The Salient Differences between International and Domestic Marketing Research - Essay Example

?International Marketing Research This paper touches upon the salient differences between international marketing research and domestic marketing research; and outlines the need for improving the international marketing research quarters to bring about sanity within the business realms. Marketing research in the time and age of today has attained a great deal of significance mainly due to the fact that it finds out the important details and extracts the much required information regarding audiences, target profiles, segments and their respective behaviors when the products and/or services reach out to them. It is therefore paramount to understand that marketing research must be conducted by clients so that their audiences are traced much before the product/service is launched within the respective market territories, domains and zones. International marketing mix depends a great deal on how the distinctive marketing research tenets are discussed and what these factors outline is a need to amalgamate the essential present within the international marketing mix. The domestic marketing research is severely different because it aims to explore a national basis whereas the international regimes think and act within the global empire. Hence the marketing research is varied for both kinds of arenas, and there is reason enough to believe that each one of these has a calming influence on the two. This paper studies the basis of the international marketing mix decisions which require many varied kinds of marketing research that are global in nature and how the same are differentiated from the domestic marketing research realms is something that shall be given significance here, with global examples. It is a fact that the marketing research which is measured within an international context is comparatively different from the one which is taken in within a domestic environment. The reason for the same is that there are many stakeholders when one considers the two cases. These include the businesses, the industrial giants, the stock exchanges, and so on. When data gets collected within an international marketing research regime, the focus is on collecting a sample of people who hail from a number of different nations and not just a singular country. However this is not the case when one thinks of the domestic regimes where the focus is on a particular country. One such example is of the marketing research that was done for Kellogg’s when it diversified into a new product line for the US markets. This was a domestic marketing research example and hence emphasis was put within the local terrains. However when the marketing research was conducted for LG as a brand, the scope was global and hence a number of different countries were taken into consideration. Since LG is a global brand of repute and dignity, proper care was taken into count that many samples were explored and then analyzed upon in detail. The sample size was chosen to make sure that there was no missing link present with it. The marketing research was therefore very comprehensive and the samples were chosen with attention to detail. Hence the marketing research differences between Kellogg’s and LG are quite apparent here as the samples were chosen in light of the markets that were to be covered by the respective brands. If Kellogg’s wanted to move out and touch bases within other nations of the world, its audience would have been different and hence the scope would have broadened up as well. The approach used by Kellogg’s and LG are similar yet the scope for the two brands has been different. This is the reason why marketing research has been seen as international in one case and domestic in the other. Moving on, the most basic difference between international marketing research and domestic marketing research is that the former concentrates on the world’s different audiences while the latter is dependent on a single nation or entity so to speak. What this means is the fact that international marketing research is a comprehensive ideology which takes into consideration different markets and territories. The domestic marketing research is not that complete and has certain issues which can only be discussed with a nation’s perspective. The international marketing research centers its attention on how different countries view the products/services that are on offer and what their respective audiences have to see for their own selves. This is however very distinct for the localized version of marketing research which focuses on how a select nation has to be targeted and how diverse its population is going to be. At times, when the talk goes out loud regarding the regional adaptations, the international marketing research is derived from the domestic marketing research. This is important to understand because it has a number of issues that need to be taken care of, the sooner the better. The primary and secondary marketing research is an important manifestation because it suggests the kind of details that will be listed within the domains of the research which is being collected. Since international marketing research deals with how audiences are gauged with regards to the product at hand within the global sphere, its scope is also very broad. However what this means is that the product’s scope must take into consideration how it would change its stance with regards to different countries and the events and occasions that take place between them. An effort should be made to find out how international marketing research will find out value for each of the listed nations and nearly all countries must receive attention and important because this is much needed at the end of the day. International marketing research is therefore filled with risks because the regional adaptations are very hard to come by, and at times some countries do not even buy the idea of manifesting their respective viewpoints because it is not in line with their cultural and social perspectives. The domestic marketing research is much localized and depends a good deal on the regions which are situated within the domains of a country. This is the reason why domestic marketing research has been given less importance than the realms of international marketing research. The samples that are chosen for the international marketing research are more comprehensive and include people and their details from a number of regions of the world which is very dissimilar to how research is taken to task within the domestic marketing research angles. The domestic marketing research is exclusive to a domestic market, which could either be of an area or a country; however the results are very clear as per its study of the market realms. Data collection has a number of issues within its fore. First one must understand that data collection within a marketing research activity is an important and integral part of the research design. Different data collection methodologies have come to light as one tries to study the marketing research realms in-depth. It has its own share of advantages and drawbacks. The problems that are discerned with these data collection methodologies basically assist the enhancement in the value of research and make the entire quality issue a good one within the marketing research quarters. Quite rightly so, data collection can be had in different forms and ways as well as in varied settings or even in lab conditions. Similarly the sources are varied when one tries to understand the nuances related with data collection in essence. These methodologies have included interviews, in-depth questionnaires, and a number of other tools which are employed from time to time within the data collection process. The interviews could be done through face to face interviews, telephone