business plan for market expansion

Business Expansion Planning: A Step-by-Step Guide to Success

• Post author By awesome
• Post date November 26, 2023

Business expansion planning involves developing strategies and initiatives to grow a company’s operations, market presence, and profitability.

It includes assessing market opportunities, setting growth objectives, and outlining steps to enter new markets or expand existing ones.

Expansion Plan Essentials

Understanding expansion.

Businesses must grow to survive. Expansion is not just beneficial; it’s necessary. This growth can take many forms. Companies might spread geographically, broaden their product or service lines, or target new customer demographics as part of their business expansion strategy , incorporating growth strategies into their business expansion plan and business growth plans.

Technological advancements have changed the game. They make expansion not only easier but also more efficient, offering a significant advantage for growth strategies to increase through a focused growth strategy . With digital tools, businesses can reach new markets and expand their customer base without the hefty costs of physical setup, using online surveys to boost sales.

Importance of Planning

Expansion comes with its risks. Planning plays a critical role in minimizing these dangers. It’s about laying down a roadmap for where the business wants to go, focusing on growth plans, market development, and the mission of the new venture, and how it intends to get there.

Effective planning ensures resources are allocated wisely. It also sets realistic timelines for achieving expansion milestones. Most importantly, planning aligns expansion efforts, including business growth plans, product development, diversification, and budget considerations, with the company’s overarching goals. Without this alignment in small businesses, growth could lead the new venture or company astray rather than toward greater success, despite the funding.

Key Themes and Strategies

When planning for expansion , several core themes such as business growth, resources, existing business structure, and embarking on a new venture emerge as vital. Innovation keeps a business competitive and appealing to customers. Market research provides insights into where and how to expand effectively, forming a crucial part of the business expansion strategy, business expansion plan, business growth plan, and overall business plan. Engaging with customers helps tailor a business growth plan for small businesses and new ventures, ensuring expansion efforts meet real needs outlined in the business plan.

Strategies for successful expansion vary widely but often include forming partnerships, pursuing acquisitions, or fostering organic growth within the company, focusing on new venture strategies and a solid business plan, especially for small businesses mindful of costs. The choice depends on the company’s specific situation, growth plan, and goals, considering the costs of the new venture.

Flexibility and adaptability are crucial in strategy formulation. Markets change, new competitors emerge, and customer preferences evolve. A rigid plan may quickly become obsolete. Businesses need to be ready to adjust their strategies and growth plan in response to these changes, considering costs.

Research Fundamentals

Market analysis.

To identify expansion opportunities for a business growth plan, a thorough market analysis is crucial and a fundamental need for any business plan. This involves studying current market trends, understanding customer demands, and identifying potential barriers to entry for the business expansion plan, business plan, and business growth plan, as they are essential needs. Such an analysis helps businesses plan and pinpoint the need for the most lucrative markets for expansion.

They must use reliable data sources to grasp how market trends can influence their operations as part of their business growth plan, business expansion plan, and overall business plan, highlighting the need for such data. It’s also vital to recognize the dynamics of supply and demand, need, business growth plan, business expansion plan, and business plan within these markets. By doing so, companies can avoid overcrowded markets and instead focus on those with high growth potential as part of their business expansion plan, aligning with their overall business plan.

Competitor Insights

Understanding what competitors are doing can unveil gaps in the market and opportunities for differentiation, business expansion, and refinement of the business plan. Analyzing competitors isn’t just about knowing their products but also their business model, customer service, marketing strategies, and plan. This insight is key to carving out a unique position in new markets for business expansion.

Strategies such as offering superior quality products, innovative features, or better customer service can help differentiate from competitors. Continuous monitoring of competitor activities is essential for business expansion even after entering a new market. It ensures that the business remains competitive and can adapt quickly to any changes.

Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is invaluable for guiding expansion directions and product development. Methods like surveys, focus groups, and social media monitoring can provide a wealth of information on customer preferences and pain points, crucial for business expansion.

This feedback allows businesses to tailor their offerings to meet customer needs more effectively, thereby improving satisfaction and loyalty. It’s a direct line to understanding what works well and what needs improvement from the customer’s perspective.

Setting Objectives

Defining goals.

For a business aiming to expand, setting clear, long-term goals is crucial. These goals serve as the roadmap for all future actions. They must resonate with the company’s mission and core values to ensure that every step taken is in the right direction. This alignment not only fosters a sense of purpose within the organization but also ensures that the expansion efforts are sustainable and meaningful.

Goals do more than just guide decision-making; they inspire and direct the team. By understanding what the business aims to achieve, employees can channel their efforts towards these objectives. This clarity prevents misdirection and keeps everyone motivated towards achieving common targets.

Measurable Objectives

The concept of SMART goals —Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound—plays a pivotal role in planning for expansion. For each phase of growth, setting SMART objectives ensures that progress can be accurately tracked and evaluated. These measurable objectives are essential for identifying when adjustments are needed and celebrating milestones along the journey.

Examples of measurable objectives might include increasing revenue by 20% within two years or entering three new markets within eighteen months. Such precise targets allow businesses to monitor their success in real-time and make data-driven decisions.

Choosing Expansion Methods

Market penetration.

To boost market share in existing markets, companies often enhance their marketing efforts and improve their products. They focus on making their offerings more appealing to current customers and attracting those from competitors. This approach ensures a stronger foothold before venturing into new territories.

Deepening market penetration offers significant benefits. It allows businesses to maximize their potential within familiar grounds, reducing risks associated with unknown markets. Strategies such as pricing adjustments , targeted promotions, and exceptional customer service play pivotal roles in enhancing market penetration. These elements not only attract new customers but also foster loyalty among existing ones.

Market Development

Entering new markets or segments requires careful planning and consideration. The success of market development hinges on thorough market research and an understanding of local nuances. Identifying the right segment that aligns with your product is crucial.

Market research sheds light on consumer behavior, preferences, and potential barriers in new territories. Overcoming challenges like cultural differences and regulatory hurdles is essential for successful entry. Strategies include adapting marketing messages to resonate with local audiences and ensuring compliance with local laws.

Product Development

Innovation plays a key role in developing new products or services that meet emerging needs in the market. Listening to customer feedback and conducting market research are fundamental steps in guiding product development effectively.

The process involves testing and refining new offerings before launching them fully into the market. This iterative process ensures that the final product meets customer expectations and has a higher chance of success upon release.

Diversification

Diversification involves expanding into new markets with entirely new products or services. It’s a strategy that carries both risks and rewards but can lead to significant growth if executed well.

The benefits of diversification include spreading risk across different markets and opportunities for increased revenue streams. However, it requires careful consideration of how these new ventures align with the company’s core competencies. Successful diversification stories often highlight the importance of strategic planning, innovation, and adaptability.

Developing a Strategy

Strategy formulation.

Creating a growth strategy involves more than just envisioning where your business will stand in the future. It requires a detailed plan that covers market entry, product development, and effective growth tactics. The key is to build a strategy that leverages your company’s strengths while seizing available market opportunities. This approach ensures that the expansion efforts are not only ambitious but also grounded in reality.

A solid business plan always includes room for flexibility. Markets can shift and unforeseen challenges may arise. Incorporating adaptability into your strategy allows your business to navigate these changes without losing sight of its goals. It’s about preparing for the unexpected while staying focused on growth.

Actionable Steps

Once the expansion strategy is laid out, breaking it down into actionable steps is crucial. This process involves setting clear milestones that guide the business towards its objectives. Each step should have assigned responsibilities and strict deadlines to ensure progress is measurable and accountable.

Regular reviews of progress against these milestones are essential. They offer an opportunity to adjust the plan in response to real-world outcomes and insights gained along the way. This iterative process keeps the strategy dynamic, allowing for course corrections that align with both internal developments and external market shifts.

Expansion Plan Template

Template benefits.

Using a business expansion plan template simplifies the planning process immensely. It acts like a roadmap, ensuring that no critical aspect of your expansion is overlooked. Templates bring structure and focus, making it easier to identify and address key areas of growth and potential challenges.

A template’s greatest strength lies in its ability to maintain consistency and clarity throughout the document. This uniformity is crucial when sharing your vision with stakeholders and team members. It ensures everyone is on the same page, which can significantly enhance collaboration and decision-making processes.

Moreover, a well-crafted business expansion plan template serves as an excellent communication tool. It allows you to present your growth strategies clearly and concisely, making it easier for others to understand your objectives. This clarity is vital for securing buy-in from investors, partners, and employees alike.

Customizing the business expansion plan template to fit your specific needs is key. Start by reflecting on the strategy developed in the previous section. Then, integrate those strategic goals into the template. This ensures that your growth plan aligns with your overall business objectives.

The business landscape is always changing, so it’s important to regularly update your plan. Keep an eye on market conditions, competitor actions, and internal performance metrics. Adjustments may be necessary to stay on course or seize new opportunities.

Best practices for utilizing the template effectively include involving stakeholders early in the planning process. Their feedback can provide invaluable insights that might otherwise be missed. Also, encourage open discussions about the plan’s content and direction. This inclusive approach fosters a sense of ownership among team members and stakeholders, which can drive more effective implementation of the growth plan.

Professional Assistance

When to seek help.

Business expansion is a complex journey. It often requires more than just an expansion plan template . There are times when external advice becomes invaluable. This is especially true in scenarios involving new markets or regulatory landscapes that are unfamiliar.

Seeking help from experts in legal, financial, and market research fields can provide clarity. They offer insights that are hard to come by internally. Their expertise becomes crucial when navigating complex markets or regulatory environments. For example, expanding into a new country might require understanding local laws and consumer behavior. Here, legal and market research consultants can make a significant difference.

The benefits of leveraging external expertise are manifold. They bring a fresh perspective to your expansion strategy. Also, they can identify potential pitfalls before they become problematic. This foresight can save time and resources in the long run.

Finding Experts

Finding the right experts or consultants for business expansion requires diligence. Start by looking for professionals with industry experience relevant to your business’s sector. A track record of successful expansions in similar industries is a good indicator of their capability.

References and testimonials play a critical role in evaluating potential experts. They provide real-world evidence of the consultant’s ability to deliver results. Don’t hesitate to ask for case studies or contact former clients directly. This step ensures you get an unbiased view of their services.

Networking events and professional associations related to your industry can also be valuable resources. They often have directories of members who offer consulting services tailored to businesses looking to expand.

Selecting the right consultant involves assessing their understanding of your business goals and how well they align with your vision for expansion. Ensure they have a clear grasp of what success looks like for your project.

SEO for Expansion Planning

Keyword research.

Keyword research is vital for tailoring your online presence to new markets. It helps identify what potential customers are searching for in different regions. Tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush offer insights into search trends and competition levels.

Effective keyword research involves analyzing search volume, relevance, and the competitiveness of keywords. This analysis informs content creation, ensuring it meets the needs of your target audience. By understanding local search behaviors, businesses can craft their growth plans more effectively.

Keywords also guide marketing strategies. They help in optimizing website content, blog posts, and social media campaigns. This tailored approach ensures higher visibility among desired audiences.

Content Creation

Creating content that resonates with new markets is crucial for business expansion. Strategies include using local language nuances and addressing region-specific interests. This relevance boosts engagement and fosters trust with your audience.

Localizing content goes beyond translation. It involves adapting cultural references, humor, and societal norms to suit local tastes. Such efforts show respect for the target market’s culture, enhancing brand perception.

Content serves as a tool for building brand awareness and credibility in unfamiliar territories. Through informative blog posts, engaging videos, and insightful social media content, businesses can establish a strong presence in new markets. Quality content positions your brand as an authority in its field, encouraging customer loyalty and advocacy.

Monitoring Progress

Key performance indicators.

To gauge the effectiveness of business expansion, setting clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is crucial. These metrics serve as a roadmap, guiding businesses towards their expansion goals. For instance, monitoring market share growth reveals how well a company is competing in new regions. Similarly, tracking customer acquisition rates can show how appealing the business is to its new target audience. Another vital KPI is revenue increases, which directly reflect the financial success of expansion efforts.

By analyzing these indicators, businesses can pinpoint areas of success and those needing improvement. This analysis allows for data-driven decisions, ensuring resources are allocated efficiently. It also helps in fine-tuning marketing strategies, potentially informed by SEO insights from the previous planning phase.

Adjusting Strategies

The path to successful expansion is rarely linear. It demands an openness to strategy adjustments based on performance data and market feedback. Recognizing this need for flexibility ensures that a business remains competitive and relevant. Continuous learning from both successes and setbacks fosters an environment of innovation and resilience.

Systematically reviewing expansion strategies at regular intervals plays a key role here. It involves assessing whether current tactics align with overall business objectives and making necessary changes if they do not. This process might include revisiting SEO strategies to better target emerging markets or adjusting product offerings based on customer feedback.

Crafting a foolproof business expansion plan is no small feat, but armed with the essentials, research fundamentals, and a clear set of objectives, you’re well on your way. Whether it’s choosing the right expansion methods, developing a solid strategy, or leveraging professional assistance and SEO tactics, each step is a building block towards your goal. Remember, monitoring progress is key to adapting and thriving. Your journey doesn’t end with a plan in hand; it’s just the beginning. Dive deep into each aspect we’ve covered, apply them diligently, and watch your business reach new heights.

Ready to take the leap? Start by revisiting your expansion plan template and refine it with the insights you’ve gained. Your ambition paired with a well-crafted strategy is unstoppable. Keep pushing boundaries, stay ahead of the curve, and remember, we’re here to help every step of the way. Let’s make your expansion dreams a reality.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the essentials of an expansion plan.

An effective expansion plan includes a thorough market analysis, clear objectives, a detailed strategy, and a realistic budget. It’s the foundation for successful growth.

How important is research in business expansion planning?

Research is crucial. It helps you understand the market, identify opportunities, and minimize risks. Without it, your expansion efforts may be misguided.

What should be my first step in choosing an expansion method?

Start by assessing your business’s strengths and market opportunities. This will guide you in selecting the most suitable method for your expansion.

Can you develop a strategy without professional help?

Yes, but consulting professionals can provide valuable insights and experience that might be missed otherwise. They can help refine your strategy to ensure success.

Is there a template for creating an expansion plan?

Yes, many templates exist to guide you through structuring your plan effectively. They ensure you don’t overlook critical elements.

How does SEO contribute to business expansion planning?

SEO increases your online visibility, helping you reach a broader audience more efficiently. It’s essential for attracting new customers during expansion.

Why is monitoring progress important in business expansion?

Monitoring allows you to track the effectiveness of your strategies and make necessary adjustments. It’s key to achieving your expansion goals.

• Tags Business Growth and Development , Consulting and Coaching Services , Innovative Business Practices , Leadership and Management , Marketing and Sales Strategies , Specialized Industry Strategies , Technology and Digital Transformation

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Home » Blog » Small Business Growth » Free Business Expansion Plan Template

By Barbara Davidson

Posted on March 23, 2020

Free Business Expansion Plan Template

Business plans are crucial tools that help you budget, adapt and run your small business. They can even be used to secure funding or recruit a new partner. Looking to open a new location? A business expansion plan can help you think about what you need to get there.

Every business is unique, but there are a few essentials to include in a business expansion plan. Whether you accompany your proposal with an elaborate presentation or keep it minimal, a business expansion plan should outline steps that you’ll take to facilitate and support the growth of your business, from securing capital to an updated marketing strategy in a new territory.

What to Include and How to Write Your Business Expansion Plan

Here are the fundamentals you should cover in your own expansion plan and how to go about writing them:

Executive Summary

An executive summary is a concise statement that provides a high-level rundown of your business, your expansion and how you intend to achieve that vision. It should briefly highlight crucial areas like:

• Growth targets
• Projected and current operating costs
• Funding needs
• Marketing approach

Provide as much detail as necessary for someone reading only your summary to get the gist of your overall expansion strategy. It may help to complete this section last.

What You Do and What You Offer

Discuss what makes your business unique:

• What do you provide for your customers that other companies don’t?
• In what areas do you shine?

Use this space to communicate your business’s value propositions. You should also list your full line of products and services here.

Executive and Management Team

Identify any key players and stakeholders responsible for overseeing the expansion. You may also want to include your company controller/accountant, account manager or any consultant advising your activity.

Plan of Expansion

Now that you’ve laid the groundwork, this is where you detail your expansion proposal. Describe your goal and what you need to achieve your vision. Think in terms of planning, executing and maturing your expansion. Identify what or where you intend to expand:

• Are you releasing a new product?
• Do you plan to open a new branch?
• Does your expansion involve additional staffing needs ?

Make sure to cover:

• How you intend to support your expansion
• Whether you’ll need additional staff, capital or resources for your plan
• Details about your new product or service, if applicable
• Goals and key performance indicators (KPIs)
• New regulations or legislation, if applicable

Marketing Analysis

Identify and analyze your competitors in your new area of expansion. Consider what makes your competitors successful, their advertising strategies, prices, industry outlook and what opportunities you might have to reach new, niche audiences.

Marketing Strategy

Outline the steps you’ll take to achieve the goals you’ve laid out. Identify your value propositions, any forms of advertising you plan to use, your key customer demographics and where/how you plan to sell your service or product. While you may not have fully developed concepts, you can include any marketing deliverables you intend to use in your strategy.

Financial History, Analysis and Forecasts

In this section, you’ll need a variety of financial documents, like sales reports, balance sheets, profit & loss statements and future forecasts to support your expansion plan. If you’re new to business bookkeeping or accounting, it may be a good idea to hire a professional who can help you prepare this portion of your plan. Use visuals like charts and tables to display complex data when possible. Potential investors, lenders and partners will likely pay particular attention to your finances, so make sure to double-check that everything is accurate and up-to-date.

Your expenses will fluctuate over the course of an expansion, so it’s a good idea to include financial projections for up to five years. With your previous data and forecasts, you should be able to estimate what you’ll need to run your business, including whether or not you need expansion capital to fund any new activity.

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How to Plan a Business Expansion Using Your Business Plan

Rob Stephens

8 min. read

Updated October 29, 2023

Businesses start when their founders see a need for a product or service that they can provide. Businesses expand for the same reasons. You may grow to tap new markets or increase sales in your current markets. 

A good business plan is critical to starting a successful business. Creating a plan for business expansions is no less essential. And using your business plan template to develop an expansion plan increases your odds of success and allows you to avoid bad investments.

While it’s called a business plan, it can be written and utilized to successfully enter a new market, launch a product, or weigh the potential of adding an employee.

Throughout my 25-year career, I’ve written business plans or have been a part of teams developing plans for business expansions. Here are some best practices you can implement, that I have learned first-hand.

• How to use your business plan as a checklist

A business plan’s table of contents serves as a checklist of all the aspects to consider when expanding your business. It starts with a high-level strategy and continues all the way to market analysis, sales plans, operations planning, and financial modeling.

You don’t create a new mission or vision statement when planning for new investments. Instead, your plan shows how the new investment supports your existing values, mission, and vision. Quickly scratch out a business plan, even employing a lean planning model , for your expansion like it’s a new business. 

You then clearly outline the strategy for your expansion and develop the steps for executing that strategy. The following standard business plan sections are essential to your expansion plans.

• Executive summary: This short summary quickly informs your employees, lenders, and investors about the nature and benefits of the expansion. It enhances communication and forces you to clarify the key aspects of the expansion.
• Operations, marketing, and personnel plans: You’ll outline the details of what operational costs, marketing budget, and additional positions you’ll need for your expansion to be a success. This will also be the roadmap for your existing employees to execute that plan.
• Financial projections: You’ll need to forecast how the expansion will improve future profitability. Initial versions may show you need to make changes to your plans to reach an acceptable return. Your projections will estimate the amount of capital you’ll need for the expansion.
• Pausing to ensure profitability

Business owners and managers make optimistic assumptions about a project’s success when they are emotionally committed to an idea. They readily accept anecdotal evidence of success. The decision-making error of confirmation bias causes them to accept facts that support their beliefs while ignoring facts to the contrary.

Put simply, they get sloppy in their rush to “seize the opportunity.” As the saying goes, haste makes waste. The rush to claim perceived profits wastes cash .

Expanding to new regions and rolling out new product lines are complicated endeavors. Thinking through a business plan for these initiatives provides critical analysis of the feasibility of the plan. The plan then serves as the implementation roadmap for executing your expansion.

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Methods for testing if your expansion makes financial sense

There are two ways to prevent you from executing on a plan that hasn’t been thoroughly thought through. 

The first is preparing a thorough plan to submit or pitch in order to get cash for the expansion. Lenders and equity investors are less emotionally involved in the plan as people within the company. They’ll easily tell you if they think it’s a well thought out endeavor by way of choosing to or not to fund you.

The second way is to appoint a “devil’s advocate” for the expansion plan. This is crucial when there is little discussion and little disagreement about a plan. As Patton said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn’t thinking.” Appoint at least one person to identify weaknesses or unanswered questions.

• A business plan for a new employee in a new market

Analyzing a new region or a new employee is very similar to starting a new business. You use the same business plan components you used when starting your business when planning for and making these other major business decisions.

For example, I was the Program Manager for a group of investment advisors at a financial institution that had banking branches in a rapidly growing region. One of my advisors in another region was simultaneously servicing their own region along with this one. I needed to determine whether we could profitably hire an additional advisor to properly manage this emerging marker to allow the current advisor more time to manage their own.

By walking through a business plan outline, it helped me research the market, identify the characteristics of a target candidate, and calculate the financial feasibility of placing an advisor in the market. To be honest, the plan showed we had limited opportunities. 

However, the plan identified the few options that would be successful in this market. Doing so helped us avoid mistakes that could have cost us substantial time and money.

• Planning for new regions

The first investor you always need to convince with a business plan is yourself. This is even more true for plans for new locations and regions. You’re deciding whether to invest your company’s money and time into these new locations. Once again, the components of a startup business plan are useful for these expansions.

In this case, your planning and analyzing the allocation of resources and capital. Resources committed to the new location aren’t available for other opportunities. So if your company says “yes” to this expansion plan, it must say no to another. 

Business plans for new companies answer the question, “Should I start this company?” Plans for new locations answer the question, “Is this the best investment of my company’s resources?” You’re comparing the return on the new location to the return of your other options.

• Mission, vision, and values

I was the CFO of a community health clinic system, and we were quickly growing with scarce resources. Our mission, as defined by the community partners that formed us, was to provide medical, dental, and mental health services.

We ran a transitional housing program that was weakly linked to our mission. The transitional housing, while an admirable initiative, was funneling resources away from our primary mission, so we decided to exit the program.

If we had done a business plan before we began transitional housing, we could have identified how it didn’t support our mission. A thorough plan could have shown us the time and financial commitment needed to run the program, as well as how to invest our scarce resources better.

• Avoiding losses through planning

Not all plans are executed. That’s success, not failure.

The weaknesses of a plan usually surfaces during financial analysis or operations planning. That’s where I’ve repeatedly found problems that weren’t necessarily obvious at first. 

This typically occurred with new products. Financial analysis often showed how the new product or pricing caused profits of other products or existing products to drop. Operations planning would sometimes project production costs well above initial estimates. If interested, I explain this exact scenario in more detail in an article I did on pricing analysis . 

Saying no to a project after careful planning is a success, not a failure. You now know what not to do, which is valuable all the same. Avoiding mistakes prevents wasting time and money.

• Integrating the project plan into your full business plan

After you’ve gone through the process of developing and scrutinizing every inch of your plan and found it to be viable , it’s time to execute. And that means integrating it into your master business plan. 

You’ll need to identify how the expansion plan will pull away resources from other parts of your business plan. Additionally, you’ll need to address the addition on your budget sheet and forecasts, as well as determine which projects have priority for these resources.

Expansions often decrease profits before increasing them and require large initial investments. The investment expenses precede the revenues they will ultimately produce and may lead to cash or profitability constraints . Phase in your plan slowly to dampen the impact on your cash flow and maintain profitability.

Remember your stakeholders’ interests

I worked at a financial institution that developed a plan for remodeling all existing branches and building new branches. We were committed to the concept but repeatedly pushed back parts of the plan to maintain a return on assets that was acceptable to our board of directors.

Marketing messages and the interests of your current audience will also need to be prioritized. Will marketing for the expansion dilute marketing of your brand or other products? Do you need to further segment out your established target market?

It can be very easy to promote too much or send the wrong message when launching an expansion. Determine how you’ll approach your marketing efforts to ensure that you don’t overwhelm or deter your customers.

• From concept to execution

Planning doesn’t occur in a straight line from idea to execution. It’s much messier than that and requires difficult conversations and compromises. Not all ideas are good, but a planning process that identifies bad investments can lead to success, even if you decide not to expand.

