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How to organize pr for an it company in international markets

Author: Manusha Liubawa
by Manusha Liubawa
Posted: Jan 15, 2021

Almost every IT company strives to enter international markets. To get the first results from working abroad, you have to go a long way. PR plays one of the key roles here, because it is with its help that potential clients and partners learn about who you are, what you offer, what mission and values??you preach.

Reade set Go!

Before deciding on such a difficult step, you must ask yourself three questions: when, how and where will you enter foreign markets? After that, you need to study the market. There is nothing new in this - you are conducting research and working out hypotheses that will need to be tested in the future.

The research can be carried out independently, but the idea of??the market may turn out to be distorted due to inaccurate information. You can turn to experts, but not every agency will be able to provide accurate data, because they often use the same methods as you do when you search for yourself. The ideal option would be an agency that works directly with specialists in the market you need.

Local partners have more experience, understand the cultural and linguistic nuances of the market. They will help you enter the market with the least risk. for example, thanks to our cooperation with the international network GlobalCom PR Network, we have access to local agencies in Europe, Asia, North and Latin America.

The next problem on your way can be company perception. Foreign players do not know you and will not trust a company about which nothing is known. This is exactly what hypotheses are needed to better build your plan for working in a new market.

Alexey Lapirov, Sales Manager at Tech Global (Rosinfokominvest), recommends testing hypotheses with the following questions:

  • What sets you apart from the competition?
  • Is the client already solving this problem? How?
  • Who is already selling to the client? Why?
  • Is there a place for you in the market?

After that, you can start localizing the company: you need to adapt everything to other countries and work with all the information, graphics and keys, taking into account language differences, cultural characteristics and the mentality of potential customers and partners.

At the final stage, a budget is calculated for the selected market, a sales plan is drawn up, responsibilities are assigned and communication tools for promotion are determined.

Why do I need PR if I have a good product?

Despite the fact that PR is often perceived as an optional part of business expenses, it plays an important role in delivering key information about the company to target audiences.

PR solves the problems of establishing contacts with external stakeholders, providing information support to the organization's activities in foreign markets and positioning the company as respecting local customs and traditions. Secondly, he forms the image, taking on all the work on the perception of your company, including the information field that surrounds it. This includes anti-crisis measures when it is necessary to protect or correct a shaken reputation.

Also, consider anti-crisis measures in your strategy. Their goal will be to maintain and promptly correct the image of a company or person, adapt to changing market conditions, neutralize the negative consequences of a crisis or scandal, and restore business reputation. What is important to do when incorporating anti-crisis measures into a communication strategy:

  • Identify all possible scenarios
  • Develop anti-crisis programs
  • Determine the first actions of the company in the event of a crisis.

However, before all these steps, Yulia Poslavskaya, Marketing and Communications Director of Nexign, recommends first answering 2 questions: when do we plan to get results from PR? And what investments are we ready to make for this?

First steps when working on international PR

From our experience, we can say that there is no secret of international PR in the IT field. It is necessary to develop a description of the business and its products, unique characteristics, goals of the company, its positioning in the selected market. Only after working through these basics can you choose which channels will be used and calculate the budgets.

After getting to know the market, we determine which segment the company belongs to, select specialized media, get to know them and then follow the standard scheme for the development of public relations:

  • Development of positioning and tactical communication plan: a must have when entering new markets. Without this, your potential customers simply will not understand who you are or, even worse, they will not know about your existence.
  • Development and preparation of press materials
  • Adaptation of press materials for the local market
  • Generation of news feeds and initiation of news in the media
  • Sending samples for reviews in the industry media (with product PR):
  • Media monitoring
  • Collection of the results of the communication campaign.

"There is no one recipe for all countries in Europe or Southeast Asia. Each country is unique, has its own mental characteristics, its own specifics of doing business. For example, in Saudi Arabia, decisions are not made quickly and taking into account the holidays, including religious ones. There is a period of time when activity dies down. We take this into account and work with partners already taking these aspects into account, "said Pavel Stepanov, Deputy General Director of Geoscan.

Attracting large investments, a major deal with the participation of your company, entering into a partnership with one of the key market players, current market analytics or conducted research, launching a new product on the market, and cases applicable to other companies can be excellent news feeds for the media in any country in the world.

For effective work, you will need to communicate with media representatives, look for informational reasons, hold meetings, respond to inquiries, give comments, show the company to journalists, possibly even online. My colleagues and I practiced the latter very often during the pandemic.

