International marketing By the end of this chapter you should be able to; Outline the principal activities of marketing;

Differentiate between international marketing and domestic marketing; Conduct some basic international market research; Outline the key stages in international marketing; Specify the key elements in the international marketing mix and discuss how to balance them.

Introduction Many people see marketingin terms of the advertising that accompanies products such as that seen on advertising hoardings scattered throughout the world, or encountered on television, radio and the Internet. In fact, marketing is afar more sophisticated and complex activity and for many organizations can mean the difference between success and failure. The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) defines marketing as the management process responsible for identifying and satisfying custumer needs profitably. The American Marketing Associations definition is:The process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals. Hill and OSullivant (2003) describe marketing as: a business philosophy that regards custumer satisfaction as the key to successful trading and advocates the usu of management practices that help identify and respond to customer need. Arguably at least three major elements are involved in the marketing role Customer orientation. This sounds obvious, but in practice many organizations can become so preoccupied with manufacturing processes or technology, that they lose sight of what the custumer wants, leaving themselves vulnerable to the activities of competitors who have a keener eye for custumer need. It appears that the German companies in the sample have evolved a switching model in their decision making. group logic is used to make decisions about entering or living agroup. However, for group

members, decisions relared to promotion and salary are based on market logic> This means that individuals receive the full benefit of their offorts without sharing promotion opportunities or salary gains with lower-performance colleagues. Product tactics may involve attempts to utilize or modify the various strages (introduction, growth, maturity, decline) og the product life cycle. For example, attempts may be made to extend the maturity stage by finding new markets for existing products, new uses for the products and/or modifying the product. Price tactics may involve selecting particular pricing approaches for the product. For instance, price skimming may be adopted whereby the prince is initially set at a high level to skim as much revenus and profit out of the product as possible. Alternatively, prince penetration may be used whereby a low price is set in order to reach as large a market as possible in a short period of time. Discriminatory pricing may also be considered where the same product is priced lower in some markets than in others (e.g. lower price in those market segments with a higher price elasticity of demand see Box 10.2, pp. 321-2). Promotion tactics may involve the degree of emphasis given to personal selling, advertising, public relations, sales promotion, ect. push tactics might focus on the producer offering incentives to key players in each distributional chanel to promote their products (e.g. the firm may offer incentives to wholesalers so that they push the firms products to retailers, ect.). Pull tactics focus on the final consumer, the ideal being to stimulate consumer demands which will then stimulate (pull) retalers/wholesalers into stocking the firms products. Place tactics might involve placing a particular emphasis on one or more distributional channels for the products in question. For example pre-eminence in distributional policy might be given to distributional channels such as direct selling, producer to retailer, producer to wholesaler or franchising. Integrated effort. Akey role of marketers is to buld bridges between the requirements of the customer and the capabilities of the organization. For example, senior managers may not have a marketing orientation; they might focus on keeping costs down, as the route to success, when what is actually required might be more investment in research and design, or more stock on the shelves. Integrated effort means a focus on marketing throughout the organization. Goal focus. Many business activities can be focused on achieving short-term profit, rather than looking to the longer-term strategic aims of the organization. Marketers may play a part in keeping these longer-term strategic aims in focus. The principal activities of marketing we have seen that marketing is an integrated activity that takes place throughout the organization and seeks to align customer needs with the capabilities and goals of the organization. We can therefore break marketing down into the following activities. Analysis Market analysis can itself be broken down into at least three elements.

Environmental analysis. This may involve scanning the environment for risks and opportunities, and seeking to identify factors outside the firms control (see also Chapters 5-7). Buyer behavior. Firms need to have a profile of their existing and potential customer base, and to know how and why their customers purchase. Marketing seeks to indentify the buyers, their potential motivation for purchase, their educational levels, income, class, age and many other factors which might influence the decision to purchase. Market research. This is the process by which much of the information about the firms customers and its environment is collected. Without such market research, organizations would have to make guesses about their customers. Such research may involve using data which already exist ( secondary data) or using surveys and other methods to collect entirely new data (primary data)