Revisit and update your plan before deciding to marry expansions with existing operations. You can easily use the business planning process to evaluate opportunities and identify your best path forward. All that work will then pay off as you quickly execute a comprehensive and well-coordinated expansion plan.

Rob Stephens is the Founder of CFO Perspective, where he provides financial consulting and education to small businesses. Rob has a 20-year career that includes serving as CFO for two banks and a health clinic system.

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Global business

Market Expansion: How to Create a Strategy that Drives Global Growth

Market expansion is a growth strategy that aims to make a product or service available in new markets when existing ones get saturated. A market expansion strategy starts with analyzing existing and future channels of distribution and concludes with adopting measures to increase reach and sales in the markets of interest.

To help you generate a market expansion strategy that works for your business, this guide will take you through the concept in detail, provide actionable steps and tips to get started, and give you examples to inspire you.

There are many approaches to market expansion

Both domestic and international markets offer expansion opportunities. Expansion happens when existing markets reach their peak and you need to identify new markets.

As a result, market expansion should lead to a growth in the consumer base for the business. This, in turn, can lead to an increase in revenues and profits for the company.

Market expansion can take 3 forms:

Adding a product or service to the portfolio

If customer or user feedback is good , the existing offer can be expanded to capture more revenue from the existing and potentially new audiences. Adding related products or value-adding products or services can serve as a viable growth strategy.

Launching existing products or services internationally

If the product or service has been widely adopted in the current markets, it indicates that the quality, usability, and necessity are proven. As a result, introducing the product or service into foreign markets globally can serve as a reliable growth strategy.

Adapting existing products or services for wider application

If client or user feedback generates requests for specific features, functionalities, integrations, or added value, it is an indicator that adding new features and capabilities should grow market reach. Products and services can also be expanded by finding new demographic segments or use cases for the products.

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Planning market expansion

A plan for market expansion needs to consider the potential of new markets, the company’s ability to enter those markets, and what it would take to be successful.

Market expansion starts with research. There might already exist indicators for growth in new markets based on customer or partner feedback. This can be of essential help in narrowing the scope of research. If there is no feedback to start with, then market research —using surveys, focus groups, or narrow launch tests—offers a good starting point.

The research includes the analysis of potential new sectors, as well as geographic or economic regions that might embrace the product or service. This evaluation of beneficial factors and possible cross-sector application of the product or service will lead to a clear picture of the biggest growth potential.

The analysis would also include a SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, and threats) analysis with competitors in the new markets of interest. This analysis helps identify risk-benefit ratios for investment and logistical planning.

When deciding which markets are fit for expansion, an analysis of existing markets can serve as a benchmark. This would bring insights into the why and how peaks or near peaks have been reached in the existing market. Based on these insights, businesses can take measures to ensure the growth of the present consumer base is sustainable and successful.

Forecasting

With the results from analyzing the existing and potential new markets, cost-benefit, risk-benefit, and growth forecasting should take place as well. These final calculations, as well as the simulation of possible outcomes, offer an overview of how big an investment the preferred market expansion would require and how to optimize ROI .

The results should clearly outline if market expansion can be achieved by branching out into different geographic regions, or if the portfolio needs to be extended or adapted. With this information, a strategy for market expansion is built and a decision to move forward (or not) can be made.

Tactical considerations

After researching new markets, analyzing existing markets, and deciding on a suitable market expansion strategy, a diligent look at the tactical requirements for the planned expansion becomes necessary. Here is a list of questions that can help you recognize risk areas, growth curves, and timelines to take into account before putting the plan into action:

• Is the business well established in the current markets?
• Is there demand in other markets or sectors that you could cover?
• Does the planned expansion require taking on debt?
• What are the biggest risks of failing in the new market?
• Has there been steady continuous growth with the existing products and services?
• Are you ready for slower growth curves with stable revenue promises?
• Which existing partnerships could support your expansion efforts?
• Which legal frameworks and business practices need to be taken into consideration for the market in question?
• Are new hires required?
• What is the long-term cost-benefit ratio?

The answers to these tactical questions will provide a detailed plan for entering a new market.

Choosing and implementing a winning market expansion strategy

The above insights and ideas for businesses that want to expand globally are just a starting point. Before taking the plunge, it’s essential to have a smart and solid strategy in place that will help reduce costs, mitigate risks, and tap into new business opportunities.

What is a market expansion strategy?

A market expansion strategy is a detailed plan—it can take the form of a document, spreadsheet, or even a presentation—that outlines a business’s goals and objectives for entering new markets. It can also include a financial plan, team planning, and detailed market research.

The main benefit of creating a market expansion strategy is that it helps businesses make informed decisions about which markets to enter, when to enter them, and how to go about doing so. However, there are other benefits too, which span from financial to operational.

Benefits of a market expansion strategy

Going headfirst into a new market can quickly turn a lucrative opportunity into an expensive defeat. A market expansion strategy can help mitigate these risks by minimizing the costs of entry, taking into account potential threats and obstacles, and planning for any possible setbacks.

Cost reductions

The first and most obvious benefit of a market expansion strategy is that it can reduce the costs of pursuing new markets. By planning ahead, businesses can avoid expensive mistakes, wasted resources, and missed opportunities.

If a business offers several products or services, a market expansion strategy will help it focus on ones that are most likely to be successful in the markets it is targeting. This can save on research and development costs, marketing expenses, and other overhead costs.

Risk mitigation

Another benefit of a market expansion strategy is that it can help businesses prevent unnecessary mistakes. By taking the time to plan carefully, businesses can circumvent potential pitfalls, unforeseen obstacles, and risky decisions that could lead to costly failures.

The sunk-cost fallacy is a prime example of how not having a market expansion strategy can lead to poor decision-making. This fallacy is a natural human tendency to invest more in something once we’ve put money into it, out of the mistaken belief that if you have invested time, money, or resources into something, you are more likely to see it through to success, regardless of whether or not it is actually working.

A market expansion strategy provides a clear roadmap for when to cut your losses and move on.

More business opportunities

A market expansion strategy can also help businesses identify hidden opportunities. By taking a comprehensive and systematic approach to market research, businesses can uncover new markets that they may have otherwise overlooked.

It’s better to find out about potential markets early on rather than after a business has invested time, money, and resources into them. A market expansion strategy can help businesses avoid this pitfall by revealing potential markets before they’re missed.

How to create a strong market expansion strategy

Now that we’ve gone over the benefits of a market expansion strategy, it’s time to discuss how to actually create one that will help you win a new market.

Define goals and objectives

The first step is to define your overall goals and objectives for entering new markets. Do you want to accelerate the company’s growth rate? Prevent competitors from capturing market share? Reduce costs by setting up in cheaper markets? Be specific—you need measurable success criteria.

Once you have a clear vision for what you want, the next step is to develop objectives for each of the goals you’ve outlined. How much market share do you want to capture? How much revenue do you need to bring in each month? The more specific you are, the easier it will be to track progress and make adjustments as needed.

Build a strong team

A market expansion strategy requires a team effort. Ideally, the team member responsible for creating the strategy should be someone in a cross-functional role who has strong relationships with leaders and is familiar enough with all parts of your business.

Getting buy-in from the executive team to then sell the idea throughout the company can be a challenge, but it’s essential for success. It’s also important to remember that some people may have doubts or concerns, and it’s your responsibility to address these head-on.

Conduct market research

The next step is to conduct market research. How much would customers be willing to pay? What cultural differences may influence consumer behavior? What messaging should be used in the new market? These are just a few of the many questions that need to be answered during market research.

The market research process acts as a localization discovery phase, helping you understand what matters to local consumers and how you can best connect with them. By gathering as much information as possible, you’ll be able to create a strategy that is tailored to the needs of the new market.

Create a financial plan

Once you have conducted your market research, it’s time to create a detailed financial plan. You can start by identifying all expenses. Some examples common for market expansion include:

• Staffing costs
• Market research
• Product development
• Marketing and advertising
• Sales and distribution
• Customer support
• Overhead costs (e.g., office space, equipment, tools)

Then, create a sales forecast for the first few years after expansion. This will help you determine how much revenue you can expect and when you can start to turn a profit.

Once you have all of this information, it’s time to create a budget. Make sure to include a buffer for unexpected costs and unforeseen challenges.

Learn from your competitors

The next step is to learn from your competitors. By understanding their strategies, you can better anticipate any obstacles or threats they may pose. Some things to investigate include:

• What market segments are they targeting?
• What messages are they using to attract customers?
• What feedback have they received from customers?

There’s no reason to make the same mistakes that others have made before you, so take the time to learn from the best (and the worst, too).

Integrate localization from the start

Last but not least, it’s important to integrate localization from the very beginning of your market entry process. Note that localization isn’t limited to the language of your products or services—it can also include cultural aspects, such as how products are designed or how customer support is delivered.

There are several types of localization that businesses should be aware of, including:

• Product localization , which doesn’t only involve translating software or website content, but also implementing localization-aware development practices.
• Marketing localization , which refers to the process of creating content that is relevant and engaging for local audiences.
• Sales localization , which involves not only making sure sales materials are translated, but also training sales staff on how to properly interact with local customers, etc.

Regardless of your specific localization needs and requirements, using cloud-based localization software will enable you to expand the global footprint of your business in the most effective way possible. A translation management system, for example, can automate manual and repetitive translation tasks and manage multilingual content projects from submission to publishing.

This can free up valuable resources for your organization to stay focused on what really matters to you and spend more time innovating your product or building your global brand.

Example of a successful market expansion: Netflix

Netflix is a great example of a company that has successfully expanded into new markets. Founded in 1997, Netflix began its international expansion in 2010, and today it is available in over 190 countries .

In order to tap into these new markets, Netflix invested heavily in localization, translating its content into more than 60 languages. By carefully localizing its user interface and tailoring its marketing campaigns, Netflix was able to provide native-feeling user experience (UX) and quickly gain a foothold in these new markets.

Netflix also invested in original content that would appeal to local audiences. In India, for example, Netflix produced an original series called “Sacred Games,” which was a huge success. Moreover, some of Netflix’s local shows, such as Lupin (France), Money Heist (Spain), and Squid Game (Korea), became worldwide hits.

Of course, not every company has the range and resources of Netflix, but the company’s success highlights how important it is to have a strong market expansion strategy. With enough planning and preparation, any business can find rich, unexpected opportunities in new markets.

Measuring the success of a market expansion strategy

Once you have created a market expansion strategy, it’s important to measure its success. This can include tracking key performance indicators (KPIs), measuring customer satisfaction, and assessing financial results. KPIs should be specific and measurable, and they should be tied to the objectives of the market expansion strategy.

For example, you might measure how much revenue a new market is generating, or how many sales representatives have been hired in a new market. Likewise, customer satisfaction should be evaluated through surveys, interviews, or focus groups.

Whatever approach you choose, make sure to track and report on your progress regularly. This will help you assess the effectiveness of your market expansion strategy and make necessary adjustments as needed.

Go forth and expand

Expanding into new markets can be a daunting task, but with the right market expansion strategy, it can also be immensely rewarding.

By following the tips in this article—such as carefully researching and planning your expansion, building a solid team, and investing in localization from the start—you’re one step closer to taking your business global.

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Want to learn how our solutions can help you unlock global opportunity? We’d be happy to show you around the Phrase Localization Platform and answer any questions you may have.

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Last updated on June 28, 2023.

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Writing a Business Growth Plan

Look ahead and plan for business growth and revenue increases.

Table of Contents

When you run a business, it’s easy to get caught in the moment and focus only on the day in front of you. However, to be truly successful, you must look ahead and plan for growth. Many business owners create a business growth plan to map out the next one or two years and pinpoint how and when revenues will increase. 

We’ll explain more about business growth plans and share strategies for writing a business growth plan that can set you on a path to success. 

What is a business growth plan?

A business growth plan outlines where a company sees itself in the next one to two years. Business owners and leaders apply a growth mindset to create plans for expansion and increased revenues.

Business growth plans should be formatted quarterly. At the end of each quarter, the company can review the business goals it achieved and missed during that period. At this point, management can revise the business growth plan to reflect the current market standing.

What to include in a business growth plan

A business growth plan focuses specifically on expansion and how you’ll achieve it. Creating a useful plan takes time, but keeping your growth efforts on track can pay off substantially.

You should include the following elements in your growth plan:

• A description of expansion opportunities
• Financial goals broken down by quarter and year
• A marketing plan that details how you’ll achieve growth
• A financial plan to determine what capital is accessible during growth
• A breakdown of your company’s staffing needs and responsibilities

How to write a business growth plan

To successfully write a business growth plan, you must do some forward-thinking and research. Here are some key steps to follow when writing your business growth plan.

1. Think ahead.

The future is always unpredictable. However, if you study your target market, your competition and your company’s past growth, you can plan for future expansion. The Small Business Administration (SBA) features a comprehensive guide to writing a business plan for growth.

2. Study other growth plans.

Before you start writing, review models from successful companies.

3. Discover opportunities for growth.

With some homework, you can determine if your expansion opportunities lie in creating new products , adding more services, targeting a new market, opening new business locations or going global, to name a few examples. Once you’ve identified your best options for growth, include them in your plan.

4. Evaluate your team.

Your plan should include an assessment of your employees and a look at staffing requirements to meet your growth objectives. By assessing your own skills and those of your employees, you can determine how much growth can be accomplished with your present team. You’ll also know when to ramp up the hiring process and what skill sets to look for in those new hires.

5. Find the capital.

Include detailed information on how you will fund expansion. Business.gov offers a guide on how to prepare funding requests and how to connect with SBA lenders.

6. Get the word out.

Growing your business requires a targeted marketing effort. Be sure to outline how you will effectively market your business to encourage growth and how your marketing efforts will evolve as you grow.

7. Ask for help.

Advice from other business owners who have enjoyed successful growth can be the ultimate tool in writing your growth plan.

8. Start writing.

Business plan software has streamlined the process of writing growth plans by providing templates you can fill in with information specific to your company and industry. Most software programs are geared toward general business plans; however, you can easily modify them to create a plan that focuses on growth. 

If you don’t have business plan software, don’t worry. You can create a business growth plan using Microsoft Word, Google Docs or a similar tool. For each growth opportunity, create the following sections: 

• What is the opportunity? Is your growth opportunity a new geographic expansion, a new product or a new customer segment? How do you know there’s an opportunity? Include your market research to demonstrate the idea’s viability.
• What factors make this opportunity valuable at this time? For example, your growth opportunity could utilize new technology, take advantage of a strategic partnership or capitalize on a consumer trend.
• What are the risk factors for this opportunity? Identify factors that may make this growth opportunity challenging to execute. For example, challenges may include the state of the overall economy, intense competition or supply chain distribution issues. What is your plan for dealing with these challenges?
• What is your marketing and sales plan? Identify the marketing efforts and sales processes that can help you seize this growth opportunity. Detail the marketing channel you’ll use ( social media marketing , print marketing), your message and promising sales ideas. For example, you could hire sales reps for a new geographic area or set up distribution deals with relevant brick-and-mortar or online retailers .
• What are the costs involved in this growth area? For example, if you add a new product, you may need to buy new manufacturing equipment and raw materials. While marketing costs are a given, remember to include incremental sales costs like commissions. Outline any economies of scale or places where your existing operations make the new growth area less expensive than a stand-alone initiative.
• How will your income, expenses and cash flow look? Project your income and expenses, and prepare a cash flow statement for the new growth area for the next three to five years. Include a break-even analysis, a sales forecast and all projected expenses to see how much the new initiative will add to the bottom line. Include how the new growth area will positively (or negatively) impact existing sales. For example, if you sell bathing suits and you decide to grow by adding cover-ups and sunglasses, you will likely sell more bathing suits. 

After completing this exercise for each growth opportunity:

• Create a summary that accounts for all growth areas for the period.
• Include summarized financial statements to see the entire picture and its impact on the company. 
• Evaluate the financing you’ll need to implement the plan, and include various options and rates. 

Why are business growth plans important?

These are some of the many reasons why business growth plans are essential:

• Market share and penetration: If your market share remains constant in a world where costs consistently increase, you’ll inevitably start recording losses instead of profits. Business growth plans help you avoid this scenario.
• Recouping early losses: Most companies lose far more than they earn in their early years. To recoup these losses, you’ll need to grow your company to a point where it can make enough revenue to pay off your debts.
• Future risk minimization: Growth plans also matter for established businesses. These companies can always stand to make their sales more efficient and become more liquid. Liquidity can come in handy if you need money to cover unexpected problems.
• Appealing to investors: For most businesses, a business growth plan’s primary purpose is to find investors . Investors want to outline your company’s plans to build sales in the coming months.
• Concrete revenue plans: Growth plans are customizable to each business and don’t have to follow a set template. However, all business growth plans must focus heavily on revenue. The plan should answer a simple question: How does your company plan to make money each quarter?

What factors impact business growth?

Consider the following crucial factors that can impact business growth:

• Leadership: To achieve your goals, you must know the ins and outs of your business processes and how external forces impact them. Without this knowledge, you can’t direct and train your team to drive your revenue, and you will experience stagnation instead of growth.
• Management: As a small business owner, you’re innately involved in management – obtaining funding, resources, and physical and digital infrastructure. Ineffective management will impact your ability to perform these duties and could hamstring your growth.
• Customer loyalty: Acquiring new customers can be five times as expensive as retaining current ones, and a 5 percent boost in customer retention can increase profits by 25 percent to 95 percent. These statistics demonstrate that customer loyalty is fundamental to business growth.

What are the four major growth strategies?

There are countless growth strategies for businesses, but only four primary types. With these growth strategies, you can determine how to build on your brand.

• Market strategy: A market strategy refers to how you plan to penetrate your target audience . This strategy isn’t intended for entering a new market or creating new products and services to boost your market share; it’s about leveraging your current offerings. For instance, can you adjust your pricing? Should you launch a new marketing campaign?
• Development strategy: This strategy means looking into ways to break your products and services into a new market. If you can’t find the growth you want in the current market, a goal could be to expand to a new market.
• Product strategy: Also known as “product development,” this strategy focuses on what new products and services you can target to your current market. How can you grow your business without entering new markets? What are your customers asking for?
• Diversification strategy: Diversification means expanding both your products and target markets. This strategy is usually best for smaller companies that have the means to be versatile with the products or services they offer and what new markets they attempt to penetrate.

Max Freedman contributed to this article.

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• Home > Blog > Small Business Success > How to Create a Business Expansion Plan
• By Kelly Hillock
• Aug 2, 2023
• 8 mins read

How to Create a Business Expansion Plan

Expanding a business is a crucial step in a company’s growth process, requiring detailed planning, goal setting, and formulating strategies. Once you discern that the time is right to broaden your business horizon , creating a comprehensive business expansion plan becomes imperative.

What is a Business Expansion Plan?

A business expansion plan is a roadmap for growing a business, encompassing well-defined goals that are realistic and achievable along with strategies to expand, market products, and improve operational efficiency. It includes a thorough understanding of the market, competition, business operations, finances, and more.

The importance of this growth plan lies in its role as a guide, navigating a business’s growth trajectory. It helps business owners identify opportunities and challenges, allocate resources effectively, and make informed decisions that align with their overall business growth aspirations.

Steps to Create a Business Expansion Plan

1. conduct market research.

Embarking on business expansion demands meticulous market research, even if you have done some preliminary groundwork. This in-depth research should include insights into the market size, key players, future market trends, industry news, customer behavior, and other significant areas. This step helps to paint a comprehensive picture of the business landscape you wish to venture into. Conducting a SWOT analysis is also crucial during this phase, as it allows you to understand your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, providing a clear picture of where your business stands and where it needs to go.

2. Define Goals and Objectives

The next step in creating a business expansion plan is to define your broad goals. These goals could vary widely, including increased sales revenue, conquering a specific market niche, addressing customer pain points, or acquiring other businesses. With your broad goals in place, the next crucial step is to refine them into SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) Goals. SMART Goals ensure your objectives are attainable, giving your team a clear direction and a sense of motivation.

What are SMART Business Goals?

SMART business goals are a strategic approach to setting objectives, ensuring they are clear and achievable. The SMART framework is an acronym that stands for:

• Questions to further elaborate your goals include: What specific market niche do I want to conquer? Which exact customer pain points am I aiming to address?
• For instance, if your broad goal is to increase sales revenue, define how much you want to improve it and in what timeframe.
• If planning to acquire a business, analyze whether it’s feasible considering your current financial position and market conditions.
• Your goal to diversify, for example, should align with the overall business vision and market trends.
• Time-bound: Every goal needs a target date to provide a sense of urgency and a deadline for focus. Think about: When can I achieve this goal? What can I do six months from now? What can I do six weeks from now?

Setting a clear timeline for achieving your goal, such as launching a new product within the next year, helps maintain momentum. Analyzing your broad goals through the prism of SMART goals will provide clarity, focus, and motivation, ensuring a purposeful approach to your business expansion plan.

3. Explore Business Expansion Strategies

Four potential strategies to consider for business expansion include market penetration, diversification, product development, and market development.

Market Penetration

Market penetration strategy aims to increase sales of existing products or services in the current market. This is achieved by attracting a larger customer base, increasing sales through existing customers, or taking market share from competitors. For example, a coffee shop could implement a loyalty program to encourage repeat purchases from existing customers.

Product Development

Product development strategy involves creating new products or improving existing ones to offer to your current market. For instance, a technology company might develop a new feature or entirely new software to offer to its existing customers.

Market Development

Market development strategy introduces your existing products or services into new markets. This could be new geographical areas, customer segments, or distribution channels. For instance, a clothing brand that previously sold products locally might start selling products online or expand to new cities or countries.

Diversification

A diversification strategy involves entering new markets with new products or services. This is generally the riskiest strategy requiring venturing into unfamiliar territories. For example, a jewelry company might expand into offering other accessories like belts or handbags.

4. Develop Ideas for Product and Services You’ll Offer

Once you’ve chosen your expansion strategy, it’s time to brainstorm ideas for new products or services. For instance, if you’ve chosen product development, consider improving an existing product or developing a completely new one that satisfies an unmet need of your existing customer base. On the other hand, if market development is your chosen strategy, consider how your current products or services can change to cater to the new market segment.

Plan for Scaling Logistics & Operations

Achieving your expansion goals is not just about planning for products and services but also about efficiently scaling your operations and logistics. Depending on your strategy, the plan might include acquiring new equipment, hiring additional personnel, launching a new warehouse or store, or eliminating inefficient processes that slow production.

Boosting logistics might involve streamlining the process of inventory acquisition, storage, product distribution, and shipping. For example, suppose your expansion strategy involves entering a new geographical market. In that case, you might need to explore local shipping options or set up a new distribution center to ensure the timely delivery of products to your new customers.

6. Chalk Out a Funding Plan for Business Expansion

Planning your finances is crucial for a successful business expansion. Several ways to fund an expansion include self-funding, procuring business expansion loans , attracting capital investments, or selling company shares. Self-funding ensures complete control but might limit the extent of your expansion. Expansion loans and capital investments provide larger funds, but you’ll have repayment or equity-sharing obligations. Selling shares can generate significant funds, but it dilutes ownership. Each method has pros and cons, so choose based on your business’s needs and financial health. Remember, you don’t have to acquire funding at this stage but have a plan for possible expansion financing options based on your business needs.

7. Define Marketing Strategy

A well-defined marketing strategy is key to reaching new customers and markets. Start by aligning your marketing goals with your SMART goals, providing a clear direction for your marketing efforts. Audit your current marketing strategy to identify what’s working and what needs improvement. Analyze your competitors’ marketing campaigns for insights and inspiration. Choose the right mix of marketing platforms based on your target audience, like paid marketing, organic marketing, and social media marketing. Lastly, set a realistic marketing budget considering each channel’s expected return on investment.

8. Document Your Business Expansion Plan

A well-documented business expansion plan serves as a roadmap for your growth journey. It should include the following elements:

• Executive Summary: This concise overview of your expansion plan provides key information like goals and objectives.
• Company Information: Detail your company’s history, current situation, and why you plan to expand.
• Market Analysis: Summarize your market research findings, SWOT analysis, and details about your target market.
• Product/Service Description: Explain what new or improved products or services you plan to offer.
• Logistics/Operational Strategy: Describe how you plan to scale your operations and logistics to support your expansion.
• Expansion Financing Plan: Discuss how you plan to fund your expansion, outlining the chosen method’s pros and cons.
• Marketing Strategy: Detail your marketing strategy, including your marketing goals, chosen platforms, and budget.

By incorporating these elements into your business expansion plan, you’ll have a comprehensive document that guides your decision-making process and helps potential investors or lenders understand your vision and strategy for growth.

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10 min read

Business Expansion Strategy: Plan & Execute With Our Guide

August 31, 2022

Last Update

August 12, 2024

Table of Contents

Why should you expand to a global market?

