Flexibility In Your International Marketing Plan

Yesterday we looked at how it is important to incorporate flexibility into your international marketing plan.  We also saw how you need feedback and the ability to maintain marketing accountability.

Incorporating flexibility into your international marketing plan will help you to:

• Adjust your marketing as you learn more about your foreign clients
• Avoid cultural blunders through feedback
• Avoid bad business decisions by listening to the feedback you get

Flexibility helps you change.  It helps you to know when to respond.  And, also how to respond.

But how can you include flexibility in your international marketing plan and still maintain marketing accountability?

This is where creating a process is important.

First let’s look at naming 4 steps in the process of incorporating flexibility into your marketing plan.

1 - Feedback

It all starts with feedback from your new foreign markets.

This is the process through which you acquire international business intelligence.  This intelligence helps you improve all of your international business strategies.

The first step in to collect feedback from your international audience, prospects and clients.  Everything counts.

2 - Assessment

Then you need to digest this information.  It may not seem obvious, but you must not immediately make assumptions.  Your assumptions will probably be culturally tainted… and they could be false.

You need to look at this information objectively.

3 - Understanding

This leads to the third step of understanding your international markets.  This does not come from your own logic.  It is almost like a light bulb going off.  You need to meet your foreign markets outside of your own comfortable environment.

This is where you can understand the feedback you get from your foreign markets.

4 - Change

And once you understand the feedback you can look at your current marketing plan and make adjustments.  You now have both the international business intelligence and the foreign market understanding.

Part Of Your Marketing Plan

By outlining these 4 steps you can plan for them.  You can add them into your international marketing plan.  And allow for the time and means necessary for required change.

How do you add them into your plan?   Being aware of this process and these steps is already a good part of the process.  A simple validation procedure or checking point is usually all you need.

• Does the feedback you have match your current international marketing plan?
• Do you need to take the time to assess this information?
• Is there any reason to dig deeper, to understand your feedback better?

And if you need to adjust your international marketing plan…

…then make the necessary changes as quickly as you can.

Better International Business Results

Effective cross-cultural marketing requires good right brain skills.  This is why it can appear difficult to bring marketing accountability into your international marketing plan.  But you simply need to identify the right process, and the right elements to measure.

Once you have established where you need to place these questions into your marketing plan, it becomes easy to evaluate and measure.

Many cultural blunders happen because businesses:

• Do not stimulate foreign market feedback enough.
• Do not take the time to assess and understand this feedback - they make their own assumptions too quickly.
• Do not make the changes their foreign market indicates they want.

If you do not have international business experience, you find this difficult to grasp fully.  Simply ask yourself these questions at key moments, milestones, or when you take action in your foreign market.

Seasoned international business professionals use similar processes to maintain flexibility.  But this process is often unconscious and they apply it continuously throughout all of their tasks.

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This is part of the Get International Clients Business Guide 4 Build Your International Marketing Strategy Be sure to check out the other useful tips to build your international marketing strategy

And you can also use this as part of the Get International Clients Business Guide 6 Analyze Your International Viability Be sure to check out the other useful tips to analyze your international viability

Need Help?

Need instructions?

• Instructions on how to use Your International Sales Road Map

Need to see where this fits in?

• A complete list of current Core Business Guides & Sub Guides for Your International Sales Road Map.

Still confused? Review your answers in the first Core Business Guide

• Core Business Guide 1 - Discover Your International Business

Simply click on one of the 8 different color coded boxes immediately below to access other core business guides.

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The 3 Differences In Your International Marketing Plan

Do you already have a marketing plan for your domestic business?  Do you need an international marketing plan too?

Of course you can guess that these 2 marketing plans will not be the same.  There are 3 differences you need to incorporate into your international marketing plan.

Feedback

When marketing to different markets abroad you must stimulate market feedback.  In fact this needs to be one of your top priorities right from the beginning.

When you first start targeting a foreign country you will need to adjust your communication and your marketing and sales strategies.

It is important to understand how your communication is received in a different culture.  And this takes time to understand well.

As you get to know your foreign markets you still need to pay attention.  In order to seize business opportunities, and avoid bad decisions, you need to know what is going on.

Place a high priority on stimulating feedback in your international marketing plan.

Flexibility

Again, it is all about getting to know markets that are different from your home market.

As you get to know and understand these new prospects better you will need to adjust your marketing. Simply put:

Your international prospects react differently to your products.

These differences may be very subtle.  They can also appear at any stage of your international business.  But if you stimulate feedback and listen for these differences you can:

• Improve your international results.
• Become present in your foreign markets.

