Business-to-Business Internet Marketing, Fourth Edition - Lifecycle ...

The Age of the “e” 33
People who live in the target country, or at least have intimate knowledge
of that country, are the best sources of marketing information.
Global marketing can cause numerous problems for the U.S. b-to-b
marketer. In many cases, U.S. direct mail campaigns use colloquial expressions
and “American humor” that may not translate well into other
languages. Several languages, most notably German, take up considerably
more physical space than English, and mailing sizes, specifications,
and postage vary from country to country. The European size for mailing
packages, for example, is different from standard U.S. sizes. Advertising
specifications are publication specific, and, depending on the
publication, the primary language may not be English. Even English is
not English—at least in the rest of the world, which tends to use the
British conventions for spelling (e.g., colour, not color; organisation,
not organization) and grammar. Even the meanings of words can change.
The Internet generally makes global marketing less complicated, but
marketers with a sizable stake outside the United States should take
advantage of the medium’s ability to version messages for different prospects
based on where they reside—respecting their individuality and
catering to it. With that in mind, the Internet clearly has the potential to
escalate global marketing in a way no medium before it has done—
providing business marketers with a potential for worldwide business
they could previously only dream about.
The New Response Model: “Intersponding”
We have been talking about how the Internet transforms direct marketing
and drives the globalization of marketing. Now it is time to address
the most intriguing aspect of Internet direct marketing: how the Internet
will fundamentally change the way people interact with marketers and
respond to them.
The Nature of the Internet
It is important to put the Internet in the context of other direct marketing
media to discover whether or not it “looks and feels” the same—so
we know how suspects, prospects, and customers will react to it.