How to develop a new market and implement marketing strategy?

What do we base our marketing plan on when developing a new market?

This answer is very standard: the nature of the market determines the marketing plan! To be more specific, the commonalities of the market establish the basic marketing framework, and the differences in the market determine the marketing strategy. The ultimate goal is to adapt to the market.

This title is big and difficult to write, but it is not an excuse not to take action, so I decided to give it a try. When writing this article, I listened to a difficult song before starting:

Many years ago, I heard an old senior share this sentence. He said: If a company's business is spread all over China, and its channels are covered from first-tier cities to county and town levels, it is equivalent to doing business with small and medium-sized countries with various economic levels. The marketing department of this company must be very powerful and its ranking must be among the best in the country.

The vastness of the territory of our great China, the diversity of its humanities, the huge disparity in unbalanced regional economic development, and the fact that the real consumption lives of different classes are largely ignored are beyond the imagination of most people. Each province can be regarded as a small or medium-sized country. Platforms that have emerged in recent years, such as Kuaishou, Pinduoduo, and Douyin, have reflected their influence from three perspectives: class, actual consumption level, and entertainment methods.

From the perspective of marketing, every time you enter a market, there are many considerations. The market is the premise of marketing. Every time you enter a market, it is a reconstruction of marketing capabilities and a new combination and innovation of marketing knowledge.

Corresponding to today's topic, I can write an article that answers how to implement marketing strategies to develop new markets.

1. Discuss the market before talking about marketing

Once, I conducted a questionnaire survey in a marketing community of more than 1,000 people in marketing flights. The content of the survey was to ask, among the 23 chapters of "Marketing Management", which chapter do you think is interesting and important to you?

A total of 143 valid questionnaires were collected, and the results showed that only "Chapter 8 Developing the Global Market" was considered unimportant to them by 87.41% of the respondents, but they had some interest in it. In other chapters, there is no such high proportion of people saying that they think it is not important to them.

I analyzed two reasons that led to this result:

The first reason is that most people are influenced by the "butt determines the head" thinking and believe that the global market is very far away. From their workstations, it is difficult to imagine any connection with other countries that are tens of thousands of kilometers away.

This question involves the question of marketing worldview. I believe that every marketer should have his or her own three views. If you don’t understand the global market, as the saying goes, “If you haven’t seen the world, how can you have a worldview?” Everyone should try to understand it and try to make their three views more complete.

The second reason is that they did not realize that the entire Chinese market is actually a smaller version of the "global market", and they did not realize that they must talk about the market before talking about marketing.

The logic of developing the "global market" is actually similar to that of developing a market in Xinjiang, Northeast China, Jiangsu and Zhejiang in China. In terms of marketing, the logic of "developing the global market" is a redefinition of another set of marketing knowledge. This is essentially the same every time you enter a new regional market.

Any company entering a new market, whether online or offline, Guangdong or Xinjiang, China or the United States, must consider two modules: what are the similarities and what are the differences. Then the similarities and differences are reflected in the combination of the classic 4Ps framework of marketing, namely: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, and Strategy.

Seeing this, you may ask a question: In this case, what do we base our marketing plan on for a new market?

This answer is very standard: the nature of the market determines the marketing plan! To be more specific, the commonalities of the market establish the basic marketing framework, and the differences in the market determine the marketing strategy. The ultimate goal is to adapt to the market .

2. Define the marketing framework based on the common characteristics of the market

So, how do we find the commonalities of the market to determine the basic marketing framework?

There are several issues to consider:

1. The speed of market growth is a key issue that must be considered.

For example, Boston Consulting Group estimates that the total number of middle-income people in China and India is expected to reach 1 billion by 2020, and no multinational company can ignore these two markets. By 2035, China will have entered a stage of fully aging population, and the market for industries related to the elderly will grow rapidly.