A little time spent double checking your strategies can save you time, money and cultural blunders.  So, plan for flexibility.  Include a process of evaluations, and room for change, in your international marketing plan.

Viability

In an international marketing plan you need to include even more elements of marketing accountability.  The viability of your international endeavors may depend on this.

What does this mean?  Here is a simple action plan:

• Review your international marketing plan
• Create a process
• Include steps that can be measured
• Review these steps for relevancy
• Use this process to create accountability
• Review results for viability

This gives your business the tools to make the right decisions to grow in foreign markets. Include a process for marketing accountability in your international marketing plan.

Use Your International Marketing Plan

Incorporate these 3 elements in your international marketing plan and add one more.  Next all you need is to:

• Put your international marketing plan into action.

Even if you start with the most basic marketing plan, all you really need is to take action and give priority to these 3 differences.  Your market feedback, flexibility and viability analysis will guide you through the rest.

Read The Whole Story

This is part of the Get International Clients Business Guide 4 Build Your International Marketing Strategy Be sure to check out the other useful tips to build your international marketing strategy

And this is also part of the Get International Clients Business Guide 6 Analyze Your International Viability Be sure to check out the other useful tips to analyze your international viability

Need Help?

Need instructions?

• Instructions on how to use Your International Sales Road Map

Need to see where this fits in?

• A complete list of current Core Business Guides & Sub Guides for Your International Sales Road Map.

Still confused? Review your answers in the first Core Business Guide

• Core Business Guide 1 - Discover Your International Business

Simply click on one of the 8 different color coded boxes immediately below to access other core business guides.

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2.9

How Can I Get Information On My Foreign Markets?

Quick answers to…

Today’s question is:

How can I get information on my market in different countries?

Use the same guerrilla tactics you could use in your domestic market.

Identify relevant:

• Websites
• Blogs
• Online forums
• Magazines
• Books
• Trade shows
• Events

Don’t forget to use the free online translation tools to help you in your market research.

Aim for places where you can pick up people’s opinions. Listen to what is said in your foreign market. Facts and figures can easily be misleading if you are interpreting them from a different cultural vantage.

Your international market research will go slower than in your domestic market. This is the one difference you will find. But don’t try to speed this up. This process will give you the time to adapt your own mindset.

I strongly advise mixing your online research with some research by phone. Call appropriate people who live in your foreign market.

Aim for more feedback from real people than online research data.  This human touch will give you a valuable insights on where to look next.

Above all else, keep active in your research.  Keep at it. Even if you make one phone call a day, or every couple of days.

The key is to cross reference your research.

Some call this multi-dimensional research. You need to hear from people with different viewpoints on your market. This gives you a much better understanding. It also eliminates any cross-cultural misunderstandings.

Read More About International Market Research

International Market Research Guide International market research is easy, find out more here.

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2.5

International Positioning Process Versus Branding

In a recent conversation with a very professional marketing executive there was a moment of confusion between international business positioning and branding.

I thought it would be a good idea to go into this a little here.

The fact is that most business executives work in companies that have long established their basic market positioning.  This knowledge and skill has long been filed into the the unconscious expertise sections of their brains.

In many cases, this basic business positioning skill has often been filed away for so long that the skill is almost forgotten.

Positioning Is Key

When you expand into international markets you must review the positioning of your business in this new market.  This is one of the first things you need to do.

Your international communication, marketing and sales depends on how you need to position your business in a new foreign market.  In fact, how you need to position your business in new foreign markets may end up influencing all aspects of your international business as a whole.

If this is your first time you are taking a business into an international market, you will probably find it hard to get rid of all of your most basic business assumptions.

The assumptions came from positioning your business in your primary market.   And the problem is that these assumptions may or may not be wrong.

In fact, some of the biggest international business blunders happen because these assumptions are never questioned.

A Process Gives You The Information

This is why it is important to first create a process to verify how

• your business,
• your product,
• your offer,

…needs to be positioned inside your new foreign market.

You will probably not be able to do this accurately sitting in your office, miles and miles away from your foreign market.

In fact, you will often need information directly from your foreign markets.

And many times, you will only get answers after you start communicating and selling your products to your new foreign clients.

Now, some large companies have marketers who work on product positioning. That is an advanced aspect of… well… product positioning.

What I am talking about here is positioning your business at its core.

This is why you need a process.  A process where you look for, stimulate and analyze information specifically about your positioning.

This Is Not Branding

Now, when I spoke to the marketing executive I mentioned earlier and described this positioning process, she thought it was about branding.

She had grasped it was a process.

A good thing.  Many people think it is a one off piece of preliminary research… which can get you into trouble.

