Launching today is a new online resource directory for tech companies entering the US market. TechResources.us provides Irish technology companies doing business in the US with trusted and up-to-date information and connections to essential in-market resources, services and supports. These include accelerators, professional services providers, networking groups, investors, co-working spaces, conferences, online resources and academic research centres.
At the launch Nick Marmion, Head of Software with Enterprise Ireland’s Americas team said:
It can be challenging for Irish companies to find relevant and trusted resources using an online search so we’re offering clients this tailored directory as a starting point. The aim of the directory is to help Irish companies to understand and connect with the market before they even leave Ireland.
From there, Enterprise Ireland’s team in America can help clients to hone their market entry strategy and introduce them to the decision makers and relationships they’ll need to accelerate their growth over time”.
The directory was developed by MarketSprint, a market entry consulting firm based in New York and has been customised specifically to the needs of Irish technology exporters.
There are currently over 1,600 qualified resources in the TechResources directory and users can search by location, vertical market or resource type and refine their search using keywords. Directory entries are enhanced with one-click connections to key people or communities via Linkedin, Twitter, phone or email.
In addition to offering clients quick access to market knowledge, the TechResources directory encourages Irish tech companies to share their knowledge and expertise with each other.
As Nick explains:
Clients can use the directory to share their own favourite US resources, and they’ll get credit for doing so. This is an opportunity to create a community of Irish knowledge around the practical resources needed for US market entry.
Access to the directory requires a sponsor code. To get yours please email Request@TechResources.US using your company email address.
This post was originally published on EI’s Retailer Solutions blog – if you build, supply, or are otherwise involved in supplying next generation IT solutions to retailers, you’d be well advised to check it out!
Last Month 40 senior representatives from a host of suppliers across the retail value chain descended upon the Enterprise Ireland headquarters in Dublin to attend the first Retailer Solutions CEO Forum of 2012. Technology and services providers Actus Mobile,Worldnet TPS, Vision ID and Nualight; and consumer product companies Jack Murphy, The Design Basket and Lifes2Good were amongst those present on the day.
Take a quick look at the video below and see for yourself!
Social Media in a Business to Business Context
“Social media is not a fad, it is a future.”
Michael O’Brien, Head of Marketing at Celtrino, the supply chain management solutions company shared his experiences of the adoption of social media as a strategic part of the company’s marketing mix. “Be unique with your content, try and be different’.
Adrian Goodsell and Pete Wood of Steak Digital were there on the day to add context to Michael’s story: “Social is free to set up but you need to dedicate resources to it”. The full service digital marketing agency specialises in Business to Business Social.
Retail in Germany
“If you want to be successful in German retail you have to be very efficient in your business processes.”
Michael Gerling, Managing Director of EHI, the German Retail Institute, provided key insights into retail in the challenging but potentially rewarding German market.
Multichannel Retailing in Europe
“If you’re a retailer today it’s no longer good enough to just look at the domestic market…there are lots of opportunities to internationalise your brand. How do you engage with your customers-how do your customers want to engage you as a brand?”
Martin Newman, CEO of Practicology, the global ecommerce consulting business was present to address the topic of multichannel inEurope, using practical examples to describe the retail scene in various European markets. We looked at strategies of key European retailers as well as key trends in e-commerce, m-commerce and f-commerce across Europe.
You can look @ the presentations on our Slideshare a/c!
This is the third in a series of posts focused on how Irish SMEs are delivering real results using Internet marketing. This case study features an interview with Patrick Buckley, Sales & Marketing Director at EPS Group, a client of Enterprise Ireland. EPS Group received support from the Enterprise Ireland Internet Marketing Unit to assist with the development of their Internet marketing strategy.
EPS gets website traffic flowing with SEO
A solid SEO strategy has seen EPS Group drive new business and raise brand awareness as it looks to expand into overseas markets.
Sustainable water solutions provider EPS Group has transformed its website into a key marketing tool with an SEO strategy that puts the focus firmly on content and clever use of keywords.
