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How Your Small Business Can Go Global

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Bill Gates described the Internet as the “town square of a global village”.

It’s made the world seem a much smaller place, connecting roughly a third of the total population. And for small businesses it’s opened up huge opportunities.

Reaching potential customers in Sweden or South Africa is almost as easy as communicating with those across a (literal) town square.

But although national barriers are becoming less important, language barriers remain. The idea that everyone speaks English online is no longer the case.

In the last decade, the number of Arabic speakers has soared by 2501%, while Russian use has risen 1826%. This compares to just 301% for English-speaking users, according to Internet World Stats. And Chinese is soon set to take over as the dominant online language.

While only a quarter of users speak English, it accounts for roughly half of all web content. Although many people speak it as a second language, research by the Common Sense Advisory found that 85% of online consumers wanted information in their mother tongue before making a purchase.

This means monolingual companies and content marketers face a huge amount of competition to reach a dwindling proportion of users.

Getting your blog or website seen in the crowded English-speaking marketplace can seem an almost impossible task. In contrast, it’s much easier to climb the search engine rankings in foreign languages.

For small businesses, this means marketing in Portuguese or Japanese can be an easy way to win new customers. Whether you’re selling handmade jewellery or web design services, you can tap into demand all over the world. It might seem daunting at first, but here are a few tips on getting started.

1. Choose your markets

If you’ve already got a well-established website, the chances are you’re picking up visitors from other countries. There are plenty of free tools such as Google Analytics which can tell you where your web traffic is coming from.

But if you have a hunch that your ebooks or vintage clothing might be popular in Japan, then there are several ways to test the waters.

Start by translating your main keywords into the target languages, and use  tools such as Google Adwords to analyze the search demand and competition.

If you’re undecided, translating your homepage and information about your main products can give you a feel for the demand. If customers “bite”, then it’s worth translating the rest of the site.

Use your web analytics to identify countries that are driving your highest-quality traffic. Here’s a screenshot of Finteza reports on which locales are currently working well for a business:

2. Don’t get lost in translation

A little local knowledge goes a long way, especially in online marketing. While automatic translation tools offer an easy, free solution, they tend to produce over-literal results, with no awareness of context. It’s best to find native-speaking translators who can make sure your carefully written prose sparkles in the target language.

And don’t forget the value of appearing local. If you’re targeting French Canadian speakers, remember there are many differences from the language spoken in France. Getting the spelling or  vocabulary wrong can be jarring to readers. For example, Canadian shoppers magasiner while their Parisian friends faire les courses.

 3. Optimize and localize

Search engine optimization is the key to making sure customers can see your website. Localize your title tags and meta descriptions. Although translating your main keywords is a good start, it’s important to remember that direct translations aren’t always the best choices.

Italian searchers will often mix in English keywords – for example, using “voli low-cost” for “low-cost flights”. It’s a good idea to check your list of keywords with native speakers.

Search engines tend to prefer sites that appear to be local. Registering a top-level in-country domain name, such as .fr for France or .de for Germany, will help put you on an equal footing with local competition.

The good news is, there’s generally less competition for top-level domains in other languages. There’s a much better chance of securing the top prize of a website name with your main keywords, such as mykeywords.ru

It’s also worth considering speakers of other languages in your own country. BestBuy and Amtrak (as well as numerous smaller American companies) have seen huge surges in sales by targeting the growing Spanish-speaking population in the United States.

Use Text Optimizer (English and French) to identify key concept around your niche and craft your SEO strategy accordingly:

4. Make it easy for customers

The way we shop (online and offline) varies across cultures. Learning about local preferences can be a big part of persuading customers to buy.

While Americans love their credit cards, Germans tend to be wary of using them online, and often prefer bank transfers or invoices. The French still like to use checks, while PayPal is popular in many countries.

Research everything from consumer rights to postage costs before launching your site to avoid any surprises. For example, German consumers usually have no less than 90 days to complain and ask for a refund after purchase!

Fixing your slow site is another great way to get more customers, regardless the locale.

5. Hire international teams

I know it is easier said than done, but having people from other countries in your team will give you an insider’s perspective into those locales.

Fiverr allows you to see which countries freelancers are from, so does Upwork. Hiring international employees and freelancers is easier than ever.

Make it a good tradition to talk to all of them on a weekly basis and let them collaborate among one another. This is how your whole team will understand different cultures and regions better.

Setting up a cloud PBX system will allow you to effectively manage your international team and keep everyone aligned.

6. Be social!

Social media used to be seen as a fun way of passing the time, but not serious enough for business. Of course, this has changed, and companies of all sizes now find it’s an essential marketing tool. According to Maxwell Hertan of Megaphone Marketing,

The right social media marketing strategy can net your business MAJOR wins. Whether those wins are sales, sign-ups, leads, whatever. Social can do it for you.

