International marketing, building export sales – Identify the target countries

So you have decided that you want to start building export sales and now you are exploring options on how best to achieve this objective.

First of all make sure that the market is there for your products or services. Do some research and identify which countries buy what you sell, this can easily be done online with by sector and by industry information readily available. This will enable you to focus your efforts in the right direction. Our own website includes the Country Guides which include this information, for example for https://blackcat360.com/japan/

It is worth checking then if your country has trade deals with any of countries that you have identified as your potential market. A trade deal in place may make it easier and cheaper to export your goods to that market.

International marketing, building export sales – What are the options

The first option and the simplest is to use third party agents and trading companies to sell your products into other countries. This is cheap, fast and easy but of course the agent will need to be paid commission on any sales and may not make a professional effort to the sell the goods.

The other two options are marketing led:

• Online marketing export campaign
• Integrated marketing export campaign

Whichever of the three options you choose to pursue it is important to make sure that your brand name (product name) and logo ‘work’ ok in the target market. Does the brand name mean anything bad or derogatory in the local language, etc. There is another article about this on our website

Brand names for international sales – Enjoy!

International marketing, building export sales – Online marketing

The key elements of an effective online marketing strategy to build export sales are likely to be:

International quality website – multi language (including all of the countries being targeted for sales), clear copy, fast loading, easy navigation, product information, calls to action and enquiries options.

Blogs/latest news – have and maintain a professional blogs, update it regularly with well thought out, useful and entertaining posts and articles. Share all updates to social media channels.

Social media – select the best channels to reach you market, build contacts, join groups, update your pages regularly, link the social media posts to your website where possible. Linkedin is the most effective in my opinion and is free to use https://www.linkedin.com/company/72190712/admin/

Search engine optimisation – research your keywords, get the keyword density correct, update the website regularly, add great content to build links, make sure your website loads fast.

Export websites/trade directories – should be a part of your strategy especially with a free option.

Email marketing – source high quality lists of retailers, wholesalers and importers of products like yours. Design and write professional emailers (written by native language speaker), hit the list with a series of three separate emails each with a new message or focus.

International marketing, building export sales – Integrated marketing

Integrated marketing is to use a variety of marketing techniques in a co-ordinated way so as to achieve the objectives identified.

Integrated marketing can include all the online marketing techniques already outlined. In addition,

PR/online PR – a professionally written, distributed and ‘sold in’ press release. Distribution to relevant business, trade, import/export media.

Advertising/Advertorials – an advertorial is basically as advert made to look like a news article. Advertorials can be very effective because they enable the advertiser to convey large amounts of information and engage the target market rather more than a simple advertisement.

Trade shows – an expensive option of course! However if high quality shows are available and a good professional stand is procured, trade shows have the benefit of enabling the exporter company to engage face to face with the target market.

Building export sales

International marketing, building export sales – Have a plan!

As Warren Buffet famously said, ”An idiot with a plan will beat a genius without a plan”, so it is in marketing. You need a plan of action which considers all the issues and options I have outlined here. The plan should cover: target markets, brand names/logo, action required, timescale and budget.

If you need help developing and implementing your plan contact us at info@blackcat360.com

Check out more of our articles for help in building export sales:

Building international sales – focus on some new advertisers

Australia What you need to know to export and import – latest

Photo by Shaah Shahidh on Unsplash

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International marketing, building export sales