Global Marketing For Beginners Guide: In case you’re in business, you must need marketing strategies for global marketing. We all know that marketing is all about communication & planning. Global marketing is the best challenge for us in markets where we share culture as well as a language.
But while taking our products & services on the road to international destinations, we suddenly need to market effectively to people whose social behavior, language norms, and experiences vary greatly from those we’re accustomed to communicating with.
There have been limitless, often amusing, examples of organizations getting international marketing very, very wrong.
So, better don’t mark yourself in that list! For that, you have to fully read our Global Marketing For Beginners article.
Global Marketing For Beginners
Numerous major international brands have taken major wrong turns in their international marketing campaigns. Therefore, we’ve described master tips for global marketing, especially for beginners!
Importance of SEO in Global marketing
Now, everyone wants to be a global marketer. It isn’t compulsory to say that the competition is touching the sky. The question is, how can you stand out of the mob? The success lies in how strong you are with your research work and SEO.
Without SEO, you can’t find out what’s trending where, and you are also clueless regarding the competition in a specific market in a specific region.
You certainly can’t figure out your strategies without understanding the flow of a given market. To bring your results on top, you need to go hard and heavy on SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
For example, if you are trying to sell health-related software in the United States, then it might happen that in France. The competition for that niche will be less than the U.S. Similarly if you’re looking for the long term, then you can target a nation where the craze (or the monthly Google searches) are high.
Research and SEO aren’t as bewildering as they sound. It’s not an option; it’s necessary if you wanna get your grip tight over the global market in the upcoming time.
Importance of a good web hosting service
In our Global Marketing For Beginners article, we certainly can’t skip the importance of a good web hosting service.
What would you do with all your SEO efforts if your website isn’t loading in time or going offline frequently, and high chances are there for getting it hacked as well?
Good web hosting service is the root of which your global marketing tree will thrive in the future. So, it certainly needs to be strong. Your web hosting should give tremendous speed (in whatever region of the world you are marketing). Besides that, it should give regular backups, unbeatable security, resources (good enough bandwidth, storage space, CPU, etc.), customer support, and the list still goes long!
If your hosting service is doing good, you can’t even imagine how much upward thrust it can give to your Global marketing and trade. Tap HERE to reach the best web hosting service for Global marketers.
Developing Global Marketing Strategies
The digital world has eliminated borders and has made organizations concentrate on adopting a highly unified marketing strategy. For marketers searching to expand their reach to fresh audiences, this makes a great case for locating at a unified global marketing strategy to make sure your message is identified with countries outside of your company’s headquarters.
Here are some helpful tips to start developing your comprehensive global marketing strategy:
Global Marketing For Beginners Tip #1- Know the Market
When you first determine expanding your marketing to a global level. After that you must understand the environment with which you will be working.
Every single region of the world has different behaviors and norms when we talk about marketing messages. What is appropriate in that country/state, how people like to be contacted, etc. Ensure doing research on how that market is going to respond to your marketing strategy. So, after that, you get the most observation from your new audience.
Global Marketing For Beginners Tip #2 – Develop Your Marketing Plan
Succeeding in a global environment doesn’t mean just changing the language of marketing assets. You must need your global marketing plan to be strong enough with your domestic efforts, but it’ll need to be customized on the basis of the requirements of the region in which you are marketing to.
After you’ve some insight into the global landscape, crafting a plan to outline the course you’ve of action can be done after that. Firstly, you’ll ask yourself about your destinations and objectives are for the program of marketing. Consider the following questions:
- What’s the purpose of expanding your efforts?
- What are you searching for to achieve?
- How can you measure success?
Once you establish your destinations , you can craft a plan covering the strategy that’s overarching and the tactics to achieve those destinations.
Global Marketing For Beginners Tip 3 – Customize Your Marketing Approach
You must determine to start your global marketing efforts online for reaching a global audience & centralize your efforts there. However, don’t forget that what worked for reaching the domestic audience you have might not translate correctly overseas.
Be sure to adapt your initiatives fro fitting the audience for which you’re trying to reach to craft a customized experience for them.
What works perfectly in one country/region will likely not yield similar results in other markets. Speak to the requirements of that specific region to market your product and service. Also, customize your approach to suit that environment.