Key considerations for global expansion, how to plan your global expansion strategy, do it quickly and compliantly with deel, key takeaways.

• There isn't a one-size-fits-all global expansion solution for all types of companies and target markets—you need to do extensive market research before deciding on your expansion strategy.
• To experience the benefits of global business expansion, like increased revenue potential, a competitive advantage, or a new customer base, you must comply with local laws and approach talent planning seriously.
• You can build a global team without the need to enter the complexities of local employment laws and tax regulations by hiring full-time employees through an employer of record (EOR).

What happens when your business growth exceeds domestic borders? The next logical step is to take your business operations overseas so that you can reach your strategic goals, uncover new revenue streams, and build your brand reputation in new markets.

Even the pandemic didn’t stop most businesses that had planned to go global - the benefits of business expansion apparently outweigh the risk that the coronavirus poses to the global economy and doing business in general.

What are the benefits of expanding into overseas markets? How do you create your new market entry strategy? Is there an alternative to opening a local entity in the target country? We’ve created a guide to help you navigate through the expansion process and choose the most suitable option for your business.

Global growth comes with a number of benefits for your business. Here’s why so many companies consider international expansion.

• Stronger brand presence: Doing business in foreign countries allows you to become recognized worldwide and gain international credibility, which leads to an increased number of customers and access to a global market share.
• Access to new talent: You get to hire from the global talent pool , which allows you to close any skill gaps in your teams, have better time zone coverage for an international customer base, and offer customer service in multiple languages.

Crucially, the benefits of global hiring go beyond addressing the skills shortage; businesses can expand strategically into key regions and offer unparalleled flexibility to employees who value the ‘digital nomad’ lifestyle.

— Shannon Karaka ,

Head of Expansion ANZ

• Increased revenue potential: Thanks to increased sales and an expanded customer base, your revenue will grow, you’ll achieve higher returns on investment, and position your business for long-term success.
• Cost savings: You can significantly reduce your business expenses by buying materials and hiring from countries with a lower cost of living, which also often offer favorable tax programs.
• Competitive advantage: Operating outside of your home country allows you to escape a saturated local market, get your market share in foreign countries, and establish your brand name globally before your competitors.
• Diversification opportunities: Expanding outside of the domestic market can be a safety net for local market slowdowns, providing you with more reliable revenue sources.
• New customer base: You’ll reach a more expanded customer base for current products or services and potentially identify new problems to solve by introducing a new product or service.
• New, international investors: International business provides you with access to international investors and funding opportunities that might not be available locally.
• Local partnership opportunities: You can establish reliable partnerships with local companies, which will help you gain trust in the new market.

As your business outgrows your home market, you’ll face several challenges while establishing global business operations, building international teams, and operating risk-free in foreign markets.

Here’s an overview of the main considerations for companies planning their international expansion strategies.

• Local compliance and tax structures: It’s critical to understand local employment laws and tax regulations to avoid costly misclassification and similar compliance mistakes .
• Global talent attraction and retention: To maintain employee satisfaction, you need to create competitive compensation packages and invest in building a healthy company culture.
• New market risks: Entering a new market is always risky, so you should have an exit strategy in case your overseas business fails and you lose the initial investment.
• Cultural differences: Operating in different languages and within different local cultures that may have different business processes and communication styles can require a different approach than what you’re used to.
• Local marketing strategy: It takes time to get to know a new audience and possibly identify new pain points, along with distinct audience demographics and customer journey stages, and calls for an adjustment in your marketing strategy.
• Currency exchange and price adjustment: Product or service price adjustment due to the general standard in the new country, requiring you to also consider currency exchange.

Whether you’re a startup or a big corporation and whether you're planning mergers or setting up EORs, reaching new markets requires a well-thought-out global expansion initiative. Here are the steps to take when creating an international business expansion strategy.

1. Create a market entry strategy

There isn’t a single right path to expanding to different countries: identifying the right strategy for your business takes extensive research and careful planning. It's important to choose a market entry strategy that aligns with the structural model that best fits the company's goals and resources.

These strategies vary in terms of their level of control, involvement in the local market, and level of risk, and may involve:

• Exporting (direct or through a third-party distributor)
• Licensing (providing a license to a local partner to produce and sell your product)
• Franchising (providing a local company with the right to use your business trademark and model)
• Partnering/Joint ventures (establishing a partnership with a local, well-known brand or starting an entirely new company together)
• Mergers and acquisitions (taking over a competitor in a new market)
• Opening a local subsidiary (starting a separate legal entity in the new location)

To make the right decision, you need to familiarize yourself with local compliance and tax laws. This way, you can make sure you have the financial and legal expertise to handle employment contracts, benefits, financial reports, tax documentation, and any other local requirement while setting up an entity.

It’s also critical to develop an exit strategy because leaving a market can sometimes be just as complicated as entering it. Collecting paperwork for opening a subsidiary can take up to four months, depending on the country, and closing it may take just as much time. Not to mention your responsibilities toward your employees.

Global Expansion

Looking to expand your business abroad.

2. Focus on talent planning and management**

Whatever your expansion strategy is, you will need experts you can trust to run your local business according to the plan and take care of your new customers. Building a global workforce and acquiring the best talent out there may be challenging, but it helps you create a solid foundation for international success.

Identify the vital positions that you need to fill and key the employees you can’t afford to lose. To complete these tasks with success, you should:

• Align your talent strategy with your corporate growth strategy, and don’t rush into hiring before carefully planning your headcount for the following period
• Equip your HR with suitable tools to plan, recruit, and manage global and local talent
• Involve executives in your talent planning strategy to ensure business goal alignment across departments and countries
• Support your talent acquisition efforts by exhibiting your company as a desirable global employer

Starting to hire globally?

3. choose a global employment strategy**.

When expanding to a new country, you need to choose how you’re going to hire workers in new countries. Typically, you have three  global hiring options. You can:

Hire independent contractors

• Hire through an employer of record (EOR) or
• Open a local entity

Hiring independent contractors is a quick and cost-effective way to build a global workforce. However, as a client, and not an employer, you don’t have control over how and when the contractor works for you, and you might struggle to gain intellectual property of the worker’s deliverables, depending on local laws.

Hire through an employer of record (EOR)

Outsourcing compliance, global payroll , and other employment legalities to an EOR can help you resolve the challenges of onboarding international workers quickly while managing their daily schedules. EORs ensure locally compliant contracts, employee benefits , taxes, and more, so you don’t have to spend time learning about local laws in every country you hire from.

The most common use case is to employ remote workers in other countries where the employer may not have an employing entity. This can dramatically expand access to talent globally for pretty much any company.

— Steve Hoffman ,

Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager

How Planhat hired more than 50 employees in 14+ different countries through Deel

Planhat is a customer success platform that helps companies manage client growth for customer success, product-led growth, and more by automating the admin for customer lifecycles.

Planhat has been remote-first since the beginning, with one founder living in the US and the other in Sweden. They soon realized that it made sense to hire globally, so they started looking for an efficient hiring solution.

“ With Deel, we can grow and cooperate together, they have the flexibility to support us in whatever we need. It’s become a true partnership with people we enjoy working with ,” says Sanna Westman, Head of People at Planhat.

Learn more about how we helped Planthat build a remote-first, global team.

Deel's Guide to setting up a local entity

Ready to open your own entity to continue operating in a foreign market? Learn about the steps you need to take, from initial research to tax registration.

Downoad the free guide

4. Identify resources and partners**

As business expansion is a costly undertaking, you should have secured funding options before you take the first steps.

If you work with investors, make sure your strategy is well-thought-out and corroborated with data and research, so you can make a compelling case for expanding to a new market and get their buy-in.

If you don’t have investors, look into other financing options, such as crowdfunding or debt-based financing, and create a budget. Thorough research will help determine when your initial investment could start paying off, so you can plan expansion activities accordingly.

Whether you need strategic partners on-site to expand the business, or you want to partner with organizations to provide competitive perks to your employees, identifying the right allies on the ground will help you jump over the expansion hurdles more easily.

Outsourcing payroll or HR to trusted local companies kick-starts operations in new markets as soon as possible. Local experts already have the required market knowledge so it will save you a lot of time and effort, especially when it comes to obtaining necessary permits, collecting documentation, drafting contracts, and onboarding employees.

5. Ensure a positive employee experience for your team**

Employee well-being strategies may be one of the most neglected parts of global expansion for many companies. Their main focus is on the technical aspects of doing business, and if they don’t tackle this issue in time, they may face low employee retention and employee happiness index.

During your target market research phase, you should be able to identify the most desirable employee benefits and perks in specific countries, other than the statutory ones. Determine how you can include them in your overall employee compensation packages to ensure competitive and attractive remuneration. Ideas to consider:

• Work-from-home stipend
• Flexible PTO
• Childcare support
• Stock options
• Health insurance
• Learning and development opportunities

Provide suitable tools and effective communication channels for your global (and remote) workforce. In global teams, it’s critical that people are enabled to work properly across cultures and time zones. It’s helpful to set up clear processes on how to communicate an issue, who to reach out to if your manager isn’t available, and more. Employee handbooks containing vital workflows and “rules” are also a useful way to speed up new hire onboarding and ensure everyone has access to all important information at all times.

Make sure you include different team-building activities in your plan and educate yourself about various ways to boost your remote team’s morale and keep them motivated and appreciated. That’s what brings productivity and results to the whole business.

Deel allows you to hire in over 150 countries, in almost 100 of which we own entities.

Our huge network of more than 200 legal partners and local payroll managers ensures full compliance no matter where you hire. With over 100,000 team members managed across 150 countries, we offer unmatched expertise and 24/7 support to empower your global growth.

Ready to learn how Deel works? Book a 30-minute demo with our expert team and come prepared: this is your space to ask any questions!

Need more time? Think about how risky is your target market. Instead of registering your own entity, consider lower-risk and lower-cost options like hiring contractors or EOR employees . Learn when each option works best.

About the author

Owen Yin is a content communicator specializing in decoding complex topics into an insightful language anyone can understand. Owen covers compliance, tax, and payroll topics, offering readers verifiable research that eliminates confusion and enables action. Owen’s work has been cited in Forbes, The Verge, CNN, Mashable, The Washington Post, and others.

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How to make a business plan

Table of Contents

How to make a good business plan: step-by-step guide.

A business plan is a strategic roadmap used to navigate the challenging journey of entrepreneurship. It's the foundation upon which you build a successful business.

A well-crafted business plan can help you define your vision, clarify your goals, and identify potential problems before they arise.

But where do you start? How do you create a business plan that sets you up for success?

This article will explore the step-by-step process of creating a comprehensive business plan.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a formal document that outlines a business's objectives, strategies, and operational procedures. It typically includes the following information about a company:

Products or services

Target market

Competitors

Marketing and sales strategies

Financial plan

Management team

A business plan serves as a roadmap for a company's success and provides a blueprint for its growth and development. It helps entrepreneurs and business owners organize their ideas, evaluate the feasibility, and identify potential challenges and opportunities.

As well as serving as a guide for business owners, a business plan can attract investors and secure funding. It demonstrates the company's understanding of the market, its ability to generate revenue and profits, and its strategy for managing risks and achieving success.

Business plan vs. business model canvas

A business plan may seem similar to a business model canvas, but each document serves a different purpose.

A business model canvas is a high-level overview that helps entrepreneurs and business owners quickly test and iterate their ideas. It is often a one-page document that briefly outlines the following:

Key partnerships

Key activities

Key propositions

Customer relationships

Customer segments

Key resources

Cost structure

Revenue streams

On the other hand, a Business Plan Template provides a more in-depth analysis of a company's strategy and operations. It is typically a lengthy document and requires significant time and effort to develop.

A business model shouldn’t replace a business plan, and vice versa. Business owners should lay the foundations and visually capture the most important information with a Business Model Canvas Template . Because this is a fast and efficient way to communicate a business idea, a business model canvas is a good starting point before developing a more comprehensive business plan.

A business plan can aim to secure funding from investors or lenders, while a business model canvas communicates a business idea to potential customers or partners.

Why is a business plan important?

A business plan is crucial for any entrepreneur or business owner wanting to increase their chances of success.

Here are some of the many benefits of having a thorough business plan.

Helps to define the business goals and objectives

A business plan encourages you to think critically about your goals and objectives. Doing so lets you clearly understand what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there.

A well-defined set of goals, objectives, and key results also provides a sense of direction and purpose, which helps keep business owners focused and motivated.

Guides decision-making

A business plan requires you to consider different scenarios and potential problems that may arise in your business. This awareness allows you to devise strategies to deal with these issues and avoid pitfalls.

With a clear plan, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions aligning with their overall business goals and objectives. This helps reduce the risk of making costly mistakes and ensures they make decisions with long-term success in mind.

Attracts investors and secures funding

Investors and lenders often require a business plan before considering investing in your business. A document that outlines the company's goals, objectives, and financial forecasts can help instill confidence in potential investors and lenders.

A well-written business plan demonstrates that you have thoroughly thought through your business idea and have a solid plan for success.

Identifies potential challenges and risks

A business plan requires entrepreneurs to consider potential challenges and risks that could impact their business. For example:

Is there enough demand for my product or service?

Will I have enough capital to start my business?

Is the market oversaturated with too many competitors?

What will happen if my marketing strategy is ineffective?

By identifying these potential challenges, entrepreneurs can develop strategies to mitigate risks and overcome challenges. This can reduce the likelihood of costly mistakes and ensure the business is well-positioned to take on any challenges.

Provides a basis for measuring success

A business plan serves as a framework for measuring success by providing clear goals and financial projections . Entrepreneurs can regularly refer to the original business plan as a benchmark to measure progress. By comparing the current business position to initial forecasts, business owners can answer questions such as:

Are we where we want to be at this point?

Did we achieve our goals?

If not, why not, and what do we need to do?

After assessing whether the business is meeting its objectives or falling short, business owners can adjust their strategies as needed.

How to make a business plan step by step

The steps below will guide you through the process of creating a business plan and what key components you need to include.

1. Create an executive summary

Start with a brief overview of your entire plan. The executive summary should cover your business plan's main points and key takeaways.

Keep your executive summary concise and clear with the Executive Summary Template . The simple design helps readers understand the crux of your business plan without reading the entire document.

2. Write your company description

Provide a detailed explanation of your company. Include information on what your company does, the mission statement, and your vision for the future.

Provide additional background information on the history of your company, the founders, and any notable achievements or milestones.

3. Conduct a market analysis

Conduct an in-depth analysis of your industry, competitors, and target market. This is best done with a SWOT analysis to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Next, identify your target market's needs, demographics, and behaviors.

Use the Competitive Analysis Template to brainstorm answers to simple questions like:

What does the current market look like?

Who are your competitors?

What are they offering?

What will give you a competitive advantage?

Who is your target market?

What are they looking for and why?

How will your product or service satisfy a need?

These questions should give you valuable insights into the current market and where your business stands.

4. Describe your products and services

Provide detailed information about your products and services. This includes pricing information, product features, and any unique selling points.

Use the Product/Market Fit Template to explain how your products meet the needs of your target market. Describe what sets them apart from the competition.

5. Design a marketing and sales strategy

Outline how you plan to promote and sell your products. Your marketing strategy and sales strategy should include information about your:

Pricing strategy

Advertising and promotional tactics

Sales channels

The Go to Market Strategy Template is a great way to visually map how you plan to launch your product or service in a new or existing market.

6. Determine budget and financial projections

Document detailed information on your business’ finances. Describe the current financial position of the company and how you expect the finances to play out.

Some details to include in this section are:

Startup costs

Revenue projections

Profit and loss statement

Funding you have received or plan to receive

Strategy for raising funds

7. Set the organization and management structure

Define how your company is structured and who will be responsible for each aspect of the business. Use the Business Organizational Chart Template to visually map the company’s teams, roles, and hierarchy.

As well as the organization and management structure, discuss the legal structure of your business. Clarify whether your business is a corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, or LLC.

8. Make an action plan

At this point in your business plan, you’ve described what you’re aiming for. But how are you going to get there? The Action Plan Template describes the following steps to move your business plan forward. Outline the next steps you plan to take to bring your business plan to fruition.

Types of business plans

Several types of business plans cater to different purposes and stages of a company's lifecycle. Here are some of the most common types of business plans.

Startup business plan

A startup business plan is typically an entrepreneur's first business plan. This document helps entrepreneurs articulate their business idea when starting a new business.

Not sure how to make a business plan for a startup? It’s pretty similar to a regular business plan, except the primary purpose of a startup business plan is to convince investors to provide funding for the business. A startup business plan also outlines the potential target market, product/service offering, marketing plan, and financial projections.

Strategic business plan

A strategic business plan is a long-term plan that outlines a company's overall strategy, objectives, and tactics. This type of strategic plan focuses on the big picture and helps business owners set goals and priorities and measure progress.

The primary purpose of a strategic business plan is to provide direction and guidance to the company's management team and stakeholders. The plan typically covers a period of three to five years.

Operational business plan

An operational business plan is a detailed document that outlines the day-to-day operations of a business. It focuses on the specific activities and processes required to run the business, such as:

Organizational structure

Staffing plan

Production plan

Quality control

Inventory management

Supply chain

The primary purpose of an operational business plan is to ensure that the business runs efficiently and effectively. It helps business owners manage their resources, track their performance, and identify areas for improvement.

Growth-business plan

A growth-business plan is a strategic plan that outlines how a company plans to expand its business. It helps business owners identify new market opportunities and increase revenue and profitability. The primary purpose of a growth-business plan is to provide a roadmap for the company's expansion and growth.

The 3 Horizons of Growth Template is a great tool to identify new areas of growth. This framework categorizes growth opportunities into three categories: Horizon 1 (core business), Horizon 2 (emerging business), and Horizon 3 (potential business).

One-page business plan

A one-page business plan is a condensed version of a full business plan that focuses on the most critical aspects of a business. It’s a great tool for entrepreneurs who want to quickly communicate their business idea to potential investors, partners, or employees.

A one-page business plan typically includes sections such as business concept, value proposition, revenue streams, and cost structure.

Best practices for how to make a good business plan

Here are some additional tips for creating a business plan:

Use a template

A template can help you organize your thoughts and effectively communicate your business ideas and strategies. Starting with a template can also save you time and effort when formatting your plan.

Miro’s extensive library of customizable templates includes all the necessary sections for a comprehensive business plan. With our templates, you can confidently present your business plans to stakeholders and investors.

Be practical

Avoid overestimating revenue projections or underestimating expenses. Your business plan should be grounded in practical realities like your budget, resources, and capabilities.

Be specific

Provide as much detail as possible in your business plan. A specific plan is easier to execute because it provides clear guidance on what needs to be done and how. Without specific details, your plan may be too broad or vague, making it difficult to know where to start or how to measure success.

Be thorough with your research

Conduct thorough research to fully understand the market, your competitors, and your target audience . By conducting thorough research, you can identify potential risks and challenges your business may face and develop strategies to mitigate them.

Get input from others

It can be easy to become overly focused on your vision and ideas, leading to tunnel vision and a lack of objectivity. By seeking input from others, you can identify potential opportunities you may have overlooked.

Review and revise regularly

A business plan is a living document. You should update it regularly to reflect market, industry, and business changes. Set aside time for regular reviews and revisions to ensure your plan remains relevant and effective.

Create a winning business plan to chart your path to success

Starting or growing a business can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting, a well-written business plan can make or break your business’ success.

The purpose of a business plan is more than just to secure funding and attract investors. It also serves as a roadmap for achieving your business goals and realizing your vision. With the right mindset, tools, and strategies, you can develop a visually appealing, persuasive business plan.

Ready to make an effective business plan that works for you? Check out our library of ready-made strategy and planning templates and chart your path to success.

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What is Market Expansion? Strategy Tips + Examples + Checklist

The rise of e-commerce has established a digital marketplace and simplified how businesses may approach market expansion. It's much easier now to grow your presence outside of existing markets.

What However, the ease of access adds to the pile of companies competing for the attention of international audiences. Thus, standing out among your competitors requires careful strategizing.

This detailed guide outlines the steps you can take in building your market expansion strategy. By the end, you'll be equipped with a list of handy tools to set you on the path of success in foreign market entry.

What is market expansion?

Examples of market expansion strategies.

• Things to consider when expanding a business internationally (+ a practical checklist for market expansion considerations)
• Four Steps to developing a successful market expansion strategy

Finding the key to success in the global market

Market expansion is a business growth strategy companies use to expand the reach of their products and services in new or existing markets.

This does not necessarily mean going global. You can also expand by:

• marketing your existing products to a new customer base
• developing new product lines

If you want to understand the different strategies involved in market and product expansion, check out the Ansoff Matrix . The model displays the four main expansion strategies pursued by businesses:

• Market penetration : Expanding the sales of an existing product in an existing market
• Product development : Introducing a new product in an existing market
• Market development : Introducing an existing producing into a new market
• Diversification : Introducing a new product to a new market

Simply put, there are many ways to pursue market expansion that does not necessarily involve crossing national borders.

In today’s world, however, most business owners will want to take advantage of the opportunities offered by globalization and extend the reach of their target market to other countries. 9 out of 10 executives surveyed by CFO in a 2020 study said they had experience with international expansion.

In that same study, more than half of the managers kept up their plans for global expansions despite the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The benefits simply outweighed the potential risks.

Why do businesses want to go global?

So what benefits are there to global expansion? It goes without saying that having a larger audience for your marketing will increase sales. But there are also other, less obvious reasons to expand into new markets abroad, such as to

• Grow revenue potential
• Gain access to new talent
• Earn market share
• Improve competitiveness
• Lower risks through diversification
• Increase production levels
• Reduce operating costs
• Access new investment opportunities

In short, you are likely to benefit from global expansion whether you are a small business, a promising tech startup, or a Fortune 500 company.

If your product or service is already established in an existing market, exploring growth opportunities in other geographic areas will be beneficial to your company's development.

Why are market expansion strategies important?

Managers need to approach growth ventures with a solid business plan to avoid failure. Having a solid market extension strategy before scaling your business for new markets helps you identify opportunities, clearly define your goals, and allocate the appropriate resources.

But following through on strategy is easier said than done. Research suggests that a lot of companies are good at strategizing, but often fail to execute it. Strategy execution is number one on the list of major challenges facing corporate leaders in Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Why? One reason is that a lot of strategies are inflexible and fail to adapt to changing market circumstances. While striving to reach objectives is part and parcel of any business, the fact of the matter is that business strategies must be adapted to the target market, and not the other way around.

The differences between translation, localization, and globalization

Localization is often used interchangeably with translation, but the two are very different. Translation is to express the words or text of one language in another, while localization adds the process of adapting a product or service to the customs of a particular language, culture, or place.

Localization is a great complement to the efforts of globalization (and vice versa). However, if you want your business to be competitive in an unfamiliar market, it is not enough to just present your product to the audience.

You also need to make sure it is presented in a way that will resonate with them. This is where translation and localization come in.

The latest translation statistics show that 65% of non-native English speakers prefer content in their native language. Hence, most companies will usually start with translating their website and marketing copy into the local language.

While that is a great start, if you want to increase your revenue potential among consumers in the international market, you need to do more than just translate the text.

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It is easy for a company to go astray without paying attention to localization, as shown by some select market expansion examples.

• The Swedish company Electrolux took a real gamble when they used the infamous tagline “Nothing Sucks Like an Electrolux” to market their vacuum cleaners in the US.
• And have you ever heard of when Apple entered the European market without including letters from local alphabet on their keyboard design ? I doubt the Germans were very impressed with the tech company when they couldn’t find their umlauts.

To get an idea of how it should be done, let’s look at a successful example of market expansion from Netflix, a company that accelerated its growth across the globe with a localization strategy.

Case Study: Netflix Market Expansion Strategy and Localization

In just a little over 20 years, Netflix has transformed from a local DVD rental company to a global media company and online streaming service available in over 190 countries . Starting their global expansion in 2010 after a period of slow growth in the US, Netflix succeeded with its global expansion using these three methods:

• Translating content for international audiences : Netflix started out their strategy by providing subtitles and dubbing in the language of their target market. This has included making dubbing more available in countries that prefer subtitles when streaming foreign-language content . Moreover, their user interface and customer support are fully available in the target language, making sure that the customer experience from start to end is localized.
• Creating content for the target countries: As a next step, Netflix partnered with local production companies to create original content set in their targeted countries. Who would have thought that Netflix’s most-watched series in 2021 would be Squid Game, a South Korean TV series based on a group of people fighting to their death in local children’s games?
• Adapting content to new locales: Recently, Netflix started making adaptations of existing stories in different lingual and cultural settings, such as its multi-million-dollar deal with American mystery author Harlan Coben. Now, you can watch Coben’s books be played out in Polish, Spanish and French, alongside English language adaptations.