And this isn’t just in the English-speaking world – more than half of tweets are in foreign languages.

It’s relatively easy to set up separate Facebook and Twitter feeds in different languages. If you don’t have the time or linguistic ability, hiring locally based social media managers can be an easy solution.

While these are the most popular worldwide, they aren’t the only ones. LinkedIn is a good way to reach the business community, while the Japanese love Mixi and Cyworld is wildly popular in South Korea.

Find  blogs and forums where you can share your interests. They’re great ways to pick up knowledge, share expertise and start to build your reputation.

It can be tough at first to find your footing in the international marketplace. But a little time and effort can put your small business on the path to global success.

How to Monetize Your Hobby

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Are you looking to make some money in the new year? Do you want to start a business but are confused on where to begin and how? Then why not start with one of your favorite pastime hobbies?

It may sound too good to be true, but many people are starting to turn their hobbies into side hustles to generate an extra stream of income. The best part of monetizing your hobby is that when you work on something you enjoy and love, it doesn’t feel like work.

It becomes fun.

Whether you’re a painter, a graphic designer, an illustrator, a calligraphy master, create DIY art pieces, an embroiderer, or make custom pieces, you can literally monetize any hobby and start generating an income.

That is why in today’s post we’ll share some tips on how you can convert your hobby into a small business that not only generates an income but gives you joy as well.

Keep on reading to know how you can start, right now!

1. Create a strategy

Whenever you start with a new venture or endeavor, it is always wise to start with a game plan on what you want to achieve, and listing down steps to get there.

When first trying to monetize your hobby, research online how other people in the same category as you are selling their products or services.

List down the steps you need to create a digital marketing strategy that includes the time, resources, cost etc it will take for you to achieve goals you’ve set.

If you have a budget, you may want to invest in Adwords Consulting to get things rolling quickly.

Make sure that you set goals that are tangible and realistic, so that you can maximize the benefits from your strategy and be on track for success.

2. Start a website

Having a website for any small business or entrepreneur is a must, even if you’re not thinking of turning your hobby into a monetary profession for the long haul. Creating a website to showcase the range of products you have or services you offer, not only makes it easier for the right customer to reach you, but has positive outcomes long term.

When you make a website and provide accurate information regarding price, contact info, shipping and delivery details, it creates credibility in the eyes of a potential customer and will help spread the word faster for more traffic. One of my favorite examples I recently found is this site profiling awesome waterfalls a family is visiting. Such a cool hobby!

3. Pitch and reach out clients

Reaching out to potential clients whether locally or online is very crucial to make your first sale. This point is especially important for people who run a food business, catering, provide supplies on a large scale, and are looking to expand their hobby to serve a company or a large gathering.

Whether your first pay check is the $5 or $500, your motivation to continue your new endeavor will be highly contingent on your first sale. In order to get potential clients, pitch yourself via email, in person, or on call to people you know can get benefit from your services or products.

Even if you’re shy of putting yourself out there, dropping emails is a great way to introduce your new business and if you can’t do that, then the follow the next point.

4. Create content for your social media account

Having a social media account even for your hobby is extremely important for exposure and gaining potential clients. Nowadays, both businesses and customers check social media accounts of businesses they want to engage with financially. Making sure you post creative content, regularly will not only increase your following but help you target potential customers as well.

The goal isn’t to go viral overnight, but to hope that one post gets viral enough to land you on the radar of your targeted business/customer for your category. And for that you need some strategies and tips to engage with your social media audience.

According to Oberlo, there are more than 3.5 billion social media users as of 2019, and the number is only increasing. Making sure you market your products the right way to the right customers will only increase your revenue and help you make profit.

And those are top 4 ways on how to monetize your hobby to generate an extra stream of income in 2021. We hope you found them useful and motivate you to start your journey today.

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

How and Why To Host Webinars for Lead Generation

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Webinars have proven to be a powerful marketing strategy, therefore, hosting your own event will undoubtedly be a smart marketing strategy for your business or brand.

Now if you’re considering setting up your webinar, here are 9 ways it’ll help you attract new clients and grow your business.

Webinar marketing offers multiple marketing opportunities.

Webinars help develop trust and authority

Hosting a webinar doesn’t only let you showcase your products and services, but your expertise, skills, abilities and industry knowledge as well. And what about the human element?

Webinars allow you to put a real face to your business. Your audiences can identify with your face and become emotionally invested in your business.

Webinars are the most effective lead generation tools out there.

Hosting webinars create business relationships

“Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships.”

Ross Perot via bqotd.com

Think about it, how much do you think prospects can know you in a 30 second commercial? A little, right? Engaging your prospects via webinars lets your prospects to know you on a deeper level.

After all, people only do business with people, not companies. With a webinar, your attendees have the chance to know your person, admire you and trust you from the content you share.

