What you need to penetrate the North American market

Mattia Orsim
Sep 4, 2018 · 4 min read

The U.S. and Canada have the world’s largest and most comprehensive trading relationship, which supports millions of jobs in each country. Since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Act, in 1994, trade between the two countries has more than doubled.

The United States and Canada share a $1.4 trillion bilateral trade and investment relationship. U.S.-Canada two-way trade in goods and services totaled nearly $759 billion in 2014. And mutual investment stock totaled nearly $698 billion.

In short, the two countries represent a dynamic market that should be of great interest to Italian and European companies thinking about business expansion. If you’re wondering, “How to expand to Canada and market my services in Canada?” Here are five things you need to penetrate the Canadian and American market.

Get the Right Professional Help:

While both countries welcome foreign investment and business, you must adhere to the correct regulations and procedures to ensure you can get set up without a problem. In order to do that, you will need to get help from the right professionals. For example, if you are going to immigrate to Canada to run your business, you need to consult an immigration lawyer. You would also need legal help to meet the provincial regulations governing foreign businesses and for real estate closings.

Also, if you are going to buy real estate for your home or business, you need a realtor well experienced in dealing with foreign buyers and regulations.

Getting legal advice from business consulting firms specialized in the matter would be a good idea for instance.

Sharpen Your Technological Edge:

In today’s changing marketing landscape, you need to have the right technology and digital strategies in place in order to succeed. New technology can lead to new ways of marketing yourself and doing business. Also, as a start-up in Canada, the productivity and communication benefits of the right IT systems can put you on an even footing with more established competition.

Then you need to consult with a digital marketing expert or a business development consultant to ensure you can reach the right audience, build trust and eventually use the connection to convert leads to sales. Digital marketing would include SEO (search engine optimization), creating effective content and online methods of marketing, including pay-per-click campaigns and link building.

Build an Effective Digital Sales Funnel

With more and more people shopping for businesses and services online, it’s important to have an effective digital sales funnel, converting visitors into buyers in a short period of time. There are different stages in the funnel, which all need to be tested and refined. But in broad brushstrokes the funnel should:

· Build awareness: Be aware of your target audience’s pain points and provide them useful information that will establish your credentials without any kind of hard sell.
· Establish your difference: Once you have built trust, you can talk more about yourself and what you offer that is different than the competition.
· Then make an offer: Perhaps a low-cost one that can lead to an upsell opportunity. At this point you should really know your target, so you can appeal to what they want.

Don’t Forget to be Social

Social media should play a major role as you seek to penetrate the Canadian and American market. But each social media platform should be used for its particular strengths.

With Facebook, for example, users would push back at any attempts to do a hard sell. But it is a great place to start building awareness, providing useful information to your target and begin to create trust.

Also, LinkedIn is not just good for finding jobs; it can be used for sales prospecting. It enables you to get information about and connect directly with companies and prospects, as well as developing relationships with potential customers, business partners, and decision makers.

One Drip at a Time

Once relationships have been established, you can use drip marketing to keep up contact and drive interest. These pre-written messages are calls to action designed to drive a particular action from a specific recipient. The messages are automatically sent via email, website auto-responder or through social media.

If you want more information and insight about it what it would take to bring your business from Italy to Canada and America, contact the friendly professionals at Orsim Consulting. With our low-risk strategies, you will be able to build a portfolio of viable leads that will help you to expand to Canada and the USA.

Mattia Orsim

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