As the Government launches its Exporting is GREAT campaign to encourage 100,000 new UK exporters into the market by 2020, our founder Julian Ranger explains why having access to a worldwide market has been great for digi.me
Physical exports have been a way of life for centuries – the trading of things that one country didn’t have with another one that did, but these days digital exports are growing in popularity and digi.me is in the vanguard.
Here at digi.me, our ground-breaking app is helping thousands of people take back control of their personal information – but why should that be restricted to the UK?
We have an international team and believe firmly that our product has merit around the world – and our current stats, which show we export both physically and digitally to over 150 countries, with our app content localised in 11 languages, bear this out.
Of course, shipping overseas in any form has its challenges, but we’ve had (and continue to have) a lot of support from UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) and are getting a lot of help from a European embassy overseas at the moment for an ambitious country-wide project we’re hoping to run there.
Clearly, there are some obvious ground rules to follow – you need to be clear on what your product or service brings to your target market, and what marks you out from your competitors. Do your research on what an individual country needs, and then go from there.
My previous experience of selling to the US Air Force and US Navy gave me confidence to know that anything is possible, and we started exporting with digi.me digitally immediately from set-up, with direct exports to France and the US following afterwards.
Now Toshiba has joined forces with us to distribute our market-leading personal data software across Europe, North and Latin America, which sees them partnering and promoting us through their marketing and social media channels, as well as pre-installing our app in a number of laptops and tablets in the Latin America marketplace. We’re also in our third year with the FNAC security pack in France, so are becoming well known over there as well.
As for our future exporting plans, we hope to be able to announce that European project soon, as well as open a US office, with US locals, to explore possibilities for digi.me there.
So our advice to anyone wavering about joining the international market would be to get out there and do it – you really won’t regret it.
*Exporting is GREAT will run for five years and provide advice and expertise to support businesses at every step of the way, from initial interest to market. This will include the year-long EIG Roadshow that will travel the length and breadth of the country, reinforcing the campaign’s core messages, giving face-to-face assistance to first-time exporters and using the latest technology to connect these businesses with live export opportunities. Online help will be available via www.exportingisgreat.gov.uk