The Internet was born in the United States and so far has experienced the most success here. However, Internet usage outside the U.S. is increasing even faster. How can you use your Web site to attract more visitors and customers from that vast marketplace? Is it worth spending the money and time? From my own experience and after speaking with several experienced Internet marketing professionals, the answer is an overwhelming yes.

Translation

An immediate question arises-do I need to translate and localize my Web site? Not necessarily. Does it add to your marketability and potential customers? Yes. Your objectives and budget will determine the extent of the translation/localization implemented in your site. Here's what the experts had to say:

Mr. William Hunt, Senior Strategist for Global Strategies, Inc., a Web promotion company specializing in the Japanese market: "At the risk of losing business...no. From my experience, those that are the most successful are those who localize, offer specific content and target market for that specific location."

Ms. Barbara Fisher, Account Executive, WebPromote, a Web promotion company with international offices: "As with doing international business in the traditional manner, you will tend to have more success in local markets if you reach out to those markets in their own language."

Mr. Bill Dunlap, Managing Director, Euro-Marketing Associates, probably the first international Web promotion company: "Not for technical products, as most technical people around the world are used to dealing with English; they have had to for many years, and it has become second nature to read and write in English (not speak). On the other extreme, for consumer products, translation is absolutely necessary.

"Most Web sites, however, fall between these two extremes, where it is good to translate part of the Web site. Not translating will always make a portion of your audience click elsewhere, since they cannot understand English or do not want to read it in English at that time."

Ms. Shari Peterson, President, Webster Group International, a Web promotion company with international offices: "To be truly international in your clientele, it's just basic marketing as well as courtesy to provide your information in their native language."

Mr. William Mason, Manager Sales & Marketing, P.H. Brink International, a Web translation company: "If it is true that we are becoming a truly 'global' economy, then it becomes pretty easy to argue that our communications in general should become more global. I can tell you that almost everything coming out of Netscape and Microsoft is being done in multiple languages. An interesting question that we haven't addressed is that of parallelism. Should the information in your Spanish document be the same as your Japanese? There are cultural differences."

However, translation is not an inexpensive option. As Mr. Dunlap states, "The thing to remember in budgeting a new language for online marketing is that there is a considerable incremental cost every time you choose another language to put online."

Marketing

You've thoughtfully considered the translation/localization option and, depending on your budget, have implemented a solution. How do you get the word out that you are available on the Web and are actively seeking international visitors? Maybe you are seeking to add overseas distributors to your network. What can be done to make that investment in your Web site work even better?

Internet marketing and promotion should be considered an ongoing activity. You can't add your site to 200 search engines and expect that to do it. What works best? Search engines, crosslinking, banner ads, games, email or some combination?

Mr. Dunlap: "It depends on who the target audience is. If you try to attract a cross-the-line, horizontal market, then banner ads work best, since most people in Europe still spend lots of time on indexes and search engines as the basis for their Web surfing. However, if you have a technical product that is aimed at OEMs, then crosslinking would be best on the foreign Web sites where these OEMs congregate. Of course, it goes without saying that one should definitely be in all the overseas indexes for the markets you are targeting."

Mr. Hunt provided an interesting chart on how sites are located in various countries:

U.S. Japan France

1. Search engines Print media Print media

2. Print media Search engines Links on other sites

3. Links on other sites Word of mouth Search engines

4. Word of mouth Links on sites Word of mouth

Search Engines

Ms. Peterson says, "Engine placement represents only perhaps 15% to 20% of what a company should be doing with regard to promotion. It is a common misconception that high engine ranking is the end-all, and fabulous success follows. You can get so much more traffic with strategic linking, opt-in email, contests, classifieds, auctions, and banner advertising."

Crosslinking

One of the most effective methods of promoting your site is crosslinking. Ms. Peterson says, "I would say paying attention to those sites which are attracting a large portion of the foreign market, and getting crosslinks from those sites would be a very effective strategy. Crosslinking is as a rule a much larger draw of traffic to your site than even high-ranking engine placement."

Banner Ads

Ms. Fisher: "Banner ads work well, and many banner advertising networks can target your banner impressions so that they are shown only to users in a particular country, even if they are running on a major U.S.-based site. Of course, you can also purchase banners to run on sites specific to a particular country, as well."

Ms. Peterson: "You can also target banner ads to appear to only those that are coming in from a certain country. The bad part is unless your offer is of interest to every single resident of that country, then you are wasting impressions dollars."

Games

A tactic often used to drive traffic to a site is a game or contest. Can they be used to attract visitors? Mr. Seth Godin, President of Yoyodyne says, "Don't run a sweepstakes or game unless you are prepared to deal with the consequences in an international market." Yoyodyne (started more than 7 years ago and first appeared on the Prodigy network) does games for the U.S. market only, due to the multitude of conflicting regulations and rules in various countries around the world. So, do they work? Well, the traffic comes in; however, in Mr. Godin's games, the overseas visitors can play, but they cannot win.

PR/Reviews

Mr. Hunt: "What attracts overseas visitors is content. If a reviewer indicates it [your site] is worth a visit you will get traffic. We just had a site reviewed in a Japanese magazine of top 1,000 sites and they received a great spike. We were able to track a large number of the visits from the link on the magazine's site."

Newsgroups

Ms. Fisher: "Working the newsgroups on Usenet is another great way to reach an international audience. There are newsgroups available for discussion on just about any topic imaginable, as well as groups exclusive to particular countries."

Email

Ms. Peterson: "I would suggest opt-on direct email, targeting those interested in distribution, importing, and exporting. Opt-in direct email is sending email to people who have specifically requested to receive information on a particular topic. It is not spam, nor unsolicited."

Ms. Fisher: "Another method is to use direct email. WebPromote offers a direct email service to companies so you can make announcements to individuals who have requested more information about a particular subject."

International marketing has never been easy. It takes time, money and persistence to wage a successful campaign. Nonetheless, with the proper planning, success is possible.

Craig Snyder is president of Dolphin Marketing International. DMI is a Web site development and marketing company with an emphasis on international marketing. DMI is also the sponsor of SONAR, the international trade search engine.