Global Marketing – Marketing to Customers Ready to Buy – Part 2

By Rodney Hiel

Making lemonade to refresh your bottom line in this challenging economy requires a new perspective in leveraging “growing” international markets. The first markets to consider that continue to thrive through this downturn have been commonly referred to as the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). With strong growth rates in certain sectors and various governmental stimulus programs in place, this can provide direction to your greatest international sales potential.

For example in consumer products, China’s retails sales have continued their double digit climb. With government rebate incentives contributing a few points to the growth, as stated by Cheng Siwei, a highly respected Chinese government leader in a May speech at the University of Minnesota, consumer spending grew over 15% in the first quarter of this year. In January, auto sales in China continued to thrive and surpassed US volumes for the first time in history and are up 21% over the first six months of last year. Here, GM sales are up 38% year on year (led by minivans) for this time period and hold a large share of this growing market. They will continue to invest billions to grow this market for the future.

On the B2B side, a $580B stimulus package by the Chinese government was announced in November of last year. This has been steadily applied to rural infrastructure development, education, high tech, and healthcare among other industries. This creates multiple opportunities and generates significant revenues for companies serving these industries. The stimulus package is one indicator to provide strong evidence of immediate opportunities to leverage.

Connecting your products to these trends is the next step in defining the size and potential of the opportunity to your company. Developing your strategy to get to these customers and effectively navigate the many cultural, political, and legal variations of each market can make the first step challenging. Given your resources and competencies, do you have what it takes to efficiently get your products to foreign customers?

If these markets currently provide strong revenue growth for your competitors, waiting on the sideline “for the right time” is no longer an option in today’s economy. Here’s the target and it’s time to make lemonade!

Rodney Hiel is the Managing Director for Asia Business Consulting. Minnesota based Asia Business Consulting strategically researches, develops, and tactically executes a proven process to create cost effective strategies for market entry in today’s Southeast Asia and China.