How to Develop a Marketing Strategy for Your Import Export Business

How to Develop a Marketing Strategy for Your Import Export Business

Vani Krishnamurthy

Vani Krishnamurthy

23 May 2018 | 4 min read

So you've decided to export—now it's time to think about marketing your business as a global enterprise. While you may have a strong visibility and public interest in your domestic market, it's unlikely that you are known on an international scale. Invest in constructing a marketing strategy to spread the word about your business and secure your success.

So you’ve decided to export—now it’s time to think about marketing your business as a global enterprise. While you may have a strong visibility and public interest in your domestic market, it’s unlikely that you are known on an international scale. Invest in constructing a marketing strategy to spread the word about your business and secure your success.

Marketing strategies are crucial to export businesses, some of the reasons they are so valuable are detailed below:

1. Guiding Your Team to Success:

Detailed strategies mean that your team remain focused on the task, and that they make appropriate decisions when discussing or working with your brand.

2. The Waiting Game:

Your business isn’t going to reach international acclaim overnight, it’s going to take some time before you are recognised in this new market. Having a marketing strategy reminds you that these things take time and means that small disappointments don’t sway you off-track from your bigger goals.

3. Recycle and Renew:

It’s likely that your business will follow this marketing strategy for some time—once constructed, your strategy can always be revised to keep in line with your new ambitions for your business.

4. Cash-Flow Management:

Periodically assessing the effectiveness of your strategies will maximise your marketing success and reduce wastage. Tracking your expenditure will give you a better idea of the costs required to reach achieve your desired international presence.

Now that you understand the value of creating a marketing strategy for your export business, here are some steps to craft an effective strategy:

1. Know Your Business:

Understand your business model, its place in this new market, its strengths and weaknesses, the resources you have available for this enterprise, and your goals - where do you see your business in a year’s time?

2. Research:

The importance of this step cannot be overstated. Be sure to research:

Where will your business be most successful? Who are your target audience? And how is it different to your local audience? How should you market to your audience? Are there cultural difficulties i.e. language barriers?

3. The Competition:

Assessing the competition allows you to determine some strategies which have been successful in this market and review some possible ways in which your business and/or product is different. How can you set yourself apart from the rest? What is unique about your business in these local and global markets? Gathering this information is the best approach when creating a marketing strategy for an unfamiliar market.

4. Business Objectives:

What is the future of your business? Knowing the goals of your business model and making long and short term goals allows you to measure your business success on a realistic timeline. This approach allows you make adjustments to your marketing strategy when required.

5. Outline Your Marketing Strategies:

Some of the strategies your business can utilise include:

Pricing strategies: shake-up the market with promotions, discounts, and offering better value for money than your market competitors. Online strategies: online marketing is an optimum strategy for international businesses. Be sure to utilise as many online systems as possible to reach a wider audience. Traditional strategies: use face-to-face interactions and media such as print materials or attending exhibitions to put your business presence over-the-top. Unique strategies: think outside the box for ways to market to your target audience. Unique strategies will set you apart from the competition. Market strategies: prioritise your time and resources on understanding and setting up your business in your first location. Using this location as a starting point for future expansion will enable you to work more efficiently! These strategies have a proven track record of success. Be sure to mix and match these strategies to promote your business and encourage success with diverse audiences.

Write out your strategies for marketing your new export, providing methodologies for each strategy. This will motivate you to achieve your goals and enable you to assess the effectiveness of each strategy. Also, be sure to detail the financial responsibility of each strategy and operate within your resources.

6. Action Your Strategies:

Now you’ve successfully detailed your marketing strategies, it’s time to put all that hard work to use. Follow your action plan and be sure to optimise your strategy when something is or isn’t working.

Detailed marketing strategies are imperative for the success of your globalising business. Get in touch with Mo Works Creative Agency to discuss how you can make your marketing strategies a reality.

At Mo Works Creative Agency, we have full-stack in house capabilities across design, development, marketing and community management. You can trust Mo Works to fuel your company’s success in Australia and beyond.

To find out more about Mo Works’ services, please contact work@moworks.com.au

Topics

mo works
branding
melbourne
creative agency
import
export