Operation ‘website transformation’
Following a marketing review in 2010, EPS Group realised that its website was not being used to its full potential. “We weren’t really focused on our site as much as we should have been,” explains Patrick Buckley, sales and marketing director with EPS Group. “As a result, we noticed that our site was quite poor; there was too much content and we were saying all the wrong things.”
With less than 150 website hits per month, it became apparent that EPS Group was pretty much “invisible” online. “Basically, if someone wanted to find us online, they couldn’t; we didn’t exist as far as online was concerned.”
EPS made a start by employing a full-time person to deal exclusively with its online presence, and dedicating more time to improving the performance of the site. It also worked with a web development firm, Webtrade, as well as a marketing company, AMAS, to develop a content and marketing strategy.
Identifying keywords boosts visibility
In the sustainable water solutions market, the majority of Google searches feature the word ‘water’ e.g. ‘ water harvesting solutions’, ‘waste water treatment’, ‘rain water pumps’, ‘water purification systems’, ‘waste water pumps’. Armed with this information, Patrick decided to include the word water in the group’s URL – www.epswater.ie, as well as snapping up epswater.co.uk, epswater.fr and epswater.com.
Using keyword research tools and analytics, EPS also identified a selection of the most relevant and popular industry search terms, and decided to scatter these words throughout its website content. “We consistently track these keywords each month to see what page we show up on in Google search results. Previously, with some of the keywords we were appearing at page 6 or 7, but now we are on the first page every time, which is a significant improvement.”
Regular tweaking keeps content relevant
Continuously adding content and making amendments to existing content helps keep the EPS site fresh and relevant, says Patrick. “We regularly add news items to the site and constantly tweak metadata words in the background. By keeping a close eye on Google Analytics we can see what pages people are coming to and what they are looking for. If there’s a page that’s not as active as we want it to be, we will tweak it to make it more relevant. If we want to direct people to a certain page we’ll add content to the homepage that highlights particular sub-pages and try to funnel traffic through that way too,” he explains.
How it presents itself online has become a critical factor for EPS. With such a diverse range of products and services, confusion was a common element with customers who weren’t aware of EPS’s full range. “Our website had to address that issue and raise awareness of all our products and services. With our previous site, there was too much content, and this was confusing visitors, who struggled to find what they were looking for,” Patrick explains. “With the new site we’ve improved the navigation and the content, making it easier for people to get to the relevant pages. Also, by focusing on key search terms, we are seeing more traffic coming through to sub-pages of the site, and getting the information they’re looking for, quicker.”
This strategy is reflected in EPS’s analytics, which show that as site page views have decreased, length of time spent on the EPS site has increased. “Typically, people spend between 3.5 minutes and 4 minutes on our site, and with the page views down it leads us to believe that visitors are finding what they are looking for a lot quicker.”
Focused approach pays off
In just over a year traffic to the EPS website has rocketed, 150 hits per month to a consistent 3,500-4,000 monthly hits. And all this new traffic is translating to new business for the firm, according to Patrick. “With this increase in visitors, we’ve seen a huge boost in the number of enquiries through our site. The majority of these are sound enquiries which have led to new business.”
But EPS isn’t resting there. The company plans to use some of what it’s learned on the Irish site to enhance its newly launched UK site, with the aim of hitting 1,000 visitors per month by June 2012. Also on the cards is a global site, which Patrick says will be used to drive more traffic back to the Irish website.
Patrick credits advice given by Enterprise Ireland as the impetus EPS needed to make changes to its website. “The Enterprise Ireland support and guidance was of great benefit to us at the beginning of this project. That investment in time and resources is now paying off for EPS in both our domestic and export sales.”
“We’ve learned so much about the importance of our website over the past couple of years. We now see our site as a very important part of our overall strategy in growing our business,” Patrick concludes.
This is the second in a series of posts focused on how Irish SMEs are delivering real results using Internet marketing. This case study features an interview with Michael O’Brien, Head of Marketing at Celtrino, a client of Enterprise Ireland.
