This summer B2B Marketing welcomes you on a guided tour of Europe to reveal how marketing differs across the continent. Tour guide: Jessica McGreal
Discussion around Europe continues to dominate headlines. The May elections revealed that it is not only the UK, but citizens across the continent that are sick of Brussels, with Euro sceptic MEPs being voted into parliament from both the left and right. However, despite disillusion with the European Union, the member states are slowly coming out of recession and now present great opportunities for B2B brands. Depending on product or service, all of the 28 nations that make up the EU offer potential to marketers ready for a European adventure.
“Europe is a fragmented market, but it’s showing signs of growth with marketing budgets predicted to rise by six per cent this year,” says Judith Niederschlep, general manager at Harte Hanks Market Intelligence Europe. “At the forefront is Germany, which represents 30 per cent of Eurozone output. Italy, Spain and France are also gaining strength.”
But, it’s not only these well-known four that hold potential for B2B brands. Founder and CEO of creative agency Omobono, Ben Danise, explains: “Switzerland [holds great potential for us] for a host of reasons – tax, location, corporate headquarters cluster, let’s face it, a frankly better quality of life. All that means a huge number of very large corporates are based there. It means you’re reaching the most senior people.”
Continental campaigns
However, in order to penetrate any of these markets, practitioners need to move away from creating a pan-European strategy and focus on the target audience within each country. It would be an error to see these countries as a large ‘European state’. There are vast cultural, economic and social differences; what works in France, doesn’t necessarily succeed next door in Belgium. Stuart Giddings, global MD of Carat Enterprise, emphasises: “The final plan and implementation depends entirely on the audience, country weighting and vertical industry focus.”
This ultimately means localisation. Having people on the ground is vital to the success of any marketing campaign and is a must rather than an option. This goes beyond using a trusted translation company that ensures your messages, rather than just words, cross borders. In order to build engagement in the majority of nations your brand will have to tell local stories that are relevant to the prospects you are communicating with. An English-first strategy will get you nowhere.
Laura Tallet, B2B and corporate group account manager at Bray Leino, reinforces this: “Creating a central toolkit and ‘campaign in a box’ approach is the most effective starting point for any regional programme, providing a clear overview of strategy, key messages and tactics. This needs to be supported by clear processes such as the management of spokespeople, content localisations and translation, and tracking outputs. However, the key to success is the tailoring of this activity for each specific country.”
However, Dominic Trigg, SVP & MD Europe of Rocket Fuel, disagrees: “For us it is not about which techniques work best. It’s about finding the audience that works best for the advertisement and delivering it at the best time and in the right context.”
Creating a European content campaign without putting in any preliminary groundwork allowing you to understand the techniques that work in each area is a risky option. Tailoring content to each specific nation is essential. But this can easily become a daunting task if you are unable to commission your own research in each region. The internet is awash with information on inbound, social and telemarketing, yet lacks clear information for UK marketers wanting to extend their reach to Europe. So, we’re here to tackle this problem and offer you a guided tour of the biggest B2B markets in the continent:
European tour
Before setting off, it’s essential marketers understand each country’s privacy laws. Despite the European Parliament showing overwhelming support for new EU data protection legislation – amplified by Google’s recent court case and the implementation of the ‘right to be forgotten’ – these are not set to come into play until at least 2016. At the moment, understanding each nation’s laws is essential.
Germany
First stop on this tour is the continent’s largest economy, known as the ‘engine of Europe’ because of its resilience and strength throughout the recession. Germany offers B2B brands a broad range of opportunities from large corporates to the significant Mittelstand (medium-sized business) market.
Germany has a high internet penetration rate, yet people are unlikely to interact with brands on social. EMarketer reported that only 55.6 per cent of the country’s internet users actively used social networks last year, with regional social networks, such as XING, trumping Twitter.
Germans are also conservative when it comes to technology; DM linking back to thought leadership is more effective than infographics, and eBooks tend to outperform webinars.
