Challenges of Gathering Worldwide Data
What I found most interesting about this chapter is the detail that international marketing requires.
The objective of any marketer is to gather information that will be useful in trying to determine the best ways and/or areas to sell a product. This goal is the same whether you are trying to sell in your home country or in a foreign country.
The following are five steps that are important to any international marketing plan: (pg227)
1) Economic and demographic – General data on the growth in the economy, inflation, business cycle trends and the like.
2) Cultural, sociological and political climate – A general noneconomic review of conditions affecting the divisions business.
3) Overview of market conditions – A detailed analysis of market conditions.
4) Summary of the technological environment – A summary of the state-of-the-art technology as it relates to the divisions business.
5) Competitive situations – A review of competitors sales revenues, methods of market segmentation, products and apparent strategies on an international scope. It is important to remember the culture you are trying to penetrate. Do women talk to strange men? Are they allowed to talk to strange men? Will a man provide information to a woman if the woman is performing the survey? It is important to have someone from the local culture work with you to obtain the data you need for a thorough market analysis.
International Marketing Mistakes The article I found is written by a consultant, Azaz Motiwala, for Ikon which is a Marketing company in India. This article points out the top ten mistakes companies make when thinking about going overseas. All of the mistakes that he talks about are addressed in this chapter. For the sake of space, I will just discuss four of the mistakes he talks about.
1) “I Have All Kinds of Products to Offer”:
The point here is that instead of waiting for the customer to ask for a specific product, we should drive them to ours. Make them want what we are
