Gaining ground in new markets like Russia requires local knowledge

19 February 2009

“Russia offers huge opportunities for Western organisations but presents some unique challenges”

How can companies effectively target emerging markets with cultures alien to most European marketers? Russia offers huge opportunities for Western organisations but presents some unique challenges, such as the difficulty of selling to consumers who don’t trust online payments.

This was just one of the insights given by Eugene Lomize of the Russian language search engine Yandex at WebCertain’s International Search Summit at the end of last year. It seems the legacy of the USSR is that Russian shoppers still don’t trust credit cards, preferring to pay cash on delivery. Another crucial tip related to attitudes to contextual advertising. Text ads have more impact than display or banner ads in the Russian market.

Marketers need this kind of first-hand experience to fully exploit the Russian potential — it’s one of the world’s fastest growing internet markets, with online usage increasing 27% a year. One of the most fundamental differences is the prominence of Yandex, with over 60% market share, compared with Google’s 25%. The engine’s success is due not only to the advantage of being the first but also to the fact it was developed in Russia and its algorithms were designed specifically for searches in the Cyrillic alphabet. As these account for 75% of all searches, having your website and paid search campaigns written in Russian is obviously essential to reaching the majority of users, let alone engaging with them.

This language issue will become even more important with the introduction of a Cyrillic domain this summer. Native speakers will be crucial for creating logical domain names that appeal to users. A local site is a must as Russians place a lot more trust in these.

Russia’s sheer scale makes targeting the entire country impossible. Instead, using a feature offered by both Yandex and Google to target specific regions or cities is a good way of testing campaigns and could reduce wastage and maximise ROI. Also, while Moscow is by far the largest city, it may not always be the most effective target. Many of Russia’s cities have populations of more than a million people, making them viable and profitable targets with much less competition for the same product or service, and therefore the same keywords.

Only 33% of Russians are weekly online users, meaning there’s huge potential for growth. With predictions of perhaps another 50% from Lomize, it’s an emerging market that warrants further understanding.

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