Government College Relations Council

On the surface, B2B and B2C concern marketing your business products and services to different types of customers. To engage in B2C marketing, you market wares to consumers. If you want to engage in B2C marketing, you reach out to other businesses. Each type of marketing has the common denominator of trying to create a need for your wares among target groups in the market, whether your consumers are people or companies.

Using Internet marketing techniques, or reaching out to customers over the World Wide Web, you can reach a wider audience. At the very least, you can build an informative website that will give consumers information they need to decide if they want to buy what you have to offer. You can also use email marketing, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, viral video marketing, and other Internet marketing strategies to expand your communications to billions of consumers. Or, at least, reaching billions is the true potential of marketing on the World Wide Web.

The great part is that Internet techniques can be had for little or no cost if you know what type of opportunities to look for. For example, if you submit an article to a free article marketing service on a topic like pressure washing a home, your article will be available to publish on any consumer or business website. When your article is published by another website, your blurb at the bottom reaches out to that site’s readers, which equals a new target audience. This type of article marketing is free! Just take the time to write the articles and post them on the right article marketing sites.

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Deciding to expand your product sales or business services into the international arena is a bold and exciting move. It seems so exotic to think of your products being purchased by locals and tourists alike in places like Brazil, Buenos Aires and Santiago, Chile. Shopping bags filled with your unique items flying back from far away cities such as Tokyo, London, Athens and Cairo is enough to have you running to the bank for additional capital to make this dream a reality. However, before you go betting the farm on your new international strategy I would like to share with you insights I have learned during my extensive career in international business and how you can expand your business globally without putting a huge strain on your capital.

Proper preparation which includes a solid understanding of the different markets available and which ones are right for your product or business is crucial. Below are a couple of facts which can give insight into the global retail world:

1. Brazil is the 10th largest economy in the world.  Sao Paulo Brazil is the 19th richest city in the world and poised to move up to 13th by 2020.  Imagine what type of product or service can be generated in this type of market.
2. Buenos Aires is the financial hub of Argentina ann its port is the third busiest in South America.
3. Santiago Chile, with its 6 million plus population, generates 45% of the countries GDP.
4. Chile has the closest model of the department store concept of anywhere in South America and completely understands the Big Box concept.
5. Cairo, Egypt is the largest city in Africa, as well as, the largest Muslim city in the Middle East.

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