15 – Communication Decision for International Markets

Introduction

Organizations must effectively promote their brands among their customers to outperform their competitors and survive in the long run. The primary goal of marketing communication is to inform customers about the advantages and values a company’s product or service provides. Brand promotion raises awareness of products and services and, as a result, sales, resulting in significant earnings and revenue for the company. Global communication, as well as branding and advertising, may assist you in marketing your product or service in a variety of nations throughout the world.

15.1 Marketing Communication

Communication is described as the transmission, reception, and processing of information. Communication occurs when an individual, group, or organisation seeks to communicate an idea or message, and the receiver can absorb the information.

Organizations employ brand communication to increase the popularity of their product among end customers. Brand communication is highly effective in advertising products and services to target consumers. The process entails identifying target consumers and promoting the brand through various techniques such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, personal selling, social media, etc.

15.1.1 Procedures for Creating an Effective Communication

The following are critical steps in building good communication:

1. Identifying the Target Audience: The target audience for the same product may differ in various nations. For example, high- and low-income groups in advanced countries may only use certain consumer durables from high-income groups in developing countries. The product’s requirements must be met and satisfied in numerous situations that vary between markets. A bicycle, for example, is a standard mode of transportation in India. Small farmers, blue-collar employees, and students are significant consumers. Bicycles are employed for sports and exercise in various sophisticated countries; hence, the target audience varies. In addition, not all markets have the same decision-making functions for different types of people. All of this suggests that the target audience may differ between markets.

2. Determining Communication Objectives: Communication objectives can vary depending on the situation. For example, when a product is being introduced into a market, the emphasis of communication may be on consumer education and the establishment of primary demand. The communication objectives would be different in a market when the product is in a different stage of its life cycle. If a market has fresh competition, overcoming such competition may be a primary goal of advertising.

3. Choosing the message: When creating a message, four issues must be addressed: what to say (message content), how to say it logically (message structure), how to say it symbolically (message format), and who should say it (message source). Certain environmental elements, such as cultural and legal issues, influence judgments about communication content, message structure, message format, and message source. Different messaging may be suited for each market because of the variances in environmental elements between countries.

4. Budgetary Decisions: The total promotional cost and allocation to various aspects of the promotion mix are critical and tough decisions.

15.1.2 Marketing Communication Integrated

It refers to combining all means of brand promotion to promote a particular product or service among target clients. All marketing components collaborate in an integrated marketing communication to boost sales and maximise cost-effectiveness. It is a strategy for attaining the goals of a marketing campaign by coordinating the employment of many promotional methods that reinforce one another.

The American Association of Advertising Agencies defines integrated marketing communications as “recognizing the value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines, such as advertising, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion and combines them to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum communication impact.”

It is a management concept that aims to combine all parts of marketing communication, such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and personal selling, and make them work together toward a similar goal rather than separately. IMC is a multi-functional strategy for building relationships with customers and other stakeholders.

IMC Components

1. The foundation: It entails a thorough examination of both the product and the target market. Marketers must understand the brand, its offers, and the end-users. They must be aware of the target customers’ demands, attitudes, and expectations and maintain a careful eye on competitors’ actions.

2. Corporate Culture: Product and service features must be consistent with the organization’s work culture. Every firm has a vision, which marketers must consider when developing products and services. The organization is an example. A’s vision is to foster a green and clean environment. Naturally, by the organization’s objective, its products must be eco-friendly and biodegradable.

3. Brand Focus: The brand’s corporate identity is represented by Brand Focus.

4. Consumer Experience: Marketers must concentrate on the consumer experience or how customers feel about the product. A buyer is more inclined to choose a product that has appealing packaging. Customers’ expectations must be met and exceeded by-products.

5. Communication Tools: Communication tools include numerous kinds of brand promotion, such as advertising, direct selling, and promotion through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

6. Promotional Tools: Various promotional tools, such as trade promotions, personal selling, and so on, are used to promote brands. Organizations must improve their relationships with their customers and external clients.

7. Integration Tools: Organizations must regularly track consumer comments and evaluations and use specialised software, such as customer relationship management (CRM), to measure the efficiency of numerous integrated marketing communications tools.