Instead of taking for granted the global appeal of the US media industry, Netflix went one step further to reach its international audience by localizing every step of the customer journey. It’s no wonder their international revenues have now surpassed their domestic revenues .

If your business is just at the start of its market expansion journey, there are a few things to keep in mind if you want to replicate the successes of companies like Netflix. Let’s dive right in.

Things to consider when expanding a business internationally

There are four main factors you must take into account when preparing to introduce your product or service to a new market. We have listed them for you in this handy checklist below, along with the questions you need to ask yourself as you go along.

You can either screenshot the following table or download your market expansion checklist here .

A Checklist for Market Extension Factors

While there are many more things to consider, finding the right answer to these questions sets you on the path to success in expanding your business operations into foreign markets.

The next steps will provide you with practical, actionable tips on how to do just that.

Four steps to developing a successful market expansion strategy

No matter your industry, a good strategy will leverage data to set tangible goals for introducing your product or service into a market. It will also establish an appropriate budget and a plan for how to navigate challenges like:

• linguistic and cultural barriers
• local regulations
• travel restrictions
• talent recruitment.

Nevertheless, just like when it comes to consumer markets, no one size fits all. In the end, the best strategy for expansion into new markets is one that suits your business.

It might seem a bit overwhelming at first, so to make it simple, here are the basic steps we recommend you take to expand your business into new markets:

• Review your current business performance using KPIs
• Do market research
• Set clear goals
• Adapt your product and marketing materials

1. Review your current business performance using KPIs

Businesses should not try to expand before they have reached their peak in the domestic market. This means you need to determine whether market expansion is the right direction for your company based on measurable data on your current business performance.

A natural part of business development is to keep track of metrics, or key performance indicators (KPIs). Examples of KPIs that can help you determine whether your business is ready for international expansion include:

• growth rate
• sales revenue
• sales conversion rate
• market share
• website traffic volume.

Keeping track of data can also help you in the early stages of defining market opportunities abroad. For example, do you have a fairly large share of visitors from a certain country, but no accessible website in their language?

That might tell you it is time to start localizing your website for greater sales conversion and revenue potential.

Tools For success :

Your company likely already has a set of objectives and ways to measure the results of your strategies in your internal data tracking. External tools like Google Analytics and Similarweb provide you with valuable insights on website traffic and can help you track where the traffic is coming from. This can be anything from different social media channels or the geographic locations of the people that visit your website, along with their user journey from lead generation to final sales conversion.

2. Do market research

The first step to market entry is to make sure you are equipped with all the information about the opportunities and challenges for expansion within the country.

You need to find out the size of your industry in the target country, whether there is a demand for your product or service in the new market, who the competitors are and whether you need to adapt your product to local needs.

Then you have to figure out the practical matters. For example, what are the most common distribution channels in the market, and how do you gain access to them? What are the local regulations that could provide barriers to entry?

It is impossible to succeed in any market without understanding the potential customer. Typically, you want to know their pain point, figure out how your product or service can solve it with a unique selling proposition (USP), and pursue a marketing strategy that effectively gets your brand message across. That requires research, research, and more research.

Marketing research typically involves both primary and secondary research, but you can choose whichever approach works best for your business.

Primary research will require you to conduct interviews, surveys, focus groups, and visit the location directly. If that’s not feasible, you can get the information you need from databases like Statista , NielsenIQ , Pew Research , OECD , Euromonitor and Google Market Finder .

3. Set clear goals

A business needs to have clearly defined goals and objectives , and that is no less true when it comes to international expansion. You have to ask yourself what is the ultimate goal of wanting to expand into the market, what you can realistically achieve within a set time frame, and how you are going to track the progress. In other words, your goals have to be SMART:

• M easurable
• A chievable
• T ime-bound

Examples of goals your business can set for market expansion are:

• Open two new office locations in Portugal and Spain by 2023.
• Increase company share in the South Korean market by 2% over the next three years.
• Enter into two new strategic partnerships with local suppliers by the end of the year.
• Earn $2 million in gross revenue in the second year after entry in a new market.

Having such clear goals will help set the stage for planning your strategy and tactical moves for foreign market entry. Just like in the beginning stages, tracking KPIs and metrics continuously as you go along is important to check how you are doing with reaching your goals.

If you haven’t done so already, consider using project management tools like Asana , Jira , or Notion to track your short- and long-term goals and assign action items to get them done.

4. Adapt your product and marketing materials

Now that you have established an idea of what the market looks like and defined your priority areas for entry, it is time to plan out your expansion marketing strategy. This will require translation and localization to adapt your product and marketing copy for the local market.

If you don’t have any employees on your team with the cultural knowledge or linguistic skills for the local market, consider hiring freelancers or looking at online language service providers (LSPs). If you don’t know where to start looking, check out Redokun’s directory of places to find translators online.

Once you have your team in place, translating your entire website and other business materials may seem like a daunting task. Every part of the customer journey, from things like marketing collateral to the user interface of your website, will need to be translated and adapted with the local consumer in mind for the best results. You also need to make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to brand guidelines and industry-specific terminologies.

If you opt to do this manually, it will likely be very time-consuming with files and spreadsheets sent back and forth all over the place. Luckily, there are automation tools available to make this process easier for your business.

Invest in a translation management system (TMS) like Redokun that allows you to easily coordinate your multilingual projects by gathering translation tools, communications, and progress tracking in one place.

Redokun offers features such as translation memory and computer-assisted translation to cut down on time spent on repetitive tasks. That makes your team’s translation workflow more efficient, reduces opportunity costs, and increases productivity as you can spend your valuable time on other core tasks.

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What does it mean when the market is expanding?

Market expansion is a growth strategy which involves offering your existing product/service to a new market.

What is market extension?

A market extension merger is a type of merger where two companies in the same industry with similar products or services merge to expand their market reach.

Why is expanding market reach important?

Expanding to new markets is important because it drives growth and profitability .

As each country has its own unique characteristics, paying sufficient attention to translation and localization is key to any successful market expansion strategy.

A one-size-fits-all approach may have worked for Ikea, as the assembly instructions for their flat-pack furniture can get away with using only diagrams and illustrations that can be easily understood by anyone without any need for translation or localization.

But it is unlikely to work when you prepare to launch into a new market, especially if the audience is not aware of your brand from before.

In the words of Google: if you want to grow global, you first need to think local.  Fortunately, the wide availability of translation resources and tools has made thinking local an easier task than it used to be.

Till next time,

Via Olaussen is a highly skilled copywriter and growth marketer specializing in localization and SaaS.

With over 8 years of international experience across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, she has developed a deep expertise in project management, demand generation, and global marketing strategies.

Additionally, her 4+ years as a translator and localization specialist have allowed her to master communication in multiple languages, including Norwegian, English, and Korean. Via’s insights and strategies have significantly benefited clients by enhancing their global marketing efforts.

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Market Expansion: Essential Tips for Scaling Your Business

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• Key Takeaways

Global market expansion efforts increased by 15% in 2024. (Source: Gartner)

67% of businesses attribute their revenue growth to successful market expansion strategies. (Source: Statista)

Companies with diversified market portfolios saw a 20% increase in profitability. (Source: SEMrush)

Understanding your target audience is crucial for effective market expansion.

Identifying growth opportunities and developing a comprehensive strategy are essential steps.

Expanding your market is super important for making your business grow and do well. If you only stick to one market, you might miss out on lots of chances and let your competitors get ahead. But how can you expand your market in a smart way to make sure your business keeps growing and making money? What are some easy tips and tricks to help your business get bigger while staying safe? Let’s find out together and learn how to make your market expansion journey a success!

Introduction to Market Expansion

Expanding your market is crucial for the growth of your business. Whether you’re a startup or a seasoned company, reaching new customers and territories is vital for staying competitive and increasing revenue.

• Understanding Market Expansion

Before you try to grow your business into new areas, it’s important to really know who your customers are. Do some research to find out who might want to buy your stuff, what they like, how they act, and what problems they have.

Once you understand your customers really well, you can make your products or services fit their needs better. Use info about things like age, location, and what people say about your business to figure out how to grow in the right direction.

• Importance of Scaling Your Business
• Identifying Growth Opportunities

Identifying growth opportunities is key to successful market expansion. Search for new places where your products or services are needed. Check what’s happening in the market and what your competitors are doing. Also, think about selling different things or reaching new groups of people to grow your business. Stay flexible and keep looking for ways to expand.

• Developing a Comprehensive Strategy

A comprehensive strategy is essential for executing a successful market expansion plan. First, decide what you want to achieve with your expansion, like selling more, reaching new places, or introducing new things.

Then, make a plan showing all the steps, when you’ll do them, and what you’ll need. Think about how you’ll sell your products, advertise, and work with others. Keep an eye on how things are going, and change your plan if you need to, so you keep growing steadily.

Assessing Market Potential

• Identifying Target Markets

Establish clear criteria for finding your target markets, like who they are, what they like, and where they are. Figure out which types of customers would be best for your business and bring in the most money.

Split up the market into different groups based on what they have in common. Then, customize your marketing, products, and services to fit each group’s unique needs and preferences.

Look at what other businesses are doing in the markets you want to target. See what they’re good at and where they could be better. Then, make sure your business stands out by offering something special.

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• Analyzing Market Trends

Read industry news: Keep up with what’s happening in your industry by reading magazines, blogs, and emails. Look out for new trends, technologies, and how people buy things.

Watch how people shop: Use data and social media to see what customers like and don’t like. This helps you know if people are buying different things or changing how they shop.

Be ready to change: Stay flexible. Keep an eye on trends and what customers say, and be ready to change your plans if you need to.

• Evaluating Customer Needs and Preferences

Gather Customer Insights: Talk to your customers! Ask them questions through surveys, chats, or emails to find out what they like and what they don’t. This helps you understand what they need and want from your business.

Personalize Customer Experience: Make your customers feel special by giving them what they want. Use the information you gather to customize their experience. This could mean suggesting products they might like based on their past purchases or sending them personalized emails.

Continuously Improve: Keep getting better! Listen to what your customers tell you and use that feedback to make changes. This could be improving your products, updating your services, or just making sure your customers are happy. By always striving to improve, you’ll keep your customers coming back for more.

Crafting a Market Expansion Strategy

• Setting Clear Objectives
• Specific Goals: Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives for your market expansion efforts.
• Alignment with Vision: Ensure that your objectives align with your long-term vision for the business and contribute to its overall success.
• Regular Review: Regularly review and refine your objectives to ensure they remain relevant and adaptable to changing market conditions.
• Employee Involvement: Involve employees in the objective-setting process to foster a sense of ownership and accountability.
• Communication: Clearly communicate your objectives to all stakeholders to ensure alignment and commitment to achieving them.
• Developing a SWOT Analysis
• Internal Assessment: Evaluate your company’s internal strengths and weaknesses, including factors such as brand reputation, resources, and capabilities.
• External Factors: Analyze external factors such as market trends, competitor strategies, and regulatory environment to identify opportunities and threats.
• Identify Areas for Improvement: Use the insights gained from the SWOT analysis to identify areas where improvements are needed to support your market expansion efforts.
• Risk Mitigation: Develop strategies to mitigate potential risks and capitalize on opportunities identified through the SWOT analysis.
• Iterative Process: Remember that the SWOT analysis is not a one-time exercise; regularly revisit and update it to reflect changes in the market landscape.
• Establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Keep Track of Numbers: Figure out which numbers show how well your business is growing in new markets, like sales going up or getting more customers.
• Set Goals You Can Measure: Decide on clear goals for each number you’re tracking, so you can see if your business is moving in the right direction.
• Look at the Facts: Pay attention to the data and info you get from tracking those numbers, so you can make smart choices about how to expand your business.
• Always Get Better: Keep using the numbers to find ways to make your business even better, finding what’s working well and what needs to improve.
• Talk About it: Make sure everyone involved knows what numbers are important and how well the business is doing, so everyone can work together to make it successful.

Research and Development

Research and development are super important for making your business bigger in new markets. When you invest in R&D, you’re making your products or services better and different from what others offer. It’s all about listening to your customers and keeping an eye on what’s happening in the market.

By doing this, you can find new trends and ways to make your stuff even cooler. Also, don’t forget to tweak your products or services to fit in with the new place and the people there. It’s like making sure your stuff matches what they like and how they do things.

• Innovating Products or Services

Innovation helps you stand out and grow in tough markets. Try new things with your products or services to meet what customers want and be different from others. You might add new features, make current ones better, or create totally new solutions for problems no one’s solved yet. Keep your team excited about trying new ideas and invest in research to keep up with changes in the market.

• Adapting to Local Market Preferences

Expanding into new markets? Remember to adjust what you offer based on what people there like and how they do things. Do some research to learn about what your new customers want, how they buy, and what they prefer.

Then, change your products, services, and how you advertise to match their tastes and habits. Showing that you get their culture and values builds trust, so they’re more likely to buy from you.

• Investing in Technology and Infrastructure

Investing in tech and infrastructure is super important for making your biz grow and handle more stuff. Check out what you’re using now and see where tech can help you work better, faster, and keep customers happy.

Get tech that can grow with your biz and change when you need it to. Also, think about improving things like how you deliver stuff or where you make it, so you’re ready to expand into new areas. With smart investments in tech and infrastructure, you’re setting up your biz to grow strong and stay ahead of the game.

Building Strategic Partnerships

• Identify Potential Partners: Look for businesses or organizations that complement your offerings or have access to your target audience.
• Establish Clear Objectives: Define what you hope to achieve through partnerships, whether it’s expanding into new markets, accessing new distribution channels, or enhancing brand visibility.
• Negotiate Win-Win Agreements: Collaborate with partners to develop mutually beneficial agreements that align with both parties’ goals and resources.
• Maintain Open Communication: Foster strong relationships with partners through regular communication, feedback, and collaboration to ensure alignment and maximize results.
• Collaborating with Distributors and Suppliers
• Research Local Market Dynamics: Gain insights into the preferences, behaviors, and distribution channels prevalent in your target markets.
• Identify Reliable Partners: Choose distributors and suppliers with a proven track record, strong networks, and knowledge of local regulations and customs.
• Streamline Logistics: Optimize your supply chain to minimize lead times, reduce costs, and ensure timely delivery of products or services to customers.
• Establish Performance Metrics: Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the effectiveness of your distribution and supply chain partnerships and make data-driven decisions.
• Forming Alliances with Local Businesses
• Identify Complementary Businesses: Seek out local businesses that share your target audience or offer complementary products or services.
• Collaborate on Marketing Initiatives: Explore opportunities for joint marketing campaigns, co-branded promotions, or cross-selling strategies to increase visibility and attract new customers.
• Engage with the Community: Participate in local events, sponsorships, or community outreach programs to build rapport with residents and establish your brand as a trusted member of the community.
• Leverage Local Expertise: Tap into the knowledge and networks of local businesses to navigate cultural nuances, regulatory requirements, and market dynamics more effectively.
• Leveraging Networking Opportunities
• Attend Industry Events: Participate in conferences, trade shows, and networking events relevant to your industry to meet potential partners, customers, and industry influencers.
• Join Professional Associations: Become a member of industry associations or networking groups to connect with like-minded professionals and stay updated on industry trends and opportunities.
• Utilize Online Platforms: Engage with professionals and organizations in your industry through online networking platforms such as LinkedIn, industry forums, or social media groups.
• Follow Up and Nurture Relationships: After networking events, follow up with contacts, nurture relationships, and explore collaboration opportunities that can benefit your business.

Establishing a Strong Brand Presence

• Define Your Brand Identity: Clearly articulate your brand values, mission, and unique selling proposition to differentiate yourself from competitors and resonate with your target audience.
• Create Consistent Branding: Develop brand guidelines that govern the use of logos, colors, fonts, and messaging across all marketing channels to maintain a cohesive brand identity.
• Deliver Value Through Content: Produce high-quality content that educates, entertains, or inspires your target audience while reinforcing your brand message and expertise.
• Engage with Your Audience: Interact with customers through social media, email newsletters, blog comments, and other channels to build relationships, gather feedback, and foster brand loyalty.
• Utilizing Social Media Platforms Effectively
• Choose the Right Platforms: Find out where your target audience hangs out online, like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Then, make sure to adjust your posts and plans to fit those places.
• Create Compelling Content: Make stuff that people want to see! Talk about things they care about or problems they have. This way, they’ll pay attention to what you’re saying and maybe even talk back.
• Leverage Paid Advertising : Sometimes, it’s worth spending a little money to get more eyes on your stuff. Try out ads on social media to reach more people and get them interested in what you’re offering.
• Monitor and Analyze Performance: Keep an eye on how well your posts are doing. Look at things like how many people are liking, sharing, or clicking on your stuff. This helps you see what’s working and what’s not, so you can make things even better next time.

Implementing Effective Marketing Strategies

• Use both old-school and new-school methods: Combine things like flyers and letters with online stuff like Facebook and blogs to reach more people.
• Make awesome stuff people want to read: Write blogs, posts, or videos that people like and care about to keep them interested in what you’re doing.
• Check out the numbers: Look at tools that show you how well your ads are doing, what’s popular, and what’s not, so you can make your marketing better.
• Targeted Advertising Campaigns
• Use Different Targeting: Divide your audience into groups based on things like age, interests, and what they do online. This helps you show them ads that they’re more likely to like and relate to.
• Make Better Ads: Make ads that look good and convince people to do something, like click on them or buy your stuff. Use nice pictures and words that show why your product or service is great.
• Keep Checking and Changing: Keep an eye on how well your ads are doing. Try out different kinds of ads and ways of showing them to see what works best. Then, change your plan based on what you find out so you can make more money.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques
• Keyword Research : Find the words and phrases your customers look for online, then use them on your website and in your posts to get better results on search engines.
• On-Page Optimization: Make sure your titles, descriptions, headers, and image descriptions are set up well so people can find your content easily when they search online.
• Quality Content Creation: Write useful and interesting content that helps your customers and gets other respected websites to link back to yours.
• Email Marketing and Automation
• Know Your Audience : Divide your email list based on who they are, what they bought before, and how engaged they are. Then, customize your emails to match their interests and needs.
• Save Time with Automation : Create automatic email flows for different stages, like saying hi to new subscribers, reminding them about items left in their cart, or thanking them after a purchase. This helps you stay connected without extra effort.
• Measure and Improve : Keep an eye on important numbers like how many people open your emails, click on links, and make purchases. Use this info to make your emails even better and get more results for your efforts.

Expanding Distribution Channels

• Try different ways to sell: Sell in stores, online, or both. Use websites, shops, and partnerships to reach more people.
• Expand to new places: Work with local sellers in new areas to sell more products and reach more customers.
• Make it easy to buy: Connect online and in-store sales so customers have a smooth shopping experience wherever they shop.
• Exploring Online Marketplaces
• Choose the best online stores like Amazon, eBay, or Etsy that match your customers and products. Make sure your product pages look great to beat others.
• Make your product pages better with good pictures, clear info, and good prices. This helps more people see them, like them, and buy them.
• Use ads and promotions on these online stores to get more people to see your products. This means more visits to your pages and more sales.
• Opening Physical Stores or Offices
• Picking Places: Select spots with lots of people, easy to see, and easy to get to for your shops or offices.
• Setting Up Spaces: Make your shops or offices look like your brand and make them cozy and easy to find things in.
• Happy Customers: Give great service, help out personally, and make sure customers have a good time, so they come back and tell their friends.
• Partnering with E-commerce Platforms
• Assess Platforms: Check out different online selling places, like websites and stores, to find partners that match your brand, customers, and goals.
• Talk and Work Together: Chat with these places to make deals that help both of you grow. Use their stuff and customers to boost your business.
• Team Up on Marketing: Partner up on ads and events to get your brand out there more and sell to more people.

Scaling Operations

Expanding your business means more customers and more work. To handle this, you need to make your operations better and faster. Look at what you’re doing now and find ways to do it easier.

You can use machines to do the boring stuff, upgrade your tools, and make sure things get to customers on time. Doing this helps you keep up with demand and keep your customers happy.

• Streamlining Processes and Workflows

Simplifying how you do things is super important for making your business run smoothly and get stuff done faster as you grow. Check out each part of what you do and get rid of anything that’s slowing you down or doing the same thing twice.

Use standard ways of doing things and handy tech tools like project apps or teamwork apps to help keep everyone on the same page and work together better. When you simplify your processes, you waste less time, get things done quicker, and make your business more flexible.

• Investing in Employee Training and Development

Investing in training and developing your employees is super important for making sure they’re skilled and ready to help your business grow into new markets. Give them chances to learn new stuff that relates to your expansion plans.

Also, make sure they feel encouraged to keep learning and coming up with new ideas. When you invest in your employees like this, it not only makes them happier and more loyal, but it also sets your business up to do well in the long run.

• Implementing Scalable Technologies

Using scalable technologies is important for helping your business grow and change with the market. Check what tech you already have and see where you can use cloud tools, automation, and tech that grows as your business does. Pick tech that works well with what you already use. This helps you work better, gives customers a better experience, and keeps your business ready for new tech in the future.

Managing Finances Wisely

Managing money smartly is super important for keeping your business growing and safe when you’re expanding into new markets. Make a detailed budget covering all the costs of expanding, like marketing, setting up new stuff, and paying your team.

Keep a close eye on your money coming in and going out, and find ways to make sure you always have enough cash on hand. It’s a good idea to get help from financial experts to check how healthy your finances are and find ways to save money or make more.

• Allocating Resources Strategically

To make your market expansion work best, it’s super important to spend your resources smartly. Choose where to put your money based on what will help you grow the most and stick to your big goals for the long run.

Spread out your resources wisely between things like advertising, selling, making new stuff, and helping your customers. Keep checking how you’re using your resources and switch things up if the market changes or if new chances pop up.

• Monitoring Cash Flow

Keeping an eye on your money is super important when you’re growing your business in new markets. Make sure you’re watching how much money comes in and goes out regularly.

Try to predict how much cash you’ll need in the future, and have backup plans in case things don’t go as expected. You can use special tools and software to help you keep track of your cash flow and see how your business is doing financially, all in real-time.

• Securing Funding for Expansion

Getting money for growing your business is important. There are different ways to get funding, like bank loans, investors, or crowdfunding. You should choose the one that fits your business best.

Make sure to show investors why they should give you money and how you’ll use it wisely. You can also look for other ways to get money, like government grants or teaming up with other companies.

Adapting to Regulatory Requirements

• Understanding Local Laws and Regulations
• Do Your Research: Look into the rules and laws in the areas where you want to do business. This includes things like how you can hire people, environmental rules, and laws about trademarks and patents.
• Talk to Experts: Get advice from legal experts who know about the laws in the places you’re interested in. They can give you personalized advice and explain complicated legal stuff.
• Stay Updated: Keep an eye on any changes to the laws that might affect your business. Sign up for newsletters, go to industry events, and keep in touch with the people who make the rules.
• Obtaining Necessary Permits and Licenses
• Identifying what you need: First, figure out the permits, licenses, and certifications you need to run your business legally in each new place you want to operate. This can change based on what your business does and the industry it’s in.
• Talking to the right people: Next, talk to the local government or other official groups to learn about how to apply for these permits and licenses. You might need to give them paperwork, let them inspect your business, and pay some fees.
• Making sure you follow the rules: Before you start working in a new area, make sure you have all the permits and licenses you need. If you don’t follow the rules, you could get fined or even get in trouble with the law.
• Complying with Tax Obligations
• Tax Planning: Develop a comprehensive tax strategy that addresses the specific tax obligations in each target market. This includes income taxes, sales taxes, value-added taxes (VAT), and other applicable taxes.
• Consulting Tax Experts: Seek advice from tax experts or accounting professionals with knowledge of international tax laws and regulations. They can help you optimize your tax structure and ensure compliance with local tax requirements.
• Record Keeping: Maintain accurate financial records and documentation to support your tax filings and compliance efforts. This includes keeping track of income, expenses, deductions, and other relevant financial information.

