Expanding your company in the UK may seem like a challenge in itself, but when you decide you’re ready to grow your market abroad, that’s when you really need to step up the game.

When you think it’s time for your business to start trading abroad, there are some processes you will need to go through before you start advertising services in other countries.

Find contacts

If you’re ready to expand globally you need to be prepared, and that means getting in touch with other business owners abroad.

Doing this will have multiple benefits for when your company eventually begins trading in other countries. For instance, contacts abroad will be able to put you in touch with potential customers/clients and help you find your ideal market in that country.

They will also be able to help you scout out your next headquarters, if you need a base to work from in that country.

Build relationships

Once you’ve tracked down contacts, you need to start strengthening that connection into a relationship where you’re comfortable asking for help, as well as acting as a resource for your connection in return.

Once you’ve found the contacts, you can build up a relationship by connecting online. One of the easiest ways to do this with industry influencers in other countries is to use social media.

A great place to start is LinkedIn, as here you can easily see if you have connections in common which could introduce you and give you a solid foundation to work from.

Research the area

The next step is an important one. If you fail to research the area you want to market in, you may miss marketing points and could even get yourself in hot water with an unintentionally offensive campaign.

As a business owner, you should be aware of how to research for a marketing campaign. However, if you’re a little rusty, the first thing to do is to keep up-to-date on the latest national and local news.

Research isn’t just important for marketing. There will most likely be different tax regulations abroad, so it’s important you find these out and ensure your business operates within them before you start trading.

Find the competition

The most important thing to do once you’ve found some contacts and know a little more about the country is to scout out the competition.

While you shouldn’t copy your competition as a tactic, doing this can give you an insight into how marketing may or may not work in this area.

You can then use this information to tweak your own marketing plan and refine it more specifically for the audience you’re targeting.

Pay a visit

Once you’ve got everything in order to start trading in a foreign country, it’s a good idea to pay a visit.

This will give you a better to insight into how your product or services may be required, and generally getting to know the culture better will help you become more aware of how to market to this new audience.

Does your company work with suppliers or customers who are abroad? That’s no problem with Pandle. Pandle will change currency for you without any problems. You can read more about this on our ‘Multiple currencies in Pandle’ support page.

Have you got anymore top tips on trading abroad? Leave them in the comment section below!