Ewom Marketing

After logging into LinkedIn for the first time in several months, I thought considering how successful they have been and the huge marketing push it received in London I should really have identified and wrote about the marketing opportunities it provides.

For those who haven’t heard of LinkedIn, it is a social networking website that is geared specifically towards business members. It enables users to build up a network of existing and new business contacts (called connections). Wikipedia reports that LinkedIn has more than 20 million registered users and attracts over 3.2 million visitors every month in a total of more than 150 different industries from all across the globe. LinkedIn is more closely matched to offline business networking than virtually any other social networking website. It can be used to keep contact details while building a strong network but other users predominantly use it to make contacts and secure future employment. Conversely, many employers and agencies use their network to find suitable candidates for work. The key USP to LinkedIn is that when you add a new connection, their connections and the connections of those connections will also be added to your network, if that makes sense! Providing you with an impressive network of business contacts.

For businesses looking to promote their own service, the money is literally in the list. By building a large and relevant network of connections, a business can greatly improve their profile within that community. Using a powerful portfolio page also ensures that those connections that are interested in using the services of that business will be more inclined to do so. Everything is essentially in place to help the business owner or professional to generate new leads. This of cause means that you need to market your LinkedIn profile!

Another benefit of the LinkedIn service is the testimonials section. When you provide a service to another member of the community, or your network, they can leave a testimonial of how you performed. As many of you will know testimonials are important for any business and not only help persuade the unsure, but can turn a contact's opinion of you around.

A recently new section of the site is LinkedIn Answers This allows users to ask and answer questions, gaining the information they require and providing a useful response. This can help your business to network because useful answers will usually be rewarded with an invitation to join that member's list of connections.While there are other sites that offer similar services, (such as Xing.com) no other business networking website can boast the popularity that LinkedIn offers. The combination of powerful features and a large network means that many businesses want to be represented on the LinkedIn website.

Just because your website has had great success in your domestic market, it does not guarantee the same success internationally!

At the beginning of the computing era, programs were written only in English, the problem being that at this time only people who spoke English as their mother tongue, or who had studied the language to a high degree at school could access these resources. Therefore millions of potentially lucrative customers were lost as they could not understand the programs.

If you are looking to enter international markets it is crucial to translate your website into the language of your target market. A product or service on your website will appear much more attractive if it is presented in the language of your target customer, whilst also allowing you to compete with locally produced products or services. Research has shown that web contact time is doubled on sites which have been correctly translated. But it is not all about language, knowledge of the cultural and business norms is necessary for successful localisation and international marketing.

Problems can occur with the design of internet forms designed to gather data from customers. In the English speaking world there is often no field on such forms for academic titles such as Professor or Doctor, but research shows that customers from European countries such as Germany and Italy respond more to direct e-marketing when they are addressed as Professor or Dr....

Another common problem with international internet forms is the postal code field, as postal codes come in various forms in different countries. The American field “State” also causes problems in Europe, as many countries are not split up into states. There have also been cases, where in order to proceed with an order the customer has to choose a state from a predetermined list! Confusing or unclear fields in an online form not only irritate the customer but they can also lead to inaccurate or incorrect information, meaning that the entire reason for the form is invalid.

The internet offers a great advantage in that you can go and check out how local competitors construct their sites before implementing any changes to your own, so get researching.......