International Internet Marketing

In the past we’ve discussed localized marketing — how to market your site when you’re primarily concerned with reaching a local audience. But what if you’re trying to capture the ever-growing online global market? This takes a different kind of strategy and some different kinds of tactics. According to a recently release study by Jupiter, most marketers don’t craft integrated marketing plans to take multi-national brands across international markets. So let’s overview the basics and provide you with some international marketing resources.

Before you even begin trying to market your site to an international audience, you’d better be sure it’s set up to accommodate foreign visitors and buyers. Does your site offer variations in different languages or incorporate some kind of translation tool? Can your shopping cart bill overseas customers and are you able to ship overseas? Does your FAQs section address unique concerns and questions of international customers?

Understanding Your Audience

In order to successfully adapt your site to the international consumer, you’ll want to learn as much as possible about the people and culture to which you are marketing. Did you know that unlike in the U.S., many international users access the Internet wirelessly, and more Europeans use short messaging service (SMS) instead of email? For marketers this means the ability to adopt wireless technology and alter advertising creative. Did you also know that the Chinese government could be blocking as much as 10% all of web sites? What do you need to know not to have your site blocked?

Doing your homework properly might even reveal that you should NOT try to market your products or services to particular international audiences. After all, you don’t want to try to sell ice cubes to Eskimos.

Despite woes with the Chinese government, the Asia-Pacific region may provide the largest source of opportunity for international marketers. It is the world’s largest Internet market with over 180 million users anticipated by the end of 2002, ahead of both Europe (2nd largest) and North America.

A new site, TrendWatching.com, “scans the globe for the most promising economic, societal, behavioural and demographic trends” and publishes this information in a free monthly newsletter. A news aggregator like this can be helpful when conducting your market research.

Understanding Local Ad Trends

Knowing the local ad trends in the international markets you are targeting is also important. For example, ADTECH, the German- based company (not the trade show) notes in its Europe-wide study of banners in European online marketing that the traditional 468×60 banner ad is still the most popular format (about 60%) with another 9% of the ads being half banners (234×60). European banner developers, it seems, have been more focused on trying out new design formats within familiar banner sizes than trying out new banner dimensions. A Harris Poll survey backs up this reasoning — of 1,000 Internet users, half in the U.S. and half in Europe, more European users (34%) are afraid of trying new things on their PCs than U.S. users (24%).

To glean ad trends and cultural information, visit web sites for areas you’re interested in marketing to. For example, if you are interested in selling your products or services in Korea, you would find Hankooki.com, The Korea Times, quite interesting (you can view the site in English at http://times.hankooki.com). Speaking of English versions of foreign sites, if you need to translate a foreign site into English, Google has a language tool that will translate entire pages from German, Italian, Spanish, French or Portuguese into English. Nevertheless, it’s noteworthy to point out that while many foreign web sites have their own links to English versions, most English web sites do not offer a similar service…yet most international marketers will tell you it’s ALL about the language!

Go Where Your Audience Goes

If you plan to be found by international customers, best go where they’re looking, and that’s the same place U.S. users are looking — search engines and portals. Google offers more than 80 interface languages (for 36 countries) and Yahoo lists 24 countries from which to choose.

To list your site, your product or your service in country- specific search engines, try looking at Search Engine Colossis, International Directory of Search Engines. The Educational CyberPlayGround also has a list of country-specific search engines.

Forrester Research predicts that another interesting development in the international market will be the rise of multinational portals, which will make them a likely target for online advertisers.

What is the lesson learned here? Just because the world can access your web site from anywhere doesn’t mean that if you really want to sell to the world, all you have to do is “build it and they will come.” When it comes to international marketing on the ‘Net, it’s “Think Globally, Act Globally.”

Related Links & Additional Resources

• Localized Website Marketing
• Euromonitor International
• Marketing & International Business Links

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