MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

When we asked for your 2010 Internet marketing predictions, you told us that local is going to be huge this year. And I wholeheartedly agree. I can’t wait for the day I can simply search for a product on one site and find the best price of an in-stock item at a small business or major chain store near me.

But in our fervor for the new opportunities cropping up at a micro level in our own hometown, let’s not overlook the macro possibilities. So today I’d like to take our focus off of local and discuss, well, the entire world.

After all, you are reading the MarketingExperiments Blog International Edition. Sounds fancy, and I loved seeing the International Edition of American publications when I was in Montréal (très chic!). But, of course, everything on the Internet is essentially an International Edition. After all, our readers include Stephanie from Canada, Meraj from Singapore, Inna from Germany, Gabriela from Argentina, and Gavin from the UK.

How well do you know your audience? For Americans at least, sometimes I worry we have a view of the world similar to Saul Steinberg’s famous cover for The New Yorker. But let’s not forget that this is the World Wide Web. Your customers are, or at least have the potential to come from, anywhere in the world.

So here are some thoughts to consider and ideas to test when appealing to an international audience: Read more…

In a fast-paced online community where customer loyalty can be sealed or shattered by an inaccurate landing page or a poorly worded email, “Habla espanol?” isn’t a simple question. It’s a direct challenge for marketers.

If you’re operating outside the U.S., Spanish is the first language of over 330 million people.

If you’re doing business in the U.S., Spanish-language optimization gives you the opportunity to reach the more than 40 million Hispanics in the United States (and at least 14 million of them are online). As this graph from Terra.com shows, internet surfing is one of the top information-gathering channels used by this growing population.

And those Spanish speakers who aren’t online? According to an AOL/Roper ASW study, they’ll be connected in the next two years.

It takes knowledge and finesse to grow strong customer relationships in this diverse, complex, and rapidly expanding market. Arturo Silva, MarketingExperiments analyst, suggests that the key to Spanish-language optimization is “creating a cultural context people can connect to.”

Join Arturo, analyst Ana Gabriela Diaz, and the rest of the MarketingExperiments team at 11:00 a.m. on March 25th for a special live optimization clinic focusing on Spanish-language landing pages. Whether you already have a Spanish-language initiative in the works or are preparing the ground to begin one, this clinic will help you move beyond the level of targeting and customer surveys to create pages that connect with this powerful audience.

Please take note of this clinic’s special time.