The average consumer is bombarded with thousands of snippets of information every day, and international buyers are no exception. When you sell to people overseas, it becomes even more important to figure out how to grab the attention of buyers in order to entice them to spend their money on your products and services. 

Other than choosing the best international payment processing provider, individualizing your offerings to suit shoppers abroad might just be one of the most important ways to elevate your chances of success in the overseas marketplace.

What is content personalization?

No matter where your customers live, one of your chief goals as an entrepreneur should be to alleviate pain points. 

In a nutshell, your job is to convince shoppers that your store is uniquely suited to addressing their unique needs and, in the best-case scenario, figuring out what people want even before they themselves know it. 

Tailoring your content to gel with each unique niche is how you can convince potential buyers in other countries to do business with you.

This is accomplished by harnessing the power of demographic, behavioral, and contextual customer data to learn what shoppers want and who they are. Armed with these details, you can modify your website and social media content to alleviate pain points and engage people in the ways they will respond to best. 

There are several ways to accomplish this task.

Start with a personalized web page that provides each user with their own unique experience with your website. 

For your international clients, this may mean that you invest in translation services while you simultaneously curate your content to satisfy each individual’s demonstrated buying preferences.

For international buyers, furnishing localized content is also a highly effective strategy. This enables you to expose consumers to textual and video content as well as products that are especially sought after in their geographical area. 

When you implement this tactic, you can remove the shopper’s feeling that your store is far removed from them just because your headquarters may be overseas. In short, you can use localization to bring your brand into their neighborhoods and homes.

Also consider crafting unique product recommendations for each segment of customers based on their data. A good way to make this happen is to show buyers items related to their searches as well as similar pieces of merchandise that people just like them have purchased in the past.

Taking advantage of retargeted ads allows you to have a second chance to engage with your international shoppers. 

Perhaps they visited but never completed their purchase, or maybe they clicked on your social media page, leaving behind valuable demographic and contextual details. In either instance, you can get back in touch to remind these potential buyers that you still have the items that interest them.

Finally, never underestimate the influence that email continues to have. No matter where your customers may live, you can reach out to them instantaneously with content that is highly personalized and compelling. 

Whether you simply add their name in the salutation or use complex segmentation algorithms to refine and channel a wide array of content, email gives you an inexpensive and effective vehicle that is familiar to buyers regardless of where they may call home.

Advantages of personalizing content for your international customers.

Modern databases and customer relationships management technologies have forever changed the relationships between buyers and sellers. 

With just a few clicks, these sophisticated systems can sift through and crunch information in infinite ways, coming up with intelligent insights that businesses of all sizes and scopes can utilize to dazzle and satisfy buyers.

Although their findings are vital tools for all sellers, they are even more important for those doing business internationally. They help customers to navigate the overwhelming number of choices available to them in today’s cutthroat marketplace and can even work to separate you from local competitors who may not be as dedicated to providing a customized buying experience.

Additionally, interacting one-on-one with international buyers shows that your business understands their individual cultural requirements and customs. 

Expanding your brand requires that you find ways to build trust across borders, and curating your offerings to meet each person’s payment and product preferences is one of the most effective steps you can take to make this happen.

Challenges of personalizing content.

Any strategy has both its advantages and its downsides. When it comes to personalization, these obstacles come in two basic forms.

First, many countries have become particularly sensitive to privacy concerns in recent years. In 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect in the European Union. 

This set of guidelines solidified the rights of consumers in terms of how their personal data was used for marketing, sales and advertising. GDPR applies to any company doing business in the EU; therefore, if your customers live in this region, you need to either become an expert yourself or hire someone to assist you in complete compliance.

Second, personalization can lead to problems with data usage and protection transparency. Therefore, your challenge as an international seller lies in communicating to your clients that their data will be protected from breach and other types of fraud in ways that fully comply with local and regional regulations.

Although these content personalization challenges present obstacles and concerns to people like you who are doing business abroad, they should not dampen your enthusiasm about curating products, advertising, communications, and content of all types to suit individual preferences and buying behaviors. 

That is because the benefits to merchants and clients alike cannot be denied. In a marketplace that is becoming more competitive and customizable with every passing day, incorporating international personalization techniques into your business should be one of your highest priorities.