Understand your audience more via interactive webinars

With the question and answer segment of an interactive webinar, you get to know your target audience, their challenges, expectations, and needs.

And with that, you are able to understand what motivates these audiences and create tailor-made products and services that match these needs.

Create brand awareness

Hosting webinars let you easily promote your business or brand – especially when you’re consistently feeding your audience with topnotch content and not simply handling it as another sales pitch presentation.

And when you also factor the nonexistent additional overhead, promoting your brand via webinars is incredibly cost-effective. With very little or no financial outlay, you can skyrocket the outreach of your nosiness.

Hosting webinars is affordable

Conventional seminars, meetings, and even conferences are no doubt expensive to set up. Interestingly, you can drastically reduce this high costs with webinars, especially with the wide variety of affordable webinar software solutions out there.

All that’s needed is a broadband connection, webcam, and microphone.

Webinars can be re-purposed

You might have only held your webinar – but that’s not the end of it. The content can be repurposed to offer the same value to those who couldn’t attend the webinar.

You can convert your presentation into an eBook or series of blog post. This lets you share your webinar content in other engaging ways.

Webinars can be recorded

When you re-purpose your content, your audience is able to relive your content and better understand your content as much as possible.

Webinars, unlike traditional conferences, are extremely easy and cost effective to record.

Increase your revenue via webinars

If you an audience base that’s big enough to monetize, you can simple set up a paid webinar event.

In so far your webinar is guaranteed to offer genuine value to your customers, your customers wouldn’t mind parting with a few bucks. And with a relatively unlimited capacity for attendees, you can easily generate an added revenue stream via webinars.

Webinars let you build up your list and generate quality leads

With the sign-up forms for your webinar, you can collect lead information such as email, addresses and job titles. Even better, the information and education that you offer in your webinar can be used to inform your audiences about your products and services – thereby creating a strategic sales lead in the process.

The benefits highlighted in this piece reflects the power of hosting your webinar. If you’re looking to boost your revenue, create cordial relationships with clients, minimize your costs and establish your credibility, then its time you begin to hold that webinar.

5 Ways to Better Do Webinar Lead Gen

  • Show the registrant numbers: social proof as a demonstration of the herd mentality is one thing that gets talked about a lot. “Join the 10,000 people who have registered for this webinar.” Really, sign me up. Now that’s how it works.
  • Urgency: tell people to hurry up. Setting up a maximum number of available “virtual seats” lets people be more inclined to sign up quickly because they don’t want to miss out. Indeed, nobody wants to be left out in something interesting.
  • Show what’s next: make sure that your website has a calendar showcasing your upcoming webinars. This can get sign ups in advance which you can then market to on the lead up to the main event.
  • Share free content: one exemplary way to convert your leads is to share valuable free materials. Practically, you can share eBooks with the people who have registered for your event. This way, you can facilitate easy conversion of your leads.
  • Follow up: after a successful event, send email to your attendees with a recording of the event. Also, include links to other closely related free content to the webinar they just watched. Trust me; they’ll love it.

QUESTION: What’s been your most significant challenge in hosting your own webinars? Do share with me. I’ll like to hear from you.

Featured image source: Pixabay

3 Keys to Better Brand Marketing Starting Now

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Would you say you are doing a good job of marketing your brand to consumers?

Some companies are spot-on when it comes to marketing their brands. For others, they have some work to do.

With this in mind, how are you going about marketing your brand to capture as much sales and revenue as possible?

Alert Consumers to Why They Should Buy Your Brand

In marketing your brand to be a winner, remember these keys moving forward:

  1. You define the message and not the competition – One of the keys to a successful brand is to get your message out. Even when you do get that message out, it is important you define it and not your competition. So, make sure the message going out is the one you want. If you let your competition define you, it can have negative repercussions now and down the road. For example, if you are an automaker or dealer, you want consumers to know why your brand stands out. Before buying their next auto, folks want many details about what their next auto can offer. Be sure you deliver that message.
  2. Use all available delivery – When trying to get your brand front and center, use many tools. For example, do you use social networking sites? Some brands are asleep at the wheel when it comes to using social media to their advantage. As a result, their competitors can get a leg up on them. There are a myriad of social media sites you can use to your advantage. Best of all, social media is in essence free for you to use. As an example, are you on Instagram? This site is a great one to use when you want to convey images of your brand to consumers. Twitter is a good one to run not only info on your brand but links to relevant articles and more on your industry. No matter the social site or sites you choose to go with, be socially active.
  3. Your customers are valuable – While you view your customers as valuable to you, do not only think they are a sale. Some of your customers can prove to be great for you when it comes to promoting your brand. If you have some customers willing to do testimonials for you, by all means let them go for it. Such testimonials can have more impact with consumers than ads you do on your own. This is because some consumers tend to be more swayed when they see a fellow consumer talking up a brand. You can offer those customers willing to do testimonials some incentives. These can include discounts on other purchases they make and so on. The key is having as many customers as possible deliver the good news to other consumers. Whether time to go car shopping or buy other items, first-hand experiences from others can mean a lot.

