Don't
put all your eggs in one basket:
"The reason the entire country isn't on the
Internet is that tens of millions of Americans are too old, too
young, illiterate, or just plain stupid...
In a recent National Institute for Literacy study, 44 million 'Level
1' Americans couldn't 'fill out an application, read a food label,
or read a simple story to a child.' Another 45 million to 50 million
classified as Level 2 'lack[ed] a sufficient foundation of basic
skills to function successfully in our society.'...
Once-thriving companies --- and whole towns --- quietly went out
of business when the Interstate system passed them by. The same
will happen with businesses that lack Internet presence, or limp
along with pathetic ones that are thin and unusable...."
- exerpted from 'Divide Error' by Paul Somerson |
|
Getting
Local; from Target Marketing Magazine:
"Mailing in the local language and offering
payment in the local currency of your overseas target market
often will give you a good lift in response. Here's an example
of how 'going local' has benefited Agora, a Maryland-based multinational
publisher.
According to Stacy Berver, international publisher, Agora has
tested English language packages mailed to multinational lists
vs. localized mailings. 'The Australian and Canadian markets are
the two we've found where localized mailings give us the biggest
increase in response. We have a local call center in Australia
that processes all of our orders, and we charge in local currency.
When we tested this in an upfront promotion, we saw double the
response from going local.'
Agora has yet to see response to local renewals double, but it
has found a 'dramatic increase by continuing to renew and sell
products with a local response in local currency,' Berver reports."
My 2 cents: I've found it's best to get as local as possible
during direct response mailings. Even spelling a word like an
American would (such as "check" as opposed to "cheque") may well
rub a Canadian or Australian the wrong way, and we direct marketers
are in the business of doing the exact opposite. - jb
Target Marketing
Magazine
Targeting
the Customer Wanting Your Product or Service
"Optimism is a view of life or a state
of mind that customers bring to the marketplace at the start,
not an attitude formed as a result of being exposed to marketing.
Customers who begin with an optimistic attitude are more responsive,
so we should make an effort to identify and target those customers
and prospects."
- J. Walker Smith & Craig Wood of Yankelvich Inc. in Direct
Magazine, |
