The Market is Global Now, Not Local

The WWE had its stable of wrestlers known as the “New World Order”; conspiracy theorists are convinced there's a secret organization pushing us into a new global order; Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh, Taylor Caldwell's character in “Captains and the Kings,” belonged to a secret cabal of industrial and financial leaders who controlled global order.

What's this all mean to you? It's a simple concept, the entire world, a new global order, as your online business's market, but it's not easy to wrap your brain around it fully. Our business culture and experience tells us that putting product on our shelves, a nice window display, and a sign in front of our new shop are the standard ways of attracting clientele. It's all local, whether foot traffic or road traffic, and we'll get to know all of our customers in a personal relationship that will last for years.

That's not the case on the Internet, though. Chances are, you won't ever meet your online customers, never know their faces, or their children's names, or anything personal about them. How could you, when they come from all over the world, live on different continents, perhaps even speak a different language? We at KISS understand the Internet makes the world a very small place . . . . but, it does so without in any way diminishing the size of the market.

Make no mistake about it . . . if you have an online business, the entire world is your market. To succeed in that marketplace, you have to give up some of your parochialism, stop thinking your clientele are from just down the street, stop thinking they shop at your online store the same way your ambulatory customers do.

One of KISS's clients, Never an Outbreak, has no “sticks and bricks” store: its entire existence is virtual. Its site, http://neveranoutbreak.com, sells all natural products for the symptomatic treatment of herpes. It's a terrific success story, but that is not the reason I mention it today. In 2006, we developed foreign language landing pages for their web site, pages written in languages other than American English, that welcomed the visitor in their own language, discussed generally their products, and alerted the visitor to the fact the rest of the site was in American English. Those landing pages were then submitted to international search engines serving those countries so that they were likely to be ranked highly and well for the keywords we'd chosen in that foreign language. Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese were two of the languages we chose, and within a few months, our client's product sales in Spanish speaking countries and Brazil increased. The company is located in Massachusetts, USA, by the way.

KISS, itself, has clients from all over the world, including Australia, the UK, Ireland, Brazil and Canada, as well as about 18 states here in the US. How did all of these clients come to us, if not by car or foot? You already know the answer: they found us on the Internet. We don't know what many of them look like, and our relationships with them are for all intents and purposes virtual . . . the occasional telephone call, but mostly email and instant messaging. That virtual relationship is no barrier to commerce, just as catalog sales were no barrier to commerce for Sears and Roebuck or LL Bean in the 1950s, '60s and 70s. One and the same, other than the method of product presentation.

You can't think “neighborhood” any more about commerce. The world's your market, and your sense must expand to grasp that if you wish to succeed online. There are no states, no countries, no borders, no nationality, on the Internet. Those who have been part of Internet commerce for several years already know this. For those recent additions to global commerce, though, it's still a lesson to be learned. I say welcome to you newcomers, and if I may offer a piece of advice: hit that virtual ground running when it comes to understanding the marketplace. It's one of the keys to your success.

What's New at KISS Computing

KISS is pleased to announce the launch of a new site for Cape Cod Challenger Club for Amy Lipkind and Kelvin Ing. The mission of the Cape Cod Challenger Club is to enrich the quality of life for children and young adults with physical and/or developmental disabilities by providing them with the opportunity to participate in a variety of athletic, recreational and social activities that most often are not available to them under typical circumstances. We're a strong supporter of their efforts, and are remaining with the Challenger Club for years to come to maintain and update their site. We want to take this opportunity to promote a fundraising effort for the Challenger Club to all of our Cape Cod clients - -Saturday, September 29, from 10:00 am till 3:00 pm at Pirate's Cove Adventure Golf, 728 Main Street, Route 28, South Yarmouth. Play 18 holes of miniature golf, stay for our cook out, enjoy live entertainment, and bid at our silent auction. The price is $12 per person, or $45 for families of 4 or more, with all proceeds benefiting the Cape Cod Challenger Club.

We finally got around to following some of our own advice, too. We recommend regularly to our clients that a web site should get a face lift every 18-24 months. In the same way your "sticks and bricks" store gets a new coat of paint and annuals in the flower boxes, an online business needs that same refreshing. KISS's web site was almost 36 months old - - the old saying about the cobbler's kids going barefoot - - and we decided it needed a refresh. What began 7 months ago has finally been finished, and KISS's new site was launched this week. It's still a work in progress, and we'll be touching it regularly now, but it is a major face lift that incorporates many new features, including a very dynamic header, lots of AJAX, an updated Portfolio section, and a Blog that feeds to multiple sections of the site, including three spots on the home page alone. As we say, we'll be doing a lot more work on it over time, but for now, we're pleased to have finished this part. We also expect to have our other new site, KISS Computing Ireland, launched this week. Our strategic partner in Dublin, Micheal O Donnabhain, has been after us to get it done, we're going to oblige him in the next day or so.