Comprehensive research is needed on the markets you’re targeting to ensure your messaging arrives across the way you intended. Be sure that you are utilizing global marketing’s ideal methods of connecting with individuals in that region.
An ideal example is WhatsApp. While it’s used with people globally, it’s an application heavily used in South America especially. For clients in South America, having a WhatsApp strategy is crucial. However, it’s not essential in the U.S. to Consider that detail’s level when customizing your marketing methods to a new region.
Global Marketing For Beginners Tip #4 – Localize Your Message
No matter you’re taking your efforts and hard work to a global audience, that doesn’t mean you can’t still deliver your message locally in a strong manner. Actually, it’s almost compulsory to be “glocal” (a blend of global + local) with your message while targeting the global audience.
Understanding the cultural and language barriers and adjusting your message, respectively, for each market isn’t compulsory. However, at the same time, it’s vital to understand various cultural references, important events, and holidays.
You need to tailor the tactics and platforms to the specific targeted region is you really want to create a personalized marketing program for deeply connecting to your audience.
The brands successfully executing global marketing mark a local identity to their campaigns besides remaining constant with their global messaging.
Global Marketing For Beginners Tip #5 – Revise your strategy + perfectly reflect your market’s environment
Through the FITTskills International Sales and Marketing course, you’ll learn how to approach global markets differently in comparison to international markets; besides that, you’ll know what does that mean for your overall marketing strategy.
In addition to accomplishing the international market motto, an international marketer needs to develop an appreciation and understanding of diversities in economic and technological. Industrial levels among various nations and their varying capabilities, skills standards, and expectations.
Also, political and legal differences, including variations in business practices. Different levels of competitive intensity. Besides all that, Cultural differences, such as aesthetics, languages, and values.
Global Marketing For Beginners Tip #6 – Create an awesome first impression
In simple words, your potential client makes a subconscious sort of decision: either they will listen politely and, after that, dismiss the proposal, or straight away trust what they saw in those first seconds. Considering that, how can consultants ensure to create an awesome first impression to those potential clients?
You need to Work backward to recognize how to firstly grab the attention of a client. It’s understood that a product is used, impersonal and palpable, but service is personal, experienced, and intangible.
So what are the requirements it take to sell besides getting acceptance for an intangible idea in the foreign market? Ultimately, you have to create an image in the mind of a foreign contact that will lead to being hired to offer that intangible service. Expanding the first step to sell an intangible idea globally comes down to how to build that relationship.
It’s the world of relationship-based sales, and there’s an adage that states one needs to seduce first and then sell afterward. Selling before persuading is not possible; you can’t persuade someone until grabbing their interest.
Further, you can’t grab someone’s interest without attracting their attention. You better understand the whole scenario, as it’s a whole chain! With immense riding on catching attention early on, your initial visual image is crucial to the success of whatever steps that follow.
Global Marketing For Beginners Tip #7 – Invest in relevant content because “Content is king”
The business world began hearing about content marketing just some years back. International marketing geeks such as Kathrin Bussmann have mastered how to use this particular marketing strategy and develop it to attract international audiences.
Yes, you need to invest in the translation besides the localization of your content. Transcreation (creation of entirely fresh content for a particular region) is what we’re considering here. Might be your business already generating content of some type.
Whether it’s a podcast, blog posts, image galleries, or YouTube videos. Ideally, the format you’ve selected fully reflects your audience’s content preferences.
From your main platform, you can share your content strategically through various digital channels. For example, messaging apps, email, social networks, and so on. Done well, content marketing is among the most effective ways for your business to not just find, but also convert and retain customers.
Further, global content marketing has the potential to thrive your business to the higher levels. As long as you get to know the criticality of adapting your content for every single regional market.
Ethics in Action
Now, The case of International Marketing is pretty much clear to you, but you have to move further, holding some Ethics is crucial.
Major international marketing ethical issues derived from high-end research are presented along with their respective short definitions as following:
Traditional Small Scale Bribery
It involves the payment of small amounts of money, generally to a foreign official in return, locating him/her in violating any official responsibility or duty to speed regular government actions (grease payments, kickbacks).
Gifts/Favors/Entertainment
This includes a range of items, for example, opportunities for personal travel tour at the company’s expense, lavish physical gifts, gifts received after finishing transaction getting, and various extravagant, expensive entertainment.
