International Business and Technology Blog

At IBT Online, our mission is to help U.S. exporters navigate the online global environment, reach their international target markets, and grow their exports, sales, brand, and business globally.

We are proud to say that we currently work with over 500 companies, in over 65 target markets around the world, delivering over 1,500 Online Global Programs. 

In recognition of this, IBT Online has been awarded the President’s ‘E’ Award, which is the highest recognition any U.S. company can receive for contributing to national export expansion efforts that support the U.S. economy and create American jobs.  

How do we do this? Well, we have designed innovative Online Global Programs to fit the needs of U.S. exporters for whichever market they are trying to reach. We value our clients, and we work in collaboration with them to build an Online Global Program that is unique to their needs and business objectives.  

Selling and promoting your products around the world can be challenging! If you're part of a small or medium-sized business, you know that you need to employ the right strategy to achieve ROI as soon as possible. You don't have extra hours in the day or room in your budget to make mistakes.

The most efficient way to enter new international markets is by leveraging online business development tools. At IBT Online we specialize in building market-specific websites tailored to the local audience, helping US exporters being found, understood and become easy to do business with globally.

Of course, it takes an investment to launch a website - an investment of finances and your team’s precious time. The time spent on big projects like this can be very costly, which is all the more reason why AHB trusted IBT Online’s team of technical experts to become their perfect partner, providing all the technical expertise needed.

Vapor Pin Enterprises, Inc. patented the Vapor Pin®, which allows environmental professionals a means of collecting high-quality, low-cost soil gas samples within minutes. Vapor Pin was seeking to grow their brand internationally and identified as their first target market. Vapor Pin recognized that website localization can give your business a competitive advantage, helping your brand stand out in a crowded digital landscape. This task can also appear daunting to many companies as it requires market expertise and digital skills that might not be available in-house. For this reason, Vapor Pin called upon IBT Online to help them achieve their exporting objectives. IBT Online was proud to launch a best-practice, localized business development Brazilian ecommerce website as well as a targeted online marketing strategy to accompany it.

Localizing websites is more than translating a few pages – it involves deep local knowledge, wide technical experience and strong locally-based search engine optimization skills. Ecommerce plug-ins also need to be suited to the local market, taking into account local payment habits, safety and compliance regulations. For Brazilian ecommerce, according to Vice-President Laurie A. Chilcote, “We need to get online in this market”. It was the right time to call in IBT Online to ensure the Brazilian website was launched on-time and on-budget with a full ecommerce platform and online marketing strategy to power up sales.

Given the success of the localized website and strategic marketing efforts in Brazil, Vapor Pin endeavoured to further invest into launching ecommerce websites in other international target markets. As Laurie expresses: "If you want to grow your brand and expand into markets, IBT Online is the company to help you achieve those goals."

Having an optimally localized online presence is key, but don’t stop there! Understanding how your prospects, customers, and why not competitors behave on your website will give you the edge you need to continue growing your exports, sales, brand, and business globally.

Google Analytics is a free, yet fantastic analytics tool that gives you an extremely in-depth look into your Online Global websites' performance and how to leverage it.

Google Analytics is essential for your website as it will allow you to understand whom you are reaching, how they find you, and how they behave and navigate your pages. Having this information at hand will allow you to make strategic decisions for the future and therefore get better results from your website performance.

Having an optimally localized website for each target market helps you be found and be understood but having a clear understanding of the websites’ performance will give you the edge over your competitors.

In the last 10 years, buyers have become increasingly more comfortable shopping, negotiating, and closing deals online.

To stay in business, grow your exports, sales, brand, and business you need to capture your buyers' attention online and drive them to your website - in fact, you may already be losing business to your competition because your potential customers can't find you online!

Traditional trade shows are off the table, and travel is still restricted… How can you find and support your international distributors and in-market partners to grow your exports?

The answer is simple: provide your distributors with a local website to lean on that is strategically optimized for their specific market. In short, localize your website and watch your traffic, engagement, and conversions explode. 

MSSC took advantage of IBT Online’s Global Program to strengthen their sites and then create three best-practice, localized websites in their three top export markets: Mexico, Brazil, and the UK.

“With the pandemic and lack of travelling, these localized websites are an essential tool for us to help our distributors sell our products.

HOW UNITED ELECTRIC CONTROLS INCREASED LEADS IN CHINA, LATIN AMERICA, AND BRAZIL 

If you want to sell more products and services online, you can't sit back and pray that buyers will stumble across your website, especially when it comes to international customers.

To attract more leads online, United Electric Controls worked with IBT Online to develop a proactive strategy for the Chinese, Latin American, and Brazilian markets. IBT Online delivered a customized solution, including three localized websites and search engine advertising. A year later, UEC is seeing more leads than ever before and achieving click-through rates on their websites that are consistently above the industry average.

"Working with IBT Online has been a fantastic experience, the quality of work has been high. The IBT team is very responsive with value-added inputs." - Julian Yeo, Strategic Marketing Manager.

Check out how Supercritical Fluid Technologies Revamped their Site and have seen Immediate Uptick in Web Traffic

We live in an online world. More and more business transactions are taking place online than ever before. Many internet users rely on Google or other leading search engines to help them find what they are looking for online.

Supercritical Fluid Technologies decided to focus on optimizing their website for their global audience so that more potential clients can find them overseas. This proved to be a savvy export strategy in 2020 when international business travel was not safe, and many international trade shows were canceled due to COVID-19.

“Typically, something like 75% of our sales involve being face-to-face, on the floor in clients’ manufacturing facilities,” recalls Jonathan Szucs, president and owner of Advanced Superabrasives Inc. (ASI). Looking up at the webcam, waving and adding “So not being allowed to travel or visit customers, it is totally changing the way we have to do business” and “that’s why this website globalization is so important”.

ASI had been considering the Online Global programs before the pandemic, the increased grants and current state of the “lockdown” world, fast-tracked that decision. IBT Online is now working closely with ASI to completely redesign, build, and deliver best-practice, locally optimized business development websites and online marketing campaigns for target markets the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico. Today, face-to-face is online!

The Michigan Online Global programs are a “no brainer”, with “return on investment (ROI), almost immediate” declares Head Honcho, Dave Yancho, Vice President and co-owner of Armor Protective Packaging (ARMOR). Dave is a forceful advocate for three reasons: 1) his international customers, 2) the immediate financial ROI and 3) the ease of working with IBT Online.

Today, ARMOR has best practice, optimally localized business development websites working hard 24/7 in Canada, Mexico, China and India, with Japan and Germany on the way!