The foreign expansion of a Polish company: a marketing checklist

Foreign expansion in terms of marketing requires organizing five areas: positioning, materials and website, PR and credibility, channels of distribution, and measurement. The checklist below shows what to check before starting, what to do in the first few months, and when to stop to improve the course.

Reading time: 9 min · Strategy · Commplace® since 1996

Overseas expansion: how to use this checklist

The checklist is not a list of tasks to be ticked off one by one. It is a tool for talking with the team: at each point, you answer „yes”, „partly” or „no”, and you add who is responsible for that. Points marked with „no” do not necessarily mean a problem. They indicate things that need to be decided on consciously.

We assume that you have already decided on the direction and model of entry. If not, start with the text about five decisions before entering the market. This list concerns what marketing needs to have ready in order for this decision to translate into inquiries from customers.

The foreign expansion of a Polish company has one common trap: the team knows its offering so well that it stops seeing what a client from another country doesn’t know. The checklist helps you look at the company through the eyes of someone who hears about it for the first time.

Block 1: positioning and marketing abroad

Start by answering the question of how your company differs from on-site suppliers. If the answer is „price,” prepare for a difficult conversation, because price rarely builds a long-term relationship in B2B. Check if you have evidence of other advantages: quality, delivery time, specialization, experience in the given industry.

Also check whether the message is not just a translated version of the Polish one. Marketing in foreign markets works when it starts with the customer’s questions, not with the company’s history. We write more about what to translate and what to build anew in the text about location of communications.

The answer to these questions is rarely obvious, so it’s worth verifying it with people from the outside. Ask two or three people from the target market to read the one-sentence description of the company and repeat it in their own words. If the version differs from yours, the message needs improvement before campaigns can be launched.

• I have written down one main value proposition in one sentence, in the language of the target market.
• I know who the three most important competitors are locally and what we differ from them.
• I have at least three pieces of evidence of credibility that are verifiable (references, certificates, described projects).
• I verified the company's name and password for relevance in the target market language.
• I know what questions the customer asks in this country at the stage of comparing suppliers.

Block 2: website and sales materials

The website is the first point of contact for a foreign client and often the only place where they can check whether the company is trustworthy. It doesn’t have to be big, but it must be understandable, fast, and in the client’s language. Take care of a multilingual version that isn’t an automatic translation.

Prepare the sales materials (presentation, offer, product description) so that the salesperson can send them out after the initial conversation without any corrections. If each material needs to be revised, expansion will slow down at this stage.

Check at the end for simple things that often spoil the first impression: the date and currency format, units of measurement, the way the address is entered, the country code phone number, and the automatic reply in the customer's language. Any minor inaccuracy indicates that the company is not prepared to handle customers from other countries.

Block 3: PR and credibility abroad

In B2B, the client seeks confirmation from trusted sources: in industry media, from industry acquaintances, and through recommendations. International communication therefore relies heavily on building a presence in local specialist titles and on the company’s expert status.

Don’t start by sending a press release to hundreds of addresses. Start with a few journalists and editors who write about your industry and a topic that genuinely interests them. The material must add value to the local reader, and not just inform them that a Polish company has entered the market.

A modest presence is enough for a start, but well-chosen. One relevant interview in a relevant industry title or an expert comment on a current topic can open more doors than a series of general information about the company. It is also good to write down what you will do if the journalist asks about a competitor or a difficult matter.

• I have a list of several industry publications in the target market and I know what they write about.
• I have an expert topic that brings something new to the local reader.
• I have appointed a spokesperson or an expert who speaks the language of the market.
• I prepared press information in a language version read by a native speaker of the language.
• I know how to respond to a difficult question from the media in a foreign language.

Block 4: channels for reaching foreign customers

Marketing in foreign markets uses the same channels as in Poland, but their importance can vary. In one country, LinkedIn plays a major role, while in another, trade shows or company catalogs do. Before launching paid campaigns, check where customers are actually looking for suppliers.

Start with a small test: two or three channels, a clear target and a short evaluation period. If questions start to appear, add resources where they are needed. If not, change the message, not the budget immediately.

A good practice is to record three things for each channel: who runs it, what it is supposed to result in, and after how long we assess its effectiveness. A channel without an owner usually runs for a month, then dies down.

1. Determine where customers are looking for suppliers: search engines, LinkedIn, trade shows, catalogs, recommendations.
2. Choose two or three channels for testing and record the target for each of them.
3. Prepare materials for each channel in the language of the market.
4. Set a rhythm: you check the queries every week, and you evaluate the channels every month.
5. After the quarter, decide: we increase, change, or terminate the given channel.

Block 5: measurements and control points

Without measurement, you won’t be able to distinguish between a channel that’s working and one that just looks active. Before you start, record which queries you consider valuable, how you count them, and how you verify that they come from marketing efforts.

Remember the rule: coincidence is not an effect. If the number of visits to the website increased after the fair, that doesn’t mean that the fair itself caused the increase. Compare it to the period before the actions and ask your customers where they learned about you. More about this in the text about PR measurement without advertising equivalent.

It is worth remembering that good implementation also involves giving up certain activities. If it turns out that one of the channels is not generating inquiries after the first quarter, ending it honestly is a savings, not a failure. The report from the checkpoints should clearly show this.

• I have defined what a valuable query in the target market is.
• The form and the sales conversations ask about the source of the contact.
• I recorded the initial state before starting the activities.
• I have three checkpoints (at 30, 90 and 180 days) and I know who is running them.
• I have agreed with the management on what result we will continue with, change or end.

How Commplace works in marketing in foreign markets

We work like a doctor: diagnosis, tests, plan, implementation, and control. In expansion, diagnosis is going through this checklist together with the company’s team. Tests are checking the competition and client questions. Plan is the program of actions for the first months. Implementation is PR, materials, and channels. Control is checkpoints and reports.

Commplace has been operating since 1996 (30 years in the industry), and the Navigators team leads both strategy and execution. The scope of services is described on the website. B2B marketing. Pricing after a short conversation and an initial diagnosis.

If Germany is your first market, take a look at the text about entry into the German market. It will be useful to compare several markets. market analysis using the TAM, SAM, SOM method.

When the company manages its expansion without agencies

If you have someone on your team who knows the language and the industry in the target market, you conduct several sales conversations per month and you have a simple offer page, you can start on your own. The Checklista will help you spot gaps. External support only makes sense when you need to simultaneously take care of positioning, PR, website and channels, and the team doesn’t have the time for that.

A one-time external view is often helpful: a brief readiness assessment, after which the company itself handles most of the tasks. Not every project requires constant support, so we start the conversation by asking what is really needed.

Source: preparation by the Commplace® editorial team. The numerical examples are illustrative and based on explicit assumptions; they do not constitute legal advice or guarantees of results.