3. Internationalize Your Website

 In an online world, your website is your home base. This is especially true in international online marketing. Your web site is where your hard-working marketing dollars are directing your customers to learn more about your company and, hopefully, to buy your products or services. Moreover, having an English website is not the same as global developing: only 26.8% of internet users speak English. Even if you are only interested in revenue, globalization is of importance as well as the international revenue of big companies such as Facebook which is increasing year by year. 

Companies should carefully choose where and when to launch their products. Launching a product in a language is not the same as launching a product in a country. A Spanish product, for example, can be launched in Spain, (a specific country), in Latin America or in the United States to target Spanish speakers there. In addition, there are multi-language countries as well. If you are targeting one of these countries, such as Belgium, businesses must decide which language they want to use for their product. 

Which are the main aspects to succeed in online foreign markets?

 

Choose the right market for your product. The willingness to buy online is not the same, for example, in all EU countries. You will require a preliminary analysis of the potential of each market before making an important investment.

Define objectives for each online tool (web, blog, social networking profiles ...) you use, and what functions you are going to give each one.

Invest in local domains and hosting for better positioning in the search engines more used in each country, Google is the first in almost all countries, but you can find some exceptions, like China and Russia. Study each case.

Having a perfect translation of your website, online store and other elements of your digital environment will be essential to convey confidence to your customers. Translation errors give to your business bad image and you must avoid it. 

Study which are the online payment and delivery systems most popular in the country. For example, Packstation is the method most used (over 2 million users) in Germany for sending online purchases, if you don’t offer here this system, you will be losing sales.

Develop an online marketing plan for each market, adapted to their culture, will be essential for your company to reach every part of the world. And within this planning it is essential thatyou set out what will be your contents strategy in Internet in each country.

And last but not least….

Contents, your main weapon of seduction in the internationalization

The content that you develop will be an important part of your online international sales strategy. Pay attention to this issue, it is a mistake to transfer all content from other tools such dossiers or printed catalogs to your website or online store.

Your content will work if it captures the attention of your customers, if it fits the profile of who will receive it, with perfectly written and translated texts al.

 You should also capture Internet search engines, so you will have to pay attention to, among other things, to keywords. Find out what terms use people to seek your products in each area.

Study very well how to present each product in your website, including good photos and videos. It is the kind of content people like to share through social networks around the world, it is what gets really viral.

Among the main E-commerce program we can find:

Prestashop 

It is the most popular open source e-commerce solution, although it is one of the last arrived on the market. An ideal tool for SME and Micro enterprises, but it may be limited to larger businesses. Fast (in 10 minutes you will have your store ready to sell), intuitive and easy to use, despite being a very complete tool.

Magento is the favorite of big businesses thanks to its flexibility and scalability to suit businesses of all sizes. A very complete tool for creating multistores, it can customize completely your site and has more than 5,000 extensions available in MagentoConnect. In contrast, it is difficult to install and manage by people with little knowledge of technology. As it is a heavy tool it can force you to pay expensive hosting services.

Oscommerce 

Another favorite program among open source solutions, although it has been losing clients compared to the previous two, due to its design limitations. However, it is fair to say that among its advantages, we can highlight the possibility of integrating multiple languages ??and manage different shipment areas, weights, etc. On the other hand, despite the simplicity of the initial installation, it requires adding many modules to create the store, which complicates the process of implementation.

Shopify. 

A good e-commerce tool under the SaaS formula, with free and premium versions, with comprehensive management of your orders. In addition, it offers you technical support that will help you solve any problems that may arise. It has an app store with over 60 applications to be adding new features as you grow your business. As for the price, there are different modalities that can vary between 22 euros and 535 euros per month.

3eTrade

 One of the most comprehensive tools on the market, which has been recognized by Gartner Group as the best international platform in SaaS mode. It includes all modules required for the different areas of business: from email marketing, CRM, ERP, project manager, e-commerce, POS management, business intelligence ... It allows you to be connected to your business from anywhere, from all types of devices. It is available in eight languages. The modules can be purchased separately or with the whole package, according to the needs of each company. For smaller businesses (freelancers and micro enterprises), there is a mini version, which costs 20 euros per month. For bigger sizes, the initial costs are 30 euros per month for each module (and for two users) and they added five euros for each additional module, up to 50 euros per month.

In general we can find usually 8 Types of Online Shoppers:

-Adventurous Explorers (30% of online spending) are a small segment that presents a large opportunity. They require little special attention by Internet vendors because they believe online

 shopping is fun. They are likely the opinion leaders for all things online. Retailers should nurture 

and cultivate them to be online community builders and shopping advocates.

-Shopping Avoiders (3% of online spending) have an appealing income level, but their values make them a poor target for online retailers. They don’t like to wait for products to be shipped to them and they like seeing merchandise in person before buying. They have online shopping issues that retailers will not easily be able to overcome.

-Technology Muddlers (3% of online spending) face large computer literacy hurdles. They spend less time than any other segment online and show little excitement about increasing their online comfort level. They are not an attractive market for online retailers.

-Fun Seekers (2% of online spending) are the least wealthy and least educated market segment. They see entertainment value in the Internet, but buying things online frightens them. Although security and privacy issues might be overcome, the spending power of the segment suggests that only a marginal long-term payback would be possible.

Shopping Lovers (24% of online spending) enjoy buying online and do so frequently. They are competent computer users and will likely continue their shopping habits. They also spread the word to others about joys of online shopping whenever they have the opportunity. They represent an ideal target for retailers.

-Business Users (19% of online spending) are among the most computer literate. They use the Internet primarily for business purposes. They take a serious interest in what it can do for their professional life. They don’t view online shopping as novel and aren’t usually champions of the practice.

-Suspicious Learners (15% of online spending) comprise another small segment with growth potential. Their reluctance to purchase online more often hinges on their lack of computer training, but they are open to new ways of doing things. In contrast to more fearful segments, they don’t have a problem giving a computer their credit card number. Further guidance and training would help coax them into online buying.

-Fearful Browsers (5% of online spending) are on the cusp of buying online. They are capable Internet and computer users, spending a good deal of time “window shopping.” They could become a significant buying group if their fears about credit card security, shipping charges and buying products sight unseen were overcome.

You can solve trust issues by:

Applying SSL and other security policies to ensure security of data

Using recognized payment processing providers.

Applying for business accreditation (such as BBB) or industry specific memberships to gain more trust.

Displaying your phone number, email and if possible, address to so that customers know there is a real company behind the store.

Developing a solid about us page introducing your store and convincing customers that you are a real business.

Show your personality and present the real person behind the online store. You can do this through social media where you could engage in conversations with customers instead of just posting updates about your store.

Develop a solid content marketing plan to position yourself as an expert in your niche. Providing information your customers might be looking for will increase their trust levels in you.

Lastly, get known for insanely great customer service you provide. This will undoubtedly improve the trust worthiness of your store.