BUSINESS & FINANCE
Marketing Your Business in a Globalized Economy
Sales are the lifeblood of any business. Selling your product is the foundation of business success. Sales drive profits. Sales drive business expansion. Without sales, there is no customer satisfaction or customer relationship.
Therefore, one of the critical functions of any business organisation, small, medium or large scale is marketing. Business enterprises spend billions every year marketing their products to the target market. This might be in the form of advertisements like billboards, television, radio, newspaper ads or sales promotion techniques or public relations.
The critical question for every business is how to maximise their marketing expenditure. It is essential that the benefits exceed the cost. Therefore, the burden of every marketing manager is to delineate the marketing media that is most profitable for their business.
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A world outside your ‘world’
We live in a globalised market that has been made possible by various technological innovations, especially the internet and mobile technology. The urgent question for every business owner is ‘what is the best way to maximise the globalised market for my business?’ Part of answering this question is another question, ‘how do I market my business in a globalised economy?’
According to the Statistics Portal, as of April 2018, there are 4,087,000,000 internet users all over the world. In like manner, there are 3,297,000,000 social media users. More than 50% of the world population are active internet users.
For every traditional means of advertising, your reach is limited to the number of people within your geographic location. Even if you are a large scale company, your advertisement can reach only as much as the population of your country and maybe some neighbouring countries. China, the most populous nation has less than 2 billion people. Traditional means of marketing can only reach as much as 2 billion potential people even in China.
But with the internet, the scope of ‘target market’ has changed. Your target market does not have to be the people within your geographical location. In a globalised economy, your target market can span across the whole world. A firm in China can position their business online to target customers in Canada. A manufacturing plant in Nigeria can target customers in Russia.
This is most especially true for people who sell services. A writer in South Africa can be writing for a magazine in the United States while an Accountant with the knowledge of International Financial Reporting Standards and accounting packages can be prospecting clients in far away Australia. A graphics designer in France can design flyers and banners for a client in Ghana. A relationship or self-development expert in Britain can be prospecting clients in Spain. In a globalised market, not even language is a barrier to such opportunities.
The first step
The point is this; a globalised market provides business owners and marketing managers with unique opportunities to expand their reach. In a globalised market, the internet offers vast potentials for businesses to grow and industrialise. The target market of your organisation can reach to the whole world. If done well, your goods or services can be a click away from customers all over the world.
If your business is not yet visible to these 5 billion people, you are not maximising the potentials of your business.
Millions of people are searching through Google and other search engines looking for information as well as products to purchase. Why not position yourself to get some of the benefits?
Every serious business in the globalised economy needs a website. Owning a website is the first step towards gaining from the internet as a business owner. A good business website can cost within $100-$300 (depends on the developer). In some cases, it can be lesser or higher. In a globalised market, you can get competitive prices from credible freelancing websites or individual designers that have positioned their services on the web.
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Some of the advantages of having a business website include:
1. It provides a platform where potential customers and current customers can get vital information about your business and products 24 hours a day at just the click of the finger. Instead of answering thousands of calls every day, your website provides a medium to get desired basic information.
2. It makes your goods and services accessible to a globalised market 24 hours a day and seven days a week
3. It is an opportunity to be indexed by Google and to become a destination for relevant Google searches for your product or related products.
4. It provides a platform for a detailed explanation of your products and services without the limitations of a newspaper page or a radio time.
5. In the 21st century world, having a website showcases you as a serious business owner.
Many people all over the world are depending on the internet to purchase their goods and services. It is important to take advantages of such opportunities.
Having a website is not enough to get the sales. But it is the first step in a series of steps that can prove to be the most effective marketing strategy in the globalised economy.
