Let’s first start our conversation by asking why? Why marketing? Why HR? Why finance? Why any of those or any other fields is important for the business whether it’s a startup or a huge organization.
Simply to reach the business goals which is basically and mainly profit. Everyone needs to make profit actually that’s why you started up business. You need marketing to get people aware and engage with your business by buying your product and/or service, you need CRM to make sure that those people becomes consumers and keep using your product and/or service and re buy it, in addition to recommending it to others. You need everyone in your company to make profit through their time and work output.
You can’t skip the roles of marketing to choose segments, whom to target, what to position. And after deciding all of this based upon the market research; comes the next step of promoting, pricing and distributing the product where there is a market.
After going through all of this process the last thing mentioned in the previous paragraph was “where there is a market”. The internet is market! China, England, Germany, Nigeria; each is a market. The whole world is a market. Which market are you working for!? Why should you go for another country?
Because intelligent people doesn’t just want to make profit but to maximize their profits. One of the ways of how to expand your business and maximize your profit is starting to introduce your business in other countries and going international.
Domestic vs. International marketing
If you are from America and you started your business in America you are working in your domestic market. In other words you are working in your internal market.
Working domestically has got its advantages and disadvantages. Major advantage of working in your internal market is the your understanding to the country and the people. Your understanding to your sector and about their way of thinking. Your understanding to the commonly used language; way of joking and way of being serious; your understanding to the culture, norms and traditions. You could simply get to know more about your rules and regulations concerning any business and you even know from where to get the information. Yes being from the country is a huge advantage that you will never understand until you start going to other country and get surprised from everything!
Disadvantage of working in your internal market only; that your business is affected with the political and economical conditions of the country. Meaning that in case for example a revolution had happened your business will be affected directly. But what if your business is working in 2 or 3 other countries? The effect won’t be the same for your business on a macro scale.
What about international marketing? The only difference is that you do your activities and business in more than one country including your domestic market. Here comes the challenge and complexity of going international.
Once you go international you start to face the cultural changes, the different language spoken, the difference in the norms and traditions in addition to the different way of living, thinking and even the difference in the sense of humor.
Most business men once they decide to enter new market in new countries they either choose to find a trustable partner in the other country or they very heavily invest in the market research in addition to having key contact in each country where they can take their opinion or ask them about any needed information before taking any step.
We can conclude of out of this that marketing tools are almost the same every where, marketing concepts and principles also are the same. What differs is the market. And your judging and decisions. When you work domestically you have controllable areas in your hand where you can decide such as; your firm characteristics, your product, it’s price, your promotion, channels of distribution and research. Yet; you still have uncontrollable issues in your domestic market such as; the political and legal forces, the competitive structure and the economical environment. Once you decide to work in a foreign environment you have more uncontrollable issues such as the political and legal forces, the economical forces, competitive forces, level of technology, structure of distribution, geography and infrastructure and the cultural forces of that foreign country.