Next stop: Russia
You have started a business, hired talented people, worked hard to achieve success and, finally, here it is! Congrats! But it’s not the time yet to buy a one-way-ticket to Bahamas and retire…
The question that you should ask yourself is what’s next? Don’t you think you and your “baby” deserve even more? How about global expansion?
Nowadays, when the world is digital and almost every business operates online (at least partially), global expansion is a somewhat an expected move from a company that doesn’t want to settle for mediocre domestic success.
And when you start thinking global, you better think big! How about the biggest country in the world which is almost double the size of the whole Europe or double the size of the United States? Not bad, ha?
With population of about 142,500,000 people Russia has always been on the map of global expansion for almost any business – large or small. Indeed, there is a place for all.
Some important data about Russia
Famous Russian villages from Tolstoy’s books are long gone – nowadays around 74% of population is urban and the number is constantly growing. Why is this important? Mostly because cities have more internet penetration than villages and internet brings wide business opportunities.
Just think of it – 82 million people in Russia are internet users. That is around 66% of the population! What’s more, ¾ of them surf daily. That’s a lot of potential customers out there, you just need to know to target them wisely and make the conversion.
Specifics of doing business in Russia
Talking about targeting the right audience for your business. This ain’t easy for a Russian market novice. Be sure, that all the strategies that worked for you in all other markets for sure will not work in Russia. Why? Simply because everything you would think of is different in Russia. Do you use Google Adwords to find your target audience? Get this – more than half of internet users use local search engine Yandex instead of Google, which has its own advertisement system that is nothing like Google. Do you have a well performing social media strategy that helps you maintain and grow your community? Get this – Facebook is not so popular in Russia, instead alternative social media channel – Vkontakte with over 219,000,000 accounts is the one people use. Moreover, it is the most popular social media channel in the whole Europe, Facebook being the second. We could go on and one.
Almost any marketing channel in Russia has it’s local alternative and in order to build a successful marketing strategy for this market you need a local expert to help you successfully penetrate the market and get most out of this fruitful country with great opportunities. Check out our Services page to see how we can work together on this mission.