A third of marketers back the Brexit but more than half have never even heard of the digital single market
With the Brexit question imminently set to rear its head, marketers are split on whether the UK should remain in the EU.
Fresh research shows that top industry luminaries on both sides of the fence apparently remain ignorant of the 'digital single market' – the EU’s plan to remove regulatory walls between the 28 member states to enable pan-European initiatives.
According to a email marketing firm Mailjet, which conducted a study of 278 senior marketers across the UK last month, close to 60 per cent of those questioned had never heard of the scheme.
The survey poised the following question: ‘Do you think the UK exiting the EU would be good for your company?’ 31.3 per cent said yes, 41.7 per cent said no and 27 per cent were unsure.
Next when asked if they had heard of the digital single market, 41.4 per cent said yes while 58.6 per cent said they hadn't. Of those who knew of the policy, only a fifth said they were 'very familiar' with it.
Nearly half of startup marketers asked (45 per cent) said they didn’t think the single market initiative will have any positive effect on the running of their business and nearly 48 per cent said the single market was 'impossible to achieve'.
Amir Jirbandey, UK marketing manager at Mailjet said, “After more than four decades within the European Union, the UK is fast approaching a crossroads that carries different implications for every company.
"We’ve seen from the research that big business understands how initiatives such as the digital single market policy will offer marketers new efficiencies across their European campaigns. For smaller businesses and startups that lack the same dedicated marketing function, it is down to the government to help raise awareness about the relevance and strategic implications of the new policy guidelines.”
“Starting this dialogue now, holds the key to sparking greater questions within organisations about the strategy with which they are approaching new market audiences and the channels being used to engage individual consumers," he added.