Putting digital marketing at the centre of your international business strategy

Putting Digital Marketing at the
Centre of your International
Business Strategy
Kevin Moran, IMS Marketing
21st March 2018

About Us
B2B Full Service Marketing Partner
11 years in business
Market Knowledge
Key markets: Healthcare, ICT, Software, Industrial and Precision Engineering
International
80% of our projects assist companies in the marketing of their products and
services internationally. Combination of Irish and international client base
Digital
Web and Digital planning and implementation across 16 countries in the past 3
years
Our Team
15 full-time marketing and design professionals based in Galway

Purpose of my presentation this morning:
• Building a great looking website is easy.
• Putting a well developed digital strategy around this is more difficult.
• What are the fundamental building blocks of a great digital strategy?

6 Strategic Digital Building Blocks
……before you build your website
1. How do you want digital to support your business goals?
2. Define your (focused) target market
3. Sharpen your value proposition
4. Do your digital research
5. Have a plan to promote your business online
6. Ensure your business processes are aligned
And some successful client examples…..

1. Why do you want to be online?
• To sell……(e-commerce)
• To generate leads
• To support our channel partners
• To support customer service
• To increase brand awareness
• Because everyone else is………….?
Today, almost every company is online (web and
social media) but very few have clarity of purpose
regarding their online presence.

Reality: Digital Marketing can support
all of these goals and more
What makes a good digital strategy
different to a great one?
• It is linked to the commercial goals
of the company!
• It is based on many traditional
business fundamentals
• It understands and supports the
sales process of the company from
awareness through to customer
communications

2. Defining your target market:
The Digital Market Opportunity is HUGE !!
Population of:
Ireland: 4.6m
UK: 65m x14 times
USA: 321m x70 times
Europe: 743m x160 times
India 1.3bn x280 times
However………
• 14 times the market potential, can often mean 14 times the
degree of local competition
• Being online doesn’t necessarily mean being visible

2. Defining your target market:
In developing export markets for your products and services
you would carefully research and decide which markets you
would enter first, and why.
Your international digital strategy should be no different !
Where possible, adopt a focused approach to your
international digital expansion
An international strategy doesn’t mean a global strategy

Hello, I am Gerhard.
I am 45 years old and live in
Munich, Germany.
I have heard nice things about
Ireland but I have never heard
of your company.
Tell me why should I use your
product or service?
3. Sharpen your
Value Proposition

Every business already knows that every customer isn’t the same. However this is
rarely considered in developing an international web or digital strategy. Instead the
tendency is to cast out a uniform message and see what happens…..
What is your value proposition?
• Do you understand the local market conditions?
• Can you answer how/why you are better than local competitors?
How does this impact communications?
• English or translated to local language
• Localised content based on local preferences
• Choice of domain names used, etc
3. Sharpen your
Value Proposition

4. Do your Digital Research
We are entering the age of BIG DATA
Every day new technologies and tools emerge that
forensically analyse ‘all things digital’
These tools provide companies with the opportunity to
understand the international digital landscape before they
invest in campaigns

The 5 key elements of a Digital
Audit:
• Local search behaviour and keywords
• Competitiveness and cost of acquiring traffic
• Competitor digital landscape
• Social media audience sizes and levels of engagement
• Your present performance and the gap to compete for
online and social media visibility

5. Importance of a Digital Marketing Plan
To develop any export market requires ongoing resources and investment.
Digital is no different!
1. What are your objectives?
Ref: Digital Audit
2. What tools are you going to employ?
Organic: SEO, Blogs, Social Media, E-Mail, etc
Sponsored: Social Media, Adwords, 3rd party portals, etc
Integrated: Digital supports for traditional marketing –
shows, events, etc
3. What is your promotional calendar?
Timings of promotions to support key business
activities (markets, products, partners, etc)
4. How will you measure results?
Ref: Digital Audit
Practically everything you do online can be measured
Remove subjectivity, use facts
Monthly KPI Report
5. Who will drive this plan in your organisation?
You would not target new business development internationally without the necessary
sales resources. Have you the necessary resources to support your online digital strategy?

OK, so you have your decided to
invest in a new website. Have
you spoken to everyone else in
the company yet?

