Entering new markets is a core activity in business development and, for many companies and industries, often the only viable source of growth. The main challenge is that expanding into a new country requires significant upfront investment, while returns are typically realized only in the medium to long term – sometimes after several years. Not all companies have the financial strength, or the organizational patience, to sustain this type of strategic effort. This challenge becomes even more pronounced when expansion involves not just a single country but an entire region or, even more complex, a global rollout.
The following example, drawn from our direct experience with a key client based in South Africa, illustrates the competitive advantage of our approach and the tangible impact we deliver to our clients.
A leading airline and the country’s National Tourism Organization aimed to significantly strengthen their presence and commercial traction in Europe. To achieve this objective, they engaged us to support the development of the European market. Prior to our involvement, the client believed that success would require building local structures in each market and allocating a substantial marketing budget, considering this the only effective way to communicate with European audiences.
We proposed and implemented our Executive rolesapproach, which enables companies to leverage our capabilities, resources and local expertise without the need to build their own permanent organization or incur high fixed costs over several years.
As a first step, we translated the client’s overarching objective – entering the European market – into clear, specific and measurable goals:
- Increase awareness of the country as a tourism destination
- Promote the destination to clearly defined and actionable target segments.
We then identified two primary target groups:
- Consumer targets
- Trade targets.
A detailed analysis of these groups allowed us to determine that:
- on the Consumer side, the most attractive segments were honeymooners and families
- on the Trade side, the priority targets were key travel and tourism industry players, as well as selected national media
The next critical question was how to effectively reach these targets. To address this, we assembled a multidisciplinary team of experts with complementary skills – spanning media relations, creativity, sales and marketing – to design and execute a comprehensive action plan tailored to the client’s specific needs. In particular, we:
- designed and executed a consumer advertising campaign across major national newspapers, subway and airport billboards, as well as national radio networks
- established structured cooperation with leading national media, including client presentations and management of press inquiries
- secured participation in key journalists’ associations and industry events
- prepared and distributed press releases through a targeted and curated media contact database
- engaged key national influencers and opinion leaders in travel, culture and lifestyle, enabling client participation in radio and television programs
- developed dedicated travel content for distribution through travel guides
- managed a fully integrated online advertising campaign across Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube, including posts, videos, community management, and dedicated content creation
- designed and distributed tailored newsletters for both consumer and trade audiences
- represented the client at major national trade fairs and industry exhibitions.
As a result of this integrated approach, our client successfully entered the target market, achieving strong visibility and commercial traction with only a fraction of the investment in fixed costs originally considered necessary.