International Communication

International communication is based on the position of the company and especially on the degree of its globalisation. In the absence of financial means, a PME cannot be allowed to define a strategy of communication based on developped techniques (spot publicity) like those which the multinational companies use. From this fact it prefers to standardise its communication rather than adapt it to the foreign market. Standardisation consists in using in foreign countries the same publicity messages and same promotional arguments as those used in the domestic market. Standardisation has the advantage of reducing the cost of creation and adaptation. The budget for communication for PME is often restricted and at a time even non existent. These latter, therefore look to the communication outside media of which the cost are lower and which remains all the same efficient. The latter puts at the disposal of the companies a number of tools to communicate.

Website and Web Marketing | Companies Folder | Catalogue of Products | Collective Catalogue | Audiovisual aids for the company | Foreign Press | Public Relations

Website and Web Marketing

The Website

The Internet website has become today an indispensable communication tool for the companies. It allows them to present their product and service offerings to the entire world and that too in just a few clicks of the mouse. Moreover, it also acts like a genuine visiting card for those who wish to know a little more about the activity of a particular company.

In order to decide about the content of the website, first of all you have to think about how to distinguish yourself from your competitors. In fact, the worldwide web consists of billions of pages edited by the web masters all over the world. It is thus necessary to knowa few tricks in order to get out of anonymity...

It has become indispensable that your website should provide at least an English language version (in addition to the version in your National language).

The website must provide sufficient information about a topic but always in concise, brief and if possible something very "lucid" : give preference to photos, drawing and very clear and attractive presentations...its true that a text of 200 lines on a website has only very little chance of being read unless you present interesting and specific content for a particular category of people. Thus flash websites prove to be very appealing from the navigation point of view ; however these sites give a lot of problems while downloading your pages.

The web ranking management

Of course, the objective of a website is that it should be seen (and if possible read). Here are few web marketing tips on how to optimize, to the maximum, your ranking on the search tools present on the web (search engines and directories). This activity is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
The objective of the search engines is to provide the best possible information as requested by an Internet surfer.
One should think about providing various headings (contact, history, products, consulting, new products, sale...) on your website: a site providing good content will be downloaded with preference.

One should also think about making light pages (less than 120 Ko, including attached photos and documents); very heavy pages are not easy to download. But, on the other hand, one also needs to be careful not to create very light pages because the search engines may find these pages providing too little information due to their light weight and thus consider them not so interesting. Also think about keywords for each of your pages and optimize each page according to the predefined words define your keywords according to those chosen by competitor websites and try to differenciate yourself from them...

The Sponsored Links

The sponsored links offered by the principal search engines (Yahoo! Google, MSN ) allow you to rapidly generate qualified traffic towards your pages. This system of sponsored links, also called the Search Engine Marketing (SEM), is all the more efficient for the "commercial" sites.
The sponsored links are the advertisements figuring on the right-hand side of your screen when you carry out a search on any one of the three search engines existing on the Internet (Yahoo!, Google and MSN).

The sponsored links work on the principal of putting on auction the spot you have planned to reserve for avertisement. In order to obtain the best position (i.e. to have your advertisement figured on top of the result page of a request), the company needs to put forward the best bid amongst its competitors if it wishes to get positionned on the same keywords : the payment is made as per the number of hits received. Each time an Internet surfer hits on your advertisement, an amount equal to your bidding amount gets debited from your account. However, you have the option to limit your daily budget, to decide about the timings of appearance of your advertisements and to limit the number of hits on your advertisement...
There are numerous other tricks to help to better optimize the downloading and positioning of your website; and if needed these operations can be entrusted to an Internet professional...which could lead to more convincing and quick results.

The blogs

The blog is now no longer limited to adolescents only!
It is the latest interactive communication tool available to the companies. A lot of companies have quickly discovered a true interest in the use of blogs. This communication tool generally comes as complimentary to the website. It provides to a company an interface for direct communication with its clients (or consumers ou users...). Contrary to the discussion forums; here an Internet user can post his opinion without any prior identification...Whereas the work of a forum is to bring together the Internet users on a specific theme (C to C platform), the interest of a blog resides in providing an exchange platform between various Internet users and an entity like a company (which can be taken as a C to B platform).

