Global Marketing

Global marketing is the process of adjusting a company's marketing strategies to adapt to conditions in other countries. Let's pretend for a moment that you have a widget you'd like to sell in Europe, and you are developing your marketing plan. Here are some strategic decisions you will need to make.

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Market segmentation is the act of defining subsets of consumers using various characteristics (such as geography, age, sex, race, and family situation) and then targeting marketing efforts to those subsets. For your product, you need to determine what subgroup of possible buyers is the most likely to purchase your product. Once you determine your focus, you'll need to determine how best to reach customers in that niche. If it's different than your target group in the U.S., you will need to modify your strategy accordingly.

Localization strategies, adjust the product and message to better fit the target customer. For example, many people in India do not eat beef, so if a company selling hamburgers was going to market in India they would need to localize their product - and perhaps sell pork patties instead. For your product, you need to take a critical look at it, and ask yourself if it's saleable to your target foreign customer as is, or will it need modification for cultural, social, or other reasons. For instance, if your widget is painted red, that would mean 'good luck' to prospective Chinese customers - but a personalized marketing letter should never use red ink, because those same customers associate red ink with death, and would be very upset to see their name written in red.

Strategic Pricing

Pricing may vary in different target countries, based on issues such as the average wages in that country and the amount of competition that exists. You'll need to determine if your widget should be expensive or inexpensive in the target country, and modify the pricing based on what your target customers would be willing or able to spend on it. Although your first inclination may be to make it expensive - keep in mind that high sales can lead to economies of scale, with corresponding lower production costs, leading to higher profits in the end.

What is global marketing? In this lesson, you'll learn what global marketing is, issues you would need to address to market your product globally, and strategies that can help grow your business in other countries.

Global marketing is the process of adjusting a company's marketing strategies to adapt to conditions in other countries. Let's pretend for a moment that you have a widget you'd like to sell in Europe, and you are developing your marketing plan. Here are some strategic decisions you will need to make.

Market segmentation is the act of defining subsets of consumers using various characteristics (such as geography, age, sex, race, and family situation) and then targeting marketing efforts to those subsets. For your product, you need to determine what subgroup of possible buyers is the most likely to purchase your product. Once you determine your focus, you'll need to determine how best to reach customers in that niche. If it's different than your target group in the U.S., you will need to modify your strategy accordingly.

Localization strategies adjust the product and message to better fit the target customer. For example, many people in India do not eat beef, so if a company selling hamburgers was going to market in India they would need to localize their product - and perhaps sell pork patties instead. For your product, you need to take a critical look at it, and ask yourself if it's saleable to your target foreign customer as is, or will it need modification for cultural, social, or other reasons