Content Marketing
How to Grow Your Business in Spain
Kai Lemmetty••6 min read
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Best known for its sun, cuisine and rich cultural history, Spain is also a country where a growing number of organisations and entrepreneurs are choosing to do business.
There are dozens of reasons why so many creatives, business leaders and corporations choose to set up a company in Spain. This is a modern and proactive country, with strong internet literacy that makes for a receptive audience to digital marketing.
Moreover, Spain’s famously laid-back lifestyle and positive work-life balance mean that people here work hard and play hard in equal measure. That makes digital marketing in Spain fertile ground indeed.
But how best to grow your business in Spain? It all comes down to understanding the culture and fine-tuning your business approach.
Spain is situated on the globe in a way that has enabled the country to play a formative role in sciences, arts and the progression of the world’s culture. With Africa across the sea to the south and Europe sprawling away east and north, Spain is perfectly positioned as a crossroads for trade and entrepreneurship. Famously, Spain was also instrumental in discovering what would become the United States as we know them today.
People in Spain are comfortable using the internet day to day, making digital marketing an effective strategy for any company here. The Spanish ecommerce market is forecast to surpass $41 billion in value during 2022, and this year’s Spanish GDP growth is forecast to hit 5.5%.
People in Spain often take pride in having open hearts and open minds, all reinforced by a strong sense of tradition and cultural pride. This sentiment of warmth and passion shapes not only consumer spending habits in Spain, but also the culture of business and digital marketing approaches that see the most success in this country.
Although the overall cultural identity of Spain is very much focused on compassion and freedom with a traditional edge, many entrepreneurs who begin to do business in Spain are surprised by how much bureaucracy goes on here.
Bureaucracy in business is never fun, and for many company founders, the level of red tape to navigate in Spain has proven unappealing in the past.
Naturally, choosing the right partner for your global growth and digital marketing can help enormously here. However, Spain is also actively trying to remedy this penchant for bureaucracy, so as not to miss out on promising new business.
Updates to laws in Spain to attract more start-up business, for example, show that this country is aware that its reputation for bureaucracy can intimidate some entrepreneurs.
There is nothing here that a truly confident company cannot handle – Spain would not be so prosperous today if that were the case – yet anyone looking to grow their business in Spain ought to keep this bureaucracy in mind.
Everything in Spain – from family dynamics and romantic relationships to socialising and, of course, business – all comes down to the relationships of trust between people.
Because of this, you need to keep this personal touch in mind not only when you begin your digital marketing campaigns in Spain, but also in how you negotiate new business and strengthen existing ties to your company.
While the work-life balance in Spain is strong, a side-effect of that is that the lines between personal acquaintances and business associates is perhaps more blurred than you may have dealt with in your career elsewhere.
People in Spain want to enjoy life. While business is done here with a careful hand, strong attention to detail and incisive strategy, Spanish entrepreneurs put their work lives aside when the office closes, and will expect that same courtesy of you.
Similarly, business is built up slowly, through personal meetings that focus on establishing common ground and a strong rapport. This warmth and personality can be appealing, but be aware that it can make business decisions and company growth in Spain move more slowly than you might be used to.
You might be invited to meals and events, the first few of which you’ll barely discuss business at all at. In Spain, rushing into talking shop and crunching numbers too fast is considered distasteful – and worse, you risk coming off desperate and insecure if you lean into it too hard, too fast.
The good news is that in Spain, business partnerships often extend for years, if not generations. Once the trust we have discussed here is well established, that personal connection becomes a strong bond between one company and the next – making the slower way in which these partnerships are established well worth investing your time and energy into.
People in Spain are long-lived, and an ageing population means that consumers in this country are confident with technology, but also wise to any cheap or disingenuous digital marketing tactics.
A patchy few decades of economic and employment challenges have made price a strong motivator to customers in Spain, according to many reports.
However, the tolerance for low quality goods and services is low – and because Spain is such a technologically confident country, bad reputations about any substandard business practices will spread fast.
Personal appearances are important to people in Spain, and any business active in fashion, cosmetics or ‘must have items’ will enjoy enormous potential – but also a stringent level of competition.
However, much like wider Europe, Spain is also motivated by ecologically friendly purchases and more ethical consumption practices. If you need a differentiator as you grow your business into Spain, consider making your green credentials a big part of your digital marketing campaigns.
Growing your business into Spain has immense potential, thanks to the size and openness of the market. Overcome the bureaucratic hurdles and adjust to the more personable ways of doing business in Spain, and you’ll find growing your company into this country highly rewarding.
Remember, this journey to growth need not be undertaken alone. Strong guidance and support is there if you need it, from full digital marketing strategies to incidental advice from experts in doing business in Spain. Reach out when you’re ready to learn more.