Going global - Part 1

byKeithM2576

280 followers

Updated 9 years ago

OK, so I have a website and it is a top level domain (.com) to make it look International (myvegetablegardeningtips.com). So far so good.

But I just can't get my head around this Going Global thing.

For instance, I am looking for affiliate programs and most of them appear to be US based (I am in Australia) and a few are in Europe or Asia. But they don't all deliver their products overseas, in fact one of the US ones don't deliver to a number of Southern states (what is this, some sort of prejudice)?

Anyway, I am trying to get my head around the fact that it doesn't matter where I am and where I write from but is all to do with my "target" market. Who are my customers? Where are they based? What are the products they want? How do I deliver the products to them?

As I said I am Australian based and my current website is about vegetable gardening. I don't make any apologies about the fact that the website is written from an Australian perspective (i.e. we are currently in Winter) and I absolutely refuse to talk about Fall, it is called Autumn in Australia and in most of the English speaking World. So although it is effectively an International site it does tend to be written from a local perspective.

So first of all who are my potential customers? Well to be honest, they are anyone with an interest in growing vegetables, either on a small scale in a back garden or on a balcony or on a larger scale with the idea of selling the product. I guess that most of my articles are aimed at the small scale vegetable gardener but of course it is easy to scale up a vegetable garden if you have the space.

So where are these customers? They could literally be anywhere in the world, however most of my posts will be about growing vegetables in a temperate climate as that is what I am used to and have knowledge of. No doubt a large percentage of these potential customers will be in the US mainly because the population is just so huge but also because the climate and conditions are similar as are our tastes and customs.

So what do these customers want? Well, I hope they want to learn about vegetable gardening. I am not by any means an expert, I have no formal training or qualifications, but I do have a lot of experience and believe I have something to offer them (I also think I write reasonably well). Along with this desire for knowledge I obviously hope that they want to buy products related to vegetable gardening as well (I mean, I do ultimately want to make money from this enterprise). And this is where I start to get confused (more on this later).

Lastly, how do I deliver the products to the customer? There are obviously various ways to do this depending on the products. The products could be e-books, books, seeds, tools and garden structures. And this is where it really gets interesting and where I really get confused!

So, Going Global? What does it mean to someone like me starting out on the road to Internet Marketing?

It means that my potential audience and hopefully customers is huge and could be anywhere in the World with access to an Internet connection (which is just about anywhere these days). That sounds great but it also means added complication in delivery of products or services. If I was just offering and information product (e.g. an e-book) this would not be an issue. However, I expect to be offering physical products from affiliates and these could range from books (postal service) to equipment (parcel services) and even seeds (which could involve International quarantine controls).

And this is where I go back to this Going Global idea which I am having trouble understanding!

OK, that's enough for now, I'm starting to get headache! I will continue this discussion in my next post.