1 International Marketing Strategy
Strategy is a firm's theory about how to compete successfully. It represents the
cumulative direction of the organization, given the internal and external factors.
An International Marketing Strategy has to ensure that the firm's overall business
strategy is supported. You can divide three forms of business strategies:
-differentiation
-cost leadership
-focus
The differentiation strategy requires special features to differentiate from competitors from the customer's point of view. These features may affect the product
itself, pricing, promotion, distribution or also services. Good examples for this
strategy are luxury goods like e.g. BMW. The BMW marketing managers perceives
their customers that driving a BMW gives you a feeling of reliability and
having a high-quality product. In addition advertising spots also transport the
message of having fun with the BMW car ("BMW-Freude am Fahren"). These
features make the BMW car special and therefore the company is able to charge
higher prices than other car-selling companies.
An alternative to this strategy is the cost leadership strategy. This strategy only
can be achieved by reducing costs. The reduction of costs may affect production
and manufacturing costs, sales costs, cost for material and components but also
the own profit margin. If marketing managers follow this strategy they concentrate
on advertising the low prices and finding low priced distribution channels,
e. g. discounters instead boutiques at hot spots like the Königsallee in Düsseldorf.
The third business strategy - focus strategy - is adopted by marketing managers
through concentration on a specific segment or on areas or regions within a
consumer market. Some companies may concentrate on target groups like
Swatch did. Their segment of the consumer market can be described as young
and fashion orientated. Others concentrate their efforts on the distribution; e. g.
small companies often sell a specific product via internet.