Quality content on its website is helping supply chain management specialist Celtrino develop its brand and differentiate itself from competitors.
A veteran in the supply chain management world in Ireland, Celtrino’s recent re-vamp of its website is allowing the company to showcase its expertise through a successful blog, as well as boosting brand recognition as it aims to expand into new markets.
Content strategy begins with research
After joining Celtrino in 2009, marketing director Michael O’Brien’s first port of call was to do a full marketing audit. With online becoming more and more important, Michael set about focusing on the Celtrino website and online presence.
“For me, the relevance of the website and being found online was of paramount importance.” Michael said his plan started with in-depth research. “I can’t underestimate how vital it is to understand the words being used online by your competitors, analysts and customers. Once you understand the ecosystem within which you are operating you can then set down a content strategy both for your own website and how you are going to engage with other online tools, like social media.”
Web content critical to search results
Celtrino’s new website went live on 27 May 2010 and within six months Celtrino dominated search engine results for all of its relevant key terms. “If I’m on the phone talking to somebody, chances are they are online typing our name into Google. Being found easily online is important for our continued success in the Irish market, but is also vital as we look to break into the UK market,” said Michael.
Developing relevant, quality content is key to Celtrino’s search engine success, according to Michael: “We need to keep producing quality content or we will lose people and cease to be relevant, and Google will pick up on that too.”
Continually refreshing the site’s content is also an important factor in Celtrino’s content strategy. “Our market is constantly changing and so our web content needs to be regularly updated to reflect that. Of course, regular content updates improve search engine visibility too.”
Content directs customers to next steps
While the homepage is the way most people will enter a website, Michael explains that because the Celtrino site is so optimised for search engines, there is a high chance people are coming to internal pages on the site through targeted search results.
Bearing that in mind, Celtrino developed dedicated content pages for each of its solutions, as well as identifying a list of ‘business needs’ that lead the visitor to relevant product pages. Clear action points were also added to each page, which makes sure that any visitor can see at a glance how they can contact Celtrino or get more information on certain products.
“It was imperative to us that someone coming to the site through a Google search for, say, ‘accounts payable solutions’ would have a clear call to action on the page they land on. This call to action could be a number of things, such as ‘email us’, ‘call us’, or ‘download a whitepaper’. Essentially, the key for us is understanding what the visitor is trying to achieve and giving them every opportunity to do so.”
Blog content gives Celtrino a voice
Keen to provide regular, fresh content on its site, Celtrino launched a blog in September 2011 and typically push out a new blog post three times a week. Michael says the blog has been a great success to date and has broadened the company’s reputation online. “The blog gives us a voice and the opportunity to engage with our audiences that we wouldn’t always have with the website. It also helps us to stand out in the market. For any companies considering a blog I would advise them to look around their sector and see what they can take ownership of in terms of content: ask themselves, ‘what can I write about that makes us stand out?’”
And when you do write a blog that gets noticed, that’s when you can really make an impact, according to Michael. “If your blog post is picked up by another blogger or commentator and shared, then all of a sudden you move up to a different level. Having your content reused around the web ensures that you are seen as a relevant and trusted source of content; the net result is that you will be favoured by Google and other search engines as they focus on delivering relevant and trusted content to their customers.”
Celtrino’s focus on developing quality content for its website has helped it create a strong online presence, which Michael said it is keen to take advantage of. “In February we plan on doing a major refresh of our website content to reflect changes within the sector and changes to our customers’ requirements. And within the next year or so, Celtrino aims to launch an e-commerce function on its site.”
As mentioned in my previous post, this is the first in a series of case studies focused on how Irish SMEs are delivering real results using Internet marketing. This interview features Siobhan O’Dwyer, VP Marketing at Nualight, a client of Enterprise Ireland.
Nualight puts email marketing in the spotlight
LED retail lighting specialist Nualight is using email newsletters to build its brand and promote itself as a thought leader in the fast-growing LED lighting market.