When working with the media, you don't have to chase the top publications like the Wall Street Journal or Forbes right away. To get started, go to the niche publications your customers read.

Trends in the promotion of IT products in international markets

During our work on the promotion of international IT projects, we have identified the most effective PR technologies:

  • Distribution of samples and test drives of products for the release of reviews of specialized IT media
  • Conducting your own research
  • Native special projects and gamification of special projects in specialized media
  • Participation and creation of your own events (webinars, offline seminars, press tours)
  • Digital tools: bloggers and social media seeding to expand the reach of a PR campaign
  • Integration of top officials into profile podcasts and other Internet projects
  • Sending press releases with company news (classic PR)
  • Press tours to the company
  • Working with comments (proactive and reactive).

"All major industry representatives attend events, which allows us to visit their stands, show our stand, exchange business cards and other materials to follow up after the event. Newsletters also help you get a certain number of leads. For example, we use a mailing list at an MWC (Mobile World Congress) event. We are also looking for local partners or resellers who know the market well. We keep our pages on social networks up to date. And we are looking for leads on LinkedIn, " Igor Filatov, Cloudike.com product director, shared his experience.

Tools in action

We are showing two cases that we have implemented together with foreign colleagues for large international IT companies.

Research against cyber threat

Our colleagues from the GlobalCom PR Network in the UK worked with CDNetwork's specializing in video acceleration, DDoS protection, cloud storage. The main goal of the campaign was to create a PR activity around the lack of DDoS preparedness that would attract the attention of IT professionals and security decision-makers throughout the UK and DACH regions (the three largest German-speaking countries can be denoted by the acronym DACH (dax) from D (Germany, Deutschland), A (Austria) and CH (Switzerland).

A successful solution was the research "Businesses are dangerously overconfident in their DDoS mitigation", which tells about the neglect and underestimation of cybercrimes by large companies through DDoS attacks. The main results of the study were sent to the target media, a total of 13 press releases were issued, active contacts were established with local journalists, several native articles were posted, as a result, the company received 98 leads in the German market (Germany, Switzerland, Austria).

Theater and Book for a Safe Internet

Our other partner, an agency from sunny Italy, worked with KasperskyLab. The goal of the campaign was to draw the attention of parents and children aged 6 to 10 to the issue of cybersecurity. It is based on a children's book, which the company specially ordered from the Dutch author Marlies Slegers.

PR specialists from Italy decided to make a creative move by turning the book into a theatrical play. The premiere took place on the stage of a theater in the center of Milan in partnership with the Giffoni film festival for children and adolescents to reach a wider audience. The media and representatives of the public were invited to it. The main spectators were, of course, children, including the children of journalists. This became the key event of the campaign.

The production told the story of a magical green bear who helps a 10-year-old boy Kasper and his friend Sky to master the most important safety rules in the online world, to understand how to behave on the Internet. The book's plot, adapted for the scene, also aimed to encourage the youngest netizens to be open with their parents and teachers, rather than being silent if threatened or bullied on the internet.

At the festival, journalists were looking for young talents in order to make them heroes of their articles and stories. Our Italian colleagues came up with such a move: the child prodigy Flavia Riza entered the working group on the digital application. This fact attracted journalists, and they talked about it in their stories on national TV channels, mentioning the project.

As part of the information campaign, parent bloggers were provided with a KUMA Safe Kit, which included: a book, a teddy bear, a presentation letter, a Christmas calendar with educational recommendations on safe Internet use and branded sweets. Next, the hashtag #alsicuroconKuma (#SafeWithKuma) was used, according to which bloggers and opinion leaders discussed this campaign, shared safety recommendations on social networks and blogs.

It was the first PR campaign in Italy to target primary school students. Most cybersecurity projects target older children. It is always difficult to talk about this topic with young children, but the agency has managed to find effective solutions to this problem. Through a small group of children who participated in the production and development of the application, it was possible to establish contact with thousands of children, speaking the same language with them.

The information was presented in an easy, playful way, so the effect of the training was high. As a result, 260 publications were published in the media, and the educational project was included in the curricula of primary schools in Italy.

Finally

Before deciding to expand your presence, think about whether you understand the market well enough, and if not, can you find those who understand? The article was prepared for the authors of the service buying a research paper https://essaywriterhelp.com/buy-college-research-paper/

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Author: Manusha Liubawa

Manusha Liubawa

Member since: Jan 09, 2021
Published articles: 4

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