By Joaquim P. Menezes –
The explosive potential of Web 2.0 tools to build brand and boost revenues was brought powerfully to my attention during a conversation I had with my colleague at IT World Canada, Jorge Umana.
Jorge and I take the same GO bus, and during our ride to the office he told me how social networking over the Web is working wonders for his family-run business.
Jorge is originally from Costa Rica, where his family has been running a successful business producing and selling gourmet roasted coffee beans.
The family-run company – Fincas Tarrazu Café Sa – has been in operation for quite a while, but since the year 2001, it started selling online.
Today virtually all of its export business is conducted via the Web.
While its biggest overseas sales are to the U.S., it also has overseas customers in Canada, Europe, Taiwan, China and Chile.
Word of the company’s exceptional success in using the Internet to promote and sell gourmet coffee spread rapidly, so much so that last year, CNN (Spanish) and CNBC World Business covered their operations.
“The journalists sent me a copies of the DVD, and I put up segments on our main revenue site as well as on our company marketing sites – www.tarrazucafe.com and www.costaricatarrazu.com,” Jorge told me.
He said he used one of the free video editing tools available on Download.com to create the videos.
“I also uploaded the video on YouTube. The results exceeded my wildest expectations.”
Jorge noted that since they were posted on YouTube, last November, the two videos have together been viewed around 4,000 times.
This traffic has done more for the company’s online sales that perhaps any paid marketing campaigns could have accomplished.
Jorge said a few days ago Fincas Tarrazu Café closed a significant deal with a buyer in New York who had learned about the company’s operations from the YouTube video!
