The manufacturers that do best overseas choose which country to sell to based on data and evidence, rather than ‘gut feel’ or serendipity. They take a good hard look at which countries have the most opportunity, the least risk and are most likely to be highly profitable. If you want to do well internationally, you’ll choose your target market this way too.

Don’t be one of the people who goes on holiday somewhere, falls in love with it and decides to set up shop there, only to discover two years and millions of dollars later that there’s no market for their product!

At a minimum, you should have carried out some research on more than one country before choosing a market to focus on. With data on the macroeconomic, microeconomic and industry trends in several countries in hand, you’ll begin to get a sense of where the best opportunities lie for your company. Understanding the circumstances and trends in different markets will also help you to get a handle on where your best return on investment is likely to be and to secure support from your stakeholders, based on something more than guesswork.

In the process of selecting a market, don’t forget to check that you can actually turn a profit there. No matter what methodology you use, this is a vital part of the exercise.

Remember to investigate whether there are things that will make it difficult to work in or trade with any of the countries you’re considering – tariffs, licensing regulations, national employment quotas, product standards, or other bureaucratic hurdles. You should also make sure that you can repatriate capital easily and that the taxation regime won’t be too onerous for your company to bear.

As you can see, there’s quite a lot to think about as you choose a market to expand to, but it’s worth doing properly, so that you can make a sound decision, based on data.

Who is your ideal client in your new target market?

You might imagine that your ideal international client is more or less the same person as your ideal client in the home market, but it isn’t that simple.

If you run a successful manufacturing business domestically, you probably know your ideal clients inside out. You understand what makes them tick, what they struggle with and how to satisfy their needs and wants – that’s one of the reasons your company has thrived. But when it comes to doing business internationally, the deep understanding that you have acquired about your clients at home through years of client contact does not exist in the new market. You don’t know your new international clients yet, and they don’t know you.

It’s not just a lack of familiarity and established relationships that can be problematic. Clients in different countries behave differently. Different societies can be visibly different in terms of level of prosperity, language, diet, dress, ethnicity and religion. There will be invisible cultural gaps too. Culture can create stark differences in consumer spending habits, attitudes towards youth, respect for privacy and preference for tradition, to mention a few.

To give yourself the best chance at successfully attracting, engaging and impressing clients in your new target country, it’s important that you get to know as much as you can about the people you want to serve, before you get too far advanced with your plans.

Don’t assume that you know what people want. Building up a client profile on the basis of guesswork is a recipe for disaster, because it won’t reflect the client’s real desires, goals, challenges and cultural preferences. It’s worth making the effort to do your homework. Research your future international clients through secondary sources (market reports, media, social media), talk to potential clients in the target country, speak to associates who understand the market, visit the country yourself and spend time talking to and observing people.

Making sure that you understand the people you hope to sell to will give you the best shot at doing so.

In the section above, I talked about how important it was to truly understand your ideal international client. One of the most important reasons for this is to make sure that your product is going to hit the mark with that client and that you can get traction in your new international market.

Once you understand your client and his/her preferences, you’ll be able to work out whether your product as it stands will do the trick, or whether you’ll need to modify it in some way. It will also help you to understand whether you can sell your product or service at a price that makes sense.

An anecdote from Gillette (the razor company) illustrates this point beautifully.

In 2009, Gillette razor brands accounted for more than 60% of razor and blade sales in the US and about 70% of the world’s total razor and blade sales. But in India, a market with the potential to be four times bigger than America’s for shaving products, the company had just a 22% market share, because its products were expensive for the Indian market.

To increase market share in India, the company realised that it had to target the lower-to-middle income segment of the population. To do this, Gillette decided to create a new product for Indian men, but before they did so, they spent time interviewing people in India and other emerging markets. Gillette observed potential clients at home and on shopping trips to understand what features razors had to have, and which features were nice to have.

On the basis of its research, Gillette designed and priced a new razor – the Guard – creating a razor with a single blade and a hollow handle, which cost just 34 cents, a fraction of the cost of a premium product. The results were swift and stunning. By 2012, the Guard had captured 60% of the razor category in India, tripling Gillette’s market share there.

As the Gillette story shows, taking the time to make sure that there is ‘fit’ between your ideal international client and your product has the potential to dramatically improve your results in international markets.

Next up, it’s time to choose a mode of market entry, in other words, what model you’ll use for going to market. Your options include everything from online selling, using agents and distributors, licensing and franchising, right through to setting up a subsidiary or wholly-owned company in the new country, or merging with or acquiring a local entity.

It’s important to get this decision right, as it will have implications for the scalability and profitability of your international business in the long-run. It’s also smart to consider different market entry options for the short, medium and long-term. What might work well as a way of demonstrating initial demand or getting early traction, may not be so attractive several years down the track.

As you ponder different modes of market entry, check out what your competition in that market is doing and what seems to be working for them – you may want to replicate some aspects of their model. Also think about whether there are other companies, including clients, suppliers or even potential competitors with whom you could partner to enter the market. A partnership or strategic alliance can reduce some of the risks related to market entry.

It’s not enough to understand your international clients and the products that they’re looking for, you also need to understand where your offering fits in the competitive landscape.

A common mistake that manufacturers make as they go overseas is to assume that they have no competition. The truth is that even when your offering is very niche or has many unique features, there’s probably a competitor of some kind. If you don’t know and understand the competition, you can’t develop a strategy for dealing with them. In the worst case scenario, this could mean that you get knocked out of the market by a competitor who creates something better, sells something similar for less, or offers a more appealing experience for the customer.

The best way to avoid this is to spend some time mapping out the competitive landscape – getting to know who else is playing in your space, looking at what they are doing, understanding where your strengths are … as well as your weaknesses.<.p>

Armed with this information, you’ll be able to make better decisions about which areas of the market to focus on, whether to try and compete with existing players or to play in a space which no-one else is occupying.

You don’t want to be a “me-too” company, which sells the same thing as a hundred other companies (with different packaging). Take the time to understand who you’re up against, so that you can create a strategy that will allow you to compete effectively.