International Business and Technology Blog

Your global prospects, clients, and partners are all online!

And in this new online world, the best place to reach your target audiences is through their social media feeds. Whether you are in the B2C, B2B or even B2G space, a cohesive social media strategy can bring high return on investment (ROI) for your international marketing efforts. 

Mexico is online, and in this new online world, the best way to find your Mexican prospects, clients and partners is through localized websites and online marketing!

Watch Samantha and Mercedes guide you through creating the right strategy to help your Mexican prospects, customers, and partners do business with you. Discover what it takes to provide a unique Mexican online Local User eXperience (LUX) in their language and market.

Looking to grow your exports, sales, brand, and business in Canada?

Make sure you have the right strategy and help your Canadian prospects, customers and partners do business with you by giving them a Canadian online Local User eXperience (LUX) in their language(s) and market(s).

Our informative video speaks on:

This short video was developed to be a helping hand for anyone who doesn’t know where to start with international and localized content creation. 

The idea of creating content, social media, blogs and websites for the US domestic market, may sound simple, but building brand awareness, using localized content, in an international target market takes a unique strategy to master. 

Our informative video speaks on:

Exporters ask all the time: “Why do I even need another English site for countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, when I already have a great one for the U.S.?”

The answer is simple (yet complicated): Google.

Google aims to provide its users with the most relevant and helpful results in milliseconds. It does this by using a series of algorithms that consider things like search terms, the relevance of individual pages, the quality of the website content, previous queries, speed/user experience, and location settings. It is because of these algorithms that exporters need to have a localized website for each English-speaking target market. 

Online solutions to identify and manage distributors

A good distributor is essential for most SMEs to grow their sales internationally, so finding the right in-market partner is key. But once that relationship is established, distributors need to be nurtured, maintained and managed. All this was challenging enough, but in this age of social distancing, as trade shows, frequent air travel and face-to-face meetings all get pushed back, companies are looking for digital alternatives. Exporters today need innovative online solutions that help them identify, recruit, and manage their international distributor networks. Localized websites can do that job!

The Events Industry Council tells us that trade fairs, exhibitions and conferences annually involve >1.5Bn participants across 180 countries, employing 26M people supporting $1.5Tn of GDP. By May 2020 COVID-19 shuttered >2,600 such events, with 1,000's more to come, and no-end insight. The chances are that you, like me, were one of those participants, and we contributed to these numbers. Well, its all over now, in this social-distance imposed new online normal!

One of the earliest major fairs to be pulled was the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona scheduled for Feb 2020, quickly followed by cancellations of the International Tourism Fair in Berlin, then the Geneva Motor Show, and so it goes on. Event cancellations cross all sectors, all sizes and all locations; aerospace, to medical, via broad industrial, to beer, books and beekeeping (three of my favorites), in Europe, Asia and the America's.

The ability to access the internet is increasingly seen as a fundamental human right. Tim Berners-Less, one of the inventors of the WorldWideWeb and a director the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) notes that “The power of the Web is its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect”.  Accessibility for the disabled, is a growing concern. While the United Nations set out guidelines as far back as 2006, countries have been slow to adopt them. But the tide now looks to be turning. 

The European Union (EU) implemented the accessibility best practices in 2010. In 2017, over 400 U.S. companies were served with lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because their websites were not deemed accessible to the disabled. Websites are increasingly  recognized as public places, and therefore need to be more mindful of public accessibility. Today, more than 4 billion people use the web for: “education, employment, government, commerce, health care, recreation, access to information and more” (Source: United Nations). To be denied access to the web is an impediment to normal life and life’s opportunities in our 21st century world. Companies need to take note.

Growing your international business takes a collaborative effort. And as everyone knows who has ever worked on a project involving multiple people and resources, the key to success is communication. We at IBT Online have been successfully delivering collaborative projects for nearly two decades: building localized websites and delivering international online marketing for our clients. While communication is key, we also want to make sure we do the heavy lifting on the project, allowing you to focus on growing your exports, sales, brand and business globally.

Arabic is one of the world’s major trade languages. Combine that with the dominance of the internet in many Arab-speaking countries and it’s clear that companies need Arab language websites to get found, be understood and do business across the Arabic speaking markets. In countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, over 90% of the population access the internet regularly. Social media and ecommerce are well developed. In fact, Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest online spenders worldwide. So getting your Arab website right is vital for your company’s success in these markets.  

But what should that Arab-language website look like? Do you need one Arabic website for all Arabic speaking countries? What are the main differences with your English-language website? How about search engine optimization and keyword research for online Arabic? This blog shares some of our experiences building and managing corporate websites and social media marketing for Arab-speaking countries, but if you want more information, just get in touch!