The Key Choice Of Overseas Marketing Strategy

With the formation of the global market, for most Chinese enterprises, the overseas market has become an important part of the enterprise's overall market. Especially for the large number of manufacturing enterprises concentrated in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, the proportion of export orders is far greater than the proportion of domestic sales, and the success or failure of overseas marketing is directly related to the survival or death of enterprises. Therefore, the correct formulation of overseas marketing strategy is particularly important.

For different types of enterprises, their overseas strategy has different meanings. Similar to CNPC, Chinalco and other national teams, most of them take overseas market as the main purpose of resource acquisition, which is more or less the shadow of national strategy.

However, for the vast majority of private enterprises or small and medium-sized growth enterprises, they are mainly dominated by industrial products, durable consumer goods or fast moving consumer goods. Although China has a huge population potential, compared with overseas markets, especially in Europe, the United States and Japan, the reality of its first purchasing power is far more than that of the domestic market.

China's low processing cost makes it the direction of the low end industry chain transfer in Europe and America. In fact, the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta can become the leading part of China's economy.

The reason why the overseas market is important is that besides the huge practical purchasing power, the low bad debt rate is also envied by many enterprises in the domestic market. Even in the wake of the financial crisis, many outgoing enterprises are very unaccustomed to the dealership of domestic dealers.

Of course, the vicious competition in the domestic market has also led many enterprises to prefer to focus on overseas markets. It can be expected that no matter how to fight the trade war, facing the globalized market is the only choice for Chinese enterprises.

　 The current situation of overseas marketing of Chinese Enterprises

In the actual operation and management process, apart from a few high-tech enterprises, such as HUAWEI and ZTE, which have relatively good management foundation, quite a few Chinese enterprises perform poorly in overseas marketing.

On the one hand, many enterprises are only satisfied with the passive sale of an order, an order instead of active marketing. In fact, Chinese enterprises have become the foundry enterprises of traders or overseas manufacturers. They are at the bottom end of the value chain and earn little profit. Even the world-class foundry enterprises such as Foxconn are also "deficit orders", achieving the "black word delivery" through the greatest cost control. On the other hand, indeed, due to cultural differences, it is difficult for Chinese products to have the concept of "brand" in overseas markets. Basically, "madeinchina" is a cheap and cheap pronoun, and can not even talk about brand premium. This phenomenon is from the early stage. Spin clothing Later, cars and switches were no exception.

Now, more and more enterprises are beginning to realize that lacking core technology and brand influence, it is difficult to go further in the international market only by relying on the low end competition of network exhibition promotion and price war, and gradually begin to "serve first" and increase investment in core technology and product innovation. This is a good start, but it will take a long time to really change the passive and low-end situation.

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　 Key choices for overseas marketing

In the course of consulting practice and actual operation of overseas markets, we have deeply realized that to succeed in overseas markets, we must make the right choice on some key elements.

It should be noted that before overseas strategic choice, we must fully recognize the differences in overseas markets. On the one hand, it is different from the domestic market; on the other hand, it is the difference between overseas markets and different regional markets. Different markets are quite different in terms of consumer culture, credit environment, dealer resources, brand marketing power and so on. For example, the market economy in Europe and the United States is relatively mature, and has a mature social division system. Dealers' channels are easier to establish. They are not particularly sensitive to price, but have higher requirements for product quality and service. And similar to the Middle East market, but the price is more sensitive, dealer loyalty and credibility are different.

Many enterprises, operating in a large and extensive overseas market, are doomed to fail in order to remain unchanged and to operate a wide and diverse overseas market with the aim of fighting against the enemy.

First, enterprise Internally, there should be clear positioning for overseas markets. What does the overseas market mean for an enterprise? Is it a major strategic market or a complementary market? Different positioning means different strategic situations, which means different resources input. Of course, this position can not simply be decided by the enterprise. Instead, we must weigh the actual development stage of the enterprise, the industry attributes, the resource situation, and the competition pattern of the similar products in the domestic and foreign markets.

