Expanding to the U.S. market is equal parts exciting and daunting for European and international SaaS companies.
Naturally, entering a new region means testing new tactics. There are U.S. regulations, cultural nuances, and market trends that must be considered and addressed.
But chasing international growth shouldn’t mean tossing your core go-to-market strategies out the window. In fact, it’s the time to double down on smart U.S. expansion strategies and focus unwaveringly on your ideal prospects.
To get your U.S. expansion journey off to a strong start, avoid these five common, costly mistakes.
Mistake 1: Failing to Narrow Your Targets
The sheer size of the U.S. market can create uncertainty on where B2B businesses entering the region should focus their B2B marketing efforts.
The U.S. software market may be vast, but that doesn’t guarantee an abundance of the right kind of customers for your business. Before you even consider expanding to the United States, get a firm handle on the potential opportunity by analyzing data to define your total Addressable Market (TAM).
Knowing your TAM is the first step in defining your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), as well as the market your product and business can truly capture.
Mistake 2: Insufficient U.S. Market Analysis
Knowing your TAM and ICP is a good start, but they’re optimistic measuring sticks that don’t consider factors like local industry trends, competitors, and popular technologies.
Only around 10% of your TAM is in-market and primed to buy at any given time.
When planning your U.S. expansion, it pays to take a calculated approach. Analyze the competitive landscape, firmographic, and technographic data to get a clear picture of what your prospects currently use, and why you’re a better bet than existing solutions.
Don’t skip a detailed market analysis to understand your true obtainable market. Underestimating local competition and failing to differentiate from existing players could kill off your expansion plans before they get started.
Mistake 3: Missing U.S. Intent Signals
Making inroads in a large market like the U.S. requires a targeted approach to sales outreach. But B2B buyers are elusive:
- B2B buyers gather information independently, spending only 17% of the buying journey engaging with vendors
- Only 3% of B2B website visitors fill out a form, the typical source for marketing qualified leads
Most buyer research happens within The Dark Funnel™ — part of the B2B web that most marketing platforms can’t detect. This invisible part of the sales funnel comprises online trade publications, social networks, message boards, and other popular digital resources.
Buyers leave intent signals when visiting all of these sites, but since buyers remain anonymous, marketers cannot detect which accounts are in-market for their companies’ solutions.
AI-driven marketing technology can uncover these hidden intent signals, tie activities to specific accounts, and use buyer readiness signals to let revenue teams know when target accounts are in-market.
Without this information, marketing and sales teams waste money and time on the wrong accounts, making it difficult to build momentum in new regions. They also risk mistiming conversations and completely missing opportunities.
Mistake 4: Spray-and-Pray Demand Gen
When faced with a new market, marketers can succumb to spray-and-pray tactics, hoping that broad engagement will yield results. But generating demand doesn’t spark growth if you’re surfacing the wrong prospects.
Sure, a spike in U.S. website traffic and leads might look good at first. But it’s GTM junk food. The short-term satisfaction will quickly be washed away by regret in the form of high bounce rates and frustrated sales execs.
This scattergun approach leads to wasted resources –– currently, 60% of digital marketing spend is wasted. Instead, efficient demand gen relies on tightly-defined audiences, hyper-targeted digital advertising, smart segmentation, and personalized content.
Mistake 5: Misaligned Revenue Teams
An under-reported but significant strategic mistake that undermines efficient international growth is misalignment between marketing and sales teams.
Growing in the U.S. requires a coherent approach from your team. The first step is for marketers and sales to know which accounts to engage, and their respective roles during the buying journey.
If revenue teams aren’t aligned on the accounts to engage and when to engage them, it quickly becomes apparent as a disjointed customer experience. To get this nailed down, your revenue team needs visibility into the buyer journey and smart workflows to scale effectively.
Beyond your prospects’ experience: misalignment also results in wasted time, misdirected efforts, and missed opportunities. This all contributes to the $2 trillion in waste lost to inefficiencies by revenue teams.
Strategies for U.S. Market Expansion Success
To sidestep the common expansion mistakes we’ve outlined, take note of these five essential steps:
- Understand the opportunity size
- Perform comprehensive market analysis using AI
- Uncover demand and prioritize the right accounts with intent data
- Generate the right demand efficiently with targeted marketing
- Align your teams for efficiency and scale
To explore these strategies in more detail, read our guide, U.S. Expansion Strategies for EMEA-based B2B Businesses
