EP158: Common Marketing Mistakes in Exporting (and How to Avoid Them)

Hello, welcome to the Powerful Marketing Tips podcast. Today we are here with Laura again. Hi. Hi.

And we are really inspired about one of the events that we recently hosted in a collaboration with a Chamber of Commerce in Latvia, Riga. And that was really inspiring because we talked about marketing mistakes in exporting there. There were around 30 different small and medium-sized companies. Even a few of them were pretty big organizations.

And that was truly inspiring discussion. So what was your, I don't know, first takeaway that comes to your mind like that from that event? Because there were too many of these probably. It was a great event and the topic was, you know, marketing mistakes in exporting.

And it was very fascinating to hear like from Estonian companies and also from Latvian companies. And I feel like the more you hear about those different stories, the more you realize that we are all the same, pretty much. We all have those same struggles and we think that someone out there, you know, has this magical answer or has this, you know, magic wand that will open all the doors. But actually, no, actually, you need something else.

Yeah, that's the hard part, actually, because no one is expecting you on the market. You know, it's what's in it for them. Why should they care? If you go to any market, let's be honest.

Yeah, even your home market. Exactly. So, okay, very good. You have this great product, great service.

But why should I collaborate with you? Why should I choose your products? Because there are so many opportunities, especially nowadays, online, offline. So why should I care is the first question.

And I think that's the hardest to answer. It is, yeah. Because, you know, people are busy with their own lives. They don't need another product.

They don't need another service. But if you can really understand who your target audience is and what are their typical pain points and how you can make their lives easier, better, give them something extra so that it's valuable to them, not just I have to give you some money, but they receive that value. Then you can, I think, go to any market if you have the right network and connections and you know how those markets work. So first of all, start with the problem.

is there a problem yes okay if there's if there's no need around your product or service i would say don't go there right you're just wasting your time money resources and everything pretty much and over complicated and that's because i think some people are like in this product design mode for like years and years and years no but maybe there not even a need for that so can you like somehow test it very quickly on the market Is there a need for it or not So have something minimal viable and try to test it out But of course, you can't just go out there, I don't know, through ads or through social media to start testing.

You should have somebody locally who you trust and who can give you your feedback. Right. So for that, we would really recommend to collaborate with organizations like Chamber of Commerce or probably there are in any country there are those local networks. Right.

Business hubs, maybe, or how you call them. But in our experience is that collaborating with Chamber of Commerce is very good because they have their own authority on the marketplace already. Usually they have very solid, you know, members already who are active. So I would say it's a pretty good approach on any market.

Absolutely. And even if you don't have, for example, access to that chamber of commerce for some reason, you can even start with how you started in Spain, you know, Googling. What are the local networking groups in Spain in my area that speak English? And then you will at least have, you know, some other like...

Inside information. You can share like, okay, where should I go to find answers to this question? Who should I contact? Because if you go through people, then it's going to be easier to get access to different experts who you would maybe even find by Googling.

You can save a lot of money and time after that. Because people work with people, not with companies. So if you have whatever product or whatever service you may have and you're thinking, oh, yeah, it's great to tell you that or it's easy for us to say that go out and just test it. But maybe you don't have these connections.

Well, if you just go and Google some networks, you can already find people who can probably help you. And the best way to start is, for example, if you, I don't know, you have a service, then you can offer it for free for somebody. For example, try my service, you know, for, I don't know, one day or for a few hours and just give me your honest feedback, right? How do you feel?

And same goes with the products. So just go out there and just offer that for free if you get, you know, some feedback. And then you can get also social proof. Yep, which is very much needed, especially now where there's a huge trust issue, I would say, in the marketplace because nobody trusts nobody.

Let's be honest. You don't trust the phone calls. There's scammers. You don't trust emails.

Too overwhelming. I love scammers. Also scammers. Social media again too overwhelming And you know algorithms just don show you enough And so on And also people are leaving social media which is a huge thing right now What we have been, you know, what we see in practice as well.

Yeah. So just put yourself out there and go out there and seek for these people who can really, you know, provide some valuable feedback. Yeah. And if you don't, for example, have that authority in that local market or that export market, Then I think another great tip is to, you know, borrow it.

So either you go like co-host event together with someone, you know, for example, what we did with the Latvian Chamber of Commerce so that, you know, Latvian Chamber of Commerce has that authority among Latvian businesses. And when you go there, then you automatically also like get that authority because you are, you know, at a legit place and doing an actual thing. So collaboration, definitely an important thing to remember here. First, you should provide value, right?

So if you don't have this value, then it's harder. True. So you should first start building that. And again, it circles back to the problem, right?

You should first understand what is the problem in the marketplace or what is the pain point for the specific Docker group or groups that you are after yourself with your products and services. So with an expert, I would say it's pretty much the same as your own market. Of course, you have this, you know your own market better. And with the expert, you just first start to getting to know the marketplace and the people and their pain points and the problems.

And then you start, you know, putting yourself out there. But pretty much the journey is still the same. You copy and paste everything you do in your local. No, please don't do that.

Because people are still different. There are cultural differences for sure. And also what happens, yeah, it's very easy to, let's say, translate with AI, but a lot of mess can happen. I know it happened in Estonia, but I don't know if we have a good example in English to add here.

Yeah, I mean, AI can give you like the correct translation of words, but sometimes it totally misses the context. Yeah, and that could be very bad. Yeah, and also this like cultural aspect, for example, in some cultures that are more different, then it may be even not perceived the right way if you are going there, but they may want to have like someone from their culture to like represent that idea. So again do your research and understand for example how well that export market I don know takes English speaking you know pitches and companies and so on And maybe you need to have like more of a presence first like a local team who can really be like the face of it and you can just be you know secretly behind it Yeah that a good point because on that event in Latvia what we did different companies shared their marketing mistakes experiences.

And that is quite important that came out that for one company who is in the tourism sector themselves, they were not able to enter a new market without having their own person there. And the target market was Japan. So it might be maybe easier, let's say, with a country next to your country, which is more close to you in culture and everything. But if you go, let's say, from the States to Japan or from Europe to Japan, it's a different story for sure.

Exactly. You should have your own men there. or women yeah okay anything else we want to add i'm just checking with uh when it comes to the exporting and mistakes of course the legal aspect also that you should keep in mind and what was the experience that we got from there was that you shouldn't go for the expensive consultants right because there's a lot of things you can do you know through a this target market official channels So you might end up paying, I don't know, 50,000 for having a patented brand name for the consultant, or you might find another way through the official channels yourself.

So just be very mindful and aware of what kind of help do you actually need and what are the official channels that can pretty much help you with the same things. Yeah. And I would say that another tip that came out of all of those presentations was to hurry slowly, because if you jump right into action, then of course you're going to make mistakes anyway. If it's like a new thing, you haven't tried before, it's part of the journey to make mistakes.

but just some mistakes can be more expensive than others and if you hurry slowly and actually focus on like research and getting that network like established first it's going to be a lot easier than having to you know like go all in then have to change everything rebrand everything and and there's a lot of mess that can happen if you're too too hasty to jump into action yes so know your audience and make sure to connect with the right people, with the right organizations, do your homework and hear slowly.

Exactly. Thank you for tuning in and we will continue this discussion inside the Powerful Makris Hub. Thank you. Take care.

Bye.