The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 24: April/May 2016 | Page 21

EXPORT WEEK

EXPORTING IS GREAT WEEK
As part of Exporting is GREAT, the government's initiative to inspire and
support 100,000 additional exporters, UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) will
be hosting Exporting is GREAT week this April.
Previously called Export Week, the week will run from April 18-22 and will
see every region host a series of events, aimed at encouraging both new
and experienced exporters to explore fresh opportunities.
There is a vast range of events taking place
locally across the week including seminars
and workshops. For a full list visit:
www.exportweek.ukti.gov.uk
To celebrate export week and support
local businesses looking to export online
we met with Roger Jones founder of Bath
based Actionable Insight, specialists in
helping firms be more successful online
both in the UK and in export markets.
Roger understands that developing an
effective digital strategy is a combination of
asking intelligent questions, paying careful
attention to the answers and harnessing
the power of data to create new angles of
thinking. He then works closely with the
key people in the business to create the
‘Go-To-Market Plan’.
We asked Roger for his top tips.

Top tip No.1:
Export by city
McKinsey & Company published their
Global Cities of the future identifying the
top 600 cities forecast to be the urban
powerhouses by 2025.
We used this insight to develop a plan
with Bristol based Fleur of England (www.
fleurofengland.com), to export by city not
by country. Targeting by city makes it easier
to identify competitors, target audiences
and key opinion leaders.

Top tip No.2:
Understand your gives
and gets
Many businesses in the UK simply list the
products and services they provide.

We flip these into gets, articulating what
the customer is going to get as a direct
result of doing business.
This is hard to do in English but is
essential when dealing with International
customers browsing online using their
mobile devices.
Eat Sleep Doodle used this technique
when developing their products for a new
website and International roll out (www.
us.eatsleepdoodle.com),

Top tip No.3:
Use video, pictures and
words efficiently
Create interesting product, service and
news stories in video, picture and word
format that can be found by search
engines, watched or viewed on a mobile
device and shared via social media.
Snuggy Hoods (www.snuggyhoods.
com) use the creation of digitally efficient
content in their export of products to
Boston and Melbourne.

Top tip No. 4:
Integrate your search, social
media and content

mentions and the key opinion leaders so
you can engage efficiently on social media.
By creating your own stories, shared
from your website, that entertain or
educate you ensure your content is shared
organically, as opposed to having to pay for
distribution.
Professional start-up Secret Saviours
(www.secretsaviours.com), have used these
principles since launching in February 2015

Top tip No.5: The Killer Key
Performance Indicators
We report 4 metrics; cost per acquisition
of a new customer, average order value,
customer lifetime value and website
conversion percentage.
Cost Per Acquisition is the cost of labour,
production and media distribution divided
by the number of new customers acquired
in a time period.
Average Order Value is online revenue
divided by number of sales.
Customer Lifetime Value is the
cumulative value of a customer over time.

Finally, Conversion of your website traffic
of either qualified leads or sales.
When entering a new export market
we increase the Cost Per Acquisition up to
20% of Average Order Value for a 3-month
launch period, reduced thereafter.
Finally, be careful and confident, you are
a much better business than you would
imagine.
Download Actionable Insight’s free
8-step plan and write your Online Export
Business Plan. Visit: www.actio