Nowadays there is a lot of talk about marketing, and especially about international marketing . Obviously, it is not a coincidence, since we find ourselves in a changing and globalized environment characterized by numerous and ruthless competition.
In an environment of this type, it is key to the survival of any company to define a concrete and personalized international marketing plan.
The characteristics of international marketing
Speaking of the main features of international marketing , we can say that they are determined by world market trends:
- Globalization : the set of all local markets.
- Standardization – The release of similar products by competing companies
- Personalization – The personal approach that consumers take.
It is for all these reasons that marketing actions seek to develop a unique strategy to place particular emphasis on creating a brand that can be understood globally, in addition to improving other processes such as production and all the operational relationships that take place in this global economic space .
Emphasizing the concept, it must be clear that international marketing actions are proposed, as the main objective, to define the commercial strategies of the company in an environment different from their own, exceeding the borders of their country of origin.
What is an international marketing plan and why do we have to do it?
Any company that wants to grow outside its borders is required to have a well-defined marketing plan. Otherwise, it would be like taking a path that would lead us to a dead end.
The plan is that tool that allows us to know the market we are targeting and carefully plan our actions and our product policy to be able to head directly towards our potential customer.
Companies can present a standard product or service for all markets, or adapted to each country and market. Sometimes it is even necessary to differentiate at the local level in the same country, adapting the value proposition to each cultural, economic and social characteristic.
How to make an International Marketing plan? The phases that compose it.
A marketing plan is made up of several steps, all of them aimed at creating a brand image and a unique product to capture the attention of our customers and generate a need in them.
The Market Analysis and Access Plan Phase
In the initial phase, a prior analysis of our internal situation and the market we are targeting plays a fundamental role. We have to calculate all the variables and difficulties that we may face: different scenarios, different cultural, environmental and language aspects.
Regarding the importance of language to create optimized content for SEO, you can take a look at our article on International SEO .
In the analysis phase , the competition is also studied , in order to find out what commercial policy they are adopting, what their sources of supply are, their decision structure, purchases, criteria related to the relationship with the final customer, and with the composition of the offer etc
Customer qualification/identification
After the analysis phase, we move on to the customer qualification or identification phase. This is a very important step whether you are dealing with B2C customers or B2B customers.
One or more buyer personas are generated to identify our customers. These profiles will help us to be able to develop content that is of quality and generates interest in them. In this way, we can monitor it and generate multiple marketing actions (interesting content, mailings, promotions, webinars, educational materials, etc.) whose ultimate goal is customer loyalty.
The ultimate goal is to transform our service or product into something necessary, that adds value and that the customer is willing to choose over other similar options.
On and Off line brand positioning strategy.
Another very important phase of our international marketing is brand positioning. A winning strategy is one that focuses on our positive aspects, our added values. What makes us great and better compared to our competition?
A good strategy always includes a competition analysis phase , since we cannot be better than our competitors without knowing them. Secondly, taking into account that we already know which client we want to reach, we have to define our brand positioning plan.
online positioning
In the case of online positioning, the first thing is to define the appropriate online brand strategy (brand policy, brand elements, etc.)
Then all the SEO and SEM actions are outlined: keyword research (keyword research), customer segmentation by keywords, definition of the category/keyword for which we must compete in the country of interest, verification of having all the tags of International SEO on our website, etc.
Offline positioning
Offline brand positioning is a tool that improves both our position and communication towards foreign markets. It helps us to improve our image in the international environment so that the client sees us as unique and different.
Within the brand positioning strategy we have several phases, such as: own communication plan , competition positioning map, competitive positioning briefing, etc.
All these phases have the ultimate goal of generating a unique value proposition for the international market and our clients.
Conclusion
At Redflexión Consultores we are aware of the needs of companies in an international environment. For 20 years we have specialized in the field of Strategic Internationalization making use of Competitive Intelligence (Business Intelligence).
If you have a company and do not know how to make the leap into new markets or want to boost and consolidate your international presence , do not hesitate to contact our team of experts. We will be happy to help you.