Large Scale Bribery
This includes a relatively large payment with the intention to permit a violation of the law or made to influence policy directly/indirectly, for example, political contribution.
Pricing
It incorporates unfair differential pricing and in questionable invoicing where the purchaser requests a written invoice showing a cost other than the actual cost paid. Pricing for forcing out local competition, dumping products at prices well lower than in the home country, pricing practices, which are illegal in the home country. However, legal in the host country, for example, price-fixing agreements, etc.
Products/Technology
Now, this incorporates products & technology, which are banned for use in the home country but allowed in the host country and/or seen unsuitable or inappropriate for usage by the people of that country.
Tax Evasion Practices
The usage of it is frequent to evade tax, for example, transfer pricing where costs paid between affiliates and/or parent organization that adjest to affect profit allocation incorporating the use of tax havens, where any profit crafted is in less tax jurisdiction, adjusted interest payments on the loans that are intra-firm, questionable management and service expenses charged between affiliates and the parent organization.
Illegal Activities
Activities that are Illegal/Immoral in the Host Country—practices, for example, polluting the environment, handling unsafe working conditions, product or technology copying where the security of patents, trademarks, or copyrights are not enforced & short-weighting overseas shipments so as for charging a country a phantom weight.
Questionable Commissions to Members of Channel
Unreasonably huge commissions of fees paid to members of the channel, for example, sales agents, consultants, dealers, middlemen, and importers.
Cultural Differences
Cultural differences between cultures incorporating potential misunderstandings in relation to the traditional needs of the exchanging process. For example, transactions might be regarded by solitary culture as bribes. However, be acceptable business practices in one other culture. These practices incorporate gifts, favors, entertainment, monetary payments, and political contributions.
Political Affairs Involvement
Political affairs involvement related to the marketing activities’ combination and politics incorporating the following. The political influence’s exertion by multinationals, engaging in activities of marketing when either host or home countries are facing war or illegal technology transfers.
Understanding Your Target Customers
Foreign markets are not only copies of U.S. markets; they need products that are suitable to the local population. However, European markets and developed countries are highly similar to the United States, emerging markets such as the BRIC countries have essential differences.
Products must meet local requirements in terms of quality, performance, cost, features, and, for being successful, an organization must be aware of the interplay between these aspects. Let’s discuss consumers in emerging countries to get a feel for these differences.
Rising Middle Class
The number of middle-class individuals in emerging countries has been developing, partly as Western organizations hiring low-expense labor directly or via outsourcing agreements in these areas. Offering jobs in these countries have enhanced household incomes.
These quick-rising incomes, especially in areas that are urban, make vast new pools of disposable income. Almost eight of the ten biggest cities in the world are currently in emerging markets. Their populations are undoubtedly young, and they’re just starting to adopt the complete range of consumer goods that can be found in the developed world.
Sometimes, these middle-class consumers might purchase more expensive branded goods, in case the brands resonate with the local crowd’s interests. Just imagine the relative sales ratio of 60 dollars Nike basketball shoes vs. the sales ratio is 120 dollars for Nike shoes of Yao Ming–brand for basketball. In the U.S., sales can be 20% for the higher costed shoe.
In mainland China, it might be 5% for the Yao Ming shoe because of cost; but in greater prosperous Hong Kong, the sales might be 50% for the shoes. Middle-class individuals are reading about Western goods and need branded items, but expenses can be an issue depending on the affluence’s local level. It was just an example for you to understand.
Millionaires Are Currently Everywhere
Just because the average income is highly lesser in emerging markets doesn’t imply that no individual can afford high-end luxury goods. A few automobile manufacturers, such as tracking the number of millionaires inside the country for an indicator of the segment that is very affluent.
Certain cities in emerging-market countries might be having a concentration of affluent consumers. For example, in Monterrey, Mexico, the expenses of consumer goods are comparable with those of New York City. So, you just need to target smartly!
Dealing with Gray & Counterfeit Markets
Price discrepancies between different markets, the gray market exists, and it’s a compulsory part to understand. For instance, consumer-packaged-goods brands may price their products at a higher point in Austria inc comparison to the neighboring Czech Republic because of the Austrian citizens’ higher levels of income.
So, Austrians might order their stuff from Czech retailers and simply cross the border to receive their products. The goods in the stores in the Czech Republic are authentic and legitimate. However, the presence of this gray-market activity highly hurts the producer, distributors and retailers, and various other channel partners in the higher-priced nation. Yes, that’s nothing good, actually!
