International Marketing Research | Meaning, Significance and Process

What is International Marketing Research?

International marketing research involves studying and analyzing markets outside a company’s domestic boundaries to make informed decisions for global business expansion. International marketing research requires a deep understanding of diverse cultures, as consumer behavior, preferences, and market dynamics can vary significantly across countries. International marketing research helps in identifying viable entry strategies for international markets. This involves assessing the regulatory environment, and competition, and understanding the economic landscape.

Geeky Takeaways:

• The procedures, methods, tools, and techniques of conducting marketing research are conceptually the same for both domestic marketing and international marketing.
• The scope, coverage, cost, and intricacies of international marketing make it a highly specialized, complex, and complicated activity.
• The international marketing researcher must develop the ability for imaginative and smart application of tried and tested techniques in sometimes totally new settings.

According to B.S. Rathore, B.M, Jani and J.S. Rathore, “International marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, analysis and interpretation of data on international marketing problems. It consists of specific studies required to develop, implement and evaluate export marketing strategies. Answers are sought to such questions as:

(i) What is the potential market for a product overseas?

(ii) Who are the present and potential customers across the boundaries of a nation?

(iii) How can the international marketer best appeal to this market?

(iv) How successful is the international marketing programme?; and

(v) What are the weak areas in the international marketing programmes?”

Significance of International Marketing Research

1. Global Market Understanding: International marketing research provides businesses with a comprehensive understanding of the global marketplace. It helps identify and analyze diverse consumer preferences, cultural variations, economic conditions, and regulatory landscapes. This understanding is essential for tailoring products, services, and marketing strategies to specific international markets.

2. Informed Decision Making: Informed decision-making is a cornerstone of successful international expansion. Through thorough research, companies can gather data on market potential, competition, and consumer behavior in different countries. This information allows businesses to make strategic decisions related to market entry, product adaptation, pricing strategies, and promotional activities.

3. Risk Mitigation: International markets come with inherent risks, including political instability, economic volatility, and legal complexities. Marketing research enables companies to assess and anticipate these risks, allowing them to develop strategies for risk mitigation. This proactive approach enhances the chances of success and minimizes the impact of unforeseen challenges.

4. Resource Optimization: Conducting international marketing research helps in optimizing resource allocation. It allows companies to allocate resources more efficiently by focusing on markets with the highest potential for success. This includes identifying target demographics, understanding consumer needs, and aligning products and marketing messages with the preferences of the target audience.

Process of International Marketing Research

The following steps are involved in carrying out international marketing research,

1. Defining the Research Problem

The first step in the marketing research process is defining the research problem. This denotes that the objective or purpose of the research study should be clearly laid down. This is essential to give a clear direction to research and to avoid confusion. The research process thus begins with defining the research problem and establishing specific research objectives. Market researcher must be sure that the problem definition is sufficiently broad enough to cover the entire range of response possibilities, and not be clouded by his self-reference criterion. Defining the research problem is vital in collecting the required information, avoiding gathering irrelevant information, and analysing and interpreting data. Thus, defining the research problem may be the pivotal task in the entire study. In defining the problem, two important considerations are taken into account, that is market structure and product concept. Market structure denotes the size of the market, its stage of development, the number of competitors and their market shares, and the channels through which the market is reached. The meaning of the product in a particular environment refers to the Product Concept.

2. Carrying out Situational Analysis

Situational analysis helps in defining the research problem more clearly and may also enable the formulation of the research hypothesis. Situational analysis is particularly significant when marketing research is conducted by an outside agency, because the situational analysis is intended to familiarise the researcher with the company and its environment, hence making the problem more comprehensible to the researcher. The researcher analyses the situation by obtaining relevant information about the company, its competitors, and other information pertinent to the problem.

3. Conducting Informal Investigation

This stage is in fact an extension of the previous stage. Situational analysis is mainly confined to information from company sources, but in this stage, the researcher collects more information from external sources, such as competitors, middlemen, advertising agencies, customers, etc. In some cases of research problems, the required information will be obtained by this step so that it will not be necessary to continue the research. But, if the formal investigation reveals the necessity for a further investigation, the next step will have to be taken; i.e., formulating a research design.

4. Formulating a Research Design

A research design is the specification of methods and procedures for obtaining the required information. It is the overall pattern of the framework of the research project that stipulates what information is to be gathered from which sources and by what procedures. A research design thus spells out the type of information required, the sources of the information, and the methods or techniques of data collection.

5. Collection of Information

As the research design states the information requirements, sources of information, and methods of data collection, the next step taken will be the collection of data. The marketer’s lack of familiarity with a country’s basic socio-economic and cultural patterns results in a huge demand for information, which can be available both from primary as well as secondary sources. Availability, reliability, comparability, and validating of data are some of the problems encountered with secondary data. Most countries do not have governmental agencies that collect data on a regular basis which might be needed by a marketer.

6. Processing, Analysis and Interpretation of Data

Once the data have been collected, the next step in the research process is the analysis and interpretation of findings in light of marketing problems in order to produce meaningful guides for management decisions. Presentation of research findings is the final step, for which the data must be analysed and interpreted. The raw data collected have to be processed and presented in an appropriate form, such as tables to make them easily amenable to analysis. Analysis should be followed by interpretation, which consists of expressing the findings in more meaningful terms, such as percentages, and drawing useful inferences from them.

7. Presentation of Research Findings

The information extracted from the respondents will not serve the intended purpose unless provided to decision-makers in a timely manner. High-quality international information systems design will be an increasingly significant competitive tool as businesses are going international and resources must be invested accordingly. The research findings should be presented in an appropriate form depending upon a number of factors like the nature of research, its purpose and use, the persons who use them, etc.