English is often seen as the Internet’s ‘lingua franca,’ but the truth is that most of the world’s population speaks no English at all – and even 85% of those who do speak English as a second language won’t buy from an English-only website, according to a study by the market research group Common Sense Advisory.

With Internet usage increasing rapidly throughout the world – China alone has almost 400 million users, according to Internet World Stats – there are clearly vast potential markets that remain unavailable to anyone sticking with a monolingual approach.

Marketing to a multilingual audience online requires a well-thought out strategy – below are a few tips on how to succeed.

Translate and research your keywords

There are various ways to translate your content, such as adding a machine translation widget (like Google Translate) or inline code, or employing the professional translation services of a native speaker of your target language. The last option is likely to yield the best results, but even if you use machine translation, you should never directly translate your keywords. Popular local search terms might include English-appropriations, regional variations or colloquialisms, and keyword research should be carried out separately for each target country, both by using translators, and by analysing keyword data.

In-country domains

Hosting your localized sites on country code top-level domains (e.g. .jp for Japan or .nl for the Netherlands) will boost your rankings on both Google’s local search engines and any local competitors. Try to ensure that the site is also hosted on a server located in that country, as this will also help your site appear more locally relevant.

Link locations count

To boost your rankings, you’ll want incoming links that are not only relevant to your content, but also located in your target country. This will mean targeting high Alexa-rated sites located within that country and could involve, for example, posting comments on Japanese online media to provide links to your own Japanese site.

Same language, different usage

The same language can have many regional variations. The Spanish spoken in Spain is different from that used in Mexico, while U.S. and UK English have many variations in vocabulary, and especially in colloquialisms. You might not consider it worth the expense and effort of setting up separate localized sites for countries that share a common language, but at the very least, you should ensure that the content you use makes sense to speakers of each version of the language by having native speakers check it for errors. You certainly don’t want to fall on your fanny and make a faux pas here (and if you’re not aware of what that would mean in the UK, check out this guide to British slang).

Google doesn’t reign supreme everywhere

Google remains the single most popular search engine worldwide, but local competitors are dominant in some markets. In China for example it’s Baidu, while Seznam is the most commonly used search engine in the Czech Republic. Don’t neglect Google, but do focus your efforts on the dominant search engine for each target market.

About the author

Christian Arno is the founder and Managing Director of global translation agency and localization specialists Lingo24. Launched in 2001, Lingo24 now has over 120 employees spanning four continents and clients in over sixty countries. In the past twelve months, they have translated over thirty million words for businesses in every industry sector and their projected turnover for 2010 is $9m.

First mover advantage is great, except when it’s not. If your product is truly innovative, your biggest challenge is likely to be explaining what, exactly, your product is, what its benefits are, and why anyone should buy it. Below are stories of three revolutionary technologies that faced these problems, and lessons for overcoming them.

What is it?

In 1994, Stanford University Credit Union began offering true online banking services to its members. They had the benefit of a tech-savvy customer base; Stanford University was an Internet pioneer, and credit union members (university staff and students) already used email extensively. They were able to make the analogy that it was like ATM banking, with which their customers were already familiar, but over the Internet, instead of at a dedicated machine. The questions from credit union members were practical: would it be secure? Would it be reliable?

But for most people used to traditional banking (writing checks, standing in line to talk with a teller, etc.), “online financial services,” as it was called then, was a bit of a puzzle. Jim Bruene at NetBanker describes the public discussion of online banking as follows:

1994 to 1997: Sounds good, but what is it?
1998 to 1999: All things online are great
2000 to 2002: All things online are over-hyped
2003 to 2006: Is it really secure?
2007 to ???: Protecting the earth and yourself

Despite the rapid spread of Internet usage, it took several years before the general populace even had a basic concept of what “online banking” meant.

What benefits does it offer?

The 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee introduced some amazing new products, from boxed milk to Cherry Coke. It also offered the public their first sight of a touchscreen, with 33 televisions covered with the new transparent touch-sensitive panels from Elographics. Sure, it was cool, but what was it for?

