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International Marketing Review #38

Cindy King — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 10:48:40 +0000

International Marketing Review – The White Paper Summit 2009

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The White Paper Summit 2009

As you read in my post The Best Sales Tool In A Slow Economy, I am attending The White Paper Summit 2009 organized by Mike Stelzner from 3rd – 25th February.

White Papers are an essential tool for lead generation in many different types of industries. Most people think White Papers are confined to high tech industries and this often deprives them of a great sales tool. White Papers are also called Special Reports, Guides, Executive Briefings, Tip Sheets, eBooks and many other things. The one thing they have in common is a similar structure and purpose. White Papers provide the useful information buyers need to make their purchase without sales hype. They establish credibility and offer a logical call to action. White Papers are effective sales tools for sales where buyers need to think before they make their purchase.

White Papers began in B2B markets, but you can now find them in certain B2C and even Government to Consumer markets. In addition, White Papers are key elements to an international web marketing strategy.

The winners in today’s slow economy will be the companies that give themselves the tools to master the sales process in today’s content and customer centered marketing environment, whether this is international business development or not. This is why this week’s blog carnival presents articles by the White Paper Summit instructors.

Welcome to the 7 February 2009 edition of the International Marketing Review.

Gordon Graham presents 11 tips (+5 hints) on writing white papers as “tips” posted at That White Paper Guy saying “Try Googling a phrase like “7 tips” and you’ll see at least 100 million hits?!
Check out any newsstand, and you’ll find “tips” on the cover of most magazines.
Self-help books sell $2+ billion every year. And what is a self-help book, if not a series of tips?
Why do “tips” rule newsstands, bookstores, and the Web?
And how can you harness this compelling format to write white papers?”

Jonathan Kantor @Jonathan_Kantor presents White Paper Lessons Learned from the Big Game posted at White Paper Pundit saying “the single biggest football game of the year is now over, and sadly, my pick the Arizona Cardinals didn’t get to hold the Lombardi Trophy at the end. Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a great game. The way that the Steelers performed during the game also represents several marketing lessons that today’s businesses can learn in our current economic environment.”

Roger Parker @Rogercparker presents Use my Website Persona Planner MindManager 8 template to describe web visitors & their information needs posted at Published & Profitable saying “Use a mind mapping template like my MindManager 8 Website Persona Planner when starting work on a new website, or when upgrading an existing website. Personas are planning tools that website designers and web usability experts use to plan a website’s content, design, navigation around the visitor’s needs.
As always, the advantage of a mind map is that it presents you with a way of creating a visual display of the characteristics, goals, attitudes, and information needs of your website visitors in a way that can be exported to one, or more, Word documents for sharing with everyone involved in your website.”

Peter Bowerman presents Who’s Got the Right to Say What a Creative Practitioner Charges? posted at The Well-Fed Writer saying “I’m a libertarian at heart, believing that people should be free to take or not take work, and no one should dictate the conditions under which that happens. You offered a “free market transaction”: people were free to respond or not, and for others to attack you and move to remove your post note, was wrong.”

Casey Hibbard @casey_hibbard presents The Audience That’s NOT Seeing Your Success Stories posted at Stories That Sell saying “When a business creates a fresh customer success story, it’s eager to get it out in the public for all to see.
The organization quickly loads it on the website and sends it to sales reps. Maybe they write a press release featuring that customer story.
But ultimately, that story only goes OUT into the public.”

Kevin Gault presents Case Study: “Old-School” Marketing Gets Results posted at White Paper Source saying “Many white paper marketers swear by the latest online marketing methods. They think an eye-catching online ad or a persuasive email captures customers best. A successful marketing firm, however, has learned that an “old-school” method can do the job better.”

Steve Slaunwhite @steveslaunwhite presents Should You Add “Case Studies” To Your Services List? posted at For Copywriters Only saying “Case studies now rank high on my list of the most fascinating – and lucrative – projects I handle. (I’m sure glad that client offered me the job all those years ago!)
If you’re unfamiliar with case studies, don’t worry. They’re really quite simple. A case study is just a fancy name for a customer success story – the tale of a happy customer and his or her experience using a product or service.”

