The beauty of modern sales lead generation is that it can happen any time, anywhere. Whether you’re on your PC or your phone, on a plane or a train, using our Ping-Post software or cherry picking your leads, there’s potential to get a lead from someone in the same situation from across the country... or even across the globe. As clients reach across oceans and globalize, here are a couple of helpful tools to make sure your reach can break borders and maximize sales potential.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, has proven its worth time and time again for local clients. However, this strategy can maximize your international leads as well with a couple of neat tricks:
Calculate your investment
It is important to remember that any SEO work, local or global, is an investment to build up prospective leads. That said, the handy calculator at the International SEO Map can do the math for you to figure out if catering to your international market is a smart investment.
Localize your landing pages
A family friend once went to Sweden and dropped some books off at his local library. Instead of asking “Is this where I drop off books?” his translation software had him ask, “Is this where I drop my pants?” If you find your pages with high clicks but low conversion, double check the translation! Don't get caught with your pants down.Once your international SEO brainstorming is under way, make sure you generalize your pages. Any potential from another country can disappear fast if they have to convert time zones or currencies. Make sure your international ads are redirected to localized landing pages that contain the right time zone and currency.
That said, though it may be tempting to translate the page into other languages, make sure this is done with care. Never use machine translations like Google Translate.
The exception to this is any Call to Action a page may have. Even if the pages themselves aren’t translated, a big red button saying “Download now!” in a native language is sometimes all a lead needs to get started.
Whitepapers
On the other hand, though whitepapers can sometimes be a hassle to translate, they have a number of qualities that make them fantastic for international marketing:
Whitepapers market themselves
Because white papers are almost always available digitally, they can be sent anywhere to any client. In addition, since many of them make heavy use of photos and infographics, much of the information can be understood whether the page is translated or not.
Whitepapers are most often distributed as pdfs, so they are easy to e-mail or instant message to others. If the whitepaper is served off of a landing page, the page is even easier to send to colleagues or co-workers. Take advantage of this with a Call to Action to share these pages and papers with friends!
Etiquette
Our last tip is not a technology or gadget, but common courtesy. Some countries and cultures have very different social rules than others, so keeping etiquette in mind is of utmost importance.
Keep it universal
A post about President’s Day is not going to keep the interest of someone from India, just as a U.S. based client may not have his or her attention grabbed by a post about Dussehra. Save holiday content for the home crowd, and if you do use it internationally, ensure you’re writing about a day that has meaning to your target market.
Similarly, many cultures vary in what days constitute the work week and the weekend. Some cultures have very specific ways to spend certain days of the week. When possible, keep your copy vague on the specifics: Say you’re excited for the weekend, not Friday night, and your international readers will relate more.
A good way to keep your content universal is by making it more informational than social - send your best tips and tricks out across the world, and keep your fun posts closer to home.
Hopefully we have been able to help you out with a few basic tips on international sales lead generation. If you're also in the market for a back-office solution that can handle all tracking, distribution and reporting needs, look no further than boberdoo.com. boberdoo offers the most advanced lead distribution software on the market with international features in the standard out-of-the-box system. Contact us today for a free demo and see why hundreds of clients have chosen to run their lead businesses through boberdoo.