For example, the laws of economic growth are determined by the median age of the population. The engines of global economic growth in the next decade will all be in Southeast Asia (ASEAN, South Asia) and Africa , where the median population is young. The median age of India's population is 27, while that of China is 37. One of the prerequisites for manufacturing advantages is a low median population age, and countries in Southeast Asia are also enjoying a gradual transfer of manufacturing.

PS: Global median population age: In 2050, China will be older than European and American countries

Therefore, depending on what kind of market is growing, marketing will establish new marketing concepts based on market characteristics, and marketing concepts must be in line with the market.

2. Market risk factors are the second issue that must be considered:

No matter which market you enter, you need to consider the following market risk factors:

1) The company may not understand the purchasing preferences of customers in the new market and be unable to provide attractive and competitive products;

2) The company may not understand the business and social culture of the new market;

3) The company may underestimate the impact of policies on new markets and the additional costs incurred by policies;

4) The company may lack talents with experience in market operation in new markets;

5) If it is a multinational company, it may also come from other countries changing their business laws, devaluing their currencies, or experiencing major political changes that are irresistible to them.

These risk factors directly affect the company's overall strategy, and the marketing strategy serves the company's overall strategy. Therefore, for these market risk estimates, marketing can only avoid and respond to predictable risks.

These risk lists correspond to the basic framework of business capabilities. The basic framework of red lines that cannot be crossed in marketing and yellow lines of warning are also built on this basis.

On this point, Brother Hui would like to emphasize one point in particular: the measure of a marketer's maturity is the ability to manage risks and returns, and the prerequisite is risk awareness.

3. Common sense of industry competition

There are two sentences like this:

1) It is not necessary for two identical products to exist at the same time.

This sameness refers to the same value. Therefore, in an industry where product homogeneity becomes increasingly serious, companies that do not have market-recognized emotional value, that is, brands, will lose profits and be eliminated. This is basic economics.

Therefore, differentiation is the only reason for survival in a competitive environment, and this differentiation refers to differentiation of value, and innovation is innovation of value.

2) The core of marketing is to meet customer needs better than competitors.

This statement is made from the perspective of efficiency. There is also a concept in marketing that the total value of a product perceived by a consumer includes the value of marketing and advertising.

In other words, marketing is also a way to create value for consumers, and consumers' intrinsic values ​​directly affect the way companies invest their marketing costs.

This sentence is easy to understand. The advertisements of Ferrari and LV are actually aimed at people who cannot afford them. Therefore, they are reversely empowering the products and differentiating the social status of different groups of people. Therefore, the advertisements of Ferrari and LV are creating such cognitive value: the customers who use my products are the people with the image in the advertisements.

In summary, value differentiation and the way marketing creates value are common to all markets and are the basic framework of marketing.

3

Determine marketing strategies based on market differences

The problem to be solved in this section is: How to formulate marketing strategies based on market differences?

First, we need to look at a list of the differences in a market.

1. Differences in consumers’ needs, desires, and usage of products.

Take McDonald’s example:

2. Differences in consumers’ responses to the 4P marketing mix elements.

For example, in the developing country market, when the supply chain, production methods, distribution strategy and pricing strategy have been determined, Unilever has adopted the method of selling laundry detergent and shampoo in small packages at 4 cents a bag, which has been very popular because of the low purchasing power, high price sensitivity of consumers and difficulty in changing them.

3. Differences in brand and product development and competitive environment.

For example, when it comes to outdoor sports products, foreign countries do not recognize brands. Chinese people would buy a Spalding basketball, but foreigners will just play with the ball. Chinese people buy badminton brands like Yonex, but foreigners don’t care, they just play as long as they have a racket. Only very high-end people recognize brands. In the United States, I saw that all the people who bought brand-name golf balls were wealthy Chinese. The American people are easy to deal with and don’t really recognize brands.

4. Differences in legal environment.

This is mainly an advertising review environment. I won’t give examples one by one. For example, in my country’s Advertising Law, many banned words cannot appear in advertisements, and advertisements for sanitary napkins cannot be played while people are eating. This is also part of the legal environment.

