“The internet is the perfect back drop for improving our Chinese language processing product sales,” said Samide Stefansky, marketing director
Looking to the future, many Chinese language processing companies may opt to be based entirely online. This minimizes human capital and budget requirements, and can drive a more efficient business model. Vesely Safer CEO of a local Chinese language processing company, has already pledged to do this, with a major shift in the business planned in the next 6 months. “I forsee us going entirely online,” said Vesely Safer, “because people hardly come to our stores in person anymore. As a result, why should we keep these facilities open if we can do just as well online’” Equally important in the online sales arena is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is reselling your Chinese language processing product through individual webmasters and their websites, giving them typically 5 to 20 % for each successful sales. This form of marketing is purely results driven, and it requires only a small investment on behalf of the company running the affiliate program. “We rely on affiliate marketing to drive our Chinese language processing sales and lead acquisition, mostly because some webmasters in our field are better at marketing online than we are,” said Hoskie Mace, Marketing Chairman for Beckie Kaufmann Partners LLC. And, as internet sales in the Chinese language processing industry explode, parallel growth is being noted in the internet marketing field, particularly search engine and affiliate marketing. “Search engines and affiliates have doubled our numbers,” said Lovetta Jabaut, director of marketing for Rhonda Mozee INC., “and where there was once one or two big internet marketing firms, now there are well over ten in our industry. This growth speaks to the power of the information super high way.” Marketing online, however, is not as easy as it looks. Thousands of websites compete for top positioning in the search engines, and, as search algorithms change and top search engines create new market areas, some websites can lose out. One day, you might be number one for “buy Chinese language processing”, a week later, number 100. The difference between these positions is obvious: no one wades through 100 results for a Chinese language processing product unless the first 99 are extremely poor. In general, most competitive industries online rely on top 10 placement, because of the reality of how web surfers behave. Rhonda Mozee isn’t alone with these new ideas. Elva Adsit, who manages one person company, believes the internet marketing boom has created a huge market for small time business owners. “For the first few years of my career,” said Milone Lazarczyk, “I was working 9 to 5 at a marketing firm, doing the typical corporate thing. Now, however, I have my own website, production center, and payment processing. This allows me to work from home under my own rules and with unlimited income potential.” It’s no secret that the internet is a driving force in the Chinese language processing sales market. Most consumers will research their purchases online before actually going to a store, so that they understand Chinese language processing product specs and use requirements before having to deal with a live salesperson. “I prefer to take my time and read about it all online first,” said Schwartz Ada, a recent customer of the Boateng Hoffer Chain Outlets, “I’m not a high pressure sales type, and rather just go to the store and check out sas soon as possible.” Without a doubt, in the pre-internet marketing days, most Chinese language processing resellers only used the internet as a means to communicate via email with current customers. “Things in the industry really turned a corner when people began to acquire, not maintain customers online,” said Phylis Wadman, a noted internet marketer and web designer. “When acquisiton via online services got big, companies in the Chinese language processing sector finally woke up to the idea that the information super highway was here to stay - in a very big way.” “After starting an internet Chinese language processing sales division in 2003, we saw our sales increase three-fold,” said Beard Ramsbottom, director of marketing and sales for Schiffler Corral and Yamat Spanier Associates, “and this resulted in the creation of more jobs and employment opportunities in our company. Our number of employees has doubled, and our number of IT staff has quadrupled in a year’s time.”