When you need to do a better job of brand marketing, where will you begin?

About the Author: Dave Thomas writes about marketing topics on the web.

 

Automakers Need to Continue Marketing Driving Safety

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With so many vehicles on the road, it is no surprise that there are opportunities for accidents to occur. When they do, they can be of the minor variety or quite serious.

With that in mind, a vehicle that gives consumers the ultimate protection is crucial.

So, are automakers doing all they can to market safety? Also, are consumers heeding the warnings and taking time to shop for the safest autos on the market?

Marketing Safety to the Public

When it comes to automakers, it is key to not only come up with the safest vehicles but also alert consumers to them.

For example, when a consumer goes car shopping, he or she should have as much auto safety info available. Given safety is an issue on the roads, safer drivers and vehicles means fewer accidents.

That said automakers can and should continue to do the following:

  1. Market safety on their websites – A company’s website is one of its best resources to spread the word to the public. That said automakers need to continue to use this vehicle to spread safety info. From blogs and reports on safety trends to videos and more, marketing safety is a win-win for all.
  2. Test vehicles on a regular basis – Many consumers have likely seen those commercials. The ones that come with the disclaimer that there is a pro driver behind the wheel during a safety test. Testing vehicles in high-performances situations leads automakers to discover more about autos. Such testing can find faults with vehicles before they hit the market for consumers to buy.
  3. Use social media – Along with auto websites, another way for them to drive home auto safety is social media. Given all the consumers on social media, it stands to reason this is a good place to go for auto safety info. Consumers can follow their favorite automakers on their respective social channels. In doing so; stay in tune with the latest in auto safety news.

Drivers Have a Role to Play Too

Even while critical for automakers to do all they can to produce safe autos; drivers have a role here to play too
That being the case, drivers must play a major part in the safety equation.

For example, if you are a parent and your teen will be driving soon or is, were they taught the right way to drive?

Unfortunately, some teen drivers are not as safe as they need to be out on the roads. As a result, they put themselves and others in harm’s way when getting behind the wheel.

The same can be said for adult drivers. Some do not take driving and the privilege it is to have a license in the first place in a serious manner. As a result, they make others less safe out on the roads. In some instances, the bad decisions can lead to fatal consequences.

When automakers and drivers come together on safety, everyone stands to be safer on the roads.

About the Author: Dave Thomas writes about marketing topics on the web.

 

Does Your Brand Market Success?

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How good of a job are you doing these days when it comes to marketing your brand for success?

If you responded to say not all that good, don’t you think this will need to change?

This is especially the case if you are in an industry where you face a lot of competition on a daily basis.

So, does your brand market success or do you need to focus more on your marketing efforts?

What Marketing Initiatives Are You Using?

In looking at your brand’s marketing efforts, are you focused where you should be?

To start, are you doing the bulk of your marketing in-house or out-sourcing what you need done? If the latter, you want to be sure you are working with a top-notch agency.

Whether you look at Klicker or another inbound marketing agency, find one that works for you.

One of the ways to find the right agency for your marketing needs is using the Internet.

Many marketing agencies have websites. As such, it is not all that difficult to find them online.

With a Google search or if you already have an agency’s website URL, get online and begin the hunt. Before long you may have the agency you need to partner with for more brand success.

In looking at which agency to work with, consider the following:

  • How long has the agency been around? While there are some great young agencies out there, one with experience may be your best bet. Either way, find the agency that will get to know you and your brand and help you succeed.
  • What does the agency have to offer? – Different marketing agencies will have a myriad of offers available. That said find the one best suited to your brand’s marketing needs.
  • Will the customer service be first-rate? – Last, you need a marketing agency that provides you with first-rate customer service. Anything short of this will not cut it. That said get some feelers on how agencies you consider working with treat customers.

What is Your Competition up to?

While you do not want to become fixated on what your competitors are doing, do not go to sleep on them either.

With this thought in mind, do you know what they do, especially as it concerns their online efforts?

In checking out their efforts, you should get a better understanding of what works and what does not. As a result, it can help you become more in tune with what marketing steps you may well need to take.

Finally, look for ways to push the envelope when it comes to your online marketing efforts.

From contests to podcasts and more, make your brand stand out from others. This is why seeing what the competition is up to and finding ways to one up them is key.

When you stop to look at what you are doing, is your brand marketing making its case?

In the event the answer is no, you need to get working on a successful brand marketing operation.

Photo credit: Pixiebay

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business topics on the web.