|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The Shift of Emphasis in Online Marketing to Other CountriesUntil now, the United States has been the primary incubator for e-commerce. But e-commerce is gearing up for world domination, and U.S. companies will soon find themselves facing formidable competition from abroad. By 2003, IDC projects the following sources of online spending:
Europe and Japan -- 47% Rest of World -- 19% Barry Parr, the author of IDC's Web Site Globalization Report, said with the rise of non-English speaking Internet users, it is time to gain a competitive advantage by selling to global markets. "With more than half the potential market outside the US, companies failing to expand internationally are leaving one-half of their potential revenue on the table." How then can one address these international markets by using the Internet? The first step is to decide which countries to target. As you start using the Web to present your company's products or services to the international market, your analysis needs to keep in mind two factors:
While it is not necessary to translate your entire Web site into a number of languages, you really should consider translating at least the most important pages. Yes, it is true that many people overseas read English (but far fewer feel comfortable to write you email in English). The real issue at stake is a marketing issue: marketing always takes place in the language of the target market. Willy Brandt, the former German chancellor, put it this way: "If I'm selling to you, I speak your language. If I'm buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen [then you must speak German]." You want to get their attention, don't you, so they will visit your Website? Then you have to find your visitors in their own language. Getting them to arrive on your Website is the hard part. Assuming they want to spend time there, they click into the site. If they come across English pages... either they stay (because they read English and are interested) or they don't read English and click elsewhere. Once your site has at least one page in the languages of the countries you are targeting, how do you attract visitors from other countries to it? The techniques are very similar to how you would promote your Web site in English-speaking countries, except that you now need to perform the actions in other languages:
Search engine optimization: Once you translate a Home Page and register in the country-specific indexes, you will no doubt still experience a problem of getting traffic. Potential visitors from both English-speaking and non-English-speaking countries go to major search engines, type in keywords in their own language, and would like to find sites like yours in their language. Alas, your site is often buried some 10 or 20 pages down in the "results" pages. Optimizing a Home Page fixes this problem, by placing your site at the top of the search engine listings when a search for non-English keywords associated with your business is done on a major search engine. Once your Web site is listed in the indexes and search engines in your targeted markets, a press campaign in those countries is one of the most cost-effective promotional tools you can use. Media is hungry for Internet news, and a growing number of publications are dedicated to new Web sites. Working email discussion groups, forums and Newsgroups in the countries you are targeting. There is no substitute for having someone local represent your company in these forums in their own language, and tactfully bring attention to your Web site. Strategic links. Although there are not as many indexes and searches engines outside English-speaking countries, there are a good deal of private lists of links about certain subjects. It is your job to get on these lists and point people to your Web site. And again, you will need someone who speaks the language well to do this work. Affiliate program. An important way of increasing your e-commerce sales is to have other sites advertise your site, and pay them a percentage of the sales they bring you. Of course, you have to sign them up in their own language and arrange foreign payments for their commissions. Banner advertising. Using this technique in many countries means using several banners, the text of each in local languages of the targeted countries. The Internet as marketing medium is still quite young, but is maturing rapidly in Europe. By mid-2000, the number of non-English speakers online tripled from twelve months previous. The sooner you take your company marketing online, the sooner you will move up the learning curve and your online international online marketing will start turning into sales. Start now... before your competition beats you to it. June, 2000
Written by Bill Dunlap, Managing Director
Back to Article selection
Last revised on 30 June, 200_ |