But she was putting this process at a higher level and was associating the process with branding.

No.

Positioning is not about branding your company’s image in a foreign country.

To make it easy, let’s use an image…

On Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs Pyramid…

• Branding would be close to the peak of the pyramid - it is what you do once you can sustain survival.
• International positioning would be close to the bottom of the pyramid - it is one of your first concerns for survival.  .

How you position your business, your products, your offers, is linked directly to your company’s survival. Get this wrong and you will never make it to international branding.

I have to add a side note here…

The word “branding” takes on different cultural tones in different markets.

• American branding takes on their strong “individualism” cultural behavioral traits.
• French branding has an intellectual and “cultural”… or dare I say “snobish”…  undertone.
• British branding is also very interesting… hmm, I can’t quickly find a generalization to describe it, probably because I understand it too well, but it is worth looking at with a critical eye.

If you are working on branding your business in different cultures, beware of different meanings for the word “branding” in different cultures… even when you think you are on the same page, you may not be.

Your Process To Define Your Positioning

So, we have already established how critical it is to get the right positioning for your international business.

And, you understand that you need feedback from your foreign markets to verify your positioning.

Have a look at a previous article about how MTV had to review its positioning in its Indian market.  They were only able to do this because they had a process in place to verify their positioning.

Read The Whole Story

Integrate Your Positioning Into Your Marketing

Guide 4 - Build Your International Marketing Strategy • Once you know how to position your business you can integrate this into your marketing Find out more about international marketing here.

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The Two Biggest Barriers To International Marketing

I often see two barriers to effective international marketing.  The barrier usually depends on the size of the company.

Small And Very Small Companies

Most of the small companies do not really have a marketing strategy.  They assume international marketing is a website.

And occasionally, if they realize this is not enough, they look for specific internet tactics to find the right solution.

Larger Companies

What happens here is inaction.

I have come across different excuses for the inaction, but inaction is the main barrier to establishing an effective international marketing strategy.

Company Centered Barriers

Now if you talk to company executives who are struggling with their international business development, you will often hear market-centered excuses.

• Language barriers
• Market differences
• No market for our products

…that sort of thing.

They focus on perceived market-centered barriers.

Now, let’s go back…

Have a closer look at the two barriers I gave earlier:

• No real marketing strategy
• Inaction

These are company-centered barriers.

International Marketing Gives You The Answers

In order to develop your business abroad you absolutely need to understand each of your international markets.

If you think you can target one broad international audience without digging deeper into each specific country and culture, have a look at these two articles:

• 5 Traditional Marketing Steps To Become An International Business
• The 7 Traditional Paths To International Business Development

Review these with your own business and then read this:

• Why Selling To Everyone Is Too Expensive

In international business development your international marketing gives you information you need to make your overall strategy.

Even when you use preliminary market research to guide your international business expansion, you will still need to rely very heavily on your international marketing.

International marketing performs two important tasks.  It gives you the information you need to:

• Make the best decisions for your overall business strategies.
• Find out how each of your foreign markets wants to be sold to.

A Real International Marketing Strategy

Marketing is about communicating with your market. You aim for a two way relationship to make sales.  International marketing is the same, but with international markets.

Imagine giving a speech to a huge crowd of people.  That is what you do on the web.

You can create a two-way relationship with one communication for a large crowd…

…if the crowd of people you are talking to has something in common, with you and with themselves.

But international markets are made up of several different countries and cultures.  This crowd of people is already different.

Action

No matter how great your international business strategy is, you need to put it into action for it to work.

Remember…

• International marketing will give you vital feedback for the success of your international expansion.
• International marketing is authentic interaction with each of your foreign markets.

Many larger companies get caught up into inaction, because every department head wants to control the strategy.

This gives an interesting twist the problem.  Instead of one person speaking to a crowd, you have a crowd speaking to a crowd.

…Now just how do you expect to create authentic communication with people you do not understand in the first place?

Of course, you can say that big companies do this.  Big companies also have big budgets, they can afford expensive mistakes.

Getting Beyond The Barriers

Without any real international marketing strategy and without taking action, your dreams of an international business will never get off the ground.

In today’s North American business world, I often think businesses complicate things.

International business is most successful when it is kept simple.

You have something to sell.  You just need to know:

• How your buyer wants it
• Why he wants it
• Where he wants it
• How he wants to be sold
• Where he wants to be sold
• When he wants to be sold

These are the same basic questions you need to answer for your domestic market. Luckily for your domestic market, you probably know most of the answers to these questions.  And if you don’t it is easy for you to make an educated guess, or carry out a little market research with fast and accurate results.

