Organizations collect information about end-users for the purpose of improving market segmentation or tracking sales to determine the viability of each target market. Many organizations focus their research on the customer’s journey and interactions with the organization to identify where they can improve customer satisfaction.

With an eye to the future, exporters maintain detailed sales records to better understand customers and their preferences and to gain leverage for future sales.

How do I decide what marketing metrics to measure?

With so much customer information available online, marketing experts are cautioning companies to track everything but to analyze and report only what is important and relevant. If marketers realize later that other information is important, they can go back into the data logs to retrieve the stored information.

How do organizations decide which metrics are important? They refer to sales and marketing objectives and the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) developed as part of the sales and marketing plan.

The selected KPIs should be quantifiable, and should guide sales and marketing decisions such as response time for customer support, customer experience ratings and percentage of problems resolved with one telephone call or email.

Other KPIs that are tracked might include customer loyalty before and after customers lodge a complaint, number of units sold per market segment, or sales per location.

Using digital analytics to uncover the numbers you need

Customer feedback and information about customer and product activity have long been collected through comment cards, surveys, interviews and focus groups. Sales representatives and customer service representatives also collect customer information. They make note of referral sources, customer requests and reasons that customers return products.

As a benefit of their direct contact with customers, they can gather information about customer interests and demographics, providing data that helps reach customers with the right message through the right channel.

Increasingly, research methods are being moved into digital formats. For example, whether customers bought their products in a store or online, the seller is likely to ask them to fill out a brief online survey about their buying experience.

Another influence of digitalization is the fact that information can now be collected and analyzed instantly by analytics programs. These analytics programs are commonly used by online businesses such as social platforms, e-commerce and software as a service (SaaS). These programs can collect and analyze data instantly and help organizations understand their customers and website visitors from a variety of perspectives. The types of information that analytics programs can detect include:

Behaviour: This type of data collection and analysis reveals whether visitors are new or recurring, how frequently they visit the website, the date of their last visit, and their level of engagement. Level of engagement is important because engagement leads to sales and loyal customers. Engagement is measured by metrics such as length of stay, number of pages visited and actions such as registering for the organization’s newsletter or posting a comment.

Technology: These analytics look at the types of technology visitors are using, such as browser type, operating system, resolution and type of device used to access the organization’s website. This data is used to understand how well the website works for visitors.

Demographics: An example of demographic information that analytics programs are able to detect is the language settings of users. If the organization has a sizable visitor base that uses a different language setting, it may want to expand the languages the website is available in or at the very least, add an automated translation tool to it.

What can I do with my marketing metrics once I’ve gathered data?

Digital analytics has greatly increased the capacity of information gathering, storage and analysis. The names and functions offered by programs can be confusing and can be challenging to integrate with existing data collection and storage programs. Programs with the capacity to collect online information about customers might be referred to as customer analytics programs, enterprise feedback management programs, customer relationship management programs or others.

One function to look for is enterprise-wide data management. This allows the provision of real-time data streams about the customer experience from social, mobile, local and commercial sources, such as passive geo-location data. This customer experience data is then combined with other data, analyzed and presented to employees across all functions of the organization. Another desired function is survey software that facilitates data collection, authoring, statistical analysis and reporting. Ideally such systems allow all departments to author surveys and reports, provide input into them or access them for information.

The ability to manage customer relationship data about leads, sales, existing customers and marketing campaigns is essential.

Programs that provide customer relationship management often have the ability to manage contacts, forecast sales, automate workflow and facilitate collaboration. They can also be used to create quotes and track sales deals.

Two key benefits of digital analytics platforms include the ability to integrate programs, and allowing organizations to take immediate action to improve customer experiences. This allows international trade practitioners to take advantage of the widely held belief that upset customers whose problems are addressed quickly and adeptly can be transformed into loyal customers.

The final analysis is crucial to your future decisions

The data collected by customer feedback and digital analytics informs the organization’s market segmentation decisions, the content of customer profiles, the need for adaptation of products and services, and sales and marketing strategies.

Tracking product and service activity reveals who the end-users are versus who the organization thought they would be. This information feeds into market segmentation decisions. If the target market is too broadly defined, customer needs and values will be too different and perhaps even contradictory. Customer feedback and product activity will help better define market segments. It is important to track product sales as this data indicates the viability of selling specific products or services in the target market.

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Sampling is one of the primary ways to gather the important data you will need in order to be successful in a new market. The FITTskills Feasibility of International Trade course delves into the best methods for researchers to create a representative sample.

For researchers to make conclusions about the population from the sample, it must be representative.

