Whether you are considering to internationalize your company by expanding it to the Spanish market or starting a business in Spain directly, I’m pretty sure you might be thinking about how you are going to sell your product or service in Spain in order to make your business successful – probably that’s why you are reading this article!
In this post we are going to cover and revise together how we, as a marketing agency in Spain, guide our customers and approach the market in order to achieve their company goals by advertising their products in Spain. However, before explaining to you how to create your marketing campaigns, we always consider that it is important to learn and understand how online business/ecommerce is being done in Spain, what are the social media platforms most used, what is the buyer behaviour and so on. Shall we dive in data for a while? Let’s go!
How e-commerce is being done in Spain
Based on the annual e-commerce study done by the IAB in Spain during 2020, from the Spanish population between 16 and 70 years old, 31,2M use the Internet and 22,5M are online buyers. 51% are female and 49% are male. The average age is 42, being the range between 35 and 44 years old the ones that buy online the most.
These online buyers are active on social media platforms, being WhatsApp the one with the highest penetration percentage (91%), followed by Facebook (81%), YouTube (68%), Instagram (66%), Twitter (54%), Spotify (35%) and LinkedIn (34%) among others.
It is also important to note where the user is buying, what devices do they use? The study tells us that 83% of the online buyers use a computer, but mobile devices are also used in 55%. From far away we have tablets (18%) and smart tv (8%). This information is relevant to you, in order to understand the need of optimising your website for mobile as an example.
The Spanish online buyers habits tells us that they buy online about 3,5 times per month, with an average ticket of 68€. The highest drivers for buying online are convenience and offer, on top of the price. Spanish consumers are motivated to buy when they trust the website, when others have recommended it and when they see online ads about it.
Now that we have a better idea of the Spanish online market, we want you to answer a few questions that will help you understand your product/service, your competitors, logistics (if needed for your business), your buyer persona and your channels. Take a moment to go through all the questions and take notes of your answers.
Checklist before starting your marketing campaigns in Spain
If you already have a product or a service, this might seem easy to answer, if not it can help you be aware of the needs.
1. About your product
- Do I have different product categories? If so, which are they?
- What am I going to sell?
- Who is going to write the product/service descriptions?
- Who is going to do the product shooting?
- If I sell services, do I need new images for my web that are aligned with the market I’m going to?
- Who is going to manage the product stock?
- Who is going to develop new products/services?
- What is my brand positioning?
Once we have covered what we sell, we need to check what others are doing and selling right now.
2. About your competitors
- Who are my competitors in Spain? Do they sell online? Do they have an online presence?
- What are their strong points in their e-commerce or website? Check which are their competitive advantages.
- Who are their providers and what prices do they charge?
- What is my competence selling?
- What are their prices?
- How are they managing their customer journey?
3. About logistics
- What is the shortest delivery time I can offer?
- What is my logistic structure? Warehouse, deliveries, etc.
- What is my return policy in Spain?
- Am I using any delivery tracking technology?
- What are the carriers in Spain that meet my needs?
- How am I going to solve order incidents?
- If I have a physical store, can I offer pick up?
In the case that you are selling services or you don’t sell online, you can adapt these questions to your specific needs, such as what would be your shortest response time when receiving an email/request/quote, etc.
4. About your buyer persona
Now we need to focus on the buyer persona. This needs to be done in detail. We might know that our target customer is a woman between the ages of 25 and 35 as an example that lives in Spain and uses Facebook and Instagram in her spare time. That’s great, but you are still way too far to understanding your buyer persona in order to attract it properly! The better you know them, the better your marketing campaigns will be!
- What is my target age and gender?
- Are they digital native?
- Where do they live?
- What online platforms do they use and what for?
- What are they interested in? Running? Reading? Traveling? If so, what do they read? etc.
- Is my target audience using the Internet for buying?
- What can your product solve them?
5. About the sources of traffic
If we have done a good buyer persona analysis, we have an advantage to impact them where they are.
- What are the ideal channels to impact my target audience?
- What is my positioning in social media? SEO? Paid?
- What marketing mix strategy do I need to use?
- What is my budget for paid campaigns?
- Do I have a budget for doing SEO (Search Organic Positioning).
- Should I consider having a presence in Amazon or other marketplaces?
If you have arrived until here you might be aware now of all the difficulties and struggles that you can face when setting up your marketing campaigns in a foreign country. How does the culture work? How to communicate? And where? Don’t worry, at Gromi we are digital marketing experts that can cover all of these questions and more (about your product, service, industry and/or competitors). Together we will create the marketing campaigns that suit your company needs and goals for the Spanish market.
If you want to start selling in Spain, check out our marketing services and contact us to book a consultation call so we can support you.
Do you have any questions? Contact us!
WE ARE HAPPY TO HELP!
