when the apple does fall far from the tree

Today's story is about apples [b2b kind of apples, to keep my blog topics relevant].

Let's consider that your company sells apples. Say your company was established in a market where the tastiest apples are [almost] exclusively grown in your orchard.

That places your company in a very comfortable position vs. competitors and potential new-comers on the market. Customers have little choice if they are looking for good quality apples - they know you and have to come to you whenever they want their fruit.

Now think that your master-of-apples company expands internationally.

new to a new market?

OK, maybe this post's title holds too much newness, but when a company expands internationally, there are two types of market situations it can encounter: either the sector is well established & pretty much everyone in that market knows the product, or the company brings a new-to-market kind of service.

The later is the most interesting marketing challenge: how to market your new b2b service and find early adopters. 

standard, simple, global

Standard, simple, global: sounds impossible, doesn't it?

That's my take: there is no standardization in b2b when going global. Just to be clear from the start.

In regard to the global marketing strategies, there are two main questions a company has to answer:

• Will you standardize your product / service while extending your distribution market?
• Will you adapt your product / service to each new country? Even create new products, if that's the case, for new markets?

I'm extremely biased towards adaptation or even creating new service from scratch, in the right market circumstances. 

It's clear enough if you read this post about adapting your products for international markets or any other labeled under 'localization'.

But there are merits to the standardization, and I want this point of view present in my blog as well.

translation, let's not get lost in it

Google Chrome translate feature 

I totally have to praise Google Chrome and the huge progress they brought in overpassing language barriers.

I can't really imagine how things were done prior to this translation feature embedded in Chrome browser; much more expensively, I imagine.

On my side, I like to investigate on my own before committing resources to ordering a study. I couldn't really justify paying study after study just to tell my stakeholders: look, it's not worth pursuing this or that market. I could argue the savings done by not going into the wrong directions, but I actually prefer to pay for documented opinion to confirm my hunch that there's potential in a certain market.

localization in international marketing

The localization is defined, in marketing, as the process of making a product or service more suitable for a particular region or country.

It's important to know that there's more to localization than just the translation of the content and information about the company and its products.

Depending on the target market, localization can go as far as using a whole different marketing mix, e.g. having different positioning of the products.

yes, outsource

By all means, outsource. I did.
But choose the right provider. I didn't.

This is a short, measurable story about call centers. One of my most solid presumptions was shattered: that English will take you anywhere.

When planning campaigns / events abroad and approaching companies, you might have the illusion that English works everywhere. It doesn't. You might even think that, if you're calling medium & large companies,  English is sufficient.

But if you imagine this will not affect your success rate, you are wrong.

I've measured the difference.

I've worked with an English-speaking call center for a project addressing companies in a German-speaking country, calling multinationals. In the database qualification phase, their success rate was 35%.  Most of the rejections sounded like:
- we're not interested
- we can't provide any information over the phone
- we don't speak English
- they hung up / transfer failed.

Taking the same project to a native call center made the difference. 96% completion rate. Where the companies were previously rejecting any form of collaboration, now they provided the requested data.

So there you have my conclusion, in measurable form: use native speakers when cold calling the companies.

local offices - autonomy vs. control

I always wondered what's the healthiest amount of control Headquarters should exert over their offices abroad.

I'm not talking legal or administrative; I'm not debating branch vs. subsidiary as incorporation form; I'm wondering about the intricacies of headquarters' control over the local offices - how much freedom should the latter have in terms of market strategy?

Working in subsidiaries, I sought independence in some marketing decisions and had to fight for it; working in Headquarters, I'm looking for absolute control over the communication and actions, although I'm fully aware of how important local business culture knowledge is.

where to start your int'l career

A franchise is an excellent place to start learning international marketing, and I'm not just saying that because it's how it happened for me.

A well established, serious franchise organization is built around unitary concept, has a standard product, a clear business model, and an operational system in place.

In my company's case, the business logic was that the more countries were covered by the franchisees’ network, the stronger the overall service was.

lost in migration

OK, 'Lost in migration' is the name of a brain game I like to play, but this post is about bumps a company can hit when migrating its brand into new markets.

Since these days I'm working on registering brands at international trade marks institutions, I remembered having read about unfortunate trade names meaning when you translate them into another language.

clearly misunderstood, or who speaks what

Two non-native English speakers can make a conversation quite funny. I should know, I'm one of them.

I recently had a very loud conversation over the phone with someone from a neighboring country. This person was trying to compensate the terrible English with voice volume to improve my understanding.

This reminded me how confusing it gets sometimes when you have two people from different non-English speaking country trying to understand each other. Not to mention having such attempts over the phone.

discretely launching this

This is a somehow secret blog on international marketing stuff.

I found myself browsing through intl_mkt pages full of criptic or niche information, without finding an actual good source on how to market your b2b services internationally.

This is why www.zoominglocal.com is happening.
As long as my free time will allow it, i'll post about my experience.

Because I've been on both ends of an international business: I've worked in subsidiaries of  B2B services company, and I've worked in the headquarters of a software producer & exporter.

My other expectation from this page, besides offering my views and what I know, is maybe get answers to my unsolved dilemmas, learn more by documenting for my posts, and receive advice from my peers.

The secret part, well, that i'll explain later.

Until then, check out this Blog's Presentation done with Prezi - a cloud-based presentation software with zoomable canvas.

intlmkt blog prezi on Prezi

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Disclaimer: this blog reflects my own opinions. Everything published here is my personal view, built from my overall professional experience and from the educational content I've absorbed.

P.S. My Technorati blog code is E4FRU445SA9R.