The Top 5 Ways To Internationalize Your Ecommerce Email Marketing
Just 10 years ago, running an ecommerce operation meant dealing with customers speaking the same language, with the same buying habits and the same customs. Shipping abroad was both expensive and difficult, so there was almost no reason to email international customers to even let them know what was for sale.
Now, with things like dropshipping, better communication, and fast online access to customs info, international markets are more than just a pie-in-the-sky, peripheral consideration. Major countries around the world have millions of consumers, making international email marketing a key component in most ecommerce plans.
China has a thirst for conspicuous consumption
China is but one example of the staggering progress made in just a blink of a marketing eye. As recently as in the late Seventies The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution relegated intellectuals, professors, and every form of entrepreneur to virtual slavery subjected to peasant mastery planting rice in paddies across China.
Today, China has turned into a mega-market where a population more than four times that of the United States has almost overnight developed a thirst for conspicuous consumption to degrees unimaginable even a decade ago. The rise of the Asian Tigers has seen nations such as war-ravaged Vietnam become a true economic force, and even the long xenophobically-isolated Myanmar (Burma) may be on the verge of becoming a Pacific powerhouse.
International markets are not an extension of American ones
These markets are irresistible to online ecommerce marketers but just because their populations now have access to wealth does not equate with their positive reaction to a simple extension of American email marketing strategies. In order to successfully integrate these new markets into your ecommerce approaches follow these top five ways to internationalizing your email marketing:
Take stock & take your time – As much as you would like to, you’re not about to seize major market share in international markets by this weekend. Before launching any international email campaign, carefully study the current lay of the land, determine what your competitors are doing to justify their market share, and come up with an approach that is reasonable in both implementation and expectation to start making inroads… slowly!
Learn the language– Yes, many of your potential international customers understand English to some degree, but that does not equate to limiting your ecommerce email marketing strategy to that single language. Your prospects around the world will react more positively to your approaches if they are properly couched in their native language. This verbal localization requires experienced translators: the free online sites generally produce very low grade translations.
Embrace the culture– Cultural prerequisites drive much of international ecommerce so immerse yourself in the preferences of your target nation and craft your email content to suit the habits and requirements of your local customers.
Yen & Yuan – The US Dollar is no longer the world’s currency so internationalized ecommerce checkouts must be equipped to accept all the major currencies. You don’t need to go as far as localizing to the Bhutanese Ngultrum, but you should offer at least the Yuan, Yen, Euro, and Rupee; and inform your subscribers of this consideration!
Resolve logistic conundrums – If you think shipping to Papua New Guinea is a pain wait until you want to process a return! Don’t expect that you can serve the world out of your Iowa warehouse as you may need to localize entire logistic segments to particular regions, another factor to spell out in your emails!
The horizon to boundless growth in your ecommerce efforts has clearly shifted beyond the boundaries of the United States. The wise ecommerce marketer meticulously scrutinizes these markets and puts into place comprehensive plans to conquer these brave new worlds!
0 Comments
Connect with us