interviews, computer-assisted interviews as well as the interviews which take place through the electronic media. Questionnaires are administered on a personal basis, which can either be sent through mail or in an electronic manner. In addition, observation of individuals is another data collection method that is being applied these days to catch the target audience off-guard and thus record their responses. Q-ratings, time series, case studies, simulations, journals and logs are other data collection methods which are being employed in the time and age of today. One must understand that collecting primary and secondary research is inherently very different. This has been proven with the products/services which have come to the fore within the varied countries of the world. Even though primary research is not easy to come by, getting hands on secondary sources of data/information is also not an easy task. Primary research makes use of all the above listed tenets, however secondary research is usually gathered through books, journals, magazines, video tapes, speeches and so on and so forth. Collecting both these forms of research is fundamental to understanding how international marketing research realms are coined and what differentiates these from the domestic marketing research ones. The different issues that are encountered in the wake of collecting primary and secondary research include the fact that there are times when the people within the sample do not wish to be a part of this exercise and hence want to do away with the research process at their earliest (Arnold & Quelch 1998). For this, they give responses which are not based on facts. What this does in essence is to determine absolutely erroneous data which is based on falsifications and mere stories. Data collection is however a very significant undertaking on the part of any enterprise and thus it must be given its fair due so that success shall creep in within the organization at the end of the day. The quality of international marketing research can be improved if there are all-out efforts to make sure that the sample chosen is of the correct size and that there are no issues with its scope and boundaries. This means that the international marketing research domains are usually provided facilitation and support by the people who conduct these realms of marketing research in the first place. The international marketing research is given assistance by new businesses entering in different parts of the world and hence it is significant that studying these markets would give a totally new dimension – a perspective which was not studied before, and which shall be underlined so that the business can reach out to its new customers, and thus bring in the much desired benefits at the end of the day. This will solve nearly all the issues as far as the organizations are concerned, which have made up their mind to enter new territories and explore new tangents and markets. Therefore international marketing research would help the companies grow on the global front and assist them in understanding how they should go the global way. Since they have moved out from the regional and domestic shores, it is now about time to comprehend how success will now be achieved. This success is dependent on how international marketing research regimes manifest their truest selves and look to maintain the balance between the researches conducted in different regions of the world. Further, the quality of international marketing research would be assisted a great deal if the stakeholders exactly know what marketing research would do for them. These stakeholders are essentially everyone – from the participants of the focus groups to the people who have invested within the realms of the organization. These stakeholders form the lifeblood of any organization as they seek to bring out the best within the organizational domains. The international marketing research regimes focus on how pertinent quality marketing research has been and what it can bring for the sake of the business in the long run (London & Hart 2004). These are important pointers which shall outline the basis of significance for the business under consideration and how it can bring in the much needed value and quality for its intended customers and stakeholders. Within the time and age of today, international marketing research has attained even more significance because it has touched upon the grey areas and plugged the gap between the shortcomings and the strengths, highlighting the advantages more and more as the businesses have grown from the growth stage to the maturity regimes. These are pivotal considerations which will outline the need to remain one step ahead of the competition as far as the global companies and business organizations are related. These discussions center on the premise of bringing about a change which is long-lasting and which shall make the people understand that the organization exists to satisfy them no matter how difficult it gets at the end of the day for the business. Large organizations like Nike, Sony Corporation, Wal-mart and the like are always reliant on international marketing research regimes because these companies know that their customers demand value for money and hence the organizational marketing research is backed up with solid logic and reasoning. These organizations know that their audiences are varied and that they need to reach these audiences through a clear cut message and approach which shall be the source of success for it in the long run. There is a dire need to comprehend that international marketing research within such large corporations and organizations would only benefit the business in the very end. The audiences would reap the rich dividends and hence the entire process of providing mutual benefits to one another would be seen as a befitting exercise in entirety. What will happen eventually is that these companies which even include the likes of Toshiba, Hershey’s, Gillette and others get a name for their own selves since the target audiences know that they are being given nothing short of quality in the end. In essence, international marketing research is the backbone of a great amount of success that comes to the fore when companies want to gauge the very best about their audiences and what they will do when a particular product/service is offered their way, and the responses suggest how success can be envisaged in the future. In the end, it would be sound to fathom here that international marketing research is inherently different from the domestic marketing research as both of these have differential scopes and essentially the boundaries start becoming different as well. Whether or not international marketing research reaps the desired results is something that these companies should know and analyze ways and means through which successful transformations could be brought about. There is a good amount of research available which implicates the role of the international marketing research regimes within the local companies of certain nations as well. This is because these domestic set ups have realized how the international marketing research would help them once they set their vision to reach the top and achieve new grounds in the coming days. All said and done, international marketing research is the basis of attaining value and quality for the people who are indeed the most prized resources for the organizations in the time and age of today. This shall bring about a great deal of significance for the companies as well as assist in growth and development across the board. Bibliography Arnold, David & Quelch, John. (1998). New Strategies in Emerging Markets. London, Ted & Hart, Stuart. (2004). Reinventing Strategies for Emerging Markets: Beyond the Transnational Model. Palgrave Macmillan Read More