by Wikus Engelbrecht
7. December 2009 21:44
Chinese businesses and enterprises play a major role on the African continent. Since signing the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1994, South Africa has become a player in the global trading system, and a series of trade reforms – including a tariff reduction and rationalisation programme – have been implemented. South Africa has since become a key trade investment partner to China, not least through a 20% stake in South Africa's Standard Bank for US$5.5-billion, bought in 2005.
But now a South African company started an enterprise in China - by reeling in a franchise partner in Bejing. While South Africa ranks 32 worldwide in the World Bank's Doing Business report (2009), China only ranks 86, but this does not deter the seasoned email marketing company. Nicholas Eckert (business development director at GraphicMail) states, ‘China is the world’s largest mobile communications market. China has a population of close to 1.4 billion, with 122 million broadband users as of June/2007, as per CNNIC. Additionally, 37 million rural users are bringing vast demand and real business opportunities. GraphicMail is accommodating this trend by enabling GraphicMail China to reliably deliver SMS and sound email marketing into China at a reasonable cost.’
Beijing NewEnlighten Business & Information Consulting Co., Ltd. is as excited about the opportunity as the owners of Quattro Internet Solutions t/a GraphicMail. The company is headed by director Wang Yongxin (Jason), who until recently was working for a Fortune 500 company in China. Says the former Shell project manager, ‘Email marketing is just getting started in this country. I want to use GraphicMail's technology to help the small and medium companies in China to build their own marketing group in a professional way. We have a lot of Spam emails and SMS/ mobile marketing here. But the kind of sophisticated email marketing that GraphicMail China is offering meets a market in its infancy here in the East. Can you imagine what we will get when it grows up? The challenge of bringing a new product into the biggest market in the world is extremely exciting and satisfying.’
About GraphicMail
Quattro Internet Solutions (Ltd) t/a GraphicMail’s hosted email marketing solution has been used by customers such as Motorola, SA Airlink, Gresham Records, Europcar and Harvard University since 2002. It is available in eight languages and is represented by over 16 offices globally.
GraphicMail offers a variety of email marketing solutions, from corporate to non-profit and small business editions, as well as over 100 free templates in 18 categories, designed to match all needs from an industry-campaign to seasonal flyers and promotional email newsletters. The GraphicMail solution has been designed to meet the needs of professionals, SMME or large companies, but also takes into consideration non-profit organizations by offering them a free service. GraphicMail unique reseller programme, optionally combined with the GraphicMail API, provides essentially a white label email-marketing platform that allows its resellers to sell value-added services to 2nd tier clients, while reports and statistics, technology and ISP relationships are provided by GraphicMail.com.
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