I recently spoke with someone whose European company is looking to explore the US market for the very first time. They are a color consultancy services company who also publishes a popular color, trend and design magazine called “mix”. Their main followers in Europe are designers in the interior designing industry who are interested in keeping up with the latest trends.
She was looking for some advices on marketing in the US, and I offered two:
- Start a blog to teach and build a following. You obviously know your audience; write to them; write for them; teach the American interior design industry a thing or two about color trends. Who knows, maybe even write and publish an ebook on the topic.
- Seek out the popular Interior design blogs/forums and participate. And don’t just stop there, maybe even seek out the popular Website design blogs or any other websites that are related color trends and give them something to write about. I often see samples of great pictures being posted here and here.
The first question, though, came to my mind was: how does a company like that “just started” reaching the US market? I mean, had they started doing what I suggested three years ago, the company could have found and built the right audience (customer) base, and been off and running before they even set foot on the US soil. There wouldn’t be any trial period or learning curve, and they should have already figured out the optimum way to communicate, connect and sell to their customers.
Take a moment and ask yourself this, does your company plan to expand to a foreign market (maybe China) in 3 years? If so, what does your marketing plan look like now? I am not talking about the endless market researches; but an actual concrete and executable online marketing strategy. Are there any “real” reasons stopping you from having someone in your team to start establishing a presence in that market?
Foreign markets are closer than you think. Reach, before you go.
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