A case of cultural penetration on the international market
The international market has for the past decades been characterized by high competition among different organizations as they all seek to gain their customers’ loyalty. Such organizations are therefore faced with difficulties especially on maintaining a competition position in the market as they strive to succeed as a business and to survive the tough competition. Thus, strategic plans have to be put in place and carefully executed to ensure that such organizations meet the ultimate goal in business which is company growth.
Although external factors are great determinants of an organizations growth, there are certain internal factors which determine the direction of the organization. Despite the fact that there have been drastic improvements on the economic and technological methods and strategies for marketing, other factors have to be taken into consideration to ensure that products and services are promoted to a wider market range in order for the organization’s targeted market to be reached (Mohan, 2005, p. 1).
The most important factor to be considered and emphasized is the sales and marketing field of a company’s strategies. The target market should be well defined failure to which a large part of the targeted market can be lost especially where a company generalizes its target market. Customers are as important to any business as the employees. Thus any organization should work on the basis of satisfying its customers.
Marketing plans should therefore be strategized in a way that they cater for the customers’ needs. As a result, there arises a complication in the organizations’ need to gain maximum profits. This is where retention of customers through customer satisfaction comes in as the most important and potent weapon by any company to fight and gain competitive advantages in the market. Once this is well executed, profitability and growth comes in automatically.
Consumers and culture
In the end, the decision on purchase of products lies entirely on the consumers where some may be biased while others may be goal oriented. The method of the market chain also matters with many retail shops being the final chain of supply.
Such stores have an important role in the decision making of the consumers. The physical appeal demonstrated in such retail stores determines the value of services being offered. However, the consumers remain the final decision makers as many of them go for personal preferences rather than the actual performance or value of the product on sale.
For instance, a consumer may choose to purchase a product which expresses personality attributes such as social status rather than choosing one which is functionally beneficial to the consumer (Parner, p. 1). However, consumer behavior is affected by not only personal likings but also other factors such as customer satisfaction and service provisions and the level of persuasiveness in advertising the product in question.
On the other hand, culture influences consumer behavior through its values and beliefs which in some cases may be restrictive to the targeted consumer. The impact of culture on consumer behavior has two different perspectives. One perspective is where culture is defined as a communal distinction of the mind which differentiates a certain group of people from the rest. The second perspective of culture is based on the way that one understands a certain subject based on the issue at hand.
Thus, cultural impacts on consumer behavior determine the relation between a communal act and execution of a productive activity. Values are the basis of one’s attitude or lack of attitude towards something. Such values include happiness, pleasure and freedom and they can have influence on the lives of individuals. Other influential values are heroes who are seen as icons in the society and have significant influence on the lives of the people belonging to that community.
Just like cultural values, heroes may as well have impacts on the consumer behavior through their association with certain products and not others. Similarly, certain rituals and other symbolic activities have influence on consumer behavior especially where certain activities such as brushing teeth and bathing are performed regularly and associated with a certain believe or religion.
Companies therefore need to ensure that their target consumers are responsive to their products in relation to their marketing strategies. Companies which are aware of their consumer response towards their products have the competitive advantage of being able to improve the products in regard to the consumer responses (The times 100 2011, p. 1). This is best done by examining the marketing framework of the consumer.
The factors to consider when examining the consumer behavior and response include the product itself, price of the product, the location of the customer as well as the promotion method of the product. Other factors to be considered may be economical or technical. For a company to have a positive response from the consumers, all communication strategies should be directed to an already identified target of consumers. This aspect is meant to create a communication strategy that ensures that the product is supported.
Recommendations
The most important thing in coping with the ever increasing competition in the market is understanding the nature and characteristics of products available in the market since this sets a framework under which a successful marketing strategy can be executed. However, having the product knowledge alone without a clear understanding of the target market can be damaging to the marketing efforts.
Conducting research on the references and lifestyles of the target market should also be ensured to assist the company sent the correct message to its target. This helps in gaining loyalty of the targeted market. The products and services being offered should as well be in line with the economic status and the purchasing power of the prospect market (Thinking made easy 2008, p. 1).
There should always exist a mutual recognition between companies and policy makers in order to prevent failure of the market strategy and in other cases avoid legal implications. Examination of the media networks should be done to promote the distribution of local products. Investigation of the local environment surrounding the target market is equally important to promote better understanding of the audience.
International marketing research
The need to conduct marketing research has, over the past decades, become a very critical tool as businesses continue to expand each day. Thus various researches have been conducted to help in improving international marketing strategies in order to offer support to firms.
Research on international marketing has to pay attention to the growth opportunities of the market especially in the non industrialized countries. Conduction of the research should be carried out in a manner that allows for coordination of varied environmental set ups. Since the main goal of researching on international marketing is to promote business growth, the researches should be probe into approaches to cease the cultural effects of consumers on behavior (Craig and Douglas 2001, p. 82).