5. Differences in marketing media and agencies.

The main difference here is the difference in the way mainstream media and operating agencies influence users in different markets.

6. Differences in administrative procedures.

This part mainly refers to the differences in the supervision of marketing activities by administrative units.

Secondly, let’s look at the differences caused by a market’s historical development and different consumer habits.

• Historical reasons in a market can lead to different consumer perceptions. for example:
• Heineken is a high-end beer in the United States, but is just a mid-range product in Dutch supermarkets.
• Honda cars represent speed, youth and dynamism in Japan, and quality and reliability in the United States.
• Toyota Alpha is just an ordinary MPV for the middle class abroad, but in China it is a high-end car that requires an additional price of 300,000 to 400,000 yuan.

Above and more…

Among these many differences, what should marketers do to develop marketing strategies? There is a basic idea:

Systematically analyze the product based on the following 11 major factors to determine whether the increase in profit after adjusting a certain item can exceed the cost investment. If it can, there is profit and the strategy is right. If not, the strategy is wrong.

These elements are:

1. Product features 2. Color 3. Promotion

4. Advertising media 5. Packaging 6. Advertising theme

7. Product label 8. Product material

9. Product price 10. Brand name

11. Advertising Execution

Basically, all marketing strategy formulation and adjustments are based on these 11 factors, and the standard formula for measuring whether a strategy is effective is whether the profit increase exceeds the investment after the adjustment.

Therefore, adapting to new market differences does have costs. This is the basic concept of marketing costs. When setting strategies, they must be centered on profit as the criterion. Any marketing strategy adjustments that are not centered on profit are just rogue.

4. Country of origin effect

OK, at the end of this article, let’s talk about a tried-and-true marketing tactic that marketers can naturally utilize: the country of origin effect.

Let me tell you a little story here. Before the Chinese New Year, many of my colleagues in flight marketing wanted to send me gifts. I politely declined many of them, but there were some that I couldn’t resist, which were specialties from various places. Because I declined many gift requests from my friends, I felt embarrassed to post the local specialties on my Moments after receiving them.

Here, I would like to say thank you to all the friends who gave me gifts! I would also like to thank those friends who failed to send gifts for expressing their gratitude. Your kindness has been received.

In marketing, the country of origin effect is extremely powerful in stimulating consumers' psychological associations and beliefs. For example, when eating food, you want it to be authentic; when buying a set of mahogany furniture, a car, a wool sweater, or even a toilet lid, you have to check the origin.

Unfair impressions of place of origin affect consumers’ judgment and also affect the company’s operations. Taking advantage of the impression of place of origin is the marketing strategy that marketers should most grasp.

Just like Hui Ge’s hometown Qingyuan City, the city has beautiful mountains and rivers, and the air is super good. The city is a big oxygen bar. It is famous in the Pearl River Delta for rafting and hot springs. The key is that Qingyuan chicken is delicious and famous, and Yingde black tea is also very famous. Recently, I saw that Qingyuan chicken has also gone abroad. Hahaha, I hope that the specialty agricultural products here can give full play to the effect of their place of origin and sell better and better.

5. Summary

Having read this far, we have reached the end of this article. This article is the 9th article in your reading of "Marketing Management". Part of the inspiration comes from Chapter 8 of the original book, "Developing the Global Market". I recommend that you read it and see if you can find more insights from it.

In this article, my feeling is that I can use the framework structure of this chapter to more clearly sort out how to formulate a marketing framework and implement a marketing strategy when facing a new market. The knowledge in the book is classic, but you need to add your own aura to this classic knowledge so that the knowledge can come alive and be used by you.

This article you are reading is such an output method, shared with you so that we can make progress together.

OK, that’s all I’m sharing with you today. Thank you for your reading time! I hope this article will inspire your study. Feel free to share it with friends you think are in need for discussion.

Source: Marketing Flights