Nualight is one of the original pioneers of LED food lighting and counts Tesco, Morrisons, and Sainsbury’s among its key customers. Co-located in Cork and Amsterdam, the rapidly growing company has been making a name for itself in the buoyant retail lighting market helped by its content-filled company newsletters.
Monthly newsletter keeps customers up to date
A monthly e-newsletter – called Bright Thinking – is used to keep Nualight’s 4,000-plus customers across Europe and the US updated on company news. “We launch products on such a regular basis that it would be impossible to keep our customers up to date without the newsletter; it really is the most effective way to tell them our news,” said Siobhan O’Dwyer, vice president of marketing with Nualight.
The monthly e-newsletter is teased via a HTML email sent to a subscriber list, with snippets of content that link back to the Nualight website. “We’re keen to direct people back to our website, where we have so much content and information we’d like them to see. Newsletters are a great way to do that.”
Brand building with quarterly e-zine
In what has become a highly competitive market, with some of the biggest companies in the world vying for market share, Nualight’s newsletters have become a vital marketing tool.
“One of our main goals is to position ourselves as experts in our area. With our newsletters we can reinforce that position regularly using content that is interesting to people and, of course, telling people about our ongoing product innovation,” explained Siobhan.
The company’s 32-page online magazine – Bright – is published each quarter. It delivers company news as well as industry-related features and expert interviews. “Our expert interviews in particular are very well received, and they’ve really helped us to align ourselves as thought leaders.”
Creating company spirit globally with staff newsletter
Having just completed the acquisition of a company in the Netherlands, as well as having a manufacturing site in Poland and a global sales team, Nualight was keen to knit its team of over 200 employees together. A monthly email newsletter is sent out to all staff to keep everyone updated on changes within the company, local news from each site, as well as product launches and industry trends.
“The staff newsletter helps us integrate our global team together, and makes sure everyone knows what’s going on in the company and in the industry,” said Siobhan.
Weighing up what’s working
On average, Nualight’s newsletter open rates are at an impressive 25 to 40 percent, with a 47 percent click-through rate. Constant testing and analytics help Siobhan identify which articles are proving most popular.
“We’re learning as we go along. We know that the HTML emails are crucial to pulling people through to our site so we make sure to create really good content hooks and put some real thought into our subject lines. We’ve identified that readers are interested in innovation, so we make sure to put our product news front and centre. Visual works for us too; our industry is all about atmosphere and ambience so we have upped the image content in the HTML mail.”
Divide and conquer
With customers all across Europe, Nualight decided to develop its newsletters in English, French and German, with the subscriber database split into the three languages. This strategy has had a positive impact on open rates, according to Siobhan.
Nualight is also planning further segmentation of its subscriber database. A recently introduced newsletter signup box on its website asks people to select their interest in one of the company’s two distinct product lines: “case lighting” or “accent lighting”. Nualight plans to develop a newsletter for each of these lines.
“I would say without hesitation that email marketing is one of the most effective things we do. Customers in our sector are information-hungry and our newsletters have really helped us to tap into that requirement,” concluded Siobhan.
This article was written by ENNclick for the Enterprise Ireland Internet Marketing Unit.
Over the course of 2011, the Enterprise Ireland Internet Marketing Unit was busy engaging with our clients to benchmark their Internet marketing efforts. You can take a look at the questionnaire we use for the benchmarking for yourself (feel free to complete it, we’d love to hear from you!), and we also published a short report back in October detailing some of the findings.
From talking with our clients and examining the results of the benchmarks, we’ve identified 7 key areas of activity and capability that make up an effective Internet marketing strategy, as follows:
We’re not saying that your company needs to become an expert on all these areas, but you should at least have a good understanding of what they are, and what impact they can have on your existing online sales and marketing strategy. To help with this we’re going to publish a series of blog posts here on BestConnected over the coming weeks, each one focused on how an Irish SME is succeeding online by adopting the principles outlined above.
