What are the most common export marketing and promotion mistakes?

The two most important things in the export marketing are prompt and effective communication and comprehensive market research.

Because most of the export marketers, bring the dynamics of their country on the table while trying to enter in diff country, which is in many cases a wrong approach, every country has their own culture tradition and more over market norms.

Export market research must be independent from any intimately interested party like sales or operations. Conflict of interests kills the Marketing analytics work to approach a new market and a misaligned offering ends up perpetuating the lack of results, although many times seen as an unfortunate surprise.

Most mistakes revolves around “one style fits all”. In Export Promotion and Marketing, the strategy must be well chosen and clearly spelled out. What is the problem to solve? What barriers are there to clear? How can in-store demand be improved? etc. These are some of the doubts/questions to clear/answer in any Export Marketing and Promotion. What works in county A might not necessarily work in B, even if they share borders. The culture, people, tastes, beliefs, etc defer from one country to the other. Just to mention a few of those common barriers we mostly don’t pay attention to.

The market culture is a real thing. What works with once country may not work in another. Making some initial research on cultural sensitivities, language nuances and loca business practices can save you a lot

In my point of view pricing is really important. I had experienced it in most of the countries around us. Unfortunately people of there compare the prices with China and this may decrease your chance of entering to that market. They mostly don’t pay attention to the quality and due to the economical issues they prefer lower prices rather to the quality of the products.

The clear example of this is happened for me. We wanted to export our products to CIS countries in which most of them speaks Russian and they can’t speak English very well. As I understood that with English there is not more to do I started learning Russian to be able to communicate with them, and it really worked.

Absolutely, it is extremely important to adopt the changes required both in product and packaging in line with their culture, language, taste buds, regulatory etc. Neglecting to translate and localize marketing content can result in misunderstandings or offense.

When I receive inquiries from new customers, I often see that they immediately place a strong main focus on sales and - in B2B - on lead generation. But what about awareness and branding of the company in the new target market? Do the target groups know who you are, what values you stand for, what qualifications and case studies you have and why a possibly high price is justified? Are there any local competitors that are much more popular? It is therefore important to carry out a detailed, in-depth market analysis and create professional visibility, especially online.

- Non adapted marketing mix to the local culture. - Wrong communication: Using words with different meanings between product country and destination country. - Promoting the product in the wrong place or through the wrong channel: eg. Don't promote alcohol and wines in Urban Displays in a Muslim country. - Choosing the wrong Incoterm - Opting for the unsafe payment method - Asking for cash in advance in countries where this payment option doesn't even exist...

The principle is a round trip: analyze, act, analyze. In marketing we have several tools and statistics to monitor the activities or eventual corrective measures, but it is very hard in the preliminary stages to turn simple contacts or word of mouth into statistics.

1) Inadequate Market Research: A shoe company entered a market without considering local preferences. Sales suffered as the product style did not align with the fashion trends. 2) Neglecting Digital Presence: In 2022, online retail sales accounted for 21.3% of global retail sales. Companies without a strong digital presence risk missing a substantial market share. 3) Inadequate Follow-Up: Studies show that businesses following up within 5 days of initial contact have a 70% higher chance of closing deals, emphasising the importance of timely follow-ups. 4) Lack of Cultural Sensitivity: A beverage company overlooked religious sensitivities, introducing a product during a significant fasting period, resulting in backlash and reduced sales.

First thing to do it is to distinguish between BTB and business to consumers. For instance in BTB for industrial parts, local competition is a very strong factor, especially when your products do not differ enough from locals in matter of quality and technology which is not locally source-able. If you can offer that difference , then communication becomes important.