Monitoring and Evaluating Performance

• Tracking Key Metrics and Indicators
• Customer Metrics: Track metrics related to customer behavior and satisfaction, such as customer retention rates, Net Promoter Score (NPS), and customer lifetime value (CLV).
• Market Trends: Monitor market trends, competitor activities, and industry developments to stay informed and adapt your strategies accordingly.
• Financial Performance: Keep track of financial metrics, including revenue, profit margins, cash flow, and return on investment (ROI). This helps you assess the financial health and viability of your expansion efforts.
• Conducting Market Research Surveys
• Survey Design: Design and administer market research surveys to gather feedback and insights from target customers. Ensure that the surveys are well-designed, unbiased, and targeted to the relevant audience.
• Analyzing Survey Data: Analyze survey data to identify trends, preferences, and opportunities in the target market. Look for patterns and correlations that can inform strategic decision-making.
• Actionable Insights: Use the insights gained from market research surveys to refine your products, services, marketing strategies, and customer experience initiatives.
• Seeking Customer Feedback
• Feedback Channels: Provide multiple channels for customers to provide feedback, such as online surveys, feedback forms, email, and social media. Make it easy and convenient for customers to share their thoughts and opinions.
• Active Listening: Actively listen to customer feedback and take it seriously. Respond promptly to address concerns, answer questions, and acknowledge positive feedback.
• Continuous Improvement: Use customer feedback as a basis for continuous improvement and innovation. Incorporate suggestions and ideas from customers into your product development, service offerings, and business processes.

Handling Challenges and Risks

• Understanding Your Target Audience

Before you start expanding your market, it’s important to really know who your customers are. Do some research to find out who might want to buy your products or services, what they like, how they act, and what problems they have.

When you know your customers well, you can make sure your products or services fit their needs perfectly. You can use information about things like age, gender, and location, as well as feedback from customers and tools that analyze data to understand your market better and adjust your expansion plans.

Identifying growth opportunities is key to successful market expansion. Search for new markets where your stuff can help people or fix things. Check out what’s happening in the market and what others are doing to find places with lots of chances to grow.

Also, think about selling different things or getting into new areas to grow more. Stay flexible and look at all options to grow your business.

A comprehensive strategy is essential for executing a successful market expansion plan. First, set clear and doable goals for your expansion. Whether it’s getting more customers, going to new places, or making new things, make sure your goals are easy to understand and reach.

Next, make a detailed plan that shows what steps you’ll take, when you’ll do them, and what you’ll need. Think about things like how you’ll sell your stuff, how you’ll tell people about it, and who you’ll work with. Keep an eye on how things are going and change your plan if you need to, so you keep growing in a good way.

Expanding into new markets comes with its own set of challenges and risks. From cultural differences to regulatory hurdles, you’ll likely encounter obstacles along the way. It’s really important to think ahead and get ready for these problems.

You might face things like local rules, not understanding the language, or needing to change your products to fit what people want in different places. But if you plan ahead and have backup plans, you can deal with these issues and make sure your expansion goes smoothly.

• Anticipating Market Fluctuations

Market changes happen and can really affect how you grow your business. Things like when the economy goes down, what people like, and big world events can change how many customers you have. It’s super important to keep an eye on what’s happening in the market so you can see if things might go up or down.

To deal with these changes, you can try to get different kinds of customers, be able to change what you make easily, and have good plans in case things get risky. These steps can help you stay strong even when the market gets shaky.

• Mitigating Supply Chain Disruptions

Having a good supply chain is super important for growing your business into new markets. But sometimes things go wrong, like not having enough materials or delays in getting stuff from one place to another. This can really mess things up and make it hard to keep your customers happy.

So, it’s really important to find out where things could go wrong in your supply chain and do things to stop it from happening. You could try getting supplies from different places, having extra production places just in case, or using technology to keep an eye on everything better.

• Dealing with Competitor Strategies

When you try to grow your market, your competitors might try to stop you. They might do things to keep their customers or slow down your growth. To deal with this, you need to be ready.

You can do this by making your products or services unique, offering great value, or coming up with new ideas. Also, it’s important to keep your customers happy, watch what your competitors are doing, and always try to stay one step ahead.

Expanding your market means more than just finding new customers. It’s about knowing what they want, finding ways to grow, and having a good plan. To expand, you need to think ahead, change when needed, and make sure your customers are happy.

This article shares some important tips: know your customers, look for chances to grow, and make a solid plan. By following these tips, you can make your business stronger and last longer. So, don’t be afraid to try new things, adapt as you go, and use every opportunity to make your business bigger and better!

• Q. How can I identify new market opportunities?

Conduct thorough market research to understand customer needs. Analyze industry trends and competitor strategies for insights. Utilize data analytics tools to identify untapped markets.

• Q. What factors should I consider before expanding my market?

Assess your company’s capabilities and resources. Evaluate potential risks and challenges in new markets. Ensure alignment with your overall business objectives.

• Q. How do I develop an effective market expansion strategy?

Set clear and achievable goals for your expansion efforts. Create a detailed roadmap outlining steps and timelines. Continuously monitor progress and adjust strategies as needed.

• What role does customer segmentation play in market expansion?

Segmenting your audience helps tailor products/services to specific needs. It allows for targeted marketing efforts to different customer groups. Helps prioritize resources for maximum impact and ROI.

• How important is agility in market expansion?

Agility allows for quick adaptation to changing market conditions. Enables businesses to capitalize on emerging opportunities. Helps mitigate risks and stay ahead of competitors.

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Resources for Your Growing Business

Market expansion strategy: a complete business guide.

No business exists to simply tread water and keep things the same. In fact, a company that tries to do so will find itself falling behind its competitors.

Instead, every company needs to look for opportunities to expand its market. This can’t be done recklessly, but with the right research, you can minimize risks and help increase the chances of success.

What is a market expansion strategy, and what are some techniques you can use to maximize your success? Let’s take a look.

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

What Is Market Expansion?

How to create a market expansion strategy, the benefits of a market expansion strategy, is it time for a market expansion.

Market expansion happens when you notice that your current market share has peaked and you aren’t gaining any additional customers in your current niche. The goal of a market expansion strategy is to allow you to sell your current products or services to a new market.

Once you have met the current market opportunities, it’s time to determine what other markets are reachable. Think about what types of people might benefit from your product or service that you aren’t currently marketing to. As you identify these new customers, think about the problems they have and how you can solve them.

After you’ve decided on a target market for expansion, think about how to create messaging that resonates with that group so they understand that your offer is relevant to their needs.

Market expansion is an essential part of business growth. Very few companies can stay in a single niche forever and still have significant success. That’s why creating a strong expansion strategy is vital.

There are several steps to creating a successful market expansion strategy. The first step is to understand why you want to expand. Are you trying to increase profits to a specific level? Do you want to overtake a competitor? Knowing your goals will help you define your strategy.

Identify Your New Market

Once you know your goal, think about what markets you could reach that you aren’t currently focused on. Have your front-line customer service representatives heard from a unique customer base you weren’t expecting?

For example, Dollar Shave Club sells razors through the mail, and their initial marketing was very directly aimed at men. However, many women enjoyed using their products as well. If they wanted to, Dollar Shave Club could create a market expansion strategy by specifically targeting women with their marketing and products.

Once you’ve identified a potential target market, start researching how to connect with them. Where do those people spend time — online and off? What keeps them up at night?

With this information, you’ll be ready to create your specific outreach strategy.

Create a Plan For Targeting the New Market

A marketing plan has a variety of parts. You’ve already taken care of the first one with your market analysis. Now it’s time to create the messaging, voice, and schedule for your outreach. You should also take time to see how competitors are reaching this market so you can create ways to stand out.

Your marketing plan can include information on social media campaigns, a new website or web pages, advertising online and off, email marketing, and much more. However, make sure the plan makes sense given the current commitments your staff already have.

Reaching new potential customers can be a tricky process, so make sure you consider a variety of approaches. Focus your efforts on where your potential markets spend the most time and make sure your message is very personalized to your target market.

Approve a Marketing Budget

The best cars in the world won’t run without fuel, and the best marketing plans can’t go anywhere without a budget. If you’re a business owner it’s easier to create and approve a budget than if you work in a larger company.

You may need to create a formal proposal using proposal software and present it to your company’s leadership team, or you might be able to have an ad-hoc leader’s meeting with your top staff. It all depends on the structure of your company.

Remember that your initial marketing efforts won’t bring in revenue right away, so have a reasonable and specific timeframe that you can commit to funding your new outreach. If there are no results at the end of that period, it may be time to reevaluate the strategy.

Take Action & Track Results

Now that you’ve created your market expansion plan, it’s time to take action. Start your outreach to the new market segment and see how things go. It’s important to track your results so that you can determine what types of marketing make a difference in this niche and what types you can move away from.

As you track your results, you can shift your time and financial focus toward strategies that deliver the best return on your investment (ROI).

Why do companies pursue market expansion as a form of growth? There are a lot of benefits that your business can gain from expanding your market.

First, expanding your market to specific niches can help you manage your company’s cash flow by marketing your products and services to those who are most likely to buy. You also create messaging that fits that exact niche, rather than broad marketing that may not appeal to anyone. This is far better than blindly trying to appeal to everyone — which appeals to no one.

Secondly, by creating a solid plan and budget, a market expansion strategy helps reduce the risks of business growth. Because you’re growing one niche at a time, after your current reach is maximized, you aren’t overextending your company. You’re also ensuring that you maximize the profit of each expansion before pursuing another.

Finally, market expansion helps your company avoid stagnation by consistently looking for and creating a plan to reach new market niches. This helps your company be much more successful over time and keeps you from falling behind your competition.

Is your business ready to expand into a new market? If so, this guide will help you create a solid strategy without leaving your current market behind.

One of the things that FreshBooks can help you with is managing your company finances as you grow. If you’re ready for an easy-to-use accounting and invoicing system, we’re here to help. Check out our Resource Hub for more articles like this.

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The Top 10 Market Expansion Strategy Templates

Market expansion strategy is essential for businesses looking to grow their presence and customer base. It's about identifying new markets and tailoring approaches to capture fresh segments. This strategy can open doors to increased revenue and a more robust business model.

Ready for a growth spurt? The upcoming insights on the top 10 market expansion strategy templates will equip you with the tools to scale your business effectively. Get set to turn strategic vision into actionable success.

Managing A Market Expansion Strategy

Effective Management : Crafting a market expansion strategy is just the start. The real challenge is in the execution. Strong management ensures that the strategy is put into action efficiently and effectively. It's about setting clear goals, assigning responsibilities, and tracking progress. With the right approach, companies can respond quickly to market feedback and adjust their tactics accordingly.

Strategic Alignment : Every part of the organization needs to be aligned with the expansion goals. When operations, marketing, sales, and other departments work together towards a common aim, the strategy is more likely to succeed. This alignment is critical in maintaining focus and driving the strategy forward with collective effort. Aligning your teams can be facilitated by a structured approach, such as the steps outlined in our guide on creating a market development strategy .

Data-Driven Decisions : Understanding market nuances is key to expansion. Data provides insights into customer behaviour, market trends, and competitive landscapes. Decisions backed by solid data can guide a more targeted approach, reducing risk and maximizing the potential for success.

Continuous Adaptation : Markets evolve, and so must your strategy. A good market expansion plan is flexible, allowing for adjustments as new information emerges. It encourages learning from each initiative, whether successful or not, to refine tactics and strengthen the strategy over time.

As strategy leaders, you know that expanding into new markets isn't just about ambition—it's about smart, strategic planning. The importance of getting business strategy right can't be overstated for market expansion. It's the difference between entering a new market with a bang or a whimper. Up next, we'll dive into the top market expansion strategy templates that are ready for you to deploy. These tools have been designed to streamline your strategic planning and help you capture new market segments confidently and with clarity.

Market Development Strategy Template

Expanding your market footprint requires a comprehensive plan that's both agile and grounded in data. The Market Development Strategy Template is a critical tool for businesses aiming to grow their customer base and enhance market share. It provides a structured approach to identifying and executing the most impactful market expansion activities.

What's included in this template:

• Focus areas: Clear, actionable focus areas such as brand awareness, customer acquisition, and retention that guide your strategic direction.
• Objectives: Specific, measurable goals within each focus area to drive progress and measure success.
• KPIs: Key performance indicators that provide quantifiable targets to evaluate the effectiveness of your objectives.

This free template is tailor-made for marketing teams who are charting a course through the complex waters of market expansion. It aligns with the insights and strategies discussed earlier, offering a clear roadmap to reach new customers and solidify your market position.

Embrace the Market Development Strategy Template to structure your growth journey. The template simplifies the strategic planning process, ensuring that each step is transparent and progress is trackable. It's time to leverage a tool that supports your ambitions with precision and clarity.

👉🏻 Use this free template

International Expansion Plan Template

Navigating new international markets requires a precise and comprehensive approach. The International Expansion Plan Template is pivotal for businesses aiming to broaden their global footprint. It helps teams to pinpoint strategic focus areas, set tangible objectives, and measure progress with relevant KPIs, ensuring a streamlined path towards market expansion.

• Focus areas: Includes areas such as developing global market presence, nurturing customer relationships, and optimizing international operations.
• Objectives: Sets specific and measurable goals like increasing the international customer base and expanding into new markets.
• KPIs: Outlines measurable targets such as boosting international customers by a certain percentage to gauge the success of the objectives.

This free template is crafted for teams of any size across various industries looking to expand internationally. It ties together the crucial elements of strategic planning and execution, making it an indispensable tool for businesses seeking to capitalize on international market opportunities.

Take the guesswork out of your international expansion. This template provides a clear roadmap, assisting teams to navigate the complexities of entering new markets. With Cascade , you'll turn strategic planning into measurable success.

Business Strategic Plan Template

The Business Strategic Plan Template is a vital tool for organizations aiming to navigate the complexities of market expansion. It provides a structured approach to breaking down strategic goals into actionable steps, ensuring that every aspect of your expansion efforts is aligned and trackable.

• Focus areas: This template includes focus areas that are relevant to market expansion such as scaling operations, enhancing brand visibility, or entering new geographical locations.
• Objectives: It outlines specific objectives to help you target the right market segments, optimize product fit, or build effective channels for customer acquisition.
• KPIs: The template provides KPIs to quantify your achievements, like market share growth, customer engagement rates, or sales milestones, ensuring you can measure your strategy's success.

This free template is for strategy leaders and executive teams in sectors like Logistics, Manufacturing, Retail, and Pharmaceuticals who are looking to systematically grow their market presence. It's designed to keep your strategy on course and adaptable to the dynamic nature of market expansion.

Leveraging this template means you're setting up your strategy on a solid foundation, with a clear pathway to execute and monitor your market expansion initiatives. It's about making informed decisions, staying agile, and achieving measurable success.

Strategic Acquisition Strategy Plan Template

Acquiring another business is a potent market expansion strategy that can accelerate growth and diversification. The Strategic Acquisition Strategy Plan Template provides a structured approach to navigating the complexities of business acquisitions. It ensures that every phase of the acquisition process is managed with precision, from identifying potential targets to negotiating and closing the deal.

• Focus areas: The template includes crucial focus areas such as identifying potential acquisitions, negotiation, and closing deals.  
• Objectives: It defines clear, actionable objectives to guide your acquisition process, ensuring that each step is purposeful and results-driven.  
• KPIs: Relevant KPIs are outlined to monitor progress and measure success effectively, keeping the acquisition strategy on track.

This free template is tailored for businesses aiming to expand through strategic acquisitions. It's an invaluable tool for strategy leaders, operations teams, and executive members who require a reliable framework to facilitate growth and ensure seamless integration of new business ventures.

Embrace the Strategic Acquisition Strategy Plan Template to streamline your acquisition process and capitalize on new opportunities. This template will not only guide your strategy but also enhance your decision-making with structured objectives and measurable targets.

Strategic Alliances Plan Template

Forging strategic partnerships can be a game-changer for market expansion strategies. The Strategic Alliances Plan Template helps organizations to systematically identify, manage, and grow beneficial partnerships. This template is a crucial element in any market expansion toolkit, ensuring that collaborations are strategic, structured, and focused on mutual growth.

• Focus areas: The template provides focus areas such as expanding partnerships and enhancing collaboration, which are critical for entering new markets.
• Objectives: Clear objectives pave the way for strategic alliances, ensuring they contribute to market expansion goals.
• KPIs: Defined KPIs measure the success of each alliance, helping to gauge impact and guide decision-making.

This free template is tailored for businesses seeking to expand their market reach through strategic alliances. It's particularly useful for organizations looking to structure their partnership efforts with clear objectives and measurable outcomes, aligning with overall market expansion strategies.

Leverage strategic partnerships to broaden your market horizons. With the Strategic Alliances Plan Template, you can pinpoint valuable collaborations, set actionable goals, and track progress with precision. It's an indispensable tool for any business ready to thrive through strategic alliances.

2 Year Strategic Roadmap Template

When plotting a course for market expansion, a clear and actionable plan is vital. The 2 Year Strategic Roadmap Template is a crucial tool for setting a trajectory that aligns with ambitious growth objectives. It helps to crystallize the vision, ensuring that each step taken contributes to the broader market expansion goals.

• Focus areas: This template outlines critical areas for strategic attention, ensuring efforts are channeled effectively.
• Objectives: The roadmap includes specific objectives, providing clear direction for all team members.
• KPIs: Key performance indicators are defined, offering measurable targets to track progress towards each objective.

This free template is designed for strategy leaders and teams who understand the importance of a well-structured approach to market expansion. It's for those who value clarity and measurable outcomes and are ready to take strategic strides in their business growth.

The roadmap is a catalyst for action. It simplifies complex strategic planning into manageable, actionable steps. Using this template, you can steer your organization towards significant market expansion with confidence.

10 Year Strategic Roadmap Template

When considering market expansion, planning is crucial. The 10 Year Strategic Roadmap Template is essential for businesses looking to navigate long-term growth. It helps maintain a steady course towards achieving your market expansion goals, ensuring that every step is calculated and contributes to the broader vision.

• Focus areas: The template includes areas that pinpoint where to direct strategic efforts, such as product innovation or market penetration.
• Objectives: It outlines specific, actionable objectives that support each focus area, guiding your team to target the right market opportunities.
• KPIs: The template specifies key performance indicators to track progress and gauge the effectiveness of your expansion strategies.

This free template is for organizations aiming to solidify their presence in new markets and need a structured, long-term approach. It's tailored to help your team understand the direction of market expansion and align your initiatives with the overarching business goals.

By using this template, you'll gain clarity on where your business is heading and what it takes to get there. You'll be able to set realistic milestones and measure progress, making adjustments as needed to stay on the path to success.

Strategic Planning Template

For businesses aiming to broaden their market reach, the Strategic Planning Template is a vital tool. It lays the groundwork for a successful expansion by helping to translate grand ambitions into a structured, actionable plan. This template streamlines the strategic planning process, making it easier to identify new opportunities and methodically pursue growth.

• Focus areas: Includes broad categories that pinpoint the company's priority areas for growth and improvement.
• Objectives: Contains specific and measurable goals that align with the focus areas to drive impactful progress.
• KPIs: Features key performance indicators that enable tracking and performance review to ensure strategic goals are met.

This free template is designed for strategy leaders and teams across all levels of an organization who are gearing up for market expansion. It's industry-agnostic, ensuring relevance and adaptability for any company ready to scale up.

Leveraging the Strategic Planning Template aligns your team with your expansion goals, ensuring everyone is tracking toward the same objectives. It's the blueprint you need for a clear and focused expansion effort.

Marketing Implementation Plan Template

When expanding into new markets, a well-devised Marketing Implementation Plan Template is key. It translates lofty goals into actionable steps, ensuring that every marketing effort aligns with the broader market expansion strategy. This template is a roadmap to executing marketing strategies that resonate with new customer segments and support sustainable growth.

• Focus areas: The template includes strategic focus areas such as increasing brand awareness, lead generation, and customer retention.
• Objectives: It outlines specific objectives for each focus area, like enhancing brand visibility and engagement.
• KPIs: The template sets measurable KPIs, enabling you to track the progress and impact of your marketing activities.

This free template is designed for strategy leaders, marketing teams, and executives in sectors like Logistics, Manufacturing, and Retail, who are aiming to penetrate new markets. It ensures that marketing plans are not only strategic but also systematically executed for maximum impact.

Using this template will streamline your strategy execution process. It helps you focus on what's important, measure your success, and adapt as needed. Save time and see the tangible results of your market expansion strategy faster.

Strategic Alliance Management Plan Template

Entering new markets isn't just about reaching new customers; it's about forming the right partnerships to ensure sustainable growth. The Strategic Alliance Management Plan Template is a critical tool for any business looking to expand. It helps create and maintain robust partnerships, enabling access to new customer bases, sharing of resources, and collaborative marketing efforts, all of which are vital for successful market expansion.

• Focus areas: This template includes focus areas such as strengthening relationships, monitoring performance, and leveraging strategic alliances for market expansion.  
• Objectives: It outlines specific, measurable objectives to help you achieve your goals within each focus area.  
• KPIs: You'll find KPIs that track the success and efficiency of your strategic alliances, ensuring you're on the right path to expanding your market presence.

This free template is designed for strategy leaders and members of executive teams at traditional businesses who recognize the value of strategic partnerships in market expansion. It ensures that your strategic alliances are managed effectively, aligning with your overall business objectives and driving growth.

The market is dynamic, and so should be your approach to expansion. Use this Strategic Alliance Management Plan Template to stay ahead, build lasting partnerships, and realize your market expansion goals with precision.

Best Practices For Market Expansion Strategy

Getting your business strategy on point is crucial when you're looking at market expansion. It's the compass that guides your venture through uncharted territories. For those new to strategizing, we offer a deep dive into the foundational elements with our series of instructional videos on understanding the strategy model , a framework for developing comprehensive strategic plans. A well-defined strategy cuts through the noise, allowing you to focus on what's necessary to gain a foothold in new markets. It's more than just ambition; it's about structured, strategic action.

Best practices for market expansion hinge on understanding the landscape and carving out a niche. This means conducting thorough market research, identifying customer pain points, and offering solutions that resonate. To help in this endeavor, our Strategy Building Blocks series provides an overview of the components necessary for a robust strategic framework. It's essential to articulate a value proposition that differentiates your brand in the new market. Equally important is crafting a go-to-market strategy that's not only comprehensive but also flexible, to pivot as market conditions dictate.

Risk mitigation is another pillar of best practices. This involves scenario planning and having contingency strategies in place. It's about anticipating challenges and planning for them, so you're not caught off guard. A good market expansion strategy also leverages local insights and expertise, enabling a more nuanced approach to market entry.

Finally, remember that market expansion is a marathon, not a sprint. It requires patience, persistence, and a steady hand to guide the strategy from conception to execution. Your strategy should be a living document, one that evolves with lessons learned and insights gained. It's this agility and willingness to adapt that often separates successful market expansions from those that falter.

It's Time To Make Your Market Expansion Strategy Shine

Your market expansion journey is about to take a major leap forward. You've explored the top market expansion strategy templates, each crafted to guide your strategic endeavors from conception to execution. These free templates are your arsenal, ready to be deployed for capturing new markets and driving growth.

Remember, expanding into new markets is more than just plotting points on a map; it's about making data-driven decisions, aligning your team, and adapting with agility. The templates provided are not mere documents; they're dynamic blueprints that reflect your company's ambition and readiness to evolve.

To further enhance your strategy execution, consider leveraging the insights from The Ultimate Strategy Implementation Playbook , an invaluable resource that has guided over 55,000 professionals in actualizing their strategic plans.

It's time to turn these insights into action. With a clear direction and structured approach, you're well-equipped to navigate the complexities of market expansion. The right template will not only streamline your strategic planning but also ensure that every step you take is measurable, actionable, and aligned with your overarching goals.

Don't let the opportunity to define your future pass you by. Discover how Cascade's platform empowers you to manage your strategy execution in one place, ensuring that your team remains focused and coordinated every step of the way. It's not just about expanding your market—it's about elevating your strategy to new heights.

Book a demo now and experience firsthand how Cascade can transform your market expansion strategy into a tangible, successful reality.

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Strategies for successful market entry and expansion.

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Jeff Bartel is chairman and managing director of Hamptons Group, a private investment and strategic advisory firm headquartered in Miami.

Whether your organization is an established company or a startup, forming detailed growth strategies is crucial. Successful market entry and expansion begin with analyzing market potential, forming strategic partnerships and ensuring your business works in new areas while watching the potential risks and developing solutions for them.

Market Analysis And Selection

Economic signs, political situations, legal requirements and cultural traits are all factors to consider when researching business environments and potential risks. Analyzing market size, growth rates, customer preferences and competition is also crucial. A SWOT analysis , which assesses your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, can also help by assessing your brand’s market appeal and pinpointing possible challenges.

You can choose the best markets for entry by ranking them based on how well they match your company’s goals and available resources. Successful strategies seek to strike a balance between market potential and the ability to meet market needs using data to identify specific customer groups. You can use a scoring system to rank markets based on size, growth and competition and test desired markets to reduce risks before entering them.