It wasn’t until the end of the 1980s that touch screens found their first widespread practical use, in point of sale (POS) systems in restaurants. And it would be another decade before Microsoft’s and Apple’s new graphics-oriented approaches brought touch screens into the hands of the general populace. In and of itself, this technology wasn’t useful. It was only as it was combined with other devices, applications, and data-processing needs that touch screens found their market.

Why would anyone want it?

In 1972, Andreas Pavel invented the first portable, personal music player. He called it the Stereobelt. He approached several electronics manufacturers about his invention, but none of these companies felt the public would ever wear headphones in public for listening to music.

Seven years later, Sony made a huge success of the Walkman, selling it on the same benefit Pavel had touted. As one amateur historian puts it, “the Walkman was not promoted to professional journalists, like most portable tape recorders were at the time; it was promoted to ordinary consumers. It was a music player first and foremost; it had no record function.”

Sony also bypassed the traditional press and technology reviewers, taking the device straight to the public in the Ginza shopping district of Tokyo, and hiring young people to demo it for their peers.

Apparently, the early 1970s manufacturers’ fears about headphones were justified, but Sony was able to counter this negative impression by letting people try the Walkman out for themselves, and hear the sound quality produced. Headphones haven’t been a stumbling block since.

Lesson 1: Use analogies

When you can’t say your product is “like X, only better,” you need to find a meaningful analogy. For online banking, the analogies were to other processes with which their customers were already familiar: touch-tone phone banking and ATMs. As those two technologies became more widespread, so did the ease of making that analogy.

Lesson 2: Make it tactile

Touchscreens, despite lacking immediate practical applications, had an instant “Wow” factor simply from being tactile. Sony did its most effective marketing simply by getting headphones on ears.

What if it’s an abstraction?

Products and services that deal with abstractions like data processing or providing bandwidth benefit from intuitive visual metaphors. Think of “cloud computing.” And don’t forget the power of new media: if a picture is worth a thousand words, a well-done video can be worth a million:

Lesson 3: Pursue partnerships

Elographics, on their own, had a novelty. Once they were able to link touch screens to sophisticated computing devices, software, and marketing, they had a powerhouse.

Not every company can offer a complete solution, especially if the “problem” doesn’t yet exist. If your cool new gadget is a technological wonder, make sure your tech guys are going to gadget conferences and seeing what other emerging technology can work with it. If you offer a service that might complement, rather than compete with, another company’s offering, talk to them about bundling.

Lesson 4: Ignore traditional marketing methods

Sony ignored the skepticism of the traditional technology reviewers and took their product directly to the trendsetting public in the high-profile consumption center of Japan. With an innovative product or service, your product launch is aiming for the early adopters. Remember that finding and gaining the interest of this group takes different methods than those used to sustain a product once it’s mainstream. Early adopters buy other innovative products, and visit cutting edge websites. Find them where they are.

Another great example: Devo goes corporate

“DEVO, the 80′s avante-garde band, is releasing its first album in 20 years. The ironically brilliant marketing campaign for the album is to paint DEVO, which has always espoused the idea of  “de-evolution,” as a corporation. DEVO, Inc. plans to use “corporate” marketing strategies to promote itself, including focus groups, hiring an ad agency, crowd sourcing, Twitter, YouTube and even Chatroulette.”

As DEVO might say, when a (marketing) problem comes along, you must whip it.

Sara Prentice Manela
Editor
Palo Alto Software, Inc.

When it comes to your business or product, the amount of heat you apply to your publicity campaign can be the difference between success and failure. Too much publicity heat and you’ll get burned; not enough publicity heat and your campaign won’t be “well done” (I know, enough of the heat references already.). Believe it or not, parallels drawn between publicity and heat/fire can help you determine the right temperature for your PR campaign.

I like to think of publicity campaigns in three publicity degree categories:

1. Flash Fire Publicity
2. Controlled-Burn Publicity
3. Firefighting Publicity

Each has its proper time and place – and can be used accordingly to benefit your business.

FLASH FIRE PUBLICITY:
This type of publicity ignites a quick and sometimes short-lived media-interest blast for a venture. It is most often used for pitches that may have a relatively short shelf life. You’ve heard of the phrase “15 minutes of fame” – in keeping with the theme of this article we’ll call it the “15 minutes of FLAME.” This type of publicity campaign generates almost immediate media placements and can burn itself out after just a few weeks. But, given the right tending, it can also be the precursor to a more extensive, lengthy campaign – that, of course, all depends on your publicity goals and your PR staff’s ability to reach those goals. Flash fire publicity is many times tied to a particular date, time period or current event.