Bob Bly presents 5 Steps to Greater Financial Security … AND a Better Life! posted at Bob Bly, Copywriter saying “No one expects bad things – and by bad, I mean catastrophically bad – to happen to them.
Yet terrible tragedies happen to people who didn’t expect them every day of the year.
You can’t take a vaccine to immunize yourself against ill fortune.
But you can prepare for disasters before they happen.
That way, when they strike, you – and your family – will survive … with the minimum hardship possible.
In particular, here are 5 things I think you should do now to protect yourself against future problems and headaches.”

Michael Stelzner presents The White Paper Summit 2009 saying “Earn an executive income creating ‘marketing white papers.’
Discover how to craft convincing white papers that help your clients succeed during an economic slump—all while earning you more money!
White Paper Success Summit 2009: A Live Online Event”

That concludes this edition of The International Marketer Review.

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My Own Case Study – Small Business Flexibility

Cindy King — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:00:12 +0000

International Web Marketing

As a very small business owner, I do have more flexibility in certain business strategies than many bigger businesses.

Content Creates An Online Communication Base

It has now been 7 months since I started my business directory.

Writing and publishing an article each work day for 6 months
Creating a business system
Recently color-coding on the website to make this system obvious to the readers

Of course, with over 200 articles there is now an obvious editorial direction for the website.

But I have always wanted an online communication base for my own business. Sure, I spent some time looking into the great Internet Marketing “Get Rich Quick” processes out there. It is a good way to pick up a lot of knowledge on web marketing practices.

This is what lead me into copywriting 3 years ago. But I chose to study copywriting because I already had good sales skills, and sales writing skills. Of course, you need good copywriting to make money on the web, whether you are in a typical get rich quick internet business or a brick and mortar business using the web as a tool. But recognizing good copywriting is already more than half the work done.

My situation was a little different. I already have valuable skills. I knew I wanted to use the internet primarily as a communication base for my own business services. My websites are there to communicate my international business development system.

All well and good. But how do you go about communicating your business system online to reach the right people, and to bring in the right clients?

Structure For Your Business

I found I needed matter to work with. Content. Lots of content. This took me 6 months of writing one article a day.

As a small business owner I had the flexibility to jump in and develop the structure on an on-going basis.

My primary focus was to write on and around my main business subject area. My articles are not primarily determined by niche keywords and research. Of course I tried to use appropriate keywords, and ran keyword searches from time to time. These searches often proved to me that I knew my subject matter well. My main focus was writing on my own clearly defined subject.

On a side note, my experience has shown this content strategy to give fantastic SEO results. I have come up on the first page of many different search results from month 3 onwards. Businesses from all over the world find me.

People pay money for SEO? Why don’t they sharpen their business perspective and knuckle down to work on exploiting what is basically a communication platform?

Now that the content structure is there, the content is extremely easy to create. This business directory has become very easy for me to feed.

Using the flexibility I had in the beginning probably gave me a better structure 6 months later than if I had planned everything offline first.

So, I now have time for the next business phase and it is now in progress. This is the phase which links my business directory to my business.

What does that mean?

A Real Specific Business Offer And Not The Get Rich Quick Web Marketing

First of all I have a several new URL’s, or domain names, for very specific landing pages. Now these landing pages are not the get rich quick type. These are simply landing pages targeting each of the specific products and services I offer.

These products and services form a lead generation strategy. This means:

There are some landing pages for free products, some for paid products and services.
There are also some landing pages for the same product, but written for different audiences.

This leads to a fair number of new websites, even if they are mainly mini-websites.

Ready Fire Aim

My immediate task is to set up 20 odd landing pages. This takes time. I am doing just about everything single handed:

Lead generation strategy
Web marketing strategy
Copywriting
International SEO

Yes, it is a fair task, even just for mini-sites.

But as a small business owner I do have some flexibility. Also as a small business owner I value batch processing.

So one of the first things I have done is to put all of the URL’s live. I simply put all of the websites up with an article or two from my main business directory.

As a small business owner, I feel I can do this.

It is essentially a Ready Fire Aim approach.

Having all of the websites up early, means that Mr. Google will find them soon. I will appreciate this when I actually get the website ready and want to promote it. Tomorrow I start writing a new landing page website one after the other.

