Do you understand your new market like a local?

The prospect of entering new territories is an appealing one for B2Bs. After all, as new markets emerge and the number of internet users rises, cross-border trading becomes more accessible (and tempting). You can connect to a new client base, gain better brand visibility, and crucially, diversify your revenue streams. What’s more, the opportunity is certainly there, with Juniper Research finding that cross-border B2B payments are on track to surpass $40 trillion by the end of 2024. Still, entering new markets isn’t as easy as ABC.

To enter a new market successfully, you need to know much more than its skin and bones. You need to dig deep into its very sinew, from which languages are spoken to how complex B2B decisions are made. Do the leads in your new market interact with marketing messages in the same way? Do they generally prefer remote or face-to-face sales discussions? Asking and answering questions like these is key to keeping your marketing and sales engine running smoothly, from the point of lead generation to the very first sales call.

Here, we take a closer look at why you need to get beneath the skin of your new market, and specifically what marketers and account executives need to know about the leads and processes they’ll be engaging with. We’ll also consider how to learn your new market like a local, without the costly sales and marketing infrastructure.

Why you need to dig deep into a new market

Understanding your new market like a local isn’t about knowing which wine bar to network in or how public transport works. It’s about getting to know the nuances that will undoubtedly affect your marketing and sales processes so that you can keep connecting with highly qualified leads in the best ways.

First, you need to test your marketing and sales processes to ensure they translate. Are you basing your assumptions about B2B buyers on your knowledge of the B2C market? Are you planning to connect with decision-makers in the same way as in your existing territories? Have you accounted for cultural differences in your marketing strategies and sales meetings?

Testing your assumptions is a crucial part of any market entry strategy. It allows you to assess the risks associated with entering a new market and gain the insights needed to mitigate them. When you better understand how to adjust your marketing and sales funnels, you can move forward confidently, accelerate your expansion, and hopefully boost your ROI.

What you need to understand for marketing and sales success

Understanding a new market is important, and a multi-pronged process. Here are some of the considerations you need to make before you throw your armoury at a new territory.

The society

Knowing your target audience is challenging for every business, but it’s particularly difficult for those launching into new markets. After all, generating and nurturing leads isn’t as formulaic a process as it’s often purported to be. It’s about building a relationship rooted in trust, understanding, and an appetite for your value proposition.

To develop customer-centric connections with decision-makers in a new market, you need to make them feel seen and heard. Overcoming any language barriers is one part of this, but navigating cultural differences is just as important. Whether you’re shaping marketing collateral or hosting in-person meetings, a deep understanding of the client will guide you at every step of the pipeline.

What’s more, getting to know your audience isn’t a one-and-done process. Languages develop. Cultural norms evolve. Economic circumstances change. To recognise and adapt to these fluctuations, you need internal account development that’s both agile and well-informed.

The structures and systems

Alongside getting to know the market societally, you need to establish a marketing and sales strategy that aligns with it on an operational level. What do its lead generation, lead qualification, and B2B buying processes look like and how prepared are you to adjust to them?

For instance, are your marketers primed to generate, nurture, and qualify leads effectively? Cultural variations in everything from the weight of job titles to marketing channel preferences will certainly influence this. Do B2B decision-makers in your new territory search for products and services online or do they attend expos? Do job titles hold the same meaning and responsibilities? If not, how do you identify someone with the right purchasing power?

When it comes to sales, do your account executives know what intelligence they need to hold a meaningful dialogue? What should they know about the decision-making process in your new market? Should they be more or less aggressive in their sales tactics? Again, these are all questions that you need to consider.

Pain points and preferences also vary from location to location. For instance, McKinsey’s ‘The new B2B growth equation’ states that almost 80% of buyers in the United States would be comfortable spending $50,000 or more through digital channels, compared to 36% of buyers in Japan. Nevertheless, statistics like this only show a snapshot of a market. You need your own sales intelligence to inform a truly detailed strategy.

How to develop your marketing and sales intelligence

Taking a deep dive into the very fabric of a new market requires more than a market entry strategy. You need to be able to test your marketing and sales assumptions and processes. This requires infrastructure, from renting offices and establishing phone lines to hiring language translators and deploying marketers and account executives.

When you get close to the ground, you can start to develop a pre-sales strategy that allows you to nurture leads towards client status. By understanding how to generate, qualify, and really get to know each lead before the sales conversation, you can smooth out the bumps and seize more opportunities.

This is no easy feat, of course, even for enterprises with generous resources. It can be expensive, time-consuming, and complicated to initiate cross-border trading, but this doesn’t have to mean the end of your expansion plans.

Enter new markets with Pure Business Development

With Pure Business Development, you can launch into new markets almost overnight without local infrastructure. Whether you’re a start-up tapping into a new industry or an enterprise expanding into EMEA territories, we’ll develop a turnkey solution to test the market and enter seamlessly.

It doesn’t matter if you aren’t yet fluent in your chosen market, because our multilingual and culturally aware experts are. With our nimble and category-intelligent methods on board, you can pivot into new markets or industries with agility and confidence.

From confirming appointments with qualified leads to equipping you with the sales intel to engage with them productively, you can think of us as an extension or augmentation of your sales and marketing team.

Book your introductory call today and let’s get started.