How to engage Asian consumers through email

"There are 25 countries in Asia Pacific, with a population of over 4.2 billion constituting 61% of the world's population," said Gillian Hamilton Rogers, Marketing and Advertising Consultant, Singapore, Metia. "This is a huge region of the world and so it's only natural that businesses should look here for new customers. It is an incredibly diverse region with different market maturities throughout, offering fantastic opportunity no matter what you are selling."

Gillian notes that email, especially, is pushing more opportunities for English-speaking businesses in the Asia-Pacific region. Both computers and mobile penetration are pushing more of these consumers into their online stores.

"Even relatively undeveloped economies like Vietnam or Cambodia still have a huge take-up of mobile phones. As an indication of the growth of mobile phones, research from Gartner revealed that of the $3.3 billion that will be spent globally on mobile ads this year, almost half (49.2 percent) of that will come from Asia, mainly from Japan and South Korea. By 2015 global mobile ad spend will sky-rocket to $20.6 billion, of which Asia's share will be one-third (33.6 percent)," said Hamilton Rogers. "This popularity of smartphones and tablets throughout Asia provides marketers with a very valuable channel to speak to consumers. Email marketing is a very popular medium in the region already, and the fact they can be read on mobile phones, on the go just makes them even more powerful for marketers."

More from Gillian and Metia tomorrow, including her top tips for engaging consumers around the globe.

Tags: email marketing, email messages, international marketing, Metia