Marketing your products and services
Top tips to be successful in the United Kingdom:
- Have something truly different and be prepared to work hard conveying that message
- Be prepared for the long haul – have a four year strategy
- Be prepared to outlay a lot of cash, over a long period of time, before you see returns (are your board or investors comfortable with this?)
- Be prepared to invest in long-term relationships
- Careful localisation of the product is required. A great deal of attention must be paid to ensuring that an IT product or service is perceived as being 100 per cent targeted at UK users
How does doing business in the United Kingdom differ from Australia and what do Australian companies need to do in approaching this market?
- Buyers in the UK tend to be very risk-adverse, and prefer traditional ways of doing things. It is not unusual for decision-makers to choose a technically inferior but mainstream product in order to avoid risk-taking
- The language of business in the UK can be very ambiguous and it can be hard to tell what people have really thought of a product or solution. People will rarely provide negative feedback as ‘politeness’ is highly regarded. Australians can be considered very direct and even aggressive
- UK buyers can be very dismissive of experience and case studies achieved outside the UK. It is advisable to have multinational customers as reference sites, yet it is still not until you have a genuine UK customer that you will begin to gain credibility. Whilst Australians and Australian innovations are generally well-regarded, Australia can be seen as ‘a long way away’ and care is needed to address both real and perceived concepts of distance, eg. through setting up a local presence
Key ICT Events in United Kingdom
SmartGov – 14-15 June – www.smartgovlive.com
Cloud Computing World Forum – 21-22 June – www.cloudwf.com
Telecoms for Smart Grids – 21-22 September
GeeknRolla – March 2012 – www.geeknrolla.com
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