At Hamptons Group, we carefully assess multiple elements during our market analysis and selection process. This analysis includes reviewing companies with innovative, repeatable cash flow and businesses disrupting technology sectors or capitalizing on current market and industry trends. These organizations have leadership teams with a diverse and cautious approach to growth where we can offer financial, intellectual and organizational support.

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Trump vs. harris 2024 polls: harris leads trump in latest post-dnc surveys, today’s nyt mini crossword clues and answers for wednesday, august 28th, key factors to consider in market analysis.

Market size and growth potential: If you’re interested in entering a new market, you should research its size and likelihood of growth.

Customer demographics and preferences: Ensuring a successful product or service launch requires understanding the new market’s demographics, behaviors and preferences.

Regulatory environment: To address any legal requirements, review regulations, compliance requirements and local laws.

Economic and political stability: Knowing the stability of your target market expansion is essential for lowering risks that can disrupt your business’s operations and affect demand.

Cultural and social factors: Your company should align its products, messaging and business practices to meet local customs and values, where possible, to attract your target audience. This improves the chances your products will be accepted.

Developing A Robust Market Entry Strategy

How your company enters the market—whether that’s through exporting, licensing, franchising, joint ventures or wholly owned subsidiaries—depends on how much you invest, your desired level of control, how much risk is acceptable to you and the overall competition. It is vital to pick a strategy that matches your business’s goals.

Exporting is easy and least risky, allowing you to sell in new markets without major investment, but it involves less control and high shipping costs. Licensing and franchising provide rights to local companies to sell your product; this approach involves low initial investment but comes with a risk of losing control over your brand. In a joint venture, your company partners with another firm to merge local knowledge with corporate experience. Strategic alliances with local companies can mean flexibility and shared product promotional resources.

Wholly owned subsidiaries require a substantial investment with some potential risk but provide the most control.

To choose which strategy works best for your business, you must first define your strategic goals. If your goal is rapid growth, acquisitions or joint ventures are good choices. If you’d prefer steady business growth, exporting or franchising could be the better fit. An entry strategy tied to your company’s strengths, such as technology or efficient supply chains, could be the best approach for aligning business objectives. Overall, your strategy should focus on long-term goals and be flexible to meet market conditions.

Risk Management And Mitigation

To handle risks, you must fully understand and plan for them before entering the market. Political risks are a genuine concern and could include changes in government, political problems and new rules. Economic risks are just as important, considering that any changes in currency value may affect your company’s profits.

In addition, because you may need to follow different rules in new locations, regulatory and legal risks may increase.

Leveraging Strategic Partnerships

Partnerships can provide your company with essential local knowledge, resources and connections. Finding quality partners and working together has many benefits, including valuable local knowledge, greater access to resources, and sharing risks and costs.

Ideal partners will understand the market, knowing what customers like as well as local requirements, rules and competition. It is also indispensable to have a partner with a good reputation, similar goals and values. Both parties need to keep in regular contact to ensure things stay on track.

Positioning Your Business For Long-Term Success

Market development starts when you analyze your business’s chosen market size, growth potential, customer demographics and competition to select the most promising markets. After that, developing an entry strategy, setting up risk management and forming strategic partnerships are critical. A proper strategy that includes thorough analysis and strategic partnerships will position your business for long-term success in new international markets.

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How to Build a Market Development Strategy [Free Planning Templates]

Published: April 27, 2023

Your business is getting by just fine – but still, the questions remain: Could you be selling more? Is there an opportunity to increase market share? Is there any way you could further your product diversification efforts?

Companies hoping to increase revenue can do so in many ways — such as increasing advertising budgets, expanding sales teams, and investing in product development. However, one often overlooked way to strengthen your gross sales is a purposeful and expertly executed market development strategy.

In this article, we'll explain what market development is and how you can employ it to grow your business. Then, we’ll take a look at some examples of market development strategies that work for top businesses today.

What is market development?

Market development is the expansion of your total addressable market (TAM) and how much market share you can expect to claim. The Ansoff Matrix (or Product/Market Expansion Grid) illustrates how a company might expand its TAM across four categories: market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification.

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Each category rests upon two axes — one for market and one for risk. A company can expand its efforts into new or existing markets. Each poses more or less risk to the business.

Market Penetration

When businesses want to expand within their existing markets with low risk, they might attempt a market penetration strategy.

In this scenario, TAM increases because by offering a new product or service, a business can effectively increase the maximum amount of revenue it can attain from its existing customer base. A product launch is an effective way to execute this strategy.

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Product Launches

A company may release new iterations of a product they already sell successfully within the market. These iterations could include an improvement to the product that makes it a better fit for customers' needs, an improvement to the performance of the product, or any other changes you can reasonably market as added value.

The purpose of launching a new product is to generate excitement and buzz around the brand to increase sales.

Product Development

A more high-risk way to expand within an existing market is through product development. Even with its risk, make no mistake — this market development strategy can be rewarding.

Developing new products is a delicate process. Businesses should be keenly aware of their market, as market interest is a driving factor for product development.

If the audience isn’t receptive due to a lack of education about the product, a poor marketing campaign to promote the product, or even poor timing of launching the product, this strategy can be difficult to execute. However, companies that have failed at developing new products usually have in-depth learnings to apply to their next market development strategy.

When it comes to creating new products, consider the category of your product. Entering a space with many competitors will be a different experience than building something in a disruptive category.

“If you launch a product in an existing category with existing competitors, you’re playing by their rules and competing on their terms,” says Adrienne Joselow, director of product marketing at HubSpot. “If you instead launch a disruptive product that changes the category, you’re competing on new benefits where you clearly win — you change the game.”

Beyond making new products, product development comes in many forms. Here are a few examples.

If a business has been around for a long time or has been in hot water, it’s possible that the market has become disconnected from the brand. This can happen due to a lack of advertising around the brand itself, outdated positioning of a product, or distrust within the market.

Companies can rebrand themselves to reconnect with their existing market while positioning themselves as a viable option among the competition.

Adjusting the packaging of a product, offering a new size, flavor, or color, or even changing the name can help a company rebrand a product to have a better position within its existing market.

Another way to gain traction within an existing market is for a business to make its products more accessible or desirable through its pricing.

Repricing doesn’t necessarily mean lowering prices, although that is one way to execute a product development strategy. It could mean shifting the brand within the market to showcase value or luxury, thus justifying a rise in prices to capture those consumers.

Market Development

It’s possible to take a less risky approach when expanding into new markets. To develop a market, a business may offload some of the risks.

In this example, TAM increases because a business is adding more people to its target market — thus being able to service new customers without investing in a new product line. Here are a few ways a business can develop a new market.

Geographic Expansion

Research can reveal markets that are suitable for a business to thrive within based on where the business currently operates. Geographical expansion can work for both brick-and-mortar as well as online businesses.

Franchising

Giving individual business owners the right to use the brand and trademarks associated with a company is another way to expand into a new market without high risk.

In franchising agreements, the franchisee usually pays an upfront fee to the franchisor to obtain the rights to operate the business.

Diversification

Occasionally, a business may step out of its normal operations and market to create a product for a completely different industry and market. For this reason, diversification can present a major risk to the business, but it can be very rewarding if it’s carried out effectively.

Similar Product Diversification

A company may realize that the raw materials or byproducts of the goods they sell can be repurposed into a completely new product that can be marketed to a different audience than the one currently purchasing its products.

Unique Product Diversification

Rather than using existing products, a company may take a completely unique approach to penetrate a new market by offering a product or service that is different from anything offered in its industry.

How to Create a Market Development Strategy

• Research your development opportunities.
• Set your growth goals.
• Create your marketing plan.
• Go to market.
• Analyze your results.

The decision of when and how to develop your existing market should be a methodical process. Just because your business has struck lightning once does not mean your new expansion plan is a guaranteed success.

Because of that reality, follow these steps and use these resources to determine if you should develop your market, how it should be developed, and whether or not the initiative is successful.

Free Market Research Kit

5 Research and Planning Templates + a Free Guide on How to Use Them in Your Market Research

• SWOT Analysis Template
• Survey Template
• Focus Group Template

Step 1. Research your development opportunities.

It's always tempting to go after the hottest trends — whether that means adding more areas of focus to your consulting business or adding more items to your restaurant menu.

However, before you spend time, money, or resources on developing your market based on trends, take these steps to determine if the expansion is worthwhile.

Review Your Buyer Personas

Featured Tool: HubSpot Buyer Persona Templates

Download These Templates

When expanding your market, you face the potential need for net new or revised buyer personas, which are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.

Consider the motivations, demographics, and backgrounds of your new target market to help you decide whether or not the development initiative makes sense.

Research Your Market

Featured Tool: HubSpot Market Research Kit

Download This Kit

Understanding your hypothetical positioning in a market is key before attempting to enter it. To that end, conduct market research exercises like Porter's Five Forces Analysis or a SWOT Analysis to determine your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, the threat of substitutes, or other attributes compared to competitors in this new market.

Additionally, you'll want to calculate market penetration before moving forward with any plans to expand.

Survey Your Customers

Featured Tool: Customer Satisfaction Survey Templates Image Source

If you're hoping to expand your current product line to generate more revenue from existing customers, make sure your intended expansion will be warmly received. Asking yourself why this development makes sense coming from your organization is a good first step.

However, talking to and surveying your customers to see if your proposed expansion is beneficial to their lives is a necessary proof point before expanding your offerings as a business.

Step 2. Set your growth goals.

A successful market development will come with added sales, profit, employees, customers, products, users, locations, or some combination of these criteria.

Because there's so much on the line, develop goals for which facets of your business you intend to grow, in addition to what your growth goal for each criterion is.

For example, by adding one more location, you may set the following growth goals:

• Increase customers by 90%.
• Increase revenue by 100%.
• Double annual profits after recouping the initial investment.
• Increase employee headcount by 20 people.

During this stage, you should also consider the requirements needed to help you hit your growth goals, such as initial funding, tools, and software to help you get the initiative successfully up and running.

Lastly, the most important metric to measure before attempting to expand or develop your market is ROI. In this step of the process, compare the upfront costs of developing your market as intended with the projected revenue numbers of a successful expansion.

If the ROI is not encouraging enough to move forward with, you may need to go back to the drawing board and determine a new growth strategy.

Featured Tool: Growth Strategy and Planning Template

Download the Template

Using the template above, outline your growth goals and strategy to lay the foundation for your market development initiative. This template will help you plan out the steps necessary to achieve your goals and help you determine whether or not they are realistic for this project.

Step 3. Create your marketing plan.

An increased market means an increased need for effective marketing.

To generate demand — or to capture existing demand in your market — make sure your marketing plan is up-to-date and reflective of the initiatives it will take to grow your market share to its desired level.

You’ll also need to make sure each of your offerings is differentiated. Customers should know what makes your products different from each other and from other products in the market.

“Messaging, messaging, messaging,” says HubSpot’s Adrienne Joselow. “Create a narrative that establishes a sense of urgency. Lean into what makes your product special — and how you can help your customers get that magic.”

Featured Tool: HubSpot's Marketing Plan Template

Download This Template

Document your marketing plan supporting your market development with the template above, and make adjustments to it as needed to ensure you're reaching your market in an accurate, appealing, and consistent fashion.

Consider all of the following initiatives and how they'll play a role in generating more revenue in your newly developed market.

Email Marketing

Will you communicate with existing prospects via email to alert them of your initiative? Do you have a list of saved contacts who expressed interest in what you sell, were unable to make the purchase, and might now be able to purchase from you?

Social Media

Do you have organic and paid initiatives to generate buzz and spread the word to grow awareness on social media?

Local Marketing

If you're developing your market on a regional level, are you working with local publications, PR agencies, or advertising platforms to appeal to nearby potential customers?

Content & SEO

Do you have website and blog content planned to capture the interest of website visitors hoping to learn more about what you're selling?

When building your blog, consider the range of topics you’ll cover. If you cover many subjects, have experts devoted to managing different sections of your content, suggests HubSpot Marketing Manager Clint Fontanella.

“Group your content together so that an expert in one or a few related topics can focus their efforts on growing that type of content,” Fontanella says. “This way, they can pay closer attention to the nuances of that SERP landscape and tailor the content to the specific needs of the audience.”

Step 4: Go to market.

The time has come: Your research and planning are complete, and you're ready to formally enact your development strategy, whether it's opening the doors of your new location or making your new product available for purchase on your website.

But before you start collecting revenue, there are a few final steps to take — specifically, aligning your team on the best way to conduct this go-to-market launch.

Go to market successfully by managing three imperative internal tasks, all of which can be done with this Product Go-to-Market Kit :

Campaign Planning

The campaign plan should be a one-stop shop for anyone who has a stake in the success of this project. It should provide a general purpose for the market development project in addition to the tactical and strategic elements team members need to adhere to in order to see the project go off without a hitch.

Sales Planning

The sales plan should provide more specific insights for the sales team – especially regarding overall projections, team or individual goals, and strategies for how the organization intends to meet these goals

Team Email Updates

For the company at large, particularly for individuals who need to be informed but may not have set tasks to complete, team email updates are a staple of communication during market development.

This messaging should contain a status check for the launch timeline and outstanding tasks, and any notifications the company should be aware of during their day-to-day work.

Featured Tool: HubSpot Go-to-Market Kit Image Source

To centralize your internal planning and communication efforts during your market development process, use the HubSpot Go-to-Market Planning Kit .

Step 5: Analyze your results.

Once you've taken the necessary actions to develop your market, the work has only begun. After launch day, you'll need to be sure customers are satisfied, products and services are high-quality, employees are retained, and, most importantly, goals are met.

Start collecting sales data as soon as possible so that you can begin analyzing whether or not you'll meet your projections. If not, you may have to determine a plan to either adjust your goals to become more realistic or adjust your strategy to ensure your goals are met.

Once data is available, make sure you're presenting your findings accurately and clearly so that stakeholders can fully understand what the results are, how you achieved them, and what the next steps of your market development strategy are.

“Test and iterate on your way to launch, through launch, and beyond. Stay agile. Figure out what works, what doesn’t, and what could be with adjustments,” Joselow advises. “Don’t be afraid to pivot.”

Featured Tool: Marketing Reporting Templates

Available in PowerPoint, Excel, and Google Drive, these templates will help the project driver communicate the results of your market development strategy to your team.

The Benefits of Building a Marketing Development Strategy

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of extending to new markets. However, to be successful, you must innovate with intention and organize the chaos from the outset.

“Marketing’s job is never done. It’s about perpetual motion,” states Beth Comstock, Former CMO and Vice Chairman of GE. “We must continue to innovate every day.”

With thorough planning, you can create a robust strategy that can better take advantage of new and emerging opportunities.

Other benefits of refining your marketing development strategy follow.

You can get an edge over competitors.

Creating a market development strategy that attracts a new audience means you may end up the only supplier in the game.

By getting creative and adjusting your marketing to prove a fit for new buyers, you’ll have less competition and more market share before other producers wise up to what you’ve accomplished.

You’ll reduce risk through preparation.

One of the known risks of moving to new markets is the unpredictability of reactions to your offerings. Knowing this, your market development strategy can include tactics that pave the way for success. One effective tactic to try is A/B testing. This presents two variations to your target audience, tracks the results, and determines which variation is more effective. Surprisingly, only 17% of marketers use landing page A/B tests to improve conversion rates.

One example of A/B testing beyond the landing page could be creating more than one billboard design to present in new geographic locations. Some communities react more favorably to reds vs. blues, or straightforward ads vs. clever ones.

Having a few prepared as part of an A/B strategy to analyze the results can provide insights into how best to invest future marketing dollars in that region.

You can brave the unexplored.

Confidently open doors for new opportunities to develop by folding an experimental budget into your market development strategy. Making a safe space for leaning into creative or unorthodox ideas is smart innovation toward a big payoff.

Baking in the financial risk from the beginning enables you to control financial losses and take bigger, bolder leaps.

Market Development Strategy Examples

1. carl’s jr. and hardee’s — geographic expansion.

Although these two companies started as separate restaurants — Carl’s Jr. on the west coast and Hardee’s on the east coast — they merged in the late 1990s to become one company under two names.

From a high-level perspective, this might seem like a branding and marketing nightmare, but within their respective geographic markets, the different names have been successful.

Carl’s Jr. took the opportunity to acquire Hardee’s, thus expanding the burger chain across the country, becoming one of the largest burger chains in the United States.

2. Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Market Penetration

Sometimes, a market development opportunity can appear when you least expect it. That was the case with Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen.

The company’s brand was so well-integrated into its marketing operations that a simple tweet in response to Chick-Fil-A prompted a tumultuous beef over which brand had the best chicken sandwich.

Once the Tweet gained traction, Popeyes quickly capitalized on the opportunity to sell more of a product they had recently launched.

Although some logistics issues caused supply and demand imbalances, the brand was able to maintain a stronghold on the market once the sandwiches were back in stock.

In Q2 of 2021, Popeyes was still running TV ad campaigns for the chicken sandwich — more than two years after the incredibly successful product launch. By Q3 of 2022, however, the buzz around their chicken sandwich buzzed off. They shifted their strategy to become more convenient for customers to access, and to create a more consistent experience for those using online ordering.

This is a solid example of what our CTO and Co-Founder Dharmesh Shah meant when he said, “Many companies have forgotten they sell to actual people. Humans care about the entire experience, not just the marketing or sales, or service. To really win in the modern age, you must solve for humans.”

Popeyes plans to add 200 more locations split between the U.S. and Canada.

3. The Lash Lounge — Franchise

Since 2010, The Lash Lounge has been scaling its presence across the United States through franchising. As of 2020, the company has grown to 108 locations, most of which opened around 2019.

Franchising helped this company expand into new markets with relatively low risk. The Lash Lounge team trains the new franchisees on their techniques and immerses them in the culture to create one cohesive team that doesn’t feel disjointed.

4. Unilever — Diversification

Today, we know Unilever as the parent company of some of the most notable brands like Dove, Breyers, and Hellmann’s. However, the company initially went into business selling soap.

After realizing that the ingredients for making soap shared similarities with those needed for making margarine, they diversified and expanded into a new market with a new product. Over time, Unilever created and acquired new brands in the soap, cosmetics, butter, and ice cream industries, essentially diversifying its product line and market.

Developing Your Market

Before you follow the latest trend in marketing, take a moment to analyze your strategy thus far to forge a path that will yield success.

By planning a market development strategy, you’ll have the opportunity to assess your company’s risk tolerance and understand where your business stands within the market. You can then turn your market development idea into a reality.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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What Is Market Expansion?

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Global Employment Organization (GEO)

Market expansion refers to a company's growth strategy to increase its market share, operations, customer base, and overall presence in existing locations or new geographic areas.

A business implements market expansion by analyzing its existing distribution channels, identifying new markets of interest for future operations, and adopting measures to help it expand and increase its sales and reach.

Seeking global market expansion? Get our essential global expansion checklist that provides key insights into developing a global expansion strategy, conducting market research, hiring international talent, and ensuring compliance at every step:

What is an example of market expansion?

Consider the e-commerce giant Amazon and its strategy when expanding into India in 2013 for a real-world example of market expansion .

Amazon leveraged India's economic infrastructure to reach consumers who did not otherwise fit into its business model. At the time, most of the country did not have internet access, and most Indian consumers did not use credit cards.

The challenge: How could Amazon earn market share in a country where most consumers made purchases using paper currency in brick-and-mortar stores?

The solution: Amazon developed the Amazon Chai Cart, which served free drinks to small business owners while touting the benefits of e-commerce. Amazon reached more than 10,000 merchants in 31 cities through the program. It then rolled out the Amazon Tatkal initiative to help the merchants become liaisons for Amazon’s online interface.

Amazon enrolled the business owners as online vendors, powered them with internet connectivity, and trained them to help their customers find products on the website. The store owners collected cash for Amazon, received a handling fee, and served as a customer distribution center.

Amazon remained flexible when expanding into a new market and made adjustments for an India-specific approach.

Why is market expansion important?

Market expansion is a critical aspect of business growth and is crucial to a business's overall development and sustainability. Companies engage in market expansion, often on a global scale , to remain competitive, increase revenue, grow their consumer base, and achieve economies of scale.

Learn more: Understanding the Global Marketplace

What is a market expansion strategy?

Businesses take various approaches to market expansion ; however, an effective market expansion strategy typically involves some of the following components:

• Geographic expansion. Reaching new regions or countries where it currently does not operate, including opening new branches, establishing partnerships, or setting up distribution channels.
• Product diversification. Introducing new products or services to the existing market, such as expanding its product line to cater to different consumer needs or attract a more diverse audience.
• Market segmentation. Identifying specific overlooked areas within the existing market and tailoring products to meet the unique needs of these segments.
• Channel expansion. Exploring additional distribution channels to reach a broader customer base, such as partnering with new retailers or utilizing e-commerce.
• Strategic partnerships. Collaborating with other companies to leverage each other's strengths and resources to help enter new markets simultaneously or expand the reach of existing services.
• Acquisitions. Acquiring other businesses in related industries to gain access to their customer base, market share, and technologies for easy and quick growth. 
• Brand extension. Capitalizing on brand loyalty and recognition by introducing new services or products under the existing company.

Benefits of putting together a market expansion strategy

Market expansion offers companies many benefits and advantages that help them remain competitive in today’s quickly evolving business landscape.  

Some key benefits of putting together a market expansion strategy include the following:

• Revenue growth. Entering new markets allows businesses to boost their sales and revenue. Companies can tap into additional customer segments and increase their overall income.
• Larger talent pool. Companies utilizing market expansion can recruit and hire top talent from a much broader pool. Employers can target a uniquely skilled workforce, leverage local employees for market insights, and reduce the costs of relocating talent. 
• Diversification. Businesses can diversify their revenue streams when entering new markets and geographic regions. A company can reduce dependence on a single market or product, serve different customer needs, and become more resilient to economic fluctuations.
• Economies of scale. When expanding operations, the average cost per unit decreases as production and sales volumes increase. This economy of scale can improve profitability, efficiency, and competitiveness.
• Competitive advantage. Entering new markets allows companies to gain an advantage over competitors by offering unique products or services that set them apart.
• Access to new customers. Expanding into a new area is especially valuable if a company has reached its full potential with an existing market or if that current market is already saturated. Companies can leverage an untapped market and access a broader customer base.  
• Globalization. Companies entering emerging markets can take advantage of international strategy opportunities , benefitting from varied economic conditions, unique resources, and skilled, global talent. 
• Risk mitigation. Expanding into new markets enables companies to spread out their vulnerabilities and reduce risks of economic downturns, regulatory changes, or other market-specific challenges.
• Technological advancements. Technology, communication, and logistics advancements allow businesses to expand into international markets. Companies can leverage e-commerce, digital marketing, and supply chain advancements to make growing on a global scale more accessible than ever.
• Regulatory opportunities. Regulatory changes and trade agreements often create opportunities for businesses. Some regulations may lower the barriers to entry and favor companies entering new countries and expanding operations.
• Strategic alliances. Companies often collaborate with local partners for support and insights to help them successfully enter and navigate new markets.

How to create a successful market expansion strategy

To ensure effective and successful market expansion, a company must thoroughly understand its target market’s dynamics and challenges, effective marketing strategies, and the ability to adapt to cultural and political differences.

Consider the following critical elements for creating a thriving market expansion strategy:

Keep an agile footprint

Hire with a light and agile footprint that balances against risk mitigation to assure long-term ROI. Consider holding off on spending toward infrastructure investments or hard costs until your foreign operation matures. Understand the risks of hiring international contracts and utilize local employees to help you evaluate the market, identify opportunities, and your day-to-day operations.

Develop a clear product strategy

Develop a product that intentionally drives expansion into new markets. Test your product in your target country to troubleshoot, adjust as needed, and ensure long-term success. Develop partnerships with contacts and decision-makers in foreign markets to help you monitor developments and identify new opportunities.

Build revenue and reinvest

Choose a market to expand your product or services where the competition is low to help free up revenue. This strategy will allow you to reinvest in your product, gain market share, minimize outside capital sources, and increase your equity.

Be proactive

Establish a long-term global mobility plan and take a proactive approach when entering a new market. Do your research, assess the potential risks and rewards, and ensure your entire team aligns with your long-term goals.  

Consider partnering with a global expert well-versed in understanding the potential risks and opportunities associated with market expansion. An employer of record (EOR) can help manage your entire hiring and international expansion process if you are not ready to or unable to establish an entity in-country and ensure compliance with foreign regulations.

Read more: Top 5 Global Expansion Strategies

Simplify market expansion with Velocity Global

Expanding into new markets is a bold step for any business, but it can reap many rewards and opportunities when done thoughtfully and compliantly. A global partner like Velocity Global can help you quickly and compliantly expand across borders.

