The Common Challenges That Email Marketers Face In The European Market

When it is the European market we are talking about, there are a few basic things to consider. First is its diversity in culture and language. Europe has large populations using English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch. While the political relations are good among countries, finding your niche audience in a market this vast can be a challenging task. 

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Add to that, the strict privacy policies of Europe, where spam is considered a criminal offense. What makes it more difficult to follow is that the local spam regulations in the European Union are largely different from one country to another, as per the EU E-Privacy Directive. The Directive gives a broad outline that the 28 member countries can modify and merge with their local law.

Why the GDPR is good news for marketers targeting Europe?

European Union’s new data protection law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), built to bring a more organized structure across the diverse privacy rules of different EU countries, is backed by law and will be enforceable by all EU states on May 2018. Yes, it brings a few changes that will impact the European technology industry or for that matter, most of the other industries. But marketers are mostly positive towards it, as it will mean one consistent set of laws to follow for the various EU countries.

As a whole, Europeans are even more skeptic of their personal information reaching the hands of marketers than U.S. citizens, which says a lot. While all of these 15 countries have yet not acted upon it, it is time to do so. As a marketer who targets the European market must comply with each country’s regulations regarding advertising practices and data protection. Local legal expertise and compliance with EU standards are both necessary, to practice online marketing healthily in the European market.

Simple tips to make your message more suited to the European audience

When establishing a communication with popular customer bases, like C-Level professionals master file, marketers who are used to the balanced gender market of the U.S., may well prepare in advance for a larger male audience. While building your email campaign, you must remember another crucial information. Costs of the internet are way higher in Europe than in the US, driving most people to access the internet from work. 

Reports also show a preference for local sites more than their American counterparts. So it may do you good to choose a domain name, as well as create a look and feel and choose your words for an audience that is as close to European culture as you can make it. 

In countries where spam is as grave as a criminal offense, marketers must file all such information with that country’s data protection organization. Some countries make it compulsory that marketers possess direct and clear confirmation from the user, before being able to send him/her any promotional message. It is absolutely necessary for marketers to maintain high data security to protect such consumer data while giving an individual full access to review what information of his is already with the marketer.

Marketers invest in instant email lists owing to the challenges of international transfer of data

While transferring data between two EU countries is comparatively easier, for a marketer who has collated business data like a technology users email list in any of the EU countries, taking it out of the European Union requires full disclosure of such a transfer to the government as well as the individual, while committing to maintain high data protection standards, when the data is taken elsewhere. Even when transferring to the EU countries, the data protection regulations of both the countries will still influence the individual data. 

In the US, such stringent rules are often categorized under best practices to follow. In Europe however, there are some violations of The Data Protection Directive or the individual country’s advertising laws and data protection, that can be treated as criminal offense and penalties can go as far as being imprisoned.

While it may seem like a turn off to comply with regulations that are both strict and not uniform, some basic legal knowledge can go a long way to help you successfully penetrate the vast, diverse and lucrative European market.

Written by: Agnes Tom for European Lists

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