Qatar’s small and medium enterprises make products and deliver services that buyers worldwide want. The challenge is ensuring those buyers can find them, trust them, and choose them.

That was the focus as Born Creators Group delivered “Digital Marketing for Export Growth”, a workshop hosted by Qatar Development Bank (QDB) at SCALE7 Studio in Msheireb Downtown Doha.

Around 50 SME founders and leaders took part in the session. The session is part of QDB’s export development programme, which supports Qatar-based companies as they expand into international markets.

Sive Buckley, Managing Partner of Born Creators Group, led the workshop and travelled from Australia to deliver it. Liman Tabsh, Growth Officer for Qatar, presented part of the session.

The session treated digital marketing as an export engine rather than a set of channels. It walked participants through one connected path, from identifying the right market to turning online interest into international sales. Participants worked through four core areas:

• Market selection and prioritisation. Using data-led market sizing, demand signals and competitive benchmarking to build a market prioritisation matrix, so export investment targets the markets with the strongest addressable demand and product-market fit.
• Website localisation and international SEO. Moving beyond translation to full localisation and running market-specific keyword research and on-page optimisation so brands rank and convert where international buyers actually search, without compromising the brand.
• Cross-border content and transcreation. Navigating regulatory and platform requirements across markets, and transcreating messaging, creative and value propositions to fit each market’s cultural context and buyer personas.
• Performance measurement and attribution. Building a data-driven export marketing plan with clear KPIs, funnel tracking and multi-touch attribution, then optimising budgets against metrics such as CAC, ROAS and pipeline value.

The session was designed for interactions. Participants were given the opportunity to share the markets they are targeting and the obstacles they face, from building trust with overseas buyers to knowing where to start with a limited marketing budget.

“Businesses in Qatar have exceptional products and services, but international buyers make decisions online long before they ever pick up the phone. Export success today depends on being visible, relevant and trusted in each market you enter. It was a privilege to be in the room with such ambitious founders and to support QDB’s mission of taking Qatari businesses to the world.”
– Sive Buckley, Managing Partner, Born Creators Group

For QDB, the workshop is part of a wider commitment to strengthening Qatar’s private sector and growing its non-hydrocarbon exports. For Born Creators Group, it reflects what we do every day: helping ambitious brands grow beyond their home market through strategy, creativity and performance marketing.

Together, the two organisations gave Qatari SMEs frameworks and tools they can apply immediately to their own websites, content and campaigns. Many exporters already have a product that sells. What they need is a clear, measurable way to reach the right buyers abroad.

We extend our sincere thanks to Qatar Development Bank for yet another opportunity to partner, to SCALE7 for hosting us, and to every business owner who joined us and brought such energy to the room. We look forward to seeing your brands reach new markets.

To explore QDB’s upcoming export workshops, visit the Qatar Exports Workshop Calendar.