International expansion is not just a very important but, perhaps, one of the obligatory steps for any entrepreneur today. That is so mainly due to the growing global interconnectedness that brings people closer and closer with every year, despite all odds. Internationalization does bring lots of huge opportunities indeed and not using them might be very unthoughtful and sometimes even damaging.
By expanding to the new markets, you can not only enhance your audience but also acquire some useful connections and optimize your business in your native country. Yet, expanding to some countries or parts of the world might be challenging, so you must arm yourself with some basic knowledge before you go.
Business Communication in Europe: Essentials to Know
Although it might seem that business is business everywhere, regardless of the country, continent, or culture, this is, in fact, very far from the truth. People are extremely bound to their traditions even in the modern world. And business culture in Europe is exactly one such thing.
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While Europe is potentially a very considerable market with 446 million 741 million people living there (depending on whether you count just the EU or the whole Europe including a part of Russia), it might be very challenging to handle. Europeans are very law-abiding, careful, and overall, more demanding consumers than Americans. Yet, if you use some of these basic tricks, you’ll be able to get your portion of the audience in the Old World a little bit easier.
- Study your country very well. And by very well, it is meant really-really very-very well. EU consists of 27 countries, some of which have adopted the common currency (Euro), for instance, and some not. Some don’t allow sexualization and depicting graphic violence in films and video games at all and some simply have a strict rating system regarding that. And there are much more serious specifics like that, and they may consider the legal matters and even cybersecurity. So, before you enter your destination country to communicate your message, be sure to be very familiar with it. Otherwise, you might get yourself into some big trouble without even knowing it.
- Contact the local media. While studying and researching your desired country might be a very demanding and draining process, it might still not be quite enough. This is where you have to ask some questions directly. It’s better to acquire some contacts of the PR specialist in your target country, pitch them your vision, and ask whether it fits the consumer. As the local media representatives will certainly think like locals, they will be of great help to you.
- Localize. Another word that implies working specifically for your potential customer. Being something like a strong power-up for translation, localization adapts the content of your message to the local cultural norms. For instance, if American kids might stereotypically not like broccoli, the Japanese children will have similar sentiments towards the green pepper. Localization allows you to make your product familiar to the foreign consumer, which can in turn improve the product’s selling abilities and enhance your revenue. In case if you plan to localize, however, it is best not to omit the previous point and contact the local specialists regarding this matter.
- Check your documents. As it was mentioned previously, Europeans are extremely law-abiding and will not tolerate if you miss something regarding the legitimacy of your message and business overall. So, in case if you plan to launch your PR campaign in the European country, make sure that you’ve got all permissions to do that, that all resources you plan to communicate your message through approve this message, and so on. For more information regarding this, read about top document translation services to see how it’s done. Whenever you deal with anything legal, especially in Europe, it’s best to address the professionals.
The Final Step: Create Your Personal Checklist
When dealing with European countries and European consumers, it’s always reasonable to form an individual approach. After you make sure that you have complete all points above, think about what would be appealing to that German or Greek or French man or woman. If needed, ask them (remember the second point). Certainly do try to think outside of the box (it’s a different part of the world, after all) and you will certainly get on the right track.
Contributor’s Bio:
Henry is a proficient researcher and an aspiring writer who travels the world and the world wide web in search of new experiences and knowledge. His motto is to never give up searching whenever you find something interesting for you and his daily routine involves following that motto to an as great extent as possible. To keep yourself fit physically, Henry recommends exercising, of course, and to keep yourself fit mentally, Henry recommends lots of reading and research.