Second, overseas. market A clear choice should be made on the development path. For example: do we need to build our own brand? Is it a way to choose independent development, or a way of joint venture or cooperation? In the strategic situation, we should take the initiative, or be passive, and so on. A Chinese company has recently appeared on the sponsors list of the world cup in South Africa, causing much controversy. To inspire national pride alone, there is no lack of a very meaningful thing, so that hundreds of millions of Chinese fans can enjoy some self consolation while enjoying the splendid games without Chinese team participation. But from the perspective of business management, it is difficult to agree. The company made a net loss of 460 million yuan in the previous year. Besides, its leading products are mainly industrial products. The main connotation of the brand lies in the product's performance, price and service.

After a clear positioning and strategic posture, the overseas market strategy should also be combined in the regional market, target customers, sales channels, product strategies and marketing organizations.

For example, how big is the overseas market? And the qualified overseas sales personnel are very limited. What is the main market in that area? Is it a comprehensive network or a key point of intensive farming? Is it based on the European and American market or the strategy of rural encircling the cities? These are all considerations when choosing the regional market.

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As for sales channels, is it appropriate to adopt direct marketing, or to adopt a distributor's right way? This will depend on the sales characteristics of the products and the actual situation of the regional market. For standardized products, of course, the way of distribution will expand the market share faster, while customized products need direct marketing. For most Chinese enterprises with insufficient financial strength or weak control capability, it is best to consolidate the foundation, which is to make full use of the local dealer resources in overseas markets for our own use.

It is worth mentioning that the quality and performance of products may be the most critical of all elements. When we talk about the competitiveness of products, I do not think it is easy to understand that the price is cheap, but that there is a cost-effective price acceptable to a customer. Unfortunately, the competition in the foreign market will often be nationalization. That is, several domestic enterprises competing for an overseas customer are often in the same industry. In order to win orders, they will often play the tragic drama of "killing one thousand of the enemy and losing themselves eight hundred". Fierce price competition often makes enterprises too busy or unable to invest more in product development, especially in some medium and long term technologies or products that may not be effective in the short term. This will inevitably damage the competitiveness of enterprises in the future.

Of course, the design and management of marketing organization is also a key factor in the overseas market strategy. For example, do we need to set up overseas agencies such as subsidiaries or subsidiaries overseas? On the one hand, expatriate institutions are expensive, and there are also risks and legal differences in monitoring, and there is also insufficient overseas talent. There is an export-oriented enterprise trying to imitate HUAWEI technology's overseas strategy, intending to set up an office or branch on a large scale overseas. In fact, the profit of its own products is far less than 1/10 of HUAWEI's integrated communication scheme. The profit margins of the products are simply unable to support the huge overseas marketing expenses, and the result is no end.

Another important problem of overseas marketing strategy is the motivation of overseas marketing personnel. When I conducted a deep investigation in a large state-owned enterprise, I found that the most dissatisfied with salary and remuneration is the overseas sales staff besides the R & D personnel. The general manager is also very depressed. Why? The company has already treated them much more than other jobs. It is hardly known that competent overseas marketers and technicians need many combinations of personal abilities, including basic language skills, the use of business rules, knowledge of import and export trade, and understanding of overseas culture, etc., which are quite different from those of domestic marketers. Moreover, scarce talents are more accustomed to comparing with similar talents in the market rather than internal balance. Therefore, in line with the strategic positioning of overseas markets, we should design the remuneration and performance system of overseas marketers in order to give full play to their potential and enthusiasm.

In short, from various factors, the overseas market can not be ignored for a considerable number of Chinese enterprises, and even the future is the most important part of Chinese enterprises' layout. Therefore, it is very necessary to combine our own strategic objectives in the development path, competition orientation, brand building, market selection, customer choice, channel selection, product strategy selection and marketing organization construction, and gradually lay the proper position of Chinese enterprises in overseas market.