With the increasing changes experienced in the global markets today, businesses are faced with challenge of tough competition in strategizing their marketing skills. Their information needs are similarly changing as it provides a basis under which businesses make decisions in relation to the competitive business environment. This therefore calls for researches on geographical boundaries for identification of both local and global markets with the aim of integrating marketing strategies across all borders.
This is also essential in preparedness of market changes as well as formulating responsive strategies to those changes. Due to the increasing need of geographical studies, marketing researches need to reach out to a much wider and diverse market range. This entails the collection of data and other research tools from unfamiliar markets all over the globe. However, this poses some challenges since the data collected may not be as accurate and reliable as that collected from the regional markets.
Similarly, prediction of response to such researches as well as the interpretation of the market strategy may be difficult due to unfamiliarity of the regions. The increasing advancements in technology has, however, enabled rapid collection of data on a much diversified geographical scale due to improved communication and infrastructure is many regions around the world (Craig and Douglas 2001, p. 84). This study explores the implications associated with conducting market research on a global basis.
The development of the international marketing research
In order to have a better understanding of the research needs, it is essential to first look at the changes that have occurred for the past few decades. Initially, many firms were only concerned about domestic markets until they expanded into international markets with the aim of accessing information in order to identify the best markets to position their products. As a result of this expansion, research needs have changed and become much broader than before.
Besides integrating marketing strategies across the globe, there is also the need to examine the relation between consumer behavior and responses between countries. Although market growth is slowing down, countries such as India and china are potential market economies with a market target of more than one-third of the world’s population. Venturing into such markets requires firms to have first hand information on the market opportunities, price restrictions and ways of promoting their products effectively.
Diverse research contents
Most of the commercial research has been conducted in Europe, Japan and the U.S. with an approximate sum of $10.2 billion dollars. However, these regions only account for an 11% of the total marketing research spending.
Therefore, conducting researches on other emerging international markets will change this imbalance (Craig and Douglas 2001, p. 85). The emerging markets which are in developing countries are always changing as consumer living standards and purchasing power keep on changing as well as attitudes on foreign products.
Such changes are hard to predict and this makes the research much more difficult coupled with lack of adequate technology in such countries to carry out the research effectively. In addition, technological advancements in the developing countries such as Africa focus mainly in infrastructure development which changes the way of life of the people and further complexes the process of conducting marketing research.
However, these findings may not be reliable today as many countries even in the less developed world are becoming more and more economically stable and this could mean that conducting marketing research in such countries could now be much easier and more effective and reliable than before. Marketing research in 21st century should be broadened to cover all market potentials across all environments.
Positioning research efforts with market growth
The most important factor to consider when researching on marketing is to focus on the future potential of markets to grow. Despite the fact that most research has been concentrated on industrialized countries, the much needed high potential market growth is in the developing countries such as Asia and Africa.
However, such regions require great understanding on the differences experienced in marketing environment. Additionally, the respondents’ ability to understand the questions matters a lot in the accuracy of the results being obtained.
Another major problem associated with the emerging markets is the lack of adequate literacy and familiarity with the economic world. Therefore, it is important to design research instruments which can be easily adopted in both the developing and industrialized countries. Additionally, the teams of researchers need to be from diverse backgrounds in order to provide a wide and non ambiguous interpretation (Craig and Douglas 2001, p. 87).
Employing the use of new tools in conducting marketing research is also important to promote a better understanding of the changing market trends. For instance, qualitative research may be employed to give an understanding of consumer consumption and purchasing power but cannot be used to determine the best advertising method. In this case, other techniques such as extension of creativity groups can be employed to help in identification of ideas, trends and various concepts in a certain culture.
Incorporation of technological advances during research is equally needed to facilitate faster data collection and analysis and consequently, data interpretation. For example, researchers can use the internet to access secondary data which may be used in comparison with primary data to give concrete interpretation of the study.
Conclusion
As the world is constantly changing, various aspects of life are changing including personal and business life. Such changes are however coming in at different times and rates around the globe.
Due to these changes, marketing research is required to be done diversely and the fastest possible in order to proved high quality and effective results. The various aspects of marketing research depend on the geographical region of the study, tools and technology to be used and the kind of respondents to work with (Craig and Douglas 2001, p. 89).
It is therefore the duty of marketing researchers to employ the use of technology advancements in order to enhance efficiency in the research. There is also the need to develop strategies for conducting constant marketing research in both regional and global markets. This is because the increasing competition in the corporate scene calls for timely marketing research for facilitation of business growth.
Bibliography
Craig, C.S. and Douglas S.P. (2001), Conducting International Marketing Research in the Twenty-First Century,” International Marketing Review, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp.80-90.
Mohan, J. (2005). International Marketing, Oxford University Press, New Delhi and New York.
Perner, L. International marketing. Web.
The times 100. (2011). International marketing. Web.
Thinking made easy. (2008). International marketing of Tommy Hilfiger: a case study of cultural penetration. Web.