The Pitfalls of International Marketing

www.wrm-media.com

There are many intricacies within international digital marketing, which often encourages marketing companies to remain within the safety net of their own national perimeters.

However, these are exciting times for international email marketing. It has fast become the quickest, most cost-effective way of communicating with consumers. Ideal for expanding internationally, the digital avenue provides the opportunity to reach consumers all over the world, instantly. It has the best global penetration of all direct marketing services but the pitfalls can seem endless if you don’t have a good understanding of international email marketing from the outset.

Companies such as StrongMail, CheetahMail and Datran Media are all US email vendors that have expanded globally, so going global makes sense for the email marketing specialists targeting their consumers. But where do you start if you have yet to dip your toe into international waters?

Communicating internationally involves much more than simply gaining access to email addresses abroad, as so many companies fail to recognise. As the number of different targeted demographics you need to tailor towards suddenly soars, the time zones you work in clash and the behavioural and cultural expectations of your consumers differ, it’s easy to see why some marketing companies fall into the trap of sending international email campaigns using the same strategies as their own national campaigns. 

However, international expansion will be detrimental to the survival of data owners and direct marketers, which means a consideration of the different nuances across geographic location is vital.

The first difficulty in international email marketing is the difference in time zones. This can make a huge difference to the success of campaigns, as emails received at the start of the day are proved to benefit from a much better open and click rate. Not only this, but consider the difficulties encountered by seasonal campaigns when you send out an international email about bikinis – it might be summer in the US but with winter in Australia, your campaign suddenly loses all relevance.

Another, more dangerous issue is that of legislation. Many countries vary in their laws on email marketing, and an awareness of these differences is vital in maintaining good international relations. Laws on privacy regulations and use of personal details vary significantly depending on the country and you could find yourself on the wrong side of the law if you don’t take the time to investigate these differences.

Collecting data in countries that are yet to take full advantage of email marketing will enable you to build brand awareness in a developing industry. Sooner rather than later is the adage here.

For any growing database marketing business, international communication is crucial for sustained success, however, there are several pitfalls to consider before embarking on a global marketing operation. By researching individual country legislation and preference, organisations set themselves up for successful ongoing international communication in the future.

Message from Santa Claus

http://www.wrm-media.com

WRM-Media have launched an email campaign this week advertising their latest venture; a website set up especially for Christmas offering personalised letters from Father Christmas.

www.message-from-santa-claus.com offers consumers the chance to make their child’s Christmas. By inputting details about the child, a letter can be sent out addressed to them, including personal details individual to each child, such as their hobbies and friends.

Letters are customisable, feature an authentic looking postmark from the North Pole and are guaranteed to be delivered in time for Christmas, depending on order deadlines. There are offers available for multiple orders and we are also offering commission to affiliates looking to market the website and its products.
If this is of interest to you, please get in touch with WRM-Media: 01924 229 200.

Adapting To Suit The Priority Inbox

www.wrm-media.com

Hotmail has advanced its filtering techniques for email marketing recently but Gmail has upped its game with the new Priority Inbox. ESP’s user behaviour will now affect email campaign deliverability.

Emails will now be sorted in to three categories: ‘Priority’, ‘Starred’ and ‘Everything Else’. The content of email campaigns, the sender reputation and how recipients respond to previous email marketing messages from you, will all affect where your email campaign will be directed.

Consumers will be able to specify the kind of email marketing material they want to receive in their Priority Inbox as well as ‘starring’ emails to mark them as important.

This change to ESP layouts will undoubtedly affect the results of email marketing campaigns; therefore the importance of making your email campaigns relevant and targeting your email data will increase even further. Making email campaigns individual is more likely to ensure that they are delivered as priority messages.
The importance of adhering to best practice is now of more importance than ever; non responsive email addresses that are regularly targeted will result in you being marked as spam.

In terms of your creative, it is a good idea to have a text/image ratio that adheres to best practice, as this also enables you to include keywords. You should also consider how the email preview looks as well as the opened email campaign.

Being whitelisted with ESP’s will be crucial for good delivery. If subscribers add your sender address to their address book this also means that your email marketing will not be redirected so inviting them to do this will be beneficial for you.

The increased importance on relevancy means there is a necessity to listen to consumers and target them with appropriate email marketing material. This will enable the new priority inbox to have less of an effect.

Relevant Email Campaigns

www.wrm-media.com

Relevancy is paramount to email marketing campaigns. Without it, customers are much more likely to unsubscribe or make a complaint as the messages they receive are not relevant to them. 

Marketing companies often make the mistake of assuming that because consumers were once interested, they will always be interested. The habit of changing preferences is a common one and can result in complaints if they are not monitored. 

Monitoring what emails consumers do click through on can enable you to build an understanding of what their preferences are and therefore send them only email campaigns relevant to them. Information collected at the data gathering stage can also help to establish what consumer preferences are, if information beyond name and email address is available. 

Every interaction with your marketing company should be as relevant as you can make it. If it is possible to get further information on your data, this can help make email campaigns relevant for each customer. 

When consumers give you personal data, they expect that any marketing material they receive subsequently will be better targeted, so they only receive messages that are of interest to them. Both sending email campaigns that are not targeted and sending to consumers that have subscribed previously, assuming they still want to receive material, can have a negative effect on ROI. 

ISPs have now started to consider campaign engagement with consumers as a measure for sender reputation. So, the less engagement is had, the more likely it is that your reputation will decrease.

£336million email marketing industry

www.wrm-media.com

Research in to the email marketing sector by Econsultancy has found the industry to be worth £336million; a 15% increase compared to last year.

Reasons for this include how cost-effective email marketing is, in addition to the fact that it is much easier to measure the success of email over other advertising types.

Econsultancy found that social media had not detracted from email marketing campaigns; on the contrary, their research suggests that the two forms of media can be used in conjunction with one another to create a more successful media strategy. They have explained that the use of both email marketing and social media can build more significant customer relations as opposed to a one-way relationship intent on a return.

The company also found an increase in email marketing digital spend in 2010 compared to 2009. An increase from 14% to 17% suggests increased trust and reliance on email marketing campaigns. In addition, around 51% of marketing companies spend over £10,000 on email marketing strategies.

The BBC recently reported on research commissioned by Google which said that the internet contributes £100 billion to the British economy, working out as 7.2% of the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP).