INETRNATIONAL MARKETING PROCESS

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International Marketing MKT630

Lesson # 4

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.

International Marketing MKT630

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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