Information

Export:
A SME (small & medium-sized enterprise) finds its way into the world market.  

11.11.2004

CASH ENTERPRISE

Export / Market entrance

Swiss small companies: World market, here we come!
SELLING: GOOGLE

<One moment>, Peter Ries says, <that I can exactly tell you.> Two, three clicks later its clear: In the last week 144 prospective customers visited the website www.p-ries.ch. Ries' company, a four-man enterprise in the Canton of Zurich, develops and manufactures industrial vacuum units. Customers could be manufacturers of grinding machines, members of the watch and clock making industry, and industrial food producers. Completely open Ries says:<Search engines, particularly Google, are my most important marketing tool.> He cooperates with a neighboring service provider, which ensures that via a constant multilingual key word management, his website emerges on the first page of all relevant search engines. Expenses per year: roughly 10,000 Swiss Francs. <For that amount I could not make any significant impact on other marketing or distribution channels.>, Ries says. On the internet however this strategy is proving to be very successful, due to over 200 weekly site visits, resulting regularly in approximately 10 inquiries, which Ries answers with an offer. In the times before the age of Google, when placing advertisements in technical literature was practically the only means for marketing, the learned machine mechanic was practically only selling regionally. Today he is exporting over 30 per cent of his industrial vacuum systems. His major market is Germany, but he is also selling more and more products to European and Asian countries. <Whoever looks for specialized industrial vacuum units and suction technology in this world, will find me>, Ries is pleased to state. Finally he says:<Many companies procure only via Internet.>