First up will be an interview with Siobhan O’Dwyer, VP Marketing at Nualight, who will be sharing her experiences of effectively using Email Marketing. Stay tuned to the blog, the interview will be published here before the end of the week. If you’ve any feedback on the benchmarking, or if you’d like to suggest some other case studies, then please let us know.
This is a guest post from John Caulfield Solutions Director Oracle Ireland and member of the Irish Software Association (ISA) Executive Council
Update: Techbrew on Product Management now on Thursday 13th January – more details here
The first Techbrew on the 14th October saw Jonathan Boyland (CTO of Fineos), Fergus Gloster (formerly of Salesforce.com and founder of Thomond Technologies) and myself stand on tables to argue over Saas (Software as a Service) – Ignore It, Adapt Your Software or Start Again.
Due to public demand (Techbrew is open to all software companies, regardless of whether they’re members of the ISA or not) Techbrew Number 2 is still free and on it’s way on December 2nd January 13th.This time it’s Product Management that’s in the spotlight (or rather, on the soapbox). Sign up for Techbrew here.
We all need to improve our game and keep ahead of the posse, and learning more about how to grow international sales is crucial to our growth. As part of the Excel at Export Selling 2010 Workshop Series, the topic of Improving Sales Pipeline Management will be addressed at practical one-day learning workshops, for up to 10 EI Clients, on Tuesday November 2nd and Tuesday November 2nd and Tuesday November 9th. The venue is Enterprise Ireland, Eastpoint Business Park, Dublin 3.
The primary aim of the workshops is to ensure your company consistently and systematically applies a sales process and pipeline methodology, the specific objective being the achievement of sales targets on a predictable basis, and improving sales forecasting for the benefit of your company, your salespeople and your investors. It is recommended that 2-3 people per company should attend so that follow-on implementation is a shared objective.
The workshops will be presented by internationally regarded DEI Sales trainer, Michael McGowan, whose no-nonsense, straight-talking approach and outline is a primary reason for their success. If you have clients who need persuading that they should participate in, for example, International Selling 2011, then it would be no harm making them aware that several companies who took part in a 2009 one day workshop on Sales Pipeline went on to undertake the International Selling Programme in 2010. Also, for companies at an earlier stage of export growth, these workshops rigidly apply good practices from the very start. The workshops are followed within four weeks by a two-hour individual review session for each participating company. There will also be a series of follow-up telephone calls over a nine month period.
The extremely positive feedback from various companies includes:
Michael Murphy, Business Development Manager, Trustwater:
“I would recommend it to any Sales Manager / Senior Management staff, either within a new start-up or existing organisation to re-energise not only the sales process but also the whole sales team.”
If you’re not familiar with Enterprise Ireland’s initiative of Graduates 4 International Growth (G4IG), then perhaps it’s time you were, as this is a great idea that needs getting out there. The aim of Graduates 4 International Growth (G4IG) is to assist Enterprise Ireland client companies in acquiring future business development capability.
Through G4IG, 50 graduates with potential to be the next generation of business development executives will be matched with 50 ambitious internationally trading companies. Support is available for companies for key activities in relation to recruiting, hiring and training a graduate . Graduates will be provided with a structured means of applying new skills in business development within their hiring companies.
Graduates 4 International Growth (G4IG) is 18 months in duration, with participants based a minimum of 12 months in an overseas market. During the programme, candidates will also undertake a Post-Graduate Diploma in International Growth with UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, where through the application of various modules (including Developing Customer Value Propositions, Implementing the International Sales Process, and Culture and Society: ‘The Challenge of International Business’) they will develop practical international business skills.
Enterprise Ireland Clients proposing to hire candidates must outline on their application a project (related to market investigation) that they would like their graduate to undertake. Graduate projects must meet various criteria. Further details are available at www.enterprise-ireland.com/G4IG
Update: Some text changed to clarifiy the nature of the G4IG programme.
