Blog

Ian is the founder and CEO of global search engine marketing agency Search Laboratory.

Joe Tarragano is the retail practice partner at the consulting firm Transform, which focuses on digital transformation and multichannel strategy, design and delivery.

If you’re doing any business in Asia, you can’t fail to be aware of Chinese New Year which is being celebrated on the 8th February.

Doing business in China is notoriously difficult and as a result, many western multi-nationals opt for a joint venture with a local Chinese company.

China is a notoriously risky place to do business but there have been changes over the last decade which make it more feasible to rely on written contracts.

Borrowing the credibility of a known marketplace is a good way to introduce your brand to a new audience.

In many places around the world it’s important to exchange pleasantries before getting down to business.

Some new and innovative ways that modern organisations are using to make this time count and stop meetings becoming an obstacle to productivity

The ability to acquire language may be an innate human skill – and one that’s fundamental to our entire civilisation.

To a US or European audience, Asian web design seems hugely crowded with images, text, distracting gif and Flash animations and a overwhelming mass of icons.

Taking a brand overseas offers marketing teams the chance to present it in a completely different way.

Viewed from abroad, many familiar UK brands appear unrecognisable to their domestic audience.

Learn how to use the hreflang tag - one simple line of code that Google and other search engines will use to index different language versions of your website.

Don’t be put off by the creepy sci-fi concept of programming your brain - neuro linguistic programming (NLP) can be a very valuable tool for global businesses.

Human universals offer a way of understanding that our experiences are in many ways shared irrespective of which society we belong to.

Markets are not homogeneous units. Populations vary according to demographic, cultural, social and economic factors and this will affect consumer behaviour.

Westerners in Japan often have culture shock. People arrive 15 minutes early to work, there aren’t litter bins and trains are silent. But what happens when Japanese people visit the West?

Digital natives are accustomed to online shopping, mobile phones and ubiquitous broadband; all of which impacts on their behaviour as consumers.

Online marketplaces can be a source for revenue for small businesses without their own websites or low marketing budgets but they’re not without their issues.

It’s thought that sharing a common language can increase bilateral trade by between 75% and 170%.