15.2 Global Communication Plan

A Global Communication plan can be incredibly advantageous to a company. It can aid in marketing a product or service in various countries. Historically, significant budgets have been required for global communication. Emerging communication techniques, such as social media, can make global communication efforts inexpensive for businesses of all sizes.

The following are the primary advantages of a Global Communication Strategy:

1. Consistency: Establishing a global communication programme allows a company to communicate consistently with clients in its export markets. Because consumers receive marketing messages from various sources, delivering a consistent message is the most effective method to reach them.

2. Reduced Risk: By designing a successful communication strategy that produces results in your native market, you may lessen the risk of developing a worldwide campaign. The safest and most cost-effective approach to creating a worldwide brand is gradually building an existing brand, market by market.

3. Localization: A company’s global communication strategy does not have to transmit an identical message in every local market. Individual territory’s language, cultural, and business distinctions must be understood and respected. The company’s communication strategy should be adjusted to account for local preferences in terms of language, culture, and business variations. This is referred to as localization.

4. Leadership: Brand leadership allows a company to capitalise on the advantages of a global brand. This entails establishing the key features of its brand while remaining flexible and tailoring communication to local markets. To ensure the brand’s success, the company must track the effectiveness of the communication campaign in each area to achieve brand leadership in all critical regions.

5. Campaign Management: Running a consistent communication programme lowers the cost and complexity of campaign management for a company. Some multinational corporations hire communication firms for each territory. Because of the duplication of work, expenses can quickly escalate if each agency crafts a different campaign for the local market. The corporation can decrease the number of agencies it hires and save duplication expenditures by adopting a single worldwide communication strategy.

6. Media Strategy: The changing media landscape has made it easier to create cost-effective worldwide advertising. In the early 2000s, global communication initiatives depended primarily on mainstream television and press advertising. Because of the rise of social media and the importance of Web search, a company can now concentrate on delivering its messages through the channels that consumers choose. When consumers search the Web in multiple countries, they will receive the same consistent branding message from the firm’s website, regardless of where they are situated.

15.3 Influencing Factors in Communication Decisions

Every day, different countries cooperate in business-related operations. However, there are various economic, social, and cultural disparities between them. These distinctions prove to be impediments to corporate communication. Knowledge of such elements reduces common blunders and misconceptions in cross-cultural business communication. In foreign marketplaces, a variety of factors influence business communication decisions. These are detailed below.

15.3.1 Advertising

Advertising is defined as “any paid type of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an acknowledged sponsor” by the American Marketing Association. It is a method for a company to communicate with potential customers and advertise its goods.

A global corporation that can successfully translate a domestic campaign into a global one or establish a new international campaign from scratch has an advantage over competitors who make the same discovery later in time.

Global campaigns with consistent themes can help develop long-term product and brand identities while saving money by lowering advertising production expenses. Global advertising also gives organisations economies of scale and increased access to distribution channels. When shelf space is limited, a corporation must persuade retailers to carry its products rather than competitors.

In the case of food products, for example,

There are two critical decisions that a firm must make:

The central question that firms must address is whether the precise advertising message and media strategy must be adjusted from nation to nation.

Local country managers can exchange critical information, such as when to exercise caution in ad innovation.

Example: Examples of cultural issues include:

1. Images of male/female intimacy are considered offensive in Japan and prohibited in Saudi Arabia.
2. A guy enters a door before a woman in Germany, France, and Japan.

15.3.2 Public Relations

Public Relations (PR) is the department or function of gauging public opinion and attitudes about the corporation and its products and brands. Public relations professionals also instil trust, understanding, and acceptability among a company’s constituents and the public. “Public Relations is expressing your organization’s messages at the right time, in the right place, to the right audience,” says Marla Aaron. We can now quantify the worth of those efforts and how they match a company’s overall objective thanks to the proliferation of tools and technologies.”

Public relations, like advertising, is one of the four elements in the promotion mix. A public relations professional’s responsibility is to produce favourable publicity. Publicity, by definition, is non-commercial communication about a firm or product. News releases, media kits, and press conferences are standard tools used in public relations.

