Local businesspeople always lament Malta’s small size. “There is a limit to how big you can grow on a small island,” has become an oft repeated mantra that has resulted in many turning their sights towards North Africa and the sales opportunities its larger population presents.
While these same businesspeople search out the potential of new countries, they overlook a massive market that lies within easy reach and which is growing at a phenomenal rate.
Would you like millions of customers?
Today, the internet is an accepted part of our daily lives, yet locally we seem unable to recognise the vast business potential that this virtual world offers. According to figures listed at www.internetworldstats.com, 10 years ago Europe had just over 100 million internet users. Today that figure had grown to over 475 million. That might sound like rapid growth, but compared to other continents it is about as fast as a motorised lawnmower. The real speedster is actually Africa which has rocketed from 4.5 million internet users to over 110 million users in the same period – a growth rate exceeding 2,000 per cent. With only 10 per cent of the population having access to the internet, there is still plenty of fuel remaining for the African powerhouse.
Local businesses should be getting very excited about these figures. The worldwide web is one giant marketplace where you can set up your shop window and market your goods to hundreds of millions.
Invest in some virtual real estate
Look at it this way. To export your brick and mortar business overseas you have cultural barriers to overcome, language issues, permits to obtain and new laws to navigate. There are huge costs and no guarantees that your products and services will give you a solid return on your considerable investment.
Engaging in a bit of virtual expansion holds no such problems. English is still the most commonly used language on the internet (with Chinese coming in a close second) and your investment is normally limited to setting up an internet store, or a website through which you can offer your services.
While this sounds impressively simple, merely setting up a website and waiting for customers to come to you is the real world equivalent of buying a shop in a dark alley and wondering why you never get any walk-in trade.
Traffic is the currency of the internet. No, I am not talking about motor cars. I am talking about those hundreds of millions of internet users we mentioned earlier. You want them to come flocking to your website, buy your products and make you a rich (or a richer) businessperson.
But how do you achieve that? How do you decorate your online shop window and make it more attractive than your competitor’s?
Down with starched shirts
There are a variety of methods to get internet customers beating a path to your door, and we are going to focus on one method that we Maltese fail miserably in – engaging with customers through your website content.
If you look at most local websites they have the personality of a zombie with the excitement level of watching paint dry. Local businesses know that they should have a website (because their competitor has one), but because they don’t consider the internet as a market the website is normally a milksop to technology.
Usually the website consists of a handful of pages stating that the company it represents is the best thing since sliced bread and was founded 10 years ago by Joe Borg and his three brothers. This is supplemented by a couple of pages of service or product descriptions whose language is either too technical for Stephen Hawking, or worded in such poor English that they may as well be written in Klingon.
What this means is that the money you spent on that website has been flushed so far down the drain, it is currently being recycled into drinking water.
Engage with your customers
You need your website to reach out and connect with your customers. It should engage with them on an emotional level and make them want to buy from you.
Injecting some personality into your website is also important. While we don’t want to know if you go train spotting at the weekends, we do want to read something more appealing than the fact that your company is an “industry leader” and has “numerous clients”. You can tell people about yourself and your company’s strengths without sounding like a starched shirt.
Think of it this way. In a brick and mortar shop you look hard to employ a good sales rep that makes your customers feel welcome, helps them with their purchases and generally facilitates sales. Well your website content is your online sales rep. And currently most businesses have the equivalent of Charles Manson manning the front desk.
Get your content right and you will find your sales leads increasing. Leave it flat and lifeless and your website may as well be in Sanskrit for all the attention it will generate. Spend a little time on your shop window and see if you can start attracting some of those hundreds of millions of customers to your door.
info@artfulquill.com
The author is a freelance writer and editor who specialises in internet communications and marketing for both local and international businesses.