We are proud that we played an important role in helping Trek execute a formidable launch of its brand in Australia.
Here are some highlights . . .
- Australia’s smaller community of established bicycle retailers provided a unique opportunity for Trek. Trek’s marketing team and dealer base in Australia are much smaller than those in North America. Australian dealers were hungry for more Trek content, so Trek Australia turned to Promoboxx to find a scalable and efficient way to get more content to its dealers.
- Australia responded beautifully to regionally-based content for TrekFest, an event that Trek also hosts in other countries. Trek Australia’s content for the event was slightly different than TrekFest’s content for North America. Promoboxx invited Trek’s Australian dealers to use its regionalized version of TrekFest’s global content, which highlighted Australia-centric content and their stores’ local branding.
- Trek Australia’s Marketing Team promoted Promoboxx to its dealer base. Trek’s marketing managers were able to call on many of their stores, speak with their managers on a personal level, and start out from a position of grass-roots strength.
Success Strategies for Building Strong Partnerships with Foreign Retailers
Here at Promoboxx, we know that successful marketing is all about forging close relationships with the retailers who sell your products. But because selling abroad requires special planning and execution, here are some critical questions to ask . . .
- How are your retailers currently marketing in your foreign markets? Are your retailers marketing online? Do they market your brand’s content in a way that is within your brand guidelines? We’ve found that small and regional retailers have a willingness to market online, but need a little bit of extra support to help them market online in a way that looks good and attracts the attention of their local customers.
- Who are the competitive brands in the country you are targeting? Your products could be going head-to-head with some that aren’t available in your home market. Think of Ford cars and trucks that are sold in France, where they compete against product offerings from Citroën, Peugeot, Skoda and other European carmakers. As a marketer, you will want your retailers to more actively promote your brand over the other brands that are sold in the same stores.
- What pertinent benchmarks can you build into your marketing plan? If you sell 10,000 of your snowboards in Austria during the first quarter of 2015, for example, what percentage of that country’s market for competitive products have you claimed? How much more of that segment would you like to capture, what is your timeline, and how can you work with your retailers to reach that goal?
- What new marketing opportunities await you in a new country? What are the most popular social media networks, for example? Are there powerful alternatives to Twitter, Facebook, and the rest? How many of your potential customers carry smartphones and will be responsive to mobile marketing? Your retailers can be the best source of that kind of information, so partner with them, keep talking to them . . . and watch your sales soar.
