International direct marketing on the internet: Do internet users form a global segment?

Abstract

Much of the international marketing literature has focused on issues relevant to large multinational corporations. Many of these results are not useful to direct marketers. The international marketing literature has also ignored the implications of information technology (IT) for international marketing practice. In this article, we suggest that IT can be used to identify a global segment to which goods and services can be marketed direct. We demonstrate that this global segment meets all criteria for an effective segment: accessible, measurable, substantial, differentiable, and actionable.