Public relations experts in foreign business operations should be more than just the company’s mouthpiece. They should build consensus and understanding while fostering trust and harmony, articulating and influencing public opinion, anticipating problems, and resolving disputes. Companies must understand the benefits of international public relations as they become more involved in global marketing and industries continue to globalise.

Cultural traditions, social and political circumstances, and the economic climate can all impact public relations tactics.

The following are the reasons behind this expansion:

• Improved inter-governmental ties
• Technological advancement
• Societal challenges, such as the environment

Public relations experts must comprehend these distinctions and correctly adjust the message to be presented.

15.3.3 Selling to Individuals

In today’s society, talking with someone is one of the quickest ways to persuade them to do something. International markets are brimming with businesses and their goods and services, which stand out for their complex technology, abundance of options, and fierce competition. The function of the salesperson becomes very significant since he or she acts as a representative of the company with whom potential clients will immediately connect. The customer always wants to know that he or she is getting good value for money. The salesman aids in gaining the trust of customers in the firm by converting a potential customer into an actual one, providing the firm with a competitive edge.

Personal selling is the direct conversation between a firm representative and a prospective client to persuade the prospective customer to purchase their product or service idea. In contrast, advertising, sales promotion, and other promotional methods use mass, impersonal communication.

Door-to-door sales, for example, were one of the most critical aspects of Amway products’ success in India.

Salespeople’s efforts have a direct impact on a variety of activities, including:

• Raising awareness of new products and commercial endeavours.
• Keeping existing items working well in the market.
• Provide customers with convenience by selling things straight to their homes.
• Establishing a relationship and building trust using an interpersonal approach.
• Creating actual sales for the companies.
• Direct customer feedback.
• Complement the product’s advertising.
• This provides an excellent approach for describing the firm’s dependability and reputation, product features, resolution of customer concerns, and clarification of customer questions.

The high cost is one of the most significant drawbacks, particularly in developed countries. Decisions made in the course of personal selling:

• The size of the personal selling effort is defined by the importance of the firm’s new product or service and the amount of money, time, and other resources it invests.
• Allocation of Sales Effort: This includes Geographical Allocation, which is the area that a specific salesperson is responsible for covering or the geographical position assigned to each salesperson where he or she is responsible for generating sales for the firm.
• Product distribution to sales personnel: A company may sell various products and services. Due to physical restrictions, a salesperson cannot sell all products or services. As a result, the firm must concentrate on what things the salesman will need to sell. This is done in response to product or service demand or when a new product is introduced.
• Timing: Because time is vital, the firm must make critical decisions about scheduling the personal selling effort.
• Cost Involved: The budget for personal selling defines the scale of the effort, which is usually on the higher side due to the labour-demanding nature of the job.

15.3.4 Promotion of Sales

Sales promotion is any sponsored consumer or trade communication programme that offers significant value to a product or brand for a limited time. It is a critical component of marketing communication policy and accounts for larger promotional expenditures in some nations than advertising, personal selling, and publicity.

• Customer sales promotions are designed to raise consumer awareness of a new product, entice nonusers to try an existing product, or increase overall consumer demand. Coupons, rebates, loyalty programmes, free samples, and so forth are all examples.
• Trade sales promotions are intended to increase the availability of products in distribution channels, such as point-of-purchase displays and trade exhibits.
• Business-to-business (B2B) sales marketing focuses on the B2B market—price reductions, trade-ins, trade displays, etc.

Goals of Sales Promotion:

• Increasing product awareness through promotion is highly efficient in introducing buyers to new products for the first time. In the early stages of product introduction, they act as critical promotional components.
• Creating interest in advertising is essential and successful in generating consumer interest.
• Provide information- Some sales promotion strategies provide customers with information.
• Stimulating demand- Sales marketing generates demand by persuading clients to buy.
• Brand Reinforcement-After a purchase, sales promotions can be used to stimulate more purchases and a reward for buy loyalty in the form of special promotions.

The following are the advantages of sales promotion:

• Offers a genuine incentive to purchasers
• Reduces the perceived risk of acquiring a product
• Ensures accountability for communications activity
• Provides options for gathering extra data for the database