Business Explain: International Marketing Strategies

What does the framework 4P stand for?

1. Product
Variety, quality, design. Features, brand name, packaging and services.

2. Price
List price, discounts, allowances, payment periods, credit terms.

3. Place
Channels, coverage, assortments, locations, inventory, transportation and logistics.

4. Promotion
Advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relations.

Together these form a framework useful to companies when targeting their customers and finding the best position.

What are some of the reasons for adaptation?

1. All advertising cannot be standardized.

2. Government and trade restrictions lead to adaptation.

3. Differences in the availability of media.

4. Customers' interests and response patterns differ.

5. Cultural and historical differences.

What is International Marketing?

"The performance of business activities that direct the flow of a company's goods and services to consumers or users...for a profit in more than one nation"

What is the product life cycle?

The product life cycle refers to the different stages in a product's life, from introduction to death. The four stages are introduction, growth, maturity and decline. All the stages require different marketing strategies.

What is meant by relationship marketing and how is it different from traditional marketing?

The category of collaborative relationships which focuses on the marketing process. The ultimate goal is to achieve a competitive advantage by establishing long-term, mutually beneficial associations with loyal, satisfied customers.

Relationship marketing helps secure customer loyalty, which results in repeated sales and referrals, and a stable or increasing market share and revenue growth.

What is the importance of collaborative relationships to competition?

These are relationships between companies who cooperate with each other for mutual benefit. This is the same mindset that characterizes an approach to management known as relational exchanges, which occurs both internally(among functional departments such as business units, subsidiaries and employees) and externally(among customers, suppliers, competitors, government agencies etc).

How valuable is branding for a consumer products company?

Branding is the marketing strategy used by firms to differentiate their products from similar offerings. It is especially important for small marketers who lack the promotional resources of big competitors. When a product has a unique name, appearance and image, it is easier for shoppers to find in a crowded marketplace.

A strong brand identity can also affect consumer behavior by building emotional connections and reinforcing buying habits.

What are the three points that define a global approach to international marketing?

Major objective for MNC is the discipline imposed by the process. Once you've already planned, you have the framework for analyzing marketing problems and opportunities and a basis for coordinating info from different country markets. Process of planning as important as the plan itself because you must take all factors into account.

1. Define company's objectives and resources. May need to change objectives for foreign market, must reconcile differences.

2. Must decide if ready for level of commitment regarding money, amount of personnel, and determination to stay in market long enough to receive return on investments

3. Planning is essential to success.

What is meant by positioning?

"Creating an image of your product and its quality in customers' minds."The idea is to think of what can be done to the customer in order to convey their minds, rather than what can be done to the product for customers to like it.

Positioning is considered a systematic way of finding a window into the customer's mind. This however means that companies need to reposition themselves according to market and demand changes, that mainly occur because of the developing technology.

Why is cost containment and technological improvement said to be the basis for competition?

To remain profitable when global competition intensifies, companies seek ways to keep costs within a range that permits competitive pricing. The major driving force behind companies producing across the world is global sourcing, which is used to minimise costs and risks. Flexibility and dependability are two other benefits from global sourcing, since worldwide sourcing strengthens the reliability of quality and supply.

The uniqueness of a company's needs and its availability motivates it to source globally. Technological progress, market demand created by global industrialisation and creation of new middle classes will have a significant effect on the potential in global markets. Technology and management capabilities spread around the globe and new competition arises in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Thus, companies who are looking to remain competitive must focus on staying on top of new technology as well as restructure, reorganise and downsize its avenues to strengthen competitive positions.

What is the concept of quality? How does it relate to TQM?

Quality is defined internally from the firm's point of view and is measured in terms of compliance with predetermined products specifications or standards and with minimum defects. In other words, if the product is delivered to the customer in a manner that fills the needs.

Total quality management TQM is a corporate strategy, a strategy of the company as a whole, which focuses total company effort on manufacturing superior products that satisfy customer needs with continuous technological improvement and zero defects.

Companies competing with this strategy must therefore have the "best engineered" product on the market, and focus on monitoring customer's changing requirements as well as competitive offerings and then adjust product offerings to suit the current demand. "May the best product win."

What are the benefits to an MNC that accepts the global market concept?

Economies of scale in production and marketing

Transfer of experience and know-how across countries through improved coordination and integration of marketing activities.

Uniform international image. The most important benefit, as global recognition of brands accelerates new product introductions and increases as the efficiency and effectiveness of advertising. Also important for satellite communications spread throughout the world.

What is strategic planning and how does it differ for international marketing from domestic?

The principles of planning are not in themselves different between international and domestic marketing, but the additional details of the operating environments of the MNC (host country, home, and corporate environments), its organizational structure, and the task of controlling a multi-country operation create differences in the processes of international planning. Strategic planning on an international level allows for rapid growth of the international function, changing markets, increasing competition, and the challenges of different national markets.

The plan blends the changing parameters of external country environments with corporate objectives and capabilities to develop a sound, workable marketing program

What is a market-driving strategy?

A more recent approach, that is built on the idea that firms do not respond passively to current customer demands via adaptation. Instead, these firms have the ability to develop a unique value proposition for customers, and focuses on changing the behavior of different market actors (customers and others) in the value chain. In other words, it believes in educating its consumers in order for them to make better decisions and value propositions, and as a result buy the firm's products over somebody else's.

Loyalty is built upon innovative channel management and customer relationships.
Example companies would be IKEA with it's on-spot available furniture and Starbucks for introducing coffee to areas where it was not drunk before, as well as Apple, CNN, the Body shop etc.