How to use Google to support your export and marketing strategy part 1
By Anika in Business opportunities, E-commerce, Members on 07. Jul, 2015No Comments
Did you know that export-oriented companies are more successful than companies that are focused on selling solely to the local market? Export enables you to expand your market (share), to spread risks (for example market dependency) and to extend your product’s life cycle. Considering the benefits of exporting, we would like to assist you in developing your export strategy with this blog.
If you want to start close to home with export, Latin America could be an interesting market to start with. Besides the fact that most Arubans are familiar with the language and culture, the promising economies, together with a growing middle class and e-commerce sector make this continent an attractive export market.
E-commerce in Latin America part 1
Before you start with export, you probably have many questions that may require clear answers. It doesn’t matter which questions you have. If there is something on Earth where you can find answers, than it would be Google. Google is a great search engine with many useful tools. In this blog we will open Google’s toolbox for businesses and look for export opportunities around the globe. We will explain some of Google’s export tools to help you develop your export strategy.
Starting with Export: The first steps
If e-Commerce is part of your business model, the opportunities are endless. You can sell your products and services online 24 hours a day. The increasing use of smartphones and tablets makes doing international business much easier than before.
Google is a great source of all sorts of data especially if you are searching for information about regions that are unfamiliar to you. Even if you don’t speak the language and there is no Aruban around who can help you with translations, Google will do it for you. Google has developed several tools that make e-Commerce and international business easier. In the following segment, one of such tools will be discussed.
Google Global Market Finder
Let’s start with Google Global Market Finder. It is a great tool to start with, since it shows you the opportunities, local monthly search (even in the native language), recommended Adword bids and (foreign) competition of your products and/or services.
As a product example we have selected electric cars to show you how the global market finder works. Unfortunately, Aruba does not appear in the location list, which makes it impossible to compare the Aruban market with foreign markets. We took the United States as example of product exporter and the G20 (20 of the world’s largest economies) as filter for market opportunity. You are able to change the filters to the regions where your business is interested in.
As can be observed in the screen shot, Japan is an interesting market for electric cars, since the opportunity ranks very high. The local monthly searches, the recommended AdWords keyword bid and competition are the metrics that allow you to compare the cost of acquiring a new customer with your product margins and they help you to determine whether reaching customers in a new market is good for your business.
In the case of Japan, Google shows you the local searches in Japanese and the great thing is that you don’t even have to take Japanese classes to understand the keywords. Google will help you with the translation as well.
Now that you have discovered that Japan is an interesting market for electric vehicles, you can go deeper in the keywords to see more about this market segment. If you are using Google Keyword Planner, Google will even take you deeper into the keywords. The keyword planner shows you different variations of search terms for your product. You can think about brand names or other relevant items that belongs to your product or services.
The Global Market Finder is a great exploration tool to give you an impression of the export market that your business is interested in. It is a great starting point to support you in the development of your export strategy. Please be aware that the information provided by the Global Market Finder is based on online searches; offline searches are not included. Actual searches may vary.
We hope this blog was useful for your business plans. In the next blog series we will explain more about Google’s toolbox for business. We will take a look at the consumer behavior, technology and other important factors of your export market.
