How to Successfully Promote your Business to an International Audience

by: Nandang S Nugraha | Total views: 48 | Word Count: 701 | View PDF | Print View

 by: Marie-Claire Ross

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

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