Hi Apple,
It sounds like the brand name search is actually just a minor aspect of what you want to achieve. I was going to say your bottom line is more "general marketing strategy for overseas expansion", but from what you said about your own internal market, I get the feeling it's even more fundamental than that.
As you say you are new to marketing, I'll ramble on here a bit:
It sounds like you need to define your core business mission statement, taking into account the following:
- where the company is now,
- where you would be going (in current state of play)
- where would you like to take the company (ideal but keep it realistic)
- what are the key short-term and mid-term drivers (For example: new competition, production costs, change in customer tastes, lack of asset investment, agressive internal goals for growth, ...)
The summary goal of the above is to be able to say what your company does and wants in no more than 3 lines of text. Note: I'm not talking about PR communications to the outside world here. It's for you, the management and all the employees to understand and make sure you're on the same page. It doesn't have to be "glorious" headline stuff, just be honest - there is no right and wrong, only a possible mismatch in ambitions v's means.
For example, it may be:
"Riyi is an established furniture design and manufacturing company that traditionally specialises in standard products for the Chinese market but who are now aiming to leverage their design skills by expanding into new geographical markets with fast turnaround, market-specific custom designs".
or
"Due to increased competition in its core marketplace, Riyi has decided to react by capitalising on its established core activities of design and efficient production processes to increase sales volume by entering new overseas markets".
or
"The new management at Riyi has refocused the company to provide better long-term shareholder value and so has embarked on an aggressive overseas expansion program".
Obviously, I just made those up to give you an idea of what to aim for. You don't really have to do this, but a) it doesn't take that long, and b) if you don't, then all subsequent actions may end up being disjointed, inefficient, or even working against each other.
(End of ramble)
To come back to your immediate problem: "How to enter UK/European markets?"
I took the opposite route to you about 4 years ago with my previous company. A few leads led us to believe their was a market in China for our product, so I contacted the National government commission for export (France in my case, but every country has one, including China), paid about £300, and got a list of likely distributor candidiates that could be possible partners in China. After some email/telephone discussions and exchanges of product/market info, I flew out to Beijing to meet them and signed a pre-agreement with one of them.
I suggest you try the same thing or contact some of the people offering help here. Or as someone suggested, come to a trade fair in the UK/Europe to get a feel for what's happening on the ground and get to meet potential parnters face to face.
Your case is more difficult than mine because not only are you looking to provide a service (design) but your products are very culture/country specific. So you really need someone who knows the local country markets. In fact, given the nature of your products/service, I'd say in the short-term you'd be better focusing your marketing efforts on "selling" your company to potential distibutors/importers/partners rather than trying to sell the actual products. In concrete terms, this means:
- getting your web site working properly,
- getting the website content into shape (the English is understandable, but could be easily improved)
- creating a company package aimed at partners, not end customers, in both electronic and glossy paper format, which includes a bit on the company, products, ambitions, etc.
- internally, give yourself goals, a budget and a schedule for finding partner(s).
I can't really help you with any of the above, but there are good people on this forum who can. Good luck!
(and sorry if I've confused you).
