showcase your products or services to new audiences within a matter of minutes. Make the most of your marketing budget by choosing a Google ads expert who is well equipped with analytical skills and has enough experience to test and trial different optimisations to bring your business a great return. Now there is a lot that we can share about Google ads, but we will skip them in this post. Please keep watching this space for more such value-driven articles or better yet, discuss them with us. Simply send us your queries at hello@dreamworxmarketing.com

I am very sure, you must’ve received, very useful insights that will help you get started in the right direction before launching your business globally. However, it is not possible to share the tips and insights shared by the expert panel at Petal & Pup and Canva in a blog post that is limited to a certain length.

If you like what you read and would like to continue gaining more such useful tips on how to start and grow your online business, then please subscribe to our mailing list to stay informed of all such future posts.

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