Logistics:
We are going to sell to how many countries
now? Do we even know how to handle
shipping to these parts of the world?
Customer Service:
And how do we answer the phone after 5pm Irish
time for West Coast USA? Don’t even suggest I do
it; I’m already here from 8am every morning
Whopee !!; the website is in French but nobody in
the office speaks bloody French !!!

Sales:
Our distributors will go crazy. It looks now
like we are competing against them in their
own back yard. This will never work! It will
be your fault when our sales drop!
Quality:
Hold on a minute. Our products don’t even have
regulatory approval for some of these countries.
Finance:
We need how much to spend on marketing the
website after we build it ??!

6. Ensure your business processes are
aligned
The decisions you make around digital marketing can
impact all areas of your business and sales operations.
Engage with stakeholders across the company from an early
stage
Ensure there is alignment and that digital fits within the
business plan and not outside of it.

A few examples of digital marketing
success when strategic planning
fundamentals are followed….

EXAMPLE: 1
Understanding the importance of key influencers in the sales process.
Problem: How to target design
engineers responsible for packaging
design?
Solution: Educate the Quality teams on
the risks of non compliance
Result: Most successful lead generation
tool of the company. Over 100
subscribers to quarterly series of
webinars

EXAMPLE: 2
Using media instead of words to communicate a complex technical product
Problem: How to communicate the
uniqueness of a highly technical solution
without drowning your audience in boring
detail
Solution: 30 second attention grabbing
animation. Technical details come second
when you are interested.
Result: #1 referenced discussion point for
all sales enquiries direct. Used globally by
channel partners to open doors. Sales
pipeline doubled in 12 months!

EXAMPLE: 2
Using media instead of words to communicate a complex technical product
Problem: How to communicate
the benefits of noise insulation
in commercial vehicles, to
multiple stakeholders
Benefits: Health & Safety
Conformance, Passenger
Comfort
Solution: Let them experience
the benefit!
Industry Standard
Sound Feature (to compliment
technical datasheet)

EXAMPLE: 3
The power of a focused campaign when your sales reach is limited
Problem: 1 sales person travelling
to/from the UK to develop sales. Highly
inefficient
Solution: Targeted online campaigns
within a 50 mile radius of UK sales
office. Population > Rep of Ireland!
Result: Highly successful, affordable and
scalable lead generation. Campaigns
were regularly paused to the company
could catch-up

EXAMPLE: 4
How the effective use of CRM can drive digital campaign success
Problem: Large database of customers and
contacts. No structured sales and marketing
process. No idea what worked?
Solution: Implementation of Salesforce CRM
supported by ongoing customer research and
highly targeted outreach campaigns in Ireland
and the UK
Result: Sales leads increased by 70% in six
months. Salesforce became the driving force
and measure for sales and marketing results in
the company

EXAMPLE: 5
Localising your online campaigns in multi-lingual markets
Problem: Multi-lingual PPC Campaigns failing
due to depth of content in local languages and
in fact competed with larger distributors
Solution: Developed co-op Google PPC
campaign strategy with distributors in 8
European markets.
Result: Campaigns were consistent and non-
competitive. Openness of learnings budget
efficient for all stakeholders. €50k investment
has delivered >€300k in new business to-date

What these examples highlight:
1. Your business is different. Your digital marketing
strategy needs to reflect this
2. Start with the business and sales process and the
right marketing will normally follow
3. Success is not about your company size. In our
view it is about focus and creativity

6 Takeaway Points in developing an
international digital strategy:
1. Have a clear goal – Why do you want a website and what is its role in your
overall sales and marketing strategy?
2. Define your target market – Global ambition sometimes requires global
resources
3. Sharpen your value proposition – understand the markets you wish to target
and what it will take to be successful in these markets
4. Do your digital research – Scope the opportunity online for your business
and products before you start
5. Invest in a Digital Marketing Plan – Building a website is just Step1 of 100
steps. Content is King!
6. Ensure your business processes are aligned – The role of marketing is
support the business; not the other way around.

Thank you
Kevin@imsmarketing.ie
www.imsmarketing.ie

Putting digital marketing at the centre of your international business strategy

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