• by Dianna Dilworth , July 2, 2014

Creating emails to be sent out across borders can be a challenges for marketers. On a panel discussion at the Email Insider Summit in Montreux, Switzerland today, Rachel Dennis, director of customer relationship management at Getty Images, stressed the importance of localizing templates for different regions.

"If you are trying to design and create for everyone across regions, then you will create something very bland and uncreative," she said. So her company works with the regional marketing departments in each location to keep design and copy that appeals to the local market. The company has created regional guides internally with a feedback loop in order to ensure that they deliver the right message to different local audiences.

Charles Allen, head of marketing at Arsenal Football Club, said that football marketing varies quite a bit between the UK and China. "If we did a one size fits all newsletter, then it would be dumbed down," he said. So the company grades content according to market segmentation and even creates region-specific content. For example, the fans in China are more interested the lifestyles of the players than fans in the UK. To connect with Chinese fans, the team participated in a dim sum cooking competition and documented the cook off in emails sent to consumers in China. While UK fans would be annoyed seeing players waste their time on cooking, the campaign went viral and had a large media pickup in China. "We are seeing real value in localizing content," says Allen.

Also on the panel, Ernst Muller, senior European email marketer at Dutch tulip vendor Bakker, pointed out that holidays can differ by country. For example, Mother's Day is not the same in every country, which is important for the flower seller to keep in mind when sending emails promoting this holiday.