Our EOR solution increases your speed to market and enables you to compliantly expand globally without entity establishment. Our team of experts has capabilities in over 185 countries to help you assess business environments, regulatory considerations, global hiring, and cultural nuances.

Our suite of global employment and expansion services can assist you each step of the way to ensure compliance no matter where your global footprint takes you.

Ready to expand globally? Contact Velocity Global to plan your path to international success.    

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How to Create a Sustainable New Market Expansion Plan

Learn what a market expansion strategy is and how to create one that takes full advantage of international markets..

Dominic Dithurbide

August 12, 2022

Entering a new market is not only a great way to grow, but often a vital step toward reaching your business potential. In fact, 87% of U.S. companies agree that international expansion is necessary for long-term growth. Yet growth without a market expansion strategy is a recipe for disaster.

What is a New Market Expansion Strategy?

A new market expansion strategy occurs when a company introduces products or services in a foreign market. This typically happens after the company’s sales have stopped growing in its own country.

The global market offers unlimited opportunities to reach new customers and increase sales. But not every local market offers the same growth opportunity, which is why you need an expansion strategy to help you decide where to launch.

By developing one, you will:

• Reduce costs. Targeting customer segments who are most likely to buy will save you money on marketing and production costs.
• Decrease risks. Market expansion always involves risks, but careful planning helps you avoid unforeseen challenges.
• Reach more markets. A focused expansion strategy helps you uncover more opportunities and better allocate resources to markets with the highest ROI.
• Improve tax compliance. With proper research, you can mitigate expenses and enjoy local tax advantages.

How to Create a Market Expansion Strategy

Now that you know more about the benefits of a market expansion strategy, here’s how you can develop one in six steps.

Step 1: Define Your Goals

Like all marketing plans, you should start by defining your goals for the expansion. To ensure they’re attainable, we recommend using the SMART method. SMART is an acronym for:

SMART goals consider important measures like revenue growth, profit margin, marketing pipeline, and customer satisfaction. Each one focuses on a specific KPI, how to quantify it, and how long it takes to achieve it.

As you develop a growth strategy, ask yourself:

• Which KPIs do I want to target?
• Which projections will I use to assess new markets?

There are a lot of benefits of growing globally, and therefore different ways to target different outcomes. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, you probably aren’t ready to launch internationally.

Step 2: Conduct an Audit

Next, you need to audit your current domestic practices. Many people often overlook this step, but it is an essential part of ensuring successful global expansion.

During the audit, you should identify:

• Your target market and their demographics
• Products and services that are most popular amongst your target market
• Elements of your growth strategy that have led to the most success
• Elements of the business that are gaining traction and losing traction
• Friction within operations and management

If you discover any issues, it’s important to find solutions before you replicate the same strategy abroad.

An audit will also help you identify the core business components you should focus on at the beginning of your expansion. If you try to expand to too many areas or offer too many products and services, you may spread your business too thin.

Step 3: Market Research & Cultural Considerations

Now it’s time to determine which areas you want to expand into.

Thorough market research will help you evaluate demand, competition, and country-specific considerations such as business regulations and cultural preferences. Google Trends and SurveyMonkey can help you know what buyers want and create buyer persona s for different places . This will help you define your international target audience.

As you research, take local language and cultural nuances into consideration, and adapt your marketing plans accordingly. For example, let’s say you want to launch in Brazil. That would require adapting your website and other marketing materials to reflect the local culture.

This process is known as website localization . It goes beyond website translation, and in this scenario, would include:

• Translating all content into Brazilian Portuguese
• Adapting website elements such as currency, payment options, and address formats
• Adapting images and cultural references

This ensures Brazilians feel as though the product is being marketed specifically to them.

Lastly, don’t neglect secondary markets. As you conduct your audit, you may find your domestic market speaks multiple languages. Consider Spanish-speaking populations in the U.S. and how serving them in Spanish can impact your business goals .

Step 4: Analyze Your Competition

Another often overlooked step, analyzing competitors lets you evaluate how competitors position themselves. To take a portion of the market share, you must identify the source from which you are taking it. Consider the following:

• How they position themselves – are their websites translated ? What languages do they provide? Are they local or international?
• Their strengths and weaknesses.
• How you can capitalize on their weaknesses and ensure you don’t make the same mistakes.

Understanding how your competition operates in these areas is crucial. Once you know this, you can begin to make final decisions regarding how you’ll expand.

Step 5: Adjust Business Structure and Operations

After analyzing the market, target audience, and competitors, decide how you’ll provide your product or service to customers. Common  methods of international expansion include:

• Global Strategies
• International Strategies
• Multi-domestic Strategies
• Transnational Strategies
• Join ventures
• Franchising

While you evaluate your options, ask:

• How will it impact operations?
• Will you need to hire international employees?
• How will you ship products?
• How will you provide international customer service?

And don’t forget to address your content marketing strategy . The channels you choose will depend on local preferences, but some of the most popular include:

• Paid and organic search
• Paid and organic social
• Media planning and buying
• Email marketing
• Video assets

Localize content for each market, as 76% of consumers prefer buying products with info in their own language. Yet this can be costly unless you have an automated system in place. With MotionPoint’s website translation and localization services , you’ll get localized multichannel assets such as social media, email, and more—quickly and affordably.

Step 6: Execute, Analyze, and Optimize

Implementing your strategy is just the beginning. You need to continuously monitor operations to ensure everything is running smoothly. How you analyze and measure performance depends on how you expand, but you can:

• Segment your website and marketing data by location
• Evaluate conversion rates, CPCs, CPAs, and more

Remember, the metrics you choose to track should be in line with your SMART goals.

Choose MotionPoint for New Market Expansion

As you can see, a market expansion strategy is an essential part of an international launch. It not only enables you to choose the best markets for your brand, but also helps you with marketing considerations.

However, customer communications are rarely one and done. You need to provide ongoing messaging to maintain brand loyalty. That’s where MotionPoint comes in. In addition to our turn-key proxy website translation services , we offer ongoing multichannel localization that will keep customers engaged—in any language.

Ready to develop an effective market expansion strategy that keeps customers coming back? Contact MotionPoint to get started.

CLICK TO TWEET

About Dominic Dithurbide

Dominic Dithurbide is a creative, goal-driven marketing leader that’s dedicated his career to the translation industry. Dominic brings proficiency in global marketing, demand generation, and go-to-market strategies to MotionPoint’s marketing team.

Marketing Manager

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What Is Market Expansion Strategy and How to Expand Your Company?

11 min. read

Market expansion offers a number of benefits. It gives you a chance to grow your customer base, increase revenue, reduce production costs, and attract new talent to your business.

However, developing and implementing a successful market expansion strategy is incredibly complex.

To help you navigate the process, we look at different approaches to market expansion, provide a step-by-step guide to building an expansion strategy and show a bunch of examples of companies that have really nailed it.

• Market expansion is a growth strategy aimed at expanding the organization's customer base and market share .
• A market expansion strategy allows organizations to reduce and mitigate risks and reduce costs associated with entering new markets. It also allows them to identify more growth opportunities.
• Companies expand by entering new sectors and markets , both locally and internationally, and/or by expanding the range of products they offer.
• Before you start your expansion into new markets, make sure you fully realize all the opportunities in the existing markets . Tracking your product KPIs will help you determine the right moment to expand.
• Always conduct market research . It's necessary to choose the best target market and develop your differentiation strategy.
• Your market expansion strategy won't succeed unless you get full backing from your company's senior leadership .
• To make a compelling business case for expansion, assess the required expenses and develop a detailed budget .
• Use a goal-setting framework to identify long- and short-term targets for your product in the new market.
• To successfully build and implement your market expansion strategy, you will need a cross-functional team including engineers, designers, marketers, and legal and financial advisors.
• Entering new markets often requires expanding the product functionality and adjusting the pricing strategy .
• Localization tools like Centus will help you adapt your product to the needs of international audiences. This should include localizing all aspects of the user experience.

What is market expansion?

Market expansion is a business growth strategy that focuses on expanding the customer base either in new or existing markets.

This could be achieved either by developing your product or service portfolio or targeting new market segments with your existing offerings.

Benefits of a market expansion strategy

Why are market expansion strategies important?

In short, they help you to use your resources in an informed way to take the best advantage of existing opportunities.

Risk mitigation

A market expansion strategy allows you to assess and minimize the risk your product will face when entering a new market.

For example, it increases the chances of targeting the right market and the right audience. It also tells you what you need to do to outcompete your rivals and whether you can afford it.

Reduced expansion costs

A market expansion strategy also helps you minimize the costs involved in entering a new market or developing a new product .

Instead of spending your money randomly, a research-driven plan allows you to make informed prioritization decisions. As a result, you can choose only the motions and initiatives that are necessary to achieve your goals.

A good strategy will also help reduce the time needed to enter a new market and establish your position, which will result in even further savings.

More business opportunities

A robust market expansion strategy allows organizations to identify more business opportunities.

If your strategy is based on comprehensive market research, you're likely to see new markets or user segments for your product that you could otherwise miss.

Ways to succeed with market expansion

If you think it's time to take your company to another level and are looking into market expansion, you have a few options. Companies normally use a combination of these.

#1. Selling existing products to existing customers

The easiest way to expand is by selling more of your product to your existing customers. Encouraging users to upgrade from freemium to premium or to more expensive plans is a good example.

#2. Acquiring new customers in existing markets

If your market is not completely saturated, try to increase your market share. Simply, focus your marketing efforts on raising your brand awareness and acquiring new customers.

#3. Entering new sectors

By making adjustments to your product, you may be able to target different market sectors. For example, video conferencing tools originally designed for business have proved very effective and desired in education.

#4. Moving into new geographies

For digital products, moving into new geographies normally means international expansion. It requires greater changes to the product and marketing strategy than the previous two.

#5. Creating new products and services

Adding new products to your portfolio is another option to grow your business. This requires considerable resources, so make sure you validate your ideas before you commit to their development.

#6. Developing new value-delivery approaches

In addition to developing new products, you can look at other ways of delivering value to customers. A classic example would be switching from brick-and-mortar to online retail. Not only does it give you access to more customers but also allows you to satisfy their needs better.

7 Steps to developing a bullet-proof market expansion strategy

Let's look at the different steps you need to develop a strong market expansion strategy customized to the unique needs of your product and the market you're entering.

Step 1 - Review your business KPIs to choose the right expansion strategy

Before you start expanding into new markets, make sure you fully exploit the existing market . To determine that, you need to keep track of your product performance.

What key performance indicators (KPIs) you use will depend a lot on your product, but some common examples include:

• growth rate
• sales revenue
• market share
• website traffic volume

Step 2 - Do market and customer research

If market research reveals no further room for growth in the existing market, you can start looking elsewhere.

Your market research will help you to choose the right market. Ideally, you want a market with great growth opportunities and low entry costs. In the real world, it rarely happens, so be ready to compromise.

Pay particular attention to the competitive landscape. Studying your competitor's behavior will also help you figure out what works and what doesn't . Why learn from your own mistakes, if you can learn from theirs?

Finally, you need market research to identify the best ways to enter the market . This includes finding the best acquisition channels and designing your marketing campaigns.

Your market research will most likely use a combination of primary and secondary sources.

• focus groups
• customer interviews
• social media monitoring
• product usage tracking
• company websites
• governments statistics
• industry associations
• published market research reports
• trade publications

Step 3 - Get a leadership buy-in

Your market research and competitor analysis are also essential to get s upport from senior stakeholders and leadership .

Market expansion initiatives are risky, so you need to build a robust business case to reassure them that it's worth pursuing.

Apart from product and target market knowledge, you will also need to have a good grasp of your corporate landscape and great persuasive skills to bring all key decision-makers on board.

Step 4 - Develop a budget

Apart from the potential benefits, your business case needs to include the details of the financial resources needed to enter the new market. Typical costs include:

• Market research
• Product development
• Marketing and advertising
• Customer support
• Contingency

Step 5 - Set clear targets

Once you get the green light from the management, you need to set clear goals for your product in the new market.

Start by choosing the high-level goals you want to achieve in the long run. Next, focus on more granular short-term objectives that will act as stepping stones toward the overall goals.

There's a very big chance that your company is already using a goal-setting framework and it may be a good idea to stick to the same one for the sake of consistency and efficiency. Some popular examples include:

• Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
• Think big, act small, and move quickly (BSQ)
• SMART goals
• Goal Pyramid
• Backward Goals
• Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG)
• One Word Goal Setting

Step 6 - Build a cross-functional team

To develop and implement your market expansion strategy, you will need support from teams across the organization . Your team should include members with expertise in:

• Analytics and data science
• Engineering

As a part of the team-building process, you need to provide its members with adequate training. Make sure that all team members are familiar with the characteristics of the new market, and the tools and processes you will use.

Step 7 - Adjust your product and offer

Having identified the characteristics of the new market and set your expansion goals, it's time to adapt your product to the requirements of the target customer .

This may require adapting the product functionality. If your competitors are offering features that you don't, you will have to add them to stand a chance of getting a foot in the door. This may be necessary when you're entering a new sector.

Step 8 - Localize your product and marketing strategy

If you're looking at international expansion, you will most likely need to localize your product.

This may require not only translating your website, product UI, or marketing materials into another language.

Even if your target customers speak the same language that the product was originally designed for, you will need to make adjustments to account for cultural differences. For example, the British and the American use different date formats.

To make sure your product localization is comprehensive, why not look at the customer journey map? It will help you identify all the assets that users engage with at different stages of their journey. These include:

• display adverts and search keywords
• landing and product pages
• sign-up flows and payment pages
• onboarding steps
• emails and newsletters
• in-app messages
• resources center entries and educational materials like tutorials

5 Excellent examples of market expansion strategies

Let's look at a few good examples of market expansion strategies.

#1 Netflix - Content localization

Netflix is well-known for its international expansion and localization strategies.

To start with, the streaming giant uses subtitles and dubbing into 60+ languages to make its content accessible to audiences all over the globe.

The localization isn't limited to films and shows but covers all aspects of the user experience like the landing pages, advertising campaigns, and pricing plans.

The company goes one step further. Instead of relying on the international appeal of the content created for American viewers, it develops original content for local audiences. Its classic hits include Squid Game (Korea), Money Heist (Spain), and Sacred Games (India).

#2 Hubspot - Market expansion by expanding product portfolio

Hubspot launched its CRM in 2006. Since then, the company has added a range of products to its portfolio.

It now offers a marketing and CMS hub, the Sales Hub, the Operations Hub, and Service Hub.

#3 Duolingo - Expansion into international markets with new courses

Duolingo is a well-known language-learning app. It is a great example of market expansion through diversification.

While the core product is the same, the company keeps expanding its course offer. Currently, there are over 100 language courses in over 40 languages.

#4 Uber - Market expansion through diversification

Uber's growth strategy relies both on international expansion and product development. Since its launch in 2010, the company has established its position in over 80 countries across all continents.

#5 TikTok - Rapidly evolving global expansion strategy

TikTok has taken the social network market by storm. In 2021, it passed the 1 billion user mark and its user base grew by 43% . Its popularity is growing, especially among young users, which is a serious threat to established rivals like Instagram.

Apart from TikTok's virality, such rapid growth was possible thanks to the company's international expansion strategy.

TikTok has developed a market ranking that divides target markets into 4 key groups: S - strategic, highest priority, (US, Japan, and UK) A - 2nd priority (Germany, Brazil) B - 15-20 countries (like France, Italy, Russia, South Korea, Indonesia, Mexico, or Australia) C - 4th priority, 20-30 countries (like Thailand, UAE, Egypt, Argentina) Others - lowest priority (rest of the world)

What's remarkable about TikTok's strategy is the cadence at which the ranking changes. The company reviews it every two months!

Find other examples and strategies of internal growth here or explore international expansion failures .

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Market expansion strategies: Guide for innovation businesses

We spoke to Tom Kinney, senior innovation and growth specialist, about market expansion and strategies for success.

The majority of businesses tend to expand into new international markets by accident or default, rather than taking a strategic approach.

This can lead to various issues down the line, stalling growth rates, increasing costs and making it harder to focus on business goals. So, how do you do it right?

What is market expansion?

As your business grows, your current market may become too small, causing progress to stagnate. To continue growth, you may need to seek new customers in new markets.

Market expansion strategies include:

• Market penetration : Offering your current product or service to your existing markets on a wider scale
• Product development: Adapting or adding new products or services to reach wider markets or customer segments
• Market development: Introducing your existing product or service to a new demographic or market, at home or abroad
• Diversification : Introducing a new product or service into a new market – this strategy carries the most risk but has high growth potential

Types of market expansion

Take a closer look at some of the common types of market expansion.

Geographical market expansion

Geographical expansion involves offering your products or services to new geographical markets. As so many UK businesses are seeking to expand into new geographical terrains, at home and overseas, you will need to be innovative to succeed.

Sector market expansion

Sector expansion involves modifying your product or service to fit a different sector. For example, repurposing a healthcare product into one for use in the education sector. In this case, you will need to adapt your offering, value proposition, messaging and marketing to compete in the new market.

Domestic market expansion

Domestic market expansion involves offering your products or services to a new market within your home country. One of the benefits of UK domestic expansion is that there may be less competition for your offering than in Europe or the US.

However, as your business grows, your home market may become too small and you may need to look for a wider customer base overseas.

International market expansion

If your innovation business is looking to expand internationally, there may be more hurdles to look out for, as this type of expansion can be risker and more costly.

Logistics becomes more complicated, with the delivery and transportation of products across borders, particularly as new EU regulations have come into force. Time differences and longer timescales also need to be factored into production and planning.

Businesses also need to think about how they will service the foreign market and their overseas customers. Who will manage and develop the business in the overseas market? What support will you need to give those working on the ground?

Our Global Business Innovation Programme (GBIP) helps ambitious businesses to collaborate and expand in new global markets through overseas missions, networking opportunities and continued support.

Market expansion strategy benefits & challenges

Having a clear strategy in place can help you to reduce costs, minimise risks and find new business opportunities.

Common market expansion challenges

International expansion in particular takes time, effort and resources.

According to Tom, some of the most common challenges for businesses looking to expand into new markets include:

• Securing the right funding to develop the business or product
• Understanding the market – which requires market research, and more importantly, customer research
• Language barriers – although English is commonly the language of business, in certain countries this may be an issue
• Negotiating different timezones in international markets
• The costs of servicing the market can be a barrier
• Logistics and market regulations
• Product modification
• Understanding trends in your target market
• Not following up or maintaining relationships with contacts in the target market
• Supply chain issues

How to expand your business into new markets

To overcome the challenges detailed above and avoid common pitfalls, follow these steps for successful business expansion.

Step 1: Market and consumer research

Robust research should be the starting point when thinking about market expansion. This could include;

• Customer feedback
• Market size analysis
• Market trend analysis
• Market share analysis
• The creation of buyer personas
• Competitor research
• SWOT analysis of the target market
• Benchmarking against the existing market
• Risk analysis
• Growth potential analysis
• Cost-benefit ratio analysis

Step 2: Define your new target market

Next, you need to redefine your new target market. Who are the customers? What are their needs, pain points and habits? How can you serve them with your products or services?

Step 3: Business planning and strategy

Once you have processed the insights that have come out of the research stage, you can start to put together a business plan and market expansion strategy.

You will need to think about:

• Whether you need to adapt or add new products or services to your offering to meet the demands of the new market
• Whether you need to adapt your marketing strategy and messaging
• If you need to make new hires or forge new partnerships
• Which channels of distribution and promotion are right for the business

Step 4: Securing finance

Expansion and growth can’t happen without having the funds in place.

If you require external funding, you need to understand the different options available to you and, in some cases, make a pitch to investors. To do this, you will need a firm understanding of your expected expenditures and revenue projections.

We can help you to propel your growth by finding the right innovation funding & finance options and getting investment ready.

Step 5: Measuring success

Don’t forget to continually measure and assess progress in order to learn, optimise and grow. KPIs should be set out in the business plan in accordance with your business goals.

How to do market expansion right

Find more tips from innovation and growth specialist Tom…

Ask yourself why

Before embarking on a market expansion strategy, first, ask yourself WHY you are looking to expand. Whether it’s to increase sales, turnover or introduce new products to the right people – have you explored all the options at your disposal?

Have you explored the possibility of further growth in your current market? Are your existing products or services ready for the market or do they need to be adapted? Do you have partners in the target market? Particularly for smaller companies looking overseas, market expansion is difficult to do alone.

The importance of business strategy

One of the most important elements to consider when looking to expand into new markets, according to Tom, is having an overarching strategy in place. Market expansion strategy shouldn’t exist in isolation from your overall business strategy. A well researched and robust business plan can help you to innovate and grow.

Understand your customer and the value proposition

Understanding your target customer base is essential when looking at new market opportunities. You need a full picture of their requirements, pain points and existing habits to develop your messaging and marketing strategy.

Are you able to modify your offering to fit their needs and fill the gap in the market?

Draw on experience

Knowing ‘what not to do’ often comes down to experience and learning from mistakes. Younger businesses don’t have this advantage, which is why speaking to potential business partners or specialists can be a helpful tool for overcoming barriers to market expansion.

Innovate UK EDGE helps innovation businesses expand into new markets

I want to leave the company in a stronger position than when they started

– Tom Kinney, senior innovation and growth specialist

Innovate UK EDGE innovation and growth specialists offer knowledge, experience and bespoke support to help you develop your business growth strategy and enter new markets.

With extensive international linkages, our specialists can connect you to key partners through our business networks, events and programmes.

From understanding how to access funds to detailed market research and signposting – we can help you to expand into international business markets to continue your growth journey.

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Join Innovate UK Business Connect's mailing list to receive updates on funding opportunities, events and to access Innovate UK Business Connect's deep expertise. Please check your email to confirm your subscription and select your area(s) of interest.

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Home » 5 Market expansion strategies (+examples)

5 Market expansion strategies (+examples)

If you want to discover strategies to expand your market, you have come to the right place.

In this article, we will review five market expansion strategies and some examples.

Market expansion strategies examples Five market expansion strategies include: 1. Market expansion through concentration, 2. Market expansion through diversification, 3. Market expansion through integration, 4. Market expansion through cooperation, 5. Market expansion through internationalization.

Market expansion strategies are growth strategies used by entities seeking to make products or services available to new markets when existing markets become saturated. 

Let’s now explore these strategies.

5 market expansion strategy examples

A business can expand into more markets by broadening their operations and reviewing customer functions, groups, and technologies. 

You can do this with five market expansion strategies. These strategies include market expansion through concentration, diversification, integration, cooperation, and internationalization.

These strategies begin by analyzing current and future distribution channels to create measures meant to boost reach and sales in markets of interest.

The market expansion comes with varying risks and hurdles. 

However, market expansion offers many benefits when done correctly. The reasons why companies would want to expand their market are almost endless, but some of the most common reasons include:

• Increase in sales
• Increase in customers
• Increase in net income
• Higher profits 
• Economies of scale 
• More brand awareness
• Diversification of customer base
• Manage currency risk
• Increased prestige 
• Social benefits 

Market expansion strategies examples

There are various ways companies can expand their market. 

A market expansion strategy is often referred to as market development. 

But the bottom line is this: A market expansion strategy involves expanding the target market in order to increase the number of potential customers, and ultimately, to realize an increase in paid customers.

Here is a simple example of how to expand your market.

First, the definition of marketing is twofold:

• To gain a customer, and
• To keep a customer

With that, a market expansion strategy is always focused on the customer.

Now, for example, let’s assume you own a window and glass repair shop.

Your current target market has 10,000 potential customers in your target market zip code.  These 10,000 potential customers are home owners. This is your baseline.

Let’s now assume you have 2,000 paid customers in your database, from this target market. 

As a basic benchmark, this means you have a market share of 20%.  ( There are many ways to measure the market share, but we will keep this example super simple).

But now you and your team decide that you want to increase your sales revenue in order to generate more net income by servicing more customers as a result of expanding your target market. 

Now, let’s explore how to apply a market expansion strategy.

One common method of expanding a market is to enter into new geographical area.

In this example, you could do your research and find another target market in an adjacent zip code that has a similar demographic reach with households numbering 10,000 homeowners within a 10-mile radius of your business.

Adding this additional zip code to your target market expands your total market to 20,000 and allows you to generate more sales value by gaining more customers.

Now, since you are targeting new customers who do not know you, your marketing team will need to get to work and market your Unique Selling Proposition to this target market.

To learn how to do this here are four great resources:

• How Do You Write a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?
• How is “Free” used in marketing? (5 clever strategies)
• How Can I Promote My Business in the Local Area?
• Market penetration vs market expansion (the difference)

5 ways to expand your customer target market

1. market expansion through concentration.

This is the first level of market expansion strategies. It involves investing resources in the company’s product line and catering to the needs of an identified market through proven and tested technology.