Similarly traditional outdoor advertising remains a key staple in Germany. Robert Gorby, marketing director at Powwownow, points out: “Outdoor advertising remains a relatively stable part of the mix in Germany, but as German buyers are not centralised as much, outdoor campaigns typically only pay off for local shops or large national brands that can muscle extensive coverage.”
In addition, Germany has very strict data privacy laws where individuals have to clearly opt-in to receive communications. However, if brands can get prospects to opt-in they enter a less competitive email market. Harte Hanks has seen great results from its German email campaigns. Niederschlep says: “Digital spend is growing quickly with email marketing forming a key part of this. Analysis of our managed email programmes for clients shows that currently, Germany leads in terms of email marketing effectiveness, boasting higher email open and click-through rates than other European countries.”
Some industry experts have found Germans are more open to giving their data away to receive freebies. Perhaps this is something marketers could use to their benefit. As data protection laws are currently much stricter in Germany, it might be possible to gather prospect data by using giveaways as an incentive.
France
Our closest neighbour is one of the leading industrialised nations. There are more Fortune Global 500 companies headquartered in Paris than London, Beijing and New York and it has the highest number of millionaires in Europe – you’d be crazy not to hop on the Eurostar from Kings Cross.
When stepping off the train your first consideration should be French buying cycles, which differ from the standard British journey. In France they include a longer consideration time, resulting in a different customer journey. This means building relationships are key to the success of any B2B sale. As a result face-to-face events, such as breakfast briefings and networking meetings to discuss industry issues, are very effective in France.
To make this work brands need to be local. Karyn Bright, group marketing director of GBGroup, highlights the importance of localisation in France: “Previous experience of marketing to French businesses required a real focus on creating a local presence in the regions – it was very important that clients felt supported and understood by someone locally and there was a resistance to messages and campaigns that appeared too corporate.”
Spain and Italy
Similar to France, Italian and Spanish business marketing is focused on building relationships with brands. Maria Burpee, freelance consultant, explains: “Southern Europe is extremely relationship-based, which means face-to-face is often more valuable than online. That also means case studies, testimonials and references carry more importance than in other countries.”
However, compared with the rest of the EU, internet users in Italy and Spain are more likely to interact with brands on social networks. Forty-three per cent of Italian internet users and 50 per cent of Spainish said they regularly checked brands’ social channels, according to a study conducted by Ipsos OTX and Ipsos Global @dvisor.
Meanwhile, Spain saw a 70 per cent increase in smartphone users in 2013 alone, making mobile marketing increasingly important there.
Scandinavia
Travelling further afield can still reap benefits for B2B brands. Scandinavia holds great potential for UK brands with citizens fond of buying online. With internet adoption rates in these countries in excess of 90 per cent, more than 50 per cent of Scandinavian purchases are made on foreign sites.
Steve Jack, VP of field marketing at Sitecore, highlights the benefits of marketing in this region: “In many of the Northern European markets English language products, manuals and websites used in B2B selling are much more acceptable than the Southern and Eastern European markets.” This allows marketers to cut out the middle man and talk directly to potential customers in English.
Country connections
However, it’s not all about differences, and some marketing channels see an overwhelmingly positive response across the board. For example, SEO is essential when it comes to search marketing whatever nation you are targeting, but preferred search engines may differ from country to country. Plus, case studies and customer success stories (as long as they are local) remain popular throughout most markets.
Richard Fogg, MD of the CCgroup, explains: “I’ve just returned from a GlobalCom meeting of more than 40 independent international PR and marketing agencies. About a third of us were European. It’s the first time in my 15 year career I’ve been amazed at how similar we are doing things. It was staggering to hear agency principals from Western, Central, Eastern, Southern and Northern Europe talk about the same challenges, opportunities, strategies and tactics in contemporary marketing.”
Our European road trip has made it clear that despite scepticism towards the EU project, countries are growing closer together. However, B2B marketing teams need to be aware of the differences between each nation and implement individual marketing strategies to each market in order to succeed.