For example, remember the recent stories about the increased number of injuries resulting from scooter accidents? A client of mine was in the final stages of developing a scooter safety product when the report came out. We quickly tied up our loose ends and launched our campaign right after the Consumer Product Safety Commission released their report to the media. Our pitch proved to be a great media interest vehicle and generated a number of immediate stories in newspapers and TV news affiliates in the U.S. & Canada. (this campaign has now progressed to the “controlled-burn publicity” phase described below). Perhaps it could be likened to cooking. Flash fire publicity can be seen as the quick, high-heat searing that is done to prepare the food for further cooking — that of course can be followed by differing temperatures to get the food/job “well done.”

CONTROLLED-BURN PUBLICITY:
More directed, even-tempered publicity heat is applied in the “controlled-burn” campaign. The controlled-burn is more methodical and lends itself well to product/website launches designed to generate a continual flow of sales or traffic over a long period of time. It’s much like the common practice of burning prairies and pastureland done by conservation or wildlife workers. The fires are started deliberately, meticulously, and burn slowly over a long time span. These controlled fires cover a large area of land and by the time they are complete, the field is more manageable, fertile, and ultimately more prosperous.

The same principle holds true in a publicity campaign. Creating controlled media exposure and placements (newspaper/magazine stories; broadcast stories/interviews) over a long period of time helps strengthen a business/product’s roots in the marketplace. The controlled, long-term exposure leads to increased brand recognition, consumer awareness and acceptance – all without placing a single ad. Spreading the media placements out over a number of months helps prevent against the flash of multiple, simultaneous media stories and the subsequent “wall of fire” consumer response that may inundate your sales fulfillment capabilities for a short time. By being in control of your publicity temperature, you can effectively stoke the fire OR contain the flames to create as much publicity as your business can accommodate at any given time.

Some publicity campaigns are a series of flash fire pitches, while others incorporate a combination of flash fire and controlled-burn tactics. The key is to create that initial spark of interest for the media, and keep the embers glowing over the next several months/years by fanning the fire with periodic newsworthy media releases and pitches.

FIREFIGHTING PR:
Hopefully your PR specialist will never have to use this element of publicity for your venture or business. Firefighting PR is a reactive publicity campaign that is implemented when something bad has happened or is about to happen in your business – product recall, employee layoffs, earnings shortfall, etc. It is very difficult to give general advice on this type of publicity because each situation must be handled very carefully, taking present AND future implications into consideration. Regardless of the situation one thing is certain – truthful, forthright media relations are best to douse the flames. One thing that hurt a tire company recently is that they spent the first few weeks of a PR crisis pointing fingers at others before finally taking at least partial responsibility. The quicker the problem is recognized, acknowledged and resolved, the quicker you can begin applying the previously mentioned publicity practices to generate more positive publicity for the next several months.

The success of your venture’s publicity campaign depends on your PR department/specialist’s “fire watch” expertise — knowing when/how to ignite the fire, fan the flames, or extinguish the blaze. Here’s hoping the perfect “publicity heat” leads to some “cold cash” for your business.

About the Author

Todd Brabender is the President of Spread The News Public Relations, Inc. His business specializes in generating media exposure and publicity for innovative products, businesses, experts and ventures.
http://www.spreadthenewspr.com
todd@spreadthenewspr.com
(785)842-8909

One of the greatest fears that people have is public speaking — people would rather deal with snakes, spiders, even death than have to get up and speak to an audience.

It’s too bad, because one of the best business-building tactics is to demonstrate your knowledge to a receptive audience. It pays to be able to speak well in public, and of course it helps if you have a little charm as well.

Public speaking is particularly effective if your business has a service or consulting component (actually if you are not selling services along with products you may be missing a high-margin bet). People like to be educated rather than sold, so if you are an expert in, say, interior decorating or adventure tours, you could hold a seminar entitled, “The Ten Interior Decorating Improvements that Increase Your Home’s Value Most” or “Planning an Adventure You’ll Remember for the Rest of Your Life.” Retail shop owners can offer in-store demos or hands-on workshops like the ones you see at Home Depot and the other “big box” stores.