The strategy involves companies coinciding resources into their businesses to cater to customer functions, needs, and technology alternatives. This is done collectively or individually.

For instance, a company like Apple may choose to invest more resources in its product to cater to an identified target market. The company may create regional customer representatives to cater to the needs of a potential target market in a specific geographic region, thereby increasing sales.

2. Expansion through diversification

The strategy involves companies changing their business definition by expanding into a new market or developing new products jointly or individually.

Nike is the best example of this expansion strategy since they’ve expanded by creating new products in shoes, apparel, and other sectors of the fashion industry.

Often, companies expand their market through diversification to prepare for economic downturns. This strategy helps offset one business’ losses with another business’ profits. Ideally, one that wasn’t affected by the adverse market conditions.

3. Expansion through integration

This strategy involves combining a company’s current operations without changing customer groups. Companies do the combination through a value chain involving interlinked activities performed by an entity.

It involves the procurement of raw materials through the marketing of finished products. The firm may move down or up the value chain to focus on existing customers’ needs.

Two common methods here are “backward integration” and “forward integration”.

Backward and forward integration are strategies used by companies to gain greater control over their production and distribution processes. Backward integration is the process by which a company acquires or forms its own suppliers, either through acquisition or merger.

This gives the company greater control over the quality and delivery of its inputs, as well as more control over the cost of those inputs. It can also help to reduce dependency on external suppliers, reducing the risk of supply chain disruption.

Forward integration is the opposite of backward integration, and involves the company expanding into other areas of the production or distribution process.

For example, a company may acquire its own retail outlets, or a distribution network, in order to better control the sale of its products. This can help the company to capture more of the profits from its products, as it is able to sell them at higher prices without having to pay a third party for distribution. It can also help the company to better control the quality of its products, as it is able to ensure that they are sold and promoted in the right way.

For many years we worked with a company that had about 25 locations in the women's cosmetics industry. This company established a nice distribution system and when the opportunity came up, they purchased their main supplier. This is an example of backwards integration. This also opened up some wholesale B2B opportunities for them.

4. Expansion through cooperation

Expansion through cooperation strategies involves organizations that enter mutual agreements

with competitors to perform business operations and compete simultaneously. Doing this helps expand market potential.

Our team regularly searches for businesses to work with here, ranging from simply buying the business or doing a joint venture. If you or someone you know would like to explore this and have a conversation with our team at Strategic Marketing Partner, we ‘d be delighted to speak with you. Please contact us here .

Companies can achieve market expansion through cooperation with these 4 strategies:

Mergers involve two or more firms where the primary firm acquires its competitors’ assets and liabilities for shares, cash, or both. Both firms get dissolved during the process, creating a third firm that’s bigger than the previous two.

Acquisition

Takeovers involve a firm that acquires another and becomes responsible for the other firm’s operations. The process can be hostile or friendly. In friendly takeovers, both firms agree to cooperate for mutual benefit, while hostile takeovers involve the forceful acquisition of target firms with or without their knowledge.

Joint venture

Joint ventures involve two firms agreeing to work jointly to capitalize on each firm’s strengths. Often, these are temporary and end when both companies achieve the end goal.

Strategic alliance

This involves an instance where two companies agree to combine or unite to perform various business operations. The firms pursue individualized goals but perform independently. This strategy helps capitalize on either firm’s workforce or technology.

5. Expansion through internationalization

Companies follow this strategy when looking to expand their reach globally. Companies choose this option when they’ve explored all their domestic potential and are looking for opportunities elsewhere.

However, choosing this option is not easy for most companies since they must comply with varying and strict benchmarks of quality, timely delivery, and price when selling their services and products.

Here are two excellent resources about expanding your business thorough international marketing:

What are the Elements of International Marketing? (Answered!)

International Marketing Strategies PDF (Free checklist)

Conclusion: Market expansion strategy examples

Market expansion is daunting, especially for small-scale companies; however, it can also be quite rewarding. Following the strategies in this article can help you plan your expansion better, taking you one step closer to your business goals.

• Which growth strategy can I apply to my business?: https://1819.brussels/en/information-library/growing-your-business/which-growth-strategy-can-i-apply-my-business
• Expansion strategies: https://hmhub.in/expansion-strategy-definition-the-expansion-strategy-is-adopted-by-an-organization-when-it-attempts-to-achieve-a-high-growth-as-compared-to-its-past-achievements-in-other-words-when-a-firm-aims-to/
• “How to Expand Your Business Through New Market Development”: https://edwardlowe.org/how-to-expand-your-business-through-new-market-development-3/
• Market expansion strategies: Guide for innovation businesses: https://www.innovateukedge.ukri.org/blog/Market-expansion-strategies-Guide-innovation-businesses

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Canopy Growth's CEO Is Leaving: Is That a Sign of Trouble for the Cannabis Stock?

• Canopy Growth CEO David Klein will retire at the end of the company's current fiscal year.
• While he has helped bring down expenses, profitability remains a big problem for the business.
• A new CEO could potentially shift the business's direction, but it's still anyone's guess on who the new leader will be.
• Motley Fool Issues Rare “All In” Buy Alert

NASDAQ: CGC

Canopy growth.

A change in CEO could help Canopy Growth pivot away from a costly strategy focused on the U.S. pot market.

When a company's leader leaves, investors often try to uncover the real reasons for the departure to determine whether there are problems with the business. Typically, a surprise departure isn't received as good news in the markets. Although in Canopy Growth 's ( CGC -5.20% ) case, there hasn't been a sell-off since the company announced its chief executive officer would be retiring, at least not yet.

What could a change in CEO mean for the business ? Would it make the  cannabis stock a better buy, or would  it be a red flag for investors?

Canopy Growth announces a succession plan

On Aug. 16, Canopy Growth posted a press release announcing that its CEO, David Klein, would be retiring. He will continue until the end of the company's fiscal year in March, but a search is underway for a successor to take over next year.

Klein has been with Canopy Growth since January 2020. He took over after the company fired Bruce Linton and concerns were rising about the cannabis producer's mounting losses. It was particularly troublesome for Constellation Brands , which invested billions into the company, and its losses were weighing down its financials. Klein was previously part of Constellation's business. However, Constellation has recently distanced itself from Canopy Growth's business and now only holds convertible shares in the cannabis company.

Although it's debatable whether the move has paid off for Canopy Growth -- its business remains unprofitable and cash burn remains a problem -- the company's board has "continued confidence" in the direction the business is heading.

CGC Net Income (Quarterly) data by YCharts .

Could this be a good move for the business?

A big concern I've seen with Canopy Growth's business is that under Linton and Klein, its focus has largely been on growth opportunities within the U.S. cannabis market. Although Klein has been trimming costs and making Canopy Growth's operations smaller, he has also helped launch Canopy USA, a special-purpose vehicle to hold all the cannabis producer's investments in U.S.-based cannabis companies. Canopy Growth can't close on acquisitions of Acreage Holdings and other multistate operators and report their results in its financials without running afoul of the Nasdaq due to the federal ban on cannabis.

Under a new CEO, there could be yet another pivot, this time away from the U.S. market and perhaps toward other opportunities. Rival Tilray Brands , for example, has been diversifying into alcohol to expand and improve its margins. If Canopy Growth were to follow suit and focus on growth opportunities in other industries, that could solve two big problems for the business -- achieving sustainable revenue growth and strengthening its financials.

However, until there's a new CEO or rollout of new plans, there's no reason at this point to suggest that the business will go in a much different direction. And if the board is indeed satisfied with the current path, there may not be an overwhelming push for a drastically different CEO to take over at Canopy Growth.

Should you buy Canopy Growth stock today?

Sometimes, there's a big movement in a stock's price when there's news of a CEO departure because it's often seen as a sign of trouble ahead. But in Canopy Growth's case, the cannabis stock has remained fairly stable since investors learned of Klein's retirement. Canopy Growth's stock is  up a fairly decent 41% during the past 12 months. But over a five-year period, investors are still down a mammoth 98%; Klein taking over hasn't resulted in a better outlook for the business.

Canopy Growth remains a risky business regardless of who takes over; this latest news doesn't necessarily worsen matters.

When Klein took over, I thought that Canopy Growth would get serious about cutting expenses and stop obsessing over expansion into the U.S. Although expenses are lower, I still think there's too much focus on a U.S. market that is inaccessible for Canopy Growth. A new CEO may offer new hope and reasons for optimism, but regardless of who it is, investors may be better off waiting to see their strategy before buying shares of the pot producer.

Although the stock isn't necessarily a worse buy because of this development, it's also difficult to make the case that it will become a better investment as a result of a change in CEO. Staying on the sidelines probably remaina the best option for investors right now.

David Jagielski has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Constellation Brands. The Motley Fool recommends Nasdaq and Tilray Brands. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .

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Canopy growth's ceo is leaving: is that a sign of trouble for the cannabis stock.

When a company's leader leaves, investors often try to uncover the real reasons for the departure to determine whether there are problems with the business. Typically, a surprise departure isn't received as good news in the markets. Although in Canopy Growth 's (NASDAQ: CGC) case, there hasn't been a sell-off since the company announced its chief executive officer would be retiring, at least not yet.

What could a change in CEO mean for the business ? Would it make the  cannabis stock a better buy, or would  it be a red flag for investors?

Canopy Growth announces a succession plan

On Aug. 16, Canopy Growth posted a press release announcing that its CEO, David Klein, would be retiring. He will continue until the end of the company's fiscal year in March, but a search is underway for a successor to take over next year.

Klein has been with Canopy Growth since January 2020. He took over after the company fired Bruce Linton and concerns were rising about the cannabis producer's mounting losses. It was particularly troublesome for Constellation Brands , which invested billions into the company, and its losses were weighing down its financials. Klein was previously part of Constellation's business. However, Constellation has recently distanced itself from Canopy Growth's business and now only holds convertible shares in the cannabis company.

Although it's debatable whether the move has paid off for Canopy Growth -- its business remains unprofitable and cash burn remains a problem -- the company's board has "continued confidence" in the direction the business is heading.

CGC Net Income (Quarterly) data by YCharts .

Could this be a good move for the business?

A big concern I've seen with Canopy Growth's business is that under Linton and Klein, its focus has largely been on growth opportunities within the U.S. cannabis market. Although Klein has been trimming costs and making Canopy Growth's operations smaller, he has also helped launch Canopy USA, a special-purpose vehicle to hold all the cannabis producer's investments in U.S.-based cannabis companies. Canopy Growth can't close on acquisitions of Acreage Holdings and other multistate operators and report their results in its financials without running afoul of the Nasdaq due to the federal ban on cannabis.

Under a new CEO, there could be yet another pivot, this time away from the U.S. market and perhaps toward other opportunities. Rival Tilray Brands , for example, has been diversifying into alcohol to expand and improve its margins. If Canopy Growth were to follow suit and focus on growth opportunities in other industries, that could solve two big problems for the business -- achieving sustainable revenue growth and strengthening its financials.

However, until there's a new CEO or rollout of new plans, there's no reason at this point to suggest that the business will go in a much different direction. And if the board is indeed satisfied with the current path, there may not be an overwhelming push for a drastically different CEO to take over at Canopy Growth.

Should you buy Canopy Growth stock today?

Sometimes, there's a big movement in a stock's price when there's news of a CEO departure because it's often seen as a sign of trouble ahead. But in Canopy Growth's case, the cannabis stock has remained fairly stable since investors learned of Klein's retirement. Canopy Growth's stock is  up a fairly decent 41% during the past 12 months. But over a five-year period, investors are still down a mammoth 98%; Klein taking over hasn't resulted in a better outlook for the business.

Canopy Growth remains a risky business regardless of who takes over; this latest news doesn't necessarily worsen matters.

When Klein took over, I thought that Canopy Growth would get serious about cutting expenses and stop obsessing over expansion into the U.S. Although expenses are lower, I still think there's too much focus on a U.S. market that is inaccessible for Canopy Growth. A new CEO may offer new hope and reasons for optimism, but regardless of who it is, investors may be better off waiting to see their strategy before buying shares of the pot producer.

Although the stock isn't necessarily a worse buy because of this development, it's also difficult to make the case that it will become a better investment as a result of a change in CEO. Staying on the sidelines probably remaina the best option for investors right now.

Should you invest $1,000 in Canopy Growth right now?

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Canopy Growth's CEO Is Leaving: Is That a Sign of Trouble for the Cannabis Stock? was originally published by The Motley Fool

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Powell at Jackson Hole: ‘The time has come’ for the Fed to soon begin reducing interest rates

With inflation nearly defeated and the job market cooling, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says the Federal Reserve is prepared to start cutting its key interest rate from its current 23-year high.

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JACKSON, Wyoming (AP) — With inflation nearly defeated and the job market cooling, the Federal Reserve is prepared to start cutting its key interest rate from its current 23-year high, Chair Jerome Powell said Friday.

Powell did not say when rate cuts would begin or how large they might be, but the Fed is widely expected to announce a modest quarter-point cut in its benchmark rate when it meets in mid-September.

“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Powell said in his keynote speech at the Fed’s annual economic conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”

His reference to multiple rate cuts was the only hint that a series of reductions is likely. Powell stressed that inflation, after the worst price spike in four decades inflicted pain on millions of households, appears largely under control . According to the Fed’s preferred measure, inflation fell to 2.5% last month, far below its peak of 7.1% two years ago and only slightly above the central bank’s 2% target level.

“My confidence has grown,” he said, “that inflation is on a sustainable path back to 2%.”

Powell’s assessment signaled that the Fed is making a fundamental shift from its 2 1/2-year fight against inflation, toward a broader effort to keep the economy growing and employers hiring.

The Fed chair’s assurance that rate cuts are coming helped fuel a rally on Wall Street. Bond yields fell, and stock indexes were broadly higher.

“The only question remaining for the Sept. 18 meeting is: By how much will the Fed be cutting?” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities.

“The outcome of the August employment report,” which will be reported Sept. 6, LaVorgna said, “is obviously critical.” If that report shows a second straight month of weak hiring, the Fed may cut its key rate by a more aggressive half-point.

Most economists expect the Fed to cut its benchmark rate by a quarter-point at each of its final three meetings this year. Wall Street traders, though, foresee a one-in-three likelihood that the Fed will cut by a half-point at one of those meetings, according to futures prices. A lower Fed benchmark rate will lead eventually to lower rates for auto loans, mortgages and other forms of consumer borrowing and could also boost stock prices.

In his remarks Friday, the Fed chair suggested that rate cuts should help extend the much sought-after “soft landing,” whereby inflation falls back to the Fed’s 2% target without a recession occurring.

Continued growth could boost Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, even as most Americans say they’re dissatisfied with the Biden-Harris administration’s economic record, largely because average consumer prices remain far above where they were before the pandemic.

“We will do everything we can,” Powell said, “to support a strong labor market as we make further progress toward price stability.”

By cutting rates, he said, “there is good reason to think that the economy will get back to 2% inflation while maintaining a strong labor market.”

A rate cut in mid-September, coming less than two months before the presidential election, could bring some unwelcome political heat on the Fed, which seeks to avoid becoming entangled in election-year politics. Former President Donald Trump has argued that the Fed shouldn’t cut rates so close to an election. But Powell has repeatedly underscored that the central bank would make its rate decisions based purely on economic data, without regard to the political calendar.

In his remarks, Powell said the Fed has grown concerned about slower hiring and a rising unemployment rate, even while it still wants to see inflation fall further. That dual focus is replacing the Fed’s previous singular focus on inflation.

“The cooling in labor market conditions is unmistakable,” the Fed chair said. “Job gains remain solid but have slowed this year. ... We do not seek or welcome further cooling in labor market conditions.”

In what amounted to something of a victory lap, Powell noted that the Fed had succeeded in conquering high inflation without causing a recession or a sharp rise in unemployment, which many economists had long predicted.

The soft landing “did come as a big surprise to the (economics) profession,” Gauti Eggertson, an economist at Brown University, said during a presentation Friday at the Jackson Hole conference. He attributed that outcome to the unraveling of the pandemic’s disruptions to supply chains and labor markets and a reduction in job vacancies, which allowed wage growth to cool.

Powell noted that, according to surveys and financial market gauges, Americans never really expected high inflation to stick. Such expectations can become self-fulfilling: If people expect inflation to stay high, they typically demand ever-higher pay or they accelerate their purchases before prices rise still further. Those steps can perpetuate higher inflation.

But “inflation expectations” rose only modestly and have since largely fallen back to pre-pandemic levels.

“The healing from pandemic distortions,” the Fed’s rate hikes and the fact that Americans did not expect higher inflation, “have worked together to put inflation on what increasingly appears to be a sustainable path to our 2% objective,” the Fed chair said.

Powell also addressed criticism that the Fed was too slow to raise rates even after inflation had begun surging once the pandemic recession ended. Fed officials had initially argued that the price spikes coming out of the pandemic in early 2021 were merely “transitory” and would soon fade as the supply chain disruptions that left some grocery shelves bare and auto lots empty had healed.

Powell acknowledged that the healing of supply disruptions took much longer than the Fed had expected — and so did the persistence of high inflation.

“The good ship transitory was a crowded one, with most mainstream analysts and advanced-economy central bankers on board,” he said. “I think I see some shipmates out there today,” he said in an ad-libbed remark addressed to the economists and central bankers assembled for the conference.

Separately, Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, expressed some optimism that inflation in the United Kingdom is also steadily declining. But Bailey took a much more cautious approach than Powell about what the central bank may do next. Early this month, the Bank of England cut its key rate for the first time in four years.

Bailey said the U.K. will likely be able to tame inflation without a jump in unemployment or a hit to the economy. But he warned that inflation wasn’t fully defeated.

“It is too early to declare victory,” he said. “We need to be cautious because the job is not completed.”

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Delivering more

What does it mean to be a doordash merchant when you think of doordash, you think of delivery — but the doordash merchant suite delivers many ways to help you grow..

Online Ordering

Add online ordering to your website. You don't pay commission, just credit card processing fees of 2.9% + $0.30 per order. Included in every partnership plan.

Analyze sales, access financials, respond to reviews, and get customer insights like delivery zip codes.

Ads & Promos

Get more orders and reach more customers with in-app marketing. It's easy to set up in the DoorDash Merchant Portal.

Get 24/7 phone and chat support, account help, and direct communication with assigned drivers.

How to get your restaurant on DoorDash

1. sign up and choose your partnership plan.

Add hours, menu items, and prices to your DoorDash store, plus input your banking information.

2. Choose your order protocol

Integrate with your point of sale system or rent a tablet from DoorDash to manage incoming orders.

3. Receive orders

Activate your DoorDash store to start accepting orders and grow your business.

DoorDash Success Stories

How Santini's Grew a Profitable Delivery Business with DoorDash

Learn how this restaurant chain in the suburban Washington, D.C. area built a thriving delivery business with DoorDash.

Why Coyo Taco Left DoorDash — and Came Back

Find out how this Miami-based taqueria partnered with DoorDash to increase sales through creative marketing campaigns.

How a Second Chance with DoorDash Led Zalat Pizza to Sustainable Growth

Find out how this Dallas-based late-night pizzeria worked with DoorDash to create a partnership that worked for their unique needs.

Why Rosenberg's Bagels Quit Third-Party Delivery — Then Partnered Exclusively with DoorDash

Find out why this Denver-based bagel shop partners with DoorDash exclusively to grow a profitable off-premise business.

Frequently asked questions

Pricing plans differ based on the level of built-in marketing plans included.

The "Basic" including our core marketing tools (listing your business on the DoorDash app, discoverable in search, and featured in our algorithmic collections like "Fastest Near You" or "Local Favorites") at 15% delivery commission and 6% pickup commission with a 7-day free trial.

The "Plus" plan adds an expanded delivery area and DashPass, at 25% delivery commission and 6% pickup commission, with a 30-day free trial.

The "Premier" plan includes all of the benefits of "Plus" and a Growth Guarantee* at 30% delivery commission and 6% pickup commission, with a 30-day free trial.

All plans include Storefront , commission-free online ordering for your website.

Partnership Plans are available for restaurants with 75 or fewer locations in the US. 6% Pickup is available to all partners in the US who comply with the DoorDash Merchant  Terms of Service , including having DoorDash Pickup menu prices match in-store prices.

Commission is a percentage of the order subtotal for each order processed through the DoorDash platform. DoorDash charges commission rates to bring value to your business and community; commissions cover advertising and marketing, delivery driver costs, customer service for consumers, merchants, and Dashers, technology platform costs, and more. Learn more about pricing .

*DoorDash "Premier" Growth Guarantee: Accept at least 20 orders per month or DoorDash will refund your commission costs for that month. For the Merchant Location’s first 6 months on the Marketplace platform as a Premier merchant partner, they are eligible for this rebate if (1) they cancel fewer than 5 orders that month and (2) maintain "open hours" on DoorDash for 90% of the Store Hours that they have set in the Merchant Portal.

DoorDash does not charge an activation fee, subscription fee, software fee, cancelation fee, contract fee, or any hidden fees. However, certain fees may be applicable for additional products or services as you opt in, such as: 

If you choose to use the DoorDash Tablet to accept orders, you can use it for free for the length of your trial, then $6 per week in the US, $3 per week in Canada, and $0 per week in Australia and New Zealand. You can also accept orders via point of sale integrations , email, or fax at no cost to you.

Marketing fees if you choose to use Promotions or Sponsored Listings to grow your sales.

Payment processing fees only for Storefront orders, which are commission-free.

DoorDash charges fees and commission rates to bring value to your business and community. Here are some of the items they cover:

Advertising and marketing : Being on the DoorDash app puts your business in front of new customers every day.

Delivery driver costs: We empower our community of Dashers, who make every delivery possible, by providing them flexible earning opportunities with competitive local pay, promotional pay, 24/7 support, third party insurance, and exclusive discounts. Learn more about the Dasher Community at Dasher Central .

Customer service and support for consumers, merchants, and Dashers: Customers, business owners, and Dashers all have unique needs that often need addressing immediately. When something goes wrong with an order, we have a 24/7/365 team of people ready to help solve customer issues, so they’ll continue to order from your business.

Technology platform costs: It takes a world-wide, world-class logistics, engineering, coding, marketing, and operations team to keep the DoorDash app and website, our Merchant Portal and tablet, and our Dasher app running. We hire the best and expect the best from our team.

Credit card processing: With the exception of Storefront (where you only pay a credit card processing fee* with no additional commissions, monthly fees or per-order fees), all DoorDash offerings include credit card processing, so you have less to worry about when it comes to overhead expenses.

*2.9% of the total transaction amount + $0.30 per order

You can change your plan any time in the Merchant Portal. Plans may take 5 business days to process changes, so it is not feasible to change your plan more often than about one time per week.

We encourage merchants to try a plan for a minimum of 2-3 weeks before switching in order to get the most representative picture of how well each plan works for your business.

Merchant partners can either choose to receive a weekly direct deposit from DoorDash or opt in to daily payouts at no charge.

In the US and Canada, DoorDash Basic partners start with a 7-day free trial, and DoorDash Plus and Premier partners start with a 30-day free trial. This means delivery and pickup commissions are 0%, so you can try the partnership plan* that works best for you. Tablet fees are also $0 for the duration of the trial. After the trial, there is a weekly tablet fee of $6 in the US, $3 in Canada, and $0 in Australia. Point of sale integrations are free.

After your free trial, you’ll be enrolled at the commission and tablet fees indicated in your "Merchant Signup Sheet." 

You can change your plan at any point in your trial (and after your trial) within the Settings in the Merchant Portal.

*Partnership plans (Basic, Plus, Premier) are available for restaurants with 75 or fewer locations in Canada or the US.

If you switch plans in the middle of your trial, your free trial ends, and you will be enrolled in your new plan, paying that plan’s commission rate, within the next 5 business days. If you do not want to end your free trial early, we suggest setting a calendar reminder and logging in to update your plan 5 or fewer days before your trial ends.

Yes, you can opt out of your free trial at any time. Please reference  this resource  to learn more.

DoorDash was originally founded to help local restaurants offer delivery to nearby customers, but today, we help all kinds of merchants — including grocery, convenience, liquor, retail, pet, beauty, and more — reach new customers and support their unique business goals.

If you'd like to speak to a merchant sales representative, you can contact us online or call us Monday-Friday:

United States and Canada: 855-554-5779

Australia: 1800-717-576

Already a DoorDash merchant? Browse help.doordash.com for answers to your questions, explore the Learning Center , or call merchant support:

United States (English and Español): +1-855-222-8111

Canada (English): 647-957-7219

Canada (Français) : 855-643-8439

Australia: 1800-958-316

New Zealand: +64-800-001-188