International markets make this a little harder because you do not have the answers to any of these questions.  The smallest assumptions can jeopardize the success of your international strategy.

The solution is an easy…

• Start with a clean slate.
• Methodically use your international marketing for your international market research.
• Cross-research your results.
• Regularly revaluate your strategy.

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Follow-Up With Your Foreign Customers

Today I want to talk to you about something you must do when you start getting your first international clients. You never know what gems you may discover.

The best international market research is usually simple and easy to do. And it is actually quite fun.

Ask Customers Why They Buy Your Products

One of the ways you can get valuable international market feedback, is to systematically call all of your international clients and ask them a few questions after they purchase.

The most important question you need to get the answer to is:

• Why did they buy your product from you?

Here are a few more guidelines for you to start your systematic follow-up calls:

• Call them before they forget you. Do not wait or make excuses.
• Continue your relationship. Show them you value them as a client.
• Invite your clients to a short interview so you can learn how to serve them better.
• Consider having someone else conduct your interviews. This can be easier for your client to accept. This can also be a way for you to hire a native-speaker for only a couple of hours work.
• Keep track of what is said to you. With all of the details. Don’t summarize their statements.
• Ask them to give you specifics, to explain why they say something. Dig a little to understand what got them to buy, why they liked it and what you could do to make it better.
• Keep your ears open for opportunities to ask to use good feedback in a testimonial or a referral strategy.
• Continue the relationship by providing something that says thank you. A special report, bonus, gift voucher. Or even a hand written thank you not from the president. Have a look at the different cultural behaviors in the Get International Clients Business Guide - Cultural Web Tools to fit your thank you with the culture.

International Business Success

Even small brick and mortar businesses can benefit from this simple strategy.

Some time ago, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about how a restaurant in the United States figures out that German clients came to their hotel according to a particular weather conditions to go fishing locally.

This hotel learned to actively promote their hotel every time this trigger event happened again.

You never know what your international clients will come back with. As in international marketer, there are two things you want to take home with these questions.

• Can you improve your offer for this particular international market?

One opinion might not be enough. You will need to review as many responses as you can. Some cross-referencing from other sources is also a good idea.

• Is there a trigger event you can identify?

Identifying a trigger event can open the door for easy profits for you with the appropriate marketing.

Make Time For Simple Strategies

Systematic customer follow-up right after a sale is an easy international marketing method. Yet many businesses do not do it.

If you are just beginning to develop your international markets this is something you should be doing after every sale. Find a native-language student if the foreign languages are becoming excuses.

The feedback you get will speed your path to adapting your products to foreign markets.

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International Market Research Guide Updated

All of the Business Guides on Get International Clients are updated regularly.

The International Market Research Guide has just been updated, and now gives you more information on how to use the guide.

Be sure to check it out now.

International market research is easy, find out more here.

The International Market Research Guide is one part of the Get International Clients Business Guide 3:

Remember to look at the other elements of this Business Guide to help you create the right international visibility for your international business success.

International market research is easy, find out more here.

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3.2

Your International Business Intelligence Management

Do you want fast profits from your actions in developing your international business?

Would you like open all of the international business opportunities available to your business?

Would you like your international viability analysis to be accurate?

I have written this article for beginners. I have had a few questions lately from small internet business owners who need to rationalize the risk in their international business development strategies.

Most experienced international businesses will have an international business intelligence management system that works. Some small businesses rely on one central person to juggle all of the information. Others have international teams that function well together.

Start With International Business Intelligence Management

International business development always involves risk. It is inherent to doing business in unfamiliar cultures. Businesses often have to adapt their current methods to fit in with foreign markets.

Starting a process for international business intelligence management will help you to rationalize these risks and make the best decisions.

You will never be able to get rid of the risk factor in international business. The beginning is always a challenge, and requires an intellectual balancing act to estimate the risk. Experience makes this process easier. You still need the information to make your decision. An international business intelligence management system or process gives you the information you need.

Your international business intelligence starts with your initial international market research.

This means that if you are using the web for international marketing and international market research, you should include a business intelligence management system right from the start.

It is easy to set up and use a simple monitoring and tracking system right from the start.

Small Companies Too

For small companies, or if you are starting out slowly, this could be a very simple system.

You simply need to gather information in such a way to be able to use all of the information you have later.

You will need to review all of your information to improve your international business development.

It is important to use a process to take advantage of your international business intelligence.

What Information Do You Need

You need to pay attention to your processes in international marketing, market research, communication and feedback from international contacts.