Naturally you won’t have time to provide all the secrets you have learned about your subject in these sessions; after all, this is your business and you don’t want to make yourself redundant. But if you carefully plan an interesting agenda that informs, educates, and whets the appetite of the attendees, you’ll likely get some inquiries on using your services — not everyone wants to do it themselves!

And what’s more, you will have identified yourself to people who are obviously interested in what you provide; otherwise, why would they even come? If you want to make sure they’re the right people, identify who should attend. You could say something like, “if you are thinking of selling your home in the next six months, this seminar is for you.” Or, “if you have never been on an adventure vacation, this is the seminar for you.”

But whatever you do, be sure to plan your program and do a few practice run-throughs. You’ll need to see how much time it will take – count on it taking longer than planned. Make sure there’s two-way communication with the audience; ask for questions from time to time.

Have some handouts, like a sheet of “tips and tricks,” insider techniques that you use to do what you do. Or give samples of your product.

If you’re going to do this more than once, ask for feedback and hand out a survey form at the end to ask how you did or what could be added.

And if you’re really serious about building business, hold a drawing for a small prize of some kind, and in doing so, get everyone’s name and contact info. Put a check box on the entry form asking if they’d like more information from you. If they say “yes,” you have permission to market to them in the future.

Public speaking can open a lot of doors. Try it and see.

About the Author

Ken Burgin and Elizabeth Walker are the Marketing Masters (www.MarketingMasters.ca), a full-service marketing and advertising partnership that helps build busy businesses. Send your ideas on How to Thrive in Times Like These to liz@marketingmasters.ca or ken@marketingmasters.ca, or call 1-866-908-5720.

Web: http://www.marketing,masters.ca

blog: http://thebuzzwithkenandliz.blogspot.com/

By Erin Jacobs
Director of Marketing, VerticalResponse

A challenging economy has encouraged many small businesses to test out email marketing with an invitation or announcement. It’s simple, affordable and trackable, after all. But the idea of creating a consistent e-newsletter that you issue on a monthly basis seems daunting.

Well, fear not. You can put a surprisingly compelling newsletter together with a small amount of information. In a recent Extreme Email Makeover session that VerticalResponse hosted, we found that many customers are putting too many offers together in one email and calling them newsletters. The result is that nothing stands out, it isn’t clear to the customer what action they should take, and over time recipients might stop opening the emails. A great e-newsletter can be created with very basic information that is readily available. The key is a balance of information and offers (remember the “what’s in it for me?” factor). Start by testing a newsletter format with three topic areas and then increase to five over a series of a few months to see if you get more clicks. Let your audience decide the right amount of content with open and click-through rates.

Easy e-newsletter content topics:

1. A Message from the Expert – A short paragraph from you to your audience or an introduction that drives recipients to your blog for a feature-length article. Consider offering Five Ways to Improve X in 2009. Include the first two lines of copy in your newsletter as a teaser and link to the full story on your blog for the full list.
2. Customer Testimonial – A simple quote from a happy customer about how your product or service helped them or fixed a problem, a measurable result achieved; or, link to a video testimonial that you host on YouTube.
3. An Offer – Do you have a white paper, discount, or promotion currently running to announce?
4. Event Schedule – Link to the event page on your website or directly to an industry event you plan to attend.
5. Quick Fact – What’s the most popular selling product last month? What do your customers view as the greatest challenge for them next year? Gather important insights and facts with a simple online survey tool and share results in each issue.

The final challenge is committing to frequency so that your audience will come to expect your newsletters. Write your first three issues at the same time. Line up three customer quotes, three notable events worth covering, and three facts to share from a single survey. Remember, this month’s event can become next month’s main article. That’s a formula for successful email newsletters in 2009.

About the Author
As Director of Marketing at VerticalResponse since 2007, Erin is responsible for evangelizing the benefits of email marketing to emerging companies. With over 14 years experience managing global marketing campaigns for technology companies large and small, Erin now shares her Lead Generation and Email Marketing insights with the small business community, helping them increase sales and promote their business online as cost-effectively as possible.