How to Successfully Promote your Business to an International
Audience
Breaking into the international marketplace can catapult a
company into increased profitability and growth more rapidly than
when selling to a domestic market.
But how do you market your company successfully to overseas
buyers? What can you do to provide the right information to
prospective clients that is informative and engaging? How can you
stand out from the crowd?
The most common promotional approach is to provide brochures.
While brochures do play an important role, they can be uninspiring
and ill equipped to convey a real feeling for what an organisation
does and how they operate.
Furthermore, when brochures are translated into other languages
it is commonly agreed that even the best translations are
cumbersome and not reflective of how that particular language is
used. This often means that international prospects feel less
inclined to read brochures in depth.
So how do you show prospective clients how your product is made?
What can you do to highlight your product range and its associated
benefits?
A proven promotional method is corporate video production. The
combination of moving vision with sound, allows complex messages to
be communicated in a far superior way to that of any written
information.
Research has found that video can be up to four times more
effective than a printed brochure. Given that 80% of the
information we recall is visual, it is understandable why
audiovisual materials are so successful in getting messages across
to viewers.
The best investment companies can make is by providing
prospective clients with their corporate video on a VHS tape or a
menu driven DVD disk or CDROM disk (which is like the menu option
on a movie DVD).
CDROMs are particularly flexible as they can include video,
brochures, documents and website links. They can even be produced
as CD business cards which is perfect for travellers who wish to
reduce the amount of marketing materials they need to carry.
Corporate videos can be downloaded from websites, which not only
saves money in distribution costs, but provides 24 hour worldwide
access.
A further advantage of corporate video is that it allows for
voiceovers to be translated into a variety of languages. As visual
cues are used in conjunction with the voiceover, the language
sounds natural and appealing.
The winner of the 2002 Regional Exporter of the Year Awards, the
Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory, strongly agrees with the use
of corporate video production to boost export sales.
John Williams, Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory's marketing
manager, says "We are very proud of our Factory and our picturesque
location. It makes a lot of sense to show our best attributes to
their advantage and the way to do that is through a corporate
video."
"We've found corporate video to be extremely flexible. I can
travel overseas and show a DVD quality video to potential clients
on my notebook computer".
"We had a short promotional video created that was slotted into
our Powerpoint presentation which we presented to a large Japanese
dairy importer. It really gave us the competitive edge and helped
us win a large multi-million dollar contract".
Justin Howden, an International Marketing specialist from
Marketing and Investment Partners, also advocates using corporate
videos when marketing overseas.
"For companies that are undertaking trade marketing, corporate
video is critical. It is vital to get trade onside when marketing
overseas and corporate video is irreplaceable when trying to get
distributors involved," he says.
"A successful corporate video is created by finding out what are
the most important pieces of information that your target market
wants to know. You need to unearth what 20% of information will
give you an 80% kick in marketing terms. Once you've done this, you
then need to focus on these important points in the promotional
video".
Corporate video production is a powerful, convenient and cost
effective way for overseas buyers to see what you have to offer. It
is an innovative method that can encompass video, brochures,
documents and website/email links into one small CD business
card.
By using a combination of the right promotional tools and a
creative approach, the time-consuming and often difficult road to
breaking into the global marketplace, can be made much easier.
About The Author:
Marie-Claire Ross is from Digicast Television Production.
Digicast Television Production has helped many businesses win big
contracts and projects by increasing more awareness and knowledge
of their products and services. To get the FREE Digicast Ezine with
marketing tips and the latest information on technology to help
busy business professionals visit www.digicast.com.au to subscribe
or contact 0500 800 234 (Australia wide).
© Marie-Claire Ross 2003. All rights reserved
mc@digicast.com.au