This means the sample group should include the same major characteristics of the larger group, as well as be chosen in a way that will reduce the likelihood of selecting members who are not representative of the population as a whole.

To accurately create a representative sample, researchers must ask themselves a simple question.

What Sampling Methods Will Be Used?

After defining the sample characteristics, the researcher must choose members of the sample to participate in the study. To do this, researchers use either of the following:

A probability based method

This is a random selection method, in which respondents in the sample pool each have a pre-established chance of being selected for the survey.

A non-probability based method

 This is a selection method in which respondents are chosen because of convenience, judgment, or through quota methods.

The probability sample provides data that can be statistically tested to identify the degree of its similarity to the larger population. Even so, there may be errors that have nothing to do with the sampling method. This possibility should be considered when evaluating the cost/value trade-off of using a probability versus a non-probability based sample.

Probability based methods of sample selection can take a great deal of time and expense that can be magnified when applied internationally.

To benefit from the precision of these methods, a researcher must be sure the sampling tool is complete and current, as well as be sure that the individuals who are randomly chosen are accessible. The expense of this approach is justified by the benefits gained.

The non-probability based sample is often selected because of cost, time, and value considerations, or because the entire population might not be available to the researcher. The ability to identify and access an unbiased random sample might be hampered by cultural factors or logistical problems. In such cases, the precision of the probability based sample is lost, making the high cost difficult to justify.

If the survey is being used to gather more general ideas or trends, a non-probability based sample can be adequate, if it is carefully chosen. The researcher should understand there is no method to statistically test whether it is representative of the entire population.

There are four generally accepted methods of selecting a non-probability based sample:

 1. Convenience

This is the least reliable, the least expensive, and the easiest method. The researcher chooses whoever is close and easy to access. For international trade research, this method might be difficult to implement if the company has no previous contact in the market, because selecting people who happen to be passing by might not be acceptable. An example of the convenience method is taste-testing in a supermarket.

2. Judgment

This is a more reliable method than convenience because respondents are chosen based on some pre-defined characteristic. An example is the use of key clients to test changes to a product.

3. Quota

This involves a greater effort to define the sample, but offers higher reliability and a greater degree of similarity with the characteristics of the population. at large. The researcher specifies the characteristics of value to the research question and selects a group that has the same proportion of these characteristics as the larger population.

4. Sample size

As with the method of choosing the sample, the researcher can use either a qualitative or a statistical approach to selecting the sample. The choice depends on the degree of accuracy and the amount of acceptable risk.

There are several methods of gathering primary data. Focus groups are a very effective way of obtaining qualitative data, while surveys and questionnaires can deliver qualitative or quantitative data, depending on how the survey is designed. Developing questions for surveys, interviews, and focus groups requires skill and experience. Poorly worded or structured questions will produce inaccurate results.

The method chosen for a research project will depend on the type of data that is required and the research objectives that must be met.

An essential consideration for primary research is selecting a sample to survey. It is too impractical for companies to survey an entire population to gather research, but it is important to select a sample best matching the population at large in order to gain the most realistic results.

Are there more factors to consider when making sample group that we haven’t listed? Share them with us in the comments down below.

The post The 4 sample plans you need when researching new markets appeared first on Trade Ready.

Nearly every modern-day business relies upon technology. Through the prolific use of computers, smart phones, tablets, or the Internet, businesses have built themselves on the back of technology. However, with such reliance comes the potential for some major technological risks. 

Organizations face technological risks when its hardware, software, and/or online applications are compromised by cyber-attack or equipment failure.

In the current business environment, data breaches occur in organizations of all sizes. Personal records and financial information can be stolen and sold on the black market by criminals in a matter of days or even hours.

Every organization with a website or employees with smart phones has global exposure to cyber-attacks, which are difficult to understand and to predict.

1. Identify key risks, measure probability, and impact

Once the information is collected, organizations identify the key areas of concern and measure the probability of occurrence and impact on their business activities. This assists the organization in the development of a mitigation plan, should the venture move forward. Many organizations will hire IT specialists to assist with the process.

2. Analyze security threats

Organizations must identify any security vulnerabilities, which may occur as a result of the new international venture.

This can include external threats such as cyber-crime and cyber-terrorism, as well as internal threats, such as the distribution of restricted information. Organizations should review the security requirements related to the following areas:

• System access and controls
• Authentication
• Transaction authorization
• Data integrity
• Audit trail
• Security event tracking
• Exception handling
• System activity logging

In addition, organizations may want to perform system tests to determine any