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Lesson#4
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Five steps of the international marketing
process
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INETRNATIONAL MARKETING PROCESS
Five steps of the international marketing process:
The international marketing process comprises of five steps
which marketers have to take as part of their
integrated marketing effort;
1. Analyzing international marketing opportunities to identify
unfulfilled or under fulfilled needs
that a marketer may satisfy through its products or services.
This analysis can be done through
information seeking and analysis or through market research
(secondary or primary data
collection and analysis). A marketer may have a product or
service concept developed first and
looks for the needs in the market that can be satisfied by these
products or services. The
marketer may also first identify unfulfilled or under fulfilled
needs in the market and then
develop a suitable product or service offer to satisfy these
identified needs.
2. Once the marketer has identified the potential opportunities
in the first step now is the time to
select the groups of potential international customers (target
markets) to whom to sell the
products or services.
This step also involves identifying the potential buyers, demand
measurement & forecasting,
market segmentation, market targeting & market positioning.
Segmentation involved identifying groups of potential customers
from the total potential
market that are homogeneous on certain aspects of identity and
behavior and are heterogeneous
on the same aspects from others in the target population. The
aspects on which the segments are
based must be relevant for the marketer to develop its products
and services and the marketing
programs.
This step also requires the marketers to decide what key
benefits in a product or service to offer
to the selected target customers and on what aspects to
differentiate from the competition.
3. Since a firm needs to offer best value to the potential
customers to makes its products and
services more salable compared with competitors, firms have to
adopt appropriate business and
marketing strategies.
Many activities are to be undertaken in a firm by many people
and in a number of departments
to produce and deliver final products and services to its
customers, this requires aligning and
coordinating numerous activities and efforts. At the same time
to achieve best value for the
buyer and bet profits for the firms, the firm needs to optimize
all the activities, efforts
undertaken and resource utilization. This requires the firm to
adopt a coherent and appropriate
logic or strategy to direct and control the alignment,
coordination and optimization of its
business and marketing effort.
Various researchers have studied successful companies around the
world and attempted to
identify how these firms have aligned and coordinated their
activities and efforts. Porter has
concluded that successful firms have adopted one of the three
strategies, i.e., cost leadership,
differentiation or focus. Other scholars have identified that
successful firms adopted strategies
that were aligned with their market position, i.e., a market
leader, challenger, follower & nicher
strategies. Other researchers have asserted that firms have
achieved success in markets through
adopting on of the three value discipline strategies, i.e.,
operational excellence, customer
intimacy or product leadership. Details on these strategies may
be found in strategy subject and
books.
4. The fourth step in the marketing process is developing the
international marketing mix, product,
place, price & promotion. Marketing mix identifies four key
areas for developing a well
coordinated marketing strategy. To create a strong marketing
impact a firm needs to develop
appropriate programs in these four key areas and also need to
ensure that all these four aspects
of a firms marketing program are well coordinated and in
conformity with each other to give a
clear image to the target market of the firm’s brands and its
products.
5. Developing a good marketing program is not good enough for
success. A firm also needs to
manage the international marketing effort properly. Quite often
firms fail not because they did
not have a viable marketing program, but that they failed in
properly implementing their well
designed plans.
Firms also need proper analysis, planning, implementation and
control of their marketing
programs
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