Donald DePalma the utmost authority on international marketing once said, “the sun never sets on the internet.” Global marketers know that their charge is to engage their buyers where they reside, in the language they speak, and abiding by the local opt-in laws. After all, if your product or service can be delivered anywhere the web reaches, then your customer base is just as global.
When I worked at Synthio as the Chief Sales Officer – we had a phrase of meeting people where the are. That saying holds true more so for global marketers. From looking at our own database, there are more C-level decision makers outside of the United States than there are inside the United States. Expanding your reach abroad not only provides your business with more potential customers, it also opens up the calendar. As example, Europeans and North Americans often take long breaks from June until August. That is not the case for countries south of the equator. Also, many countries in North America and Europe take a log winter break for Christmas and the New Year where many countries in Asia do not.
Effective global marketers also understand that communicating with customers in their own language gets results. The term “gerente” means manager and director in Spanish. If someone is describing themselves in these terms on the social media pages then that is the language the prefer to speak. There are over 200,000 people with these terms in title in Mexico and South America in our database. The opposite is also the case – if someone refers to themselves as a Manager or Director on LinkedIn, then you can feel comfortable communicating with them in English.
Lastly, the world of global marketing has become very tricky when it comes to abiding by global opt-in laws. Europe and Canada require a company to gain consent before they can e-mail a person. California residents also will have this protection starting in 2020. The key to understanding who is covered by these laws is to know where the reside. RampedUp provides country and state of residence so a global marketer can feel confident they are not subjecting their company to the risks of high fines.