Companies Folder

The publicity folder corresponds to the visiting card of the company. It gives concrete shape to the firs contract with future foreign clients. Designing of this document must be studied in a serious manner all the more so when it will be distributed in large quantities.

Content

The space available being limited, information to be projected must be selected in a rigorous manner. The company must bring out the strong points of its activity while mentioning clearly the competition. The information must be synthetic and complete at the same time.

Form

The company publicity folder must catch clients attention. It must inspire confidence in him regarding your company or products and especially compel him to read it and to keep it owing to the valuable information contained in it.

As for its physical layout, th formula of the folder in three folds is most often selected by the companies. The texts must be at least bilingual and preferably written down in the target language.

The folder is an essential tool right from the beginning of business propection and especially during trade events it will be distributed to the potential clients.

Catalogue of Products

The catalogue of products is an indispensable tool of business. It offers detailed presentation of products and / or services of the company. The catalogue is the first contact between the contractual services of the company and the future clients. It aims at taking stock of all the technical and commercial information relating to the products and or services. The catalogue must answer queries raised by any client and create special interest in the contractual services of the company.

Content

The catalogue forms part of the business strategy and that is why it must be executed as per the target kept in view. On export, it is recommended to call upon professionals, especially for the problems of translation related to the technicalities of certain words.

Form

The aesthetic aspect of the catalogue influences its reading by the clients. The photographs selected must have high quality and the diagrams must be clear and precise and the colour scheme must be a studied one.

In any case, the visual part of the catalogue shall respect the graph charts given in the company folders. For greater flexibility, prices should not be indicated in the catalogue, but in the accompanying document.

Collective Catalogue

The collective catalogue does not replace the catalogue of the personnel of the company. It allows regrouping of the companies sector by sector. The collective catalogue is of great interest to the PME's, for, it allows them to reach out at a minimum cost to a larger no. of clients. The collective catalogue aims at compelling the professionals to look into individual catalogues of the companies. It may be published on paper or through electronic media (internet server, CD Rom).

Audiovisual aids for the company

Audiovisual aids are among the best tools for international communication. Using audiovisual aids is very effective and emphasizes the know-how of a company. The design of audiovisual aids implies bringing in professionals whose experience is most useful especially within the framework of export activity.

Content

The aim of audiovisual aids is to circulate general information about the company and to promote the firm's products and/or services.

As with all other communication tools, it is advisable to adapt audiovisual aids to the intended targets.

It is advisable to limit the duration of the edited film to 5 to 10 minutes, while bringing out the essentials. The scenario should be thorough, dynamic and perfectly accurate.

Form

For international business, DVD seems to be the most appropriate mean of communication. However, the standard are different from a country to another. You must check rather your standard is suitable for the targeted countries.

Foreign Press

The use of this tool of communication requires a good knowledge of the characteristics of the target country. The principle consists in buying ad space for broadcasting the advertisement. The company which selects the foreign press is obliged to adapt itself to the methods of work of that country in order to guarantee a satisfactory result. But this technique of communication is the most adapted to the constraints of the foreign markets.

Content

The text must be brief, clear and extremely precise. However, the tone to be used should be that used in the periodicals. The presentation is very important, especially when one is addressing foreign public. The foreign professionals of ad-drafting offer different translation services. The company stands to gain from the reputation of the medium and that ensures grate credibility vis-à-vis the reading public.

Form

As a general rule, the cost of an ad-draft addressed to the foreign public is relatively high. The price is calculated on the basis of cost of purchase of space and the cost of execution of the ad which varies according to different services requested. This type of communication reaches out to a large number of readers thanks to the grand size of broadcasting.

Public Relations

There are specialized agencies for public relations for every country and for every sector. In export, the agncies of public relations play an important role. They organise trade events (seminars, launching of new products) that attract new foreign business prospects. The company can also have recourse to a press relations company. This latter, starts a communiqué or a press file thanks to the information made available to them by the company. The press file has the advantage of being very qualitative both for its contents and for its form.