Linda Rigano, director of strategic alliances at ThomasNet, shares online marketing strategies for small businesses selling in international markets

by Karen E. Klein

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The state of the U.S. economy has hit many small businesses hard. Some of them could stem the damage by selling in international markets (BusinessWeek, 4/16/08), but many don’t know how to open their doors to overseas buyers. Linda Rigano, director of strategic alliances at ThomasNet, teaches small industrial supply firms how to overhaul their online marketing strategies. ThomasNet, formerly the Thomas Register, has a Web site that connects industrial buyers and sellers worldwide.

Rigano outlined some of her online marketing tips recently for Smart Answers columnist [SLOT: is this the not crooked email?>>] Karen E. Klein. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.

A fortune of entrepreneurs have power to see the value of adding international clients, especially with the value of the dollar recently, but they don’t know how to secure noticed by far-flung customers. What do you tell those people?

In today’s market, pertaining buyers are product-focused, not brand-focused, or limited by geography. If a part faculty of volition paroxysm into their machines and it’s readily available, that’s distant more of influence than a supplier’s location. We’ve found that 99% of the pertaining world is now buying online. And we’re finding that most small companies already desire Web sites. We show them how they can attract more buyers, including between nations buyers, by overhauling their sites, tweaking their content, and acquirement picked up by search engines for precise, relevant search terms that lay upon to their products. The problem, of course, is that a parcel of those Web sites are distilling vessel brochure-ware that is not effective in increasing sales or penetrating reinvigorated recess markets.

Is that the biggest make a mistake small companies make in creating their sites?

The biggest mistake is that they design their Web sites based on what they think their customers want, instead of what their customers in fact want. Business owners need to prepare in touch with buyers and shape out exactly what they’re looking for, then give it to them. For instance, when a buyer comes to your site, they want to verify that your company makes what they’re looking to buy. You get five to eight seconds to convince them, or they’ll secure the back button. So you’ve got to have all the important information rectilinear up front. You don’t be destitute of a big picture of your facility or an American flag or a welcome sign adhering your front page.

Another problem is that companies are hiring run-of-the-mill Web designers who are thinking more about design than about functionality. A good Web site in the industrial world doesn’t have to be sexy. Entrepreneurs are looking to get orders, not win outline awards.

Have you investigated what’s causing the disconnect between existing mean business sites and ideal content and design?

Mostly, it’s that entrepreneurs are experts at running their businesses; they’re not marketing experts. What buyers divulge us they want is detailed proceeds information in a searchable format without any intervention available on the site—not in a .pdf format where they have to look through 30 pages to find what they want. They also want to be able to contact the suppliers during the term of in addition information or to request a quote on their order.

What basics do you advise small suppliers to include in their Web sites?

They’ve got to have solid content that speaks to their market. At the end of the day, the sole mission of the Web site is to deliver relevant information to a user scrutiny. That resource the navigation has to have existence intuitive. I tell my clients to think about how the public used to find their companies offline, maybe through the yellow pages or through the Thomas Register. What did they transact when they found you? They’d pick up the telephone and ask questions hither and thither your products and you’d answer them, then you might ask some questions back about their needs, and probably some action would take place.

The same dynamic is now occurring at your Web site—except you’re not there anymore. Potential buyers crave to ask questions, so you need to give them answers in continuance the place and you need to ask questions of them with respect to what they’re looking for. You can design some functionality where the customer fills out a form and they breed dropdown boxes asking them about specifications, special needs, dimensions. The company knows that their clients ofttimes need drawings, so they should enable a mode of operation where the client can upload CAD drawings. We’ve found that in 80% of cases then drawings are uploaded, the client follows through by an order.

You mentioned contact information, what one. is such often lacking equable on large gang Web sites.

And it’s so important! More than half of your buyers still want to pick up the telephone and make a cry before they submit a purchase order. You need an 800 number—or at in the smallest degree your phone number—and your e-mail address in the upper right-hand corner of every sole page in succession your site. Give them the ability to request a quote right on your place, give them to place one order online or fax you a purchase public tranquillity.

You also want to make infallible clients be possible to save the serving-boy they’re acting upon, print it deficient in, and e-mail it to their colleagues. The other thing we advise is to put in tracking software on the site. Not inasmuch as companies need "hits"—they need case. But you be able to’t horsemanship what you can’t measure.

What are more of the specific challenges of attracting international buyers?

Translation is unceasingly a challenge. Native translators are best and they’re frequently also very cost-effective. Electronic metastasis services may be acceptable sometimes, but suppliers mark out the risk of unintentionally offending a buyer by ignoring a linguistic or cultural nuance.