You need to bring all of the information you get during your market research,

• Specific country
• Specific industry
• Foreign competitors
• Domestic competitors in foreign country
• Domestic companies with similar target market already selling to your foreign market
• Online
• Telephone
• Association
• Government agency
• Foreign embassy

together with all of the information you receive from your foreign prospects and clients,

• Phone calls
• Information inquiries
• Emails
• Client orders
• Customer service contact
• Responses to each of your communications by email, website, article or other source
• Foreign event networking

into a process. This process will develop into your International Business Intelligence Management.

No matter how small, or limited your actions are, you will get more out of them if you bring all of your information together and use it in your international business development process.

In fact, you need to have a look at all of the information you can in order to make appropriate decisions.

How Your International Business Intelligence Helps You

It is your international business intelligence that will help you expand your business successfully into other countries.

You need to look at all of the information you have for several tasks key to your international success:

• Define your sales offer for a specific country
• Define how you adapt your product to your foreign market
• Create the right marketing plan for a specific market
• Analyze your business viability in a specific country
• Improve your international sales offer
• Identify new business opportunities

An Opportunity For Growth

Your international business intelligence will help your business grow no matter how small your business is when you start. It will continue to grow over time and you may need to look into different management processes or software more appropriate for your business.

As you get to know your international markets better you will also gain another more intimate type of market knowledge. If you compare business intelligence to being left brained, then your experience will give you a right brained intelligence about your international markets.

Combine your new right brain intelligence with solid business intelligence and your business will be in a strong playing position in your foreign markets.

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The Two Key Objectives For International Market Research

Your international business development relies on thorough market research. International market research has two key objectives.

You need to address both of these objectives when you develop and implement your market research strategy.

Rationalize Risk

You need to have good knowledge of each specific country you reach. Good international market research will provide you with enough accurate statistics to help you rationalize your business risks.

You will also use this information in your international viability assessment. Before investing time and money into your international business expansion you should have some idea as to the viability of your efforts.

Of course you will not be able to cut out all risk completely. There is always the risk of surprise factors in international business.

Good market research will give you enough information to feel comfortable with the level of risk.

I personally have always aimed for at least being 80% sure of success. The satisfactory level for the level of risk will depend on many different factors. The more experience you have in international business development the easier it is to evaluate and appreciate.

The important point here is you need to give yourself enough information to evaluate your risk.

Get To Know Your Future International Clients

Most people think market research is learning about the market. In international market research you need to become familiar with the people. Not the market.

Why is this critical?

Simply because you will get to know your foreign market much better. Your international marketing is aimed at people. People in different countries are different. There is a good chance they will respond to your product or service in a different way to your regular domestic clients.

How can you expect your international marketing to effectively bring in clients if you are not marketing to them in the right way for them?

The important point here is to always concentrate on understanding the people, the person, your international client.

The Challenge For International Success

When you first start to develop your business in a new country, you can get bogged down in getting used to different procedures. There is a danger of abandoning your international market research.

This is the challenge. Your international market research gets you started. It also keeps your international expansion going.

You need to set up a simple process for your international market research and keep at it, without stopping.

• This is how you will develop your business through the different stages of international business.
• This is also how you will be able to spot new business opportunities, or know when to revise your business strategy.

The International Sales Road Map in the Get International Business Guides is an easy process. It is great for businesses with limited manpower and budgets to spend on their first international business development plan.

The International Sales Road Map incorporates all of the key actions for international business success, including international market research. The important key is to keep in action. International business success depends on small steps taken consistently and repeatedly until you gain the market knowledge and market presence to move onto the next phase.

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Guide To Use Free Online Translation Tools

Just beginning your international market research?

Are you stuck because you don’t know how to start?

You can get a lot more international market research done if you use free translation tools to help you get through the initial barriers.

The free translation software cannot do everything. You need to follow certain guidelines.

But with a little practice it will become a precious ally in your international market research. Speeding up time and saving your money.

• How can free translation tools help you develop your international business? • When should you use free translation tools? • How can you get the most out of free translation tools? Find out how to use free translation tools here.

• What is happening in the world of free translation tools? • How can this progress help you? • What can you expect for the future? Read more on why you should follow future improvements.

• How should you use free translation tools? • Can free translation tools do everything? • What is the best way to use free translation tools? Use these guidelines to get the more out of them.

Read the whole story

Other Resources

International Market Research Learn how you can use free online translation tools to help you get past initial language barriers and then start your international market research. This is essential to your international success.

Free Translation Tools If you want an quick and easy way for your international visitors to access your information in their own language without taking them away from your website, download either the free WordPress Plugin or the Translation Widget for all websites.

Key International Resources You can find other useful resources for your international business development.

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