In comparison to gray markets, which we can certainly call legitimate. However, legally in a gray area, fakes and affects markets purposely deceive the customer. For instance, counterfeiters little bit alter Sony’s logo to Bony, making it hard to distinguish if you don’t inspect carefully.
Furthermore…
Counterfeit markets bring loss to the companies that have invested in constructing intellectual assets like unique product designs, costly media content, technological developments, and carefully crafted brands. Combine, these intellectual assets constitute and represent an investment of millions (sometimes, even billions) of dollars.
In case a company’s product, brand, or technology is counterfeited, both the company’s financial security and reputation highly suffer. All of its channel partners, including retailers, distributors, etc. are facing affect the same way. For instance, an executive traveling in Hong Kong noticed one unique style of Nike shoes.
After asking about them, he came to know that the shoes were available only in size eight. This fact made him realize these shoes might be prototype samples from some local factory that had been straightaway smuggled out of its factory to be sold.
A few industries have made efforts to limit the scope of the counterfeiting/copying. If you’re in global marketing, better don’t try counterfeiting/copying, as it can certainly bring legal issues.
Similarly, being the marketing person in your company, you need to focus on strategies for avoiding counterfeiting/copying of your products and services. The counterfeiting can certainly damage your brand’s reputation. As we discussed above, you have to follow whatever is needed to avoid that.
Additional points to deal with Gray & Counterfeit Markets
- The basics of global marketing start with the core of marketing knowledge, which consists of the four Ps. The four Ps stand for product, price, promotion, and place. After putting all these together, these four Ps form the global marketing mix.
- These four Ps (or just one of them) can differ from nation to nation. For instance, the product might differ from nation to nation in case a company looks forward to adapting its product/service to local tastes or creating a fresh product specifically to match local tastes. Hence, Starbucks launched a green tea Frappuccino in China, which you don’t find anywhere else.
- The second P, price, stands for the amount of money that a customer pays for a specific product/service. Price represents a specific challenge when companies begin selling to emerging markets as consumers’ income levels in these nations prove to be much lower in contrast to developed countries.
- Besides that, the channel of distribution might get longer when companies start selling to international markets. Instead of a direct channel in which a company sells its products/services directly to a consumer. Intermediaries (including agents, brokers, distributors, wholesalers, international freight forwarders, retailers, and trading companies) between the producer and the consumer often characterize the global-market distribution chain. Companies need to pay everyone out of these intermediaries, and that increases the product’s cost.
Furthermore…
- The third P, which stands for “promotion,” refers to the activities needed to inform and encourage clients to buy a specific product. Sometimes, companies customize these promotions to use wording and images that resonate with local markets, for generating local profit.
- The final P, which stands for a place, refers to the region where a company offers its products/services for sale. Several emerging nations may lack national retail chains, stating that these companies may have to sell their products/services via a much more splintered system of small kiosks or storefronts.
- Market segmentation states the process of dividing a huge market into several smaller markets. Also, all of those share a common characteristic, for example, age or lifestyle. It’s crucial to note that not every single citizen of a specific country can be monotonously market and uniformly. Because, in addition to demographic differences, there may be certain regional differences within every single country as well.
- There are certain Price discrepancies between markets, which lead to the development of gray markets (about which we discussed above). We can hardly avoid these price discrepancies because of the difference in the income levels in different countries. Companies desire to charge prices for their products that locals in various countries can afford. The result is that consumers in richer countries may buy the product in a less rich country for a lower price and save money. Counterfeit markets defraud customers into buying what they consider branded products at a pretty bargain price.
The conclusion
In true words, global marketing can be fun if you have the right knowledge. However, if you’ve got the right tips and tricks. We’d recommend you to first make your website safer, highly interactive, rich, and make it load faster. For all that, you can look upon nothing else except the Best Web Hosting for Global Marketing websites.
Once you get your website set up perfectly, you can certainly earn great money even if you catch the market of just one or two countries! It’s really a worth department interest, and once you develop your market well, then things will keep on rolling on.
Also, if you’re in some company, planning to globalize their product or services, do recommend Accuweb Hosting, as there’ a perfect plan for all levels of marketers, at prices, which you won’t find anywhere else!
