How to increase my UK customer base - advice needed

[PaulBappoo]

Hi,

I am a Brit, living overseas (I realise my surname doesn't sound like it but that's because my father was from elsewhere, I was born and bred in Essex). Currently I live in Vietnam and I have started a social enterprise where we employ people with physical disability to work as graphic designers, social marketers, web and software developers.

Our mission is to create employment in the disabled community in the developing world, since there is a huge need for some support here for people with disability.

We are doing ok with web sites and social marketing for local clients, but we would very much like to increase our reach to overseas clients, such as Australia, the UK, Europe and the USA.

I am aware that in some cases, outsourcing this IT type of work to developing countries does not always enjoy a brilliant reputation, so my question is, would you trust a business like ours to do this sort of work for you and if not, then what would we need to do to improve our chances of winning your business?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[ethical PR]

What does your marketing plan and strategy say about what sort of customers you want to target and how you go about instilling trust and confidence in potential customers?

Go back to the research you carried out when you identified there was a gap in the market for your business concept. Who did you indentify as your prime customers?

What routes to market have your established to reach them?

Do you have the skillset within your workers to work for international clients?

Do you have a track record of working for international brands?

Have you national social enterprise organisations (like in the UK) you can speak to in Vietnam who support this sector? What support does your government offer to help social enterprises grow?

By the way your website looks like you only do programming, rather wider marketing aspects such as graphic design, online marketing etc. Do make sure your website reflects your offer.

 

[rmmfree]

Yes, I would trust a business like yours. What the companies find is good results, and if you offer a great service it might be very useful for many people.

 

[Nochexman]

Our mission is to create employment in the disabled community in the developing world, since there is a huge need for some support here for people with disability.

This sounds like a branding question: What is the niche you are targeting? What does it need? How can you successfully position your brand to address that need?

 

[PaulBappoo]

What does your marketing plan and strategy say about what sort of customers you want to target and how you go about instilling trust and confidence in potential customers?

Go back to the research you carried out when you identified there was a gap in the market for your business concept. Who did you indentify as your prime customers?

What routes to market have your established to reach them?

Do you have the skillset within your workers to work for international clients?

Do you have a track record of working for international brands?

Have you national social enterprise organisations (like in the UK) you can speak to in Vietnam who support this sector? What support does your government offer to help social enterprises grow?

By the way your website looks like you only do programming, rather wider marketing aspects such as graphic design, online marketing etc. Do make sure your website reflects your offer.

Thanks for the feedback. I am currently researching the UK market and creating the marketing plan, hence this post. So far my feeling is that I will reach customers in the same way as I reach them in my domestic market, via social. When we set up over here, we didnt even have any customer profiles in mind, we just sort of fell into the business and figured it out as we went along. Now we have found that small businesses (1-100 employees) have been the main clients. We are offering low cost web and software dev, so that sort of makes sense.

The largest thing we did so far was a ticketing system for a Russian airline, so I feel confident with our ability to deliver internationally and some pretty complex stuff too.

Will certainly look into the national organisations thing and our web site.

 

[PaulBappoo]

This sounds like a branding question: What is the niche you are targeting? What does it need? How can you successfully position your brand to address that need?

As i'm working out the plan at the moment, I dont really have a niche in mind yet. We did think that organisations with an aspect of social responsibility to them already, such as charities or NGO's would be sympathetic, but they have been difficult to reach. Well, I say difficult to reach, I've sent a few Linked In requests and been ignored so far so it's not exactly conclusive. This forum is full of people who run businesses and many (if not all) of them will need web sites and some will need bespoke programming, so I am hoping to start my market research right here and find out what the people here feel they need and hopefully identify some common factors that will be something that we can serve well.

 

[aanyadsouza509]

I guess you should more concentrate on UK Local Business listing..!!

 

[PaulBappoo]

I guess you should more concentrate on UK Local Business listing..!!

I dont really know what you mean by that, can you elaborate please

 

[AllUpHere]

I really like the basic principle of what you are doing, and can see that it's a really easy service to market. However, making it up as you go along has done you no favours. Your website is horrible, and doesn't at all project the kind of image you need in order to be successful. I had a quick look at the web design page and it looks exactly like the site of someone who didn't know how to sell web design services 10 years ago.

This kind of enterprise is a marketers dream client as it literally sells itself if done well. However, you are going to need to up your game if you want to scale this. Charities and non- profits, need to be just as professional in their marketing strategies as other businesses types (if not more so).

 

[garyk]

I would agree with @AllUpHere certainly a noble cause you are promoting and for that I applaud you. But, to be credible your own site needs to look better and its painfully slow. Google Page insights reports an overall score of 46/100 with many site errors.

Now that maybe because of your physical server location, you might want to consider a European hosted server to drastically improve speed.

You also need a portfolio, if I'm looking for any kind of design work I need to see what has been done before to get a feel for the level of quality.

 

[ethical PR]

As i'm working out the plan at the moment, I dont really have a niche in mind yet. We did think that organisations with an aspect of social responsibility to them already, such as charities or NGO's would be sympathetic, but they have been difficult to reach. Well, I say difficult to reach, I've sent a few Linked In requests and been ignored so far so it's not exactly conclusive. This forum is full of people who run businesses and many (if not all) of them will need web sites and some will need bespoke programming, so I am hoping to start my market research right here and find out what the people here feel they need and hopefully identify some common factors that will be something that we can serve well.

This is exactly why you need a business and marketing plan. I come from a charity marketing and comms background and would never choose an agency to work with based on a linked in request - I get loads of spam emails through Linked In and just ignore or block.

You are right in that other not for profit and public sector bods are more likely to use a social enterprise or other charity IF the quality of the service is right.

You need a website and associated collateral that is just as professional as your competitors. I want to see a stand out portfolio full of creative campaigns and collateral and a tip top, well designed easy to navigate website that helps me understand the full range of what you offer.

To me equally important is how you project manage.

You also need to have a section on your website that clearly highlights how you are meeting your social objectives so people can be confident of your social enterprise values.

You will then be a in a position to identify which marketing activities and channels to invest in. Using social media alone just won't cut it.

 

[PaulBappoo]

Thanks very much for your valuable feedback guys, I will consider it carefully and make appropriate changes.