Online Flexibility Brings Success

One of the basics of international web marketing is testing and adjusting your communication. Your communication needs to be live before you get any real market feedback.

Market feedback often shows you how to improve your message. The better your online communication is, the more sales you can expect.

Market feedback will also show you where your business potential lies.

So there will be lots of adjustments to the landing pages. That is my second business phase.

Case Study For Getting Your Website Visible In Japan

Cindy King — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:01:38 +0000

International Case Studies

Scarlett posted a question that merits a longer reply.
Her question was:

Scarlett’s site can be seen at: http://www.afriendinamerica.com

Having looked at the website I noticed one thing right away that can easily be corrected on the Japanese page.

The Proper use of Foreign Language Keywords

I went to Google.jp and searched for the word Tokyo and found this site at random: www.hataraku.metro.tokyo.jp

Although I can’t tell you what the site really says, I can tell that they have defined their page as being in the Japanese language. You can see this in the lang=”ja” part of the HTML code below, and they have used a Title and Keywords in Japanese.

Remember, people search for words on their local search engines in their native language first. It is very important to have your Japanese keywords.

Below is some of the HTML header text from this selected Japanese website. It would be very useful for you to include the HTML code similar to this on your page.

< HTML lang=”ja” >

< HEAD >

< META HTTP-EQUIV=”Content-Type” CONTENT=”text/html; charset=Shift_JIS” >

< TITLE >TOKYOはたらくネット（東京都産業労働局雇用就業部）

!– meta1行目：googleウェブマスターツール用 –

meta name=”verify-v1″ content=”JYxRPMo2//8V5uiNaCjHc3jhm3hPW/gAvVHBny+hsC8=” />

META NAME=”keywords” CONTENT=”TOKYOはたらくネット、東京都、働く、雇用、就業、労働、仕事

はたらくネットは、東京都の雇用就業に関する総合サイトで、東京都産業労働局雇用就業部が運営しています。

How to Get Seen By A Spider

To get your site “seen” by the search engines you could:

Submit your URL to the search engines that interest you. In your case this would mean submitting your website to all of the major Japanese search engines. This will make each of these search engine spiders come out and find your site. This can take as long as 2 months, depending on many factors that are specific to each search engine.

Start a blog aimed at your target readers. Either on your present site or on one of the free blog sites, www.wordpress.com, wordpress.xwd.jp if you want to do it in Japanese. You can try doing one in both languages and post the same article in both Japanese and English on the different sites.

Advertise yourself on social sites. Go to the appropriate blogs and comment on things related to you and your site including a link back, like you did here. Make a video of yourself dressed in a Kimono and speaking English – or dressed as a “Country” girl and speak perfect Japanese. Make the video funny or exciting. The most important thing is that you make it memorable.

Post offers on sites like craigslist. In Japan there is a craigslist for Okinawa, the Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto area and Tokyo. Post an advertisement in as many places as appropriate, and remember that craigslist is free, so a person looking for a new couch may also be the person looking for your service.

Write about your local events. If there is a festival, major cultural event, local sport final (the Japanese love Baseball) or any gathering of a large audience, find websites where people in Japan would be interested in. Write an article about your local event. You should be able to get a link to your site on each article you write. I found the site www.realtraveladventures.com and they would appreciate articles.

Articles In Japanese Ezines. Go to google.co.jp and search “japan ezine”. When the results page appears, select the button that says “日本語のページを検索” and you will have a list of sites that may be interested in your articles.

Finally, have a good look at your website. Right now it is set up so that a person can read it. A search engine that gets to your site will only read your keywords in English, your content is actually on the source site – www.susanbuck.net – and a search engine will probably not go to that site to learn what your pages are about.

In the Foreign Lingo section of www.cindyking.biz you will see examples of submitting your website to foreign search engines. Right now there are details for Chinese, Russian and German search engines. Other countries will be added to.

I am also in the process of adding a page in Foreign Lingo on using keywords and foreign language keywords for international business and other more technical parts of international internet marketing. Check back soon.

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Cindy King — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:43:52 +0000

Tools To Build Trust

Why a systematic case study plan at time of sale is important to your international business development.

