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How they did it: Brandtone

Headquartered on Dublin's Pearse St, Brandtone has 120 employees, with 70 employed in Ireland, and has worked with over 60 brands across the globe across sectors including healthcare, agriculture and consumer goods.

The mobile marketing company uses the concept of ‘sustainable values-driven engagement’ to help brands build one-to-one relationships with consumers at scale. Each engagement is based on trust, permission and value exchange; where the consumer initiates the interaction, receives a meaningful reward and is asked for their permission to be re-engaged in the future. As a result of these campaigns, Brandtone has built up a permissioned database of millions of profiled consumers in developing and emerging markets.

Since its inception in 2010, the company has grown its presence across the globe and now operates in 12 markets, including; South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Colombia, Brazil, India, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.This year the company was listed as one of Ireland's Best Workplaces 2016.

Brandtone_CEO_largeEnterprise Ireland gave Brandtone an initial investment needed to help start the company back in 2010 and "were very supportive helping with specific markets and encouraging of the notion of building an export company,"  says CEO Donald Fitzmaurice. 

While the company had a great deal of expertise and experience in working in developing markets, they found Enterprise Ireland a big help with markets they had never worked in before, for example in South Africa. 

For Brandtone, the benefit of Enterprise Ireland's local market offices is that they help businesses make connections and build relationships on the ground. "They take an interest in our business and make sure we get introductions to establish our local Brandtone entity which gives us credibility in eyes of the local administration, government agencies, and that really helps us. Going in as small Irish company with a small presence in a big country like Indonesia can be very daunting," says Donald. 

Asked about the decision to start exporting, Donald says, "There are certain types of business in Ireland, that if you want to grow, you have to look to the outside world to markets that have huge numbers of consumers. If you’re building a services company and you want a large market, the simple fact is that there is no market in Ireland." 

What advice would Donald give to companies considering exporting? In a nutshell, consider emerging markets. 

"A lot of Irish companies look to the UK and US as markets for them to achieve growth. This makes perfect sense for some products and services. If the money offering is there they should also give significant consideration to the massively developing markets in India, China, South East Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. These markets are generally growing quite quickly and developing very quickly and may have issues at one time or another but are the future of the global economy.

The second piece of advice is to be present in markets you want to expand to. 

"People would never think of trying to sell their product to someone in the UK on the phone but with a country like Indonesia they think they can do just that. You have to go there, be present, build your relationships, show that you’re serious, and understand how the market works and then you can start to develop your business. It's no different than London, Boston, Berlin, and there are really huge opportunities for certain types of business there," says Donald.

For more information

Find out more about Brandtone.

Check out Enterprise Ireland's website for more information on supports for companies considering exporting.