Digital tools that can make your business global

Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade
| credits: File copy

With almost 3 billion users and tens of millions of businesses online, the Internet offers a unique opportunity for companies to reach their potential customers more easily than ever before. Exporting or expanding, using the Internet, can be profitable for businesses of all sizes, including SMEs.

Exports are playing a key role in Ireland’s continued recovery. Every day, we see Irish businesses using Google not just as a search engine, but also as a growth engine powering their ventures to sell overseas.

Whether they use the tools to find new markets, advertise to new customers or communicate in multiple languages, these businesses are finding great opportunities in digitally-led exports.

Here is some advice for companies which have an established presence online but which have yet to take the plunge to begin exporting:



Find new target markets

Powerful marketing tools and free translation tools already exist online to help businesses to attract, communicate with, and sell to audiences everywhere in the world. For example, by using Google Global Market Finder, businesses can find audiences around the world who are likely to be interested in their products or services. It uses data from Internet searches around the world to show the number of times people search for keywords relevant to your business. It covers 56 languages and provides cost and competitive estimates. This information can help a business to review the estimated cost of acquiring a new customer and to determine whether targeting a particular market is a good investment. You’ll find this if you search for Google Global Market Finder online.

It’s also worth checking out another free service, Google Trends. This lets you see what people have been searching for, from anywhere in the world. For example, if you want to find out if anyone in Germany searched over the last month for Irish dairy products, Google Trends gives you an instant snapshot of the interest in Irish dairy products.

Connect local

When you are exporting, in particular to non-English speaking markets, it’s necessary for you to adapt to local consumer needs. That is why Google commissioned an online survey of consumers in 56 countries, with around 3,000 interviews in each country to produce a consumer barometer. For your business, this means that whenever you want to dig into the data for a specific demographic/product in a target country, you will be able to consult quality data which will help you to make the right decision. This data is freely available atww.consumerbarometer.com.

You can then use these insights to adapt your site, market materials and advertise in the local languages of its target markets. This is a recommended business practice, even in countries where a high percentage of the population speaks English fluently. An example is Germany.

So, whether you are looking for a quick translation to test your site with different audiences or a more formal translation, free online tools such as Google’s Website Translator plugin for websites can save you time and money. This tool will make your website instantly international. You can control which parts of your site are translated, adding a snippet of code to any sections you want to leave in their current language. By tracking page views on your translated site, you can decide whether to invest in the complete localisation of your website. For example, if your site receives lots of Chinese or Spanish speakers, you may want to translate it into Chinese and Spanish to improve the user experience for these potential customers.

Help potential customers to find your business online

By adopting online advertising, your business can reach relevant audiences. No matter what the advertising budget may be you can show ads when people search online. Showing ads next to relevant search results means that a business is advertising to an audience that’s already interested in their product or service.

The best part is that you’re charged only if someone clicks on your ad, not when the ad is displayed, making it very cost-effective and measurable. Every business should understand the effectiveness of its online campaigns and Google’s free online analytics tools, for example, will provide a business with valuable insights about consumer interactions with their websites. The business owner will be able to understand where their visitors come from and what actions they take while they are on the site.


By TAIWO KOLA-OGUNLADE


Source: punchng