If you implement a systematic case study plan at the time of sale, you will get several case study elements. Some of your clients may not be willing to commit to a full case study. Not to worry. There are three variations of the case study.

1. The most sought after is the long format case study with the full story and results outlined. This can be used printed out or in PDF format online by your sales teams, on your website and even as a call to action.

2. A short story testimonial is a few short paragraphs long. It can be used in your monthly newsletter, your ezine, in a sidebar in your promotional material online and offline.

3. The shortest form is a quote. Some quotes can be as long a short story testimonial. The more specific the quote the better for you, highlighting the type of information you would have in a full length case study. Quotes are the most versatile benefit of having a systematic case study plan. These can be used to build your credibility in almost all of your international communication tools.

Remember to ask for permission to use your client’s full name, location and some contact details if possible. A quote without at least the name and location will lack credibility. Photos and audio testimonials are great to add as well and can add even more appeal to your online marketing.

And what happens if your international client says he is not interested in your case study program when you mention it to him at the time of sale? Or what if you forget to ask? Follow up at the appropriate time, when enough time has elapsed for him to evaluate your product and ask him another question.

Ask him for a referral. Does he know of any other companies in his country who could benefit form your product?

All of this dialogue with your international clients will be easy. It will create dynamic relationships with your clients. And you will learn more about your international markets.

Use this action-incentive tool in addition to the prospect-generating monthly international communication tools discussed last week as part of your International Business Development Strategy.

Case studies are the first of seven action-incentive tools. How can the other six action-incentive tools help your international business?

How have you adapted your international business strategy to multicultural markets?

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Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

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Best Small Business Tool For Building Trust In International Clients

Cindy King — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 12:38:02 +0000

Tools To Build Trust

What international business development tool is so powerful it calls your prospects and clients to action… and can demolish the biggest stumbling block of all in international business?

A Case Study

You see, telling a story is a very powerful communication tool. It speaks across cultures, across language levels. A case study is a story. The story of how one of your clients had a problem, how he chose your product as the solution, and the results he has had.

A case study often has more selling power to international prospects than any other promotional document because the case study tells the story of someone else resolving the same issue your client has.

If you have a success story with any foreign client it is a fantastic tool throughout all of your international markets and you should make a case study do describe that success. If the success story is with a client located in the country you are targeting it is even better. If you don’t have an international client case study but you do have local client case studies, don’t let that stop you. Your story will still have great pull because it still shows a problem and a solution.

The case study also has one enormous benefit often missed. In international business in a multicultural environment, the biggest barrier to your international sales is trust. The nature of a case study helps you get past the lack of trust and helps build your credibility. The Case study shows someone who has already succeeded because they trusted you.

This example alone should motivate small businesses to implement a systematic case study program. When you are at the moment of completing a sale, bring up the possibility of writing a case study with your client.

Don’t you already tell your client you are interested in hearing how he likes your product, and the results he gets? Well go one step further at the time of sale, tell him you have a case study program and would love to give his company the exposure if he is happy with your product. Make sure that you follow up at the appropriate time.

Think of creating a success story of each sales point on your products and services list, in each of your markets, by industry and by country. Just imagine the strength of your sales pitch if you have a case study for each client.

Your case studies will be of great use in your integrated marketing plan. It is the first of seven action incentive tools. How can the other six action-incentive tools help your international business?

How have you adapted your international business strategy to multicultural markets?

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Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Best Small Business Tool For Building Trust In International Clients

Cindy King's International Business Blog » case study

International Marketing Review #38

My Own Case Study – Small Business Flexibility

Content Creates An Online Communication Base

Structure For Your Business

A Real Specific Business Offer And Not The Get Rich Quick Web Marketing

Ready Fire Aim

Online Flexibility Brings Success

More On International Web Marketing

Case Study For Getting Your Website Visible In Japan

The Proper use of Foreign Language Keywords

How to Get Seen By A Spider

More On International Case Studies:

More In These Get International Clients International Sales Road Map:

Easy Small Business Strategy Strengthens International Client Relationships

More on Tools To Build Trust:

Don’t miss…

More in these Get International Clients Business Guides

Best Small Business Tool For Building Trust In International Clients

A Case Study

More on Tools To Build Trust:

Don’t miss…

More in these Get International Clients Business Guides