From DEMC.com
What is Your World View?
By Abbie Drew
Oct 19, 2006, 11:00
I expect that you know the Internet is a world wide marketplace, but are you really taking advantage of that fact?
If you are looking to grow your business, why not expand and sell to the world?
Everyday with our CustomLead business, the majority of orders I see are for North American leads, specifically USA leads.
The result of the high demand for these leads, as with any product in high demand, is that the cost goes up and the supply goes down. It’s basic economics, right.
Leads from many other countries like India, China, Russia and South American are available and these countries are exploding in growth. Because these leads are in low demand the costs are less and the leads are plentiful. A business able to market to these countries has great opportunity open to them.
Just consider these statistics from the Internet World Stats. The USA and Canada currently make up only 21.1% of the Internet population. That means the rest of the world makes up 78.9%.
You might think, ok, I’ll expand to a world wide audience and reach out to English speaking Australia, New Zealand and the UK. But the reality is that these 3 countries only make up an additional 5.2% of the World’s Internet Population.
You’re still ignoring over 70% of the Internet using population!
The countries of the European Union make up another 22.1%. And Asia pulls in 36.4% of the Internet using population.
What’s more, the growth of Internet users coming online in the USA is slowing. But look at an Asian country like India, according to the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) Internet adoption is growing at a record pace. The IAMAI states users in India reached 38.5 million at the end of 2005. And the organization expects 100 million Internet users in India by 2007.
The Internet provides your business with a World of opportunity! All you have to do is take advantage of it. Marketing gurus already recognize this phenomena. More and more frequently, I hear from gurus that they’re headed out to foreign countries to make a seminar presentation. Or I read how small businesses are selling overseas.
While our own DEMC and SendFree web sites are currently only in English, we have a sizable number of subscribers and customers from other countries. Think what might happen to our business if we started marketing directly to Internet users in non-English speaking countries?
That thought has prompted an evaluation of how to make our Internet sites reach out to a world-wide audience.
What about your business? Could you expand to a world wide marketplace?
Here are 5 points to consider:
1) Web Site and Email Translation
You can start out by placing a translation tool like AltaVista - Babel Fish Translation on your site. However, you should also consider paying for translations by a native speaker. A site translated by a native speaker will make your offer more appealing and understandable to the audience of that language.
If you invest in translation, start out with only one or two languages. A couple of good starting languages to consider are Spanish and German.
A Spanish translation of your site and emails, even if you’re marketing only in the USA, could be beneficial. A recent study by Synovate found that there are 16 million Hispanic Americans online. When you consider the Hispanic American population in conjunction with the multitude of other Spanish speaking countries you expand your marketplace considerably.
But why German you ask?
Of the European Union countries, Germany has the largest online percentage. Germany alone makes up almost 5% of the World’s Internet population. For a small country, Germans are ingrained in the online culture. In addition, the German economy is robust and filled with consumers who have the means to buy your wares.
If you find success with a small handful of translated sites then continue to expand to other languages.
2) Local Country Domains
If you want to reach out to an audience in a specific country acquiring the local domain for that country is a great marketing strategy. The tactic of using a local country domain works well even if you want to reach out to other English speaking countries. For example you might consider acquiring a .uk for the United Kingdom or .au for Australia or .ca for Canada.
Even a .in domain for India is worth considering. Many people in India speak English so you can test out using a local country domain without going through the process of a site translation
Having a local country domain shows that your business is committed to serving customers in those countries. It also allows you to be listed in the local country’s search engines.
As with your site translation, start on a small scale. Pick a country or two and purchase a local domain. Then test out the results. If you find success, purchase more.
3) Get Search Engine Listings
Once you have your local country domain submit your new domain site for listing. You can submit to the big engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN. But don’t forget to look for and submit your new domain to smaller local country directories. Remember that you will get better placement in a big search engine if you have incoming links from other sites.
4) Customer Support
Once you start marketing to individuals in other languages, how do you handle customer questions in these languages?
Will you only respond to customer questions in English? Will you use translation software tools to write back? There are free translation services on web sites as well as software you can purchase for your desktop. Or will you hire translation help? Perhaps use a site like Elance or Proz.com to find assistance.
You may start out using a free web translation site. But once your local domain site is a success, you’ll likely have to consider a more advanced option.
5) Partnerships
One option to consider as you build a world wide presence is to look for partners in the countries into which you would like to expand.
The upside of having a partner is he/she can handle much of the translation and marketing issues for you. The downside is you will have to share profits and you could potentially lose control of customer relations. As you do not know the language you are reliant on your partner to follow-through.
So if you decide to partner up, choose wisely.
There you have 5 issues to consider for taking your web business world wide. Will you do it?
I expect you’ll find the results are well worth the investment!
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Abbie Drew
DEMC
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