Marketing
is the discipline that is dedicated to developing strategies for the commercial management of companies, seeking to stimulate demand. Marketing tasks include the analysis of consumer and market behavior.
International, on the other hand, is an adjective that refers to what belongs to or relates to two or more nations. The term also allows naming countries different from one’s own and to those that have transcended national borders.
Then, what is international marketing?
It involves the application of marketing strategies in a different environment to one’s own. The specialist must interact with cultures and realities that are alien to their usual environment and that require him to pay special attention to certain factors that will be key to the introduction of products in the market.
One of the responsibilities of marketing is to retain the consumer, for which the product in question must meet their needs. In international marketing, it is essential that the expert is clear about what these needs are and how the product that is intended to be marketed can satisfy them.
To fulfill this objective, it is necessary to work in the field of foreign market research. The international marketing must know the characteristics of this environment to make appropriate recommendations on the design and product development. Once the product was introduced to the market, it will be time to try to build consumer loyalty and develop expansion strategies.
The Blue Ocean strategy
To generate profits and grow the market, you should not always travel a known and safe path; The policy of the blue ocean consists of creating demand in a space not contemplated until now, a virgin sea, instead of competing for face to face with the other companies in an existing industry.
Conversely, red oceans are known as industries that exist until the appearance of a blue one. In them, everyone knows the rules of the game and the limits of their actions. The dynamic that occurs in a red ocean consists in a competition between companies that seek to obtain better performance than the rest, get a more significant portion of the market, giving consumers what they ask, what everyone knows they need.
As the market space grows, the possibilities of obtaining profits for each company in particular decrease; this is the moment in which the aggressive measures begin, which aim to reach the top without paying attention to the consequences, without mercy by the competitors. This cruel war stains the ocean of blood, and from there the name of this concept is revealed.
The blue ocean represents a point on the map that has not yet been discovered, an unknown space, without competition or demand; The first to navigate its crystalline waters is responsible for creating this demand, for showing consumers a new product or service and to convince them that they need it.
When such a strategy is successful, growth and profits come very quickly, as happened with the Nintendo Wii, a console released at the end of 2006 that revolutionized the way of understanding digital entertainment thanks to its control with detection of movement. In a blue ocean, there are no rules, but this can become a double-edged sword.
By relying on an unprecedented marketing strategy, there can be several situations that put at risk the continuity of a company: that the revolutionary product or service does not generate the desired impact, and it is impossible to recover the investment; that competitors see their potential quickly and produce improved imitations, managing to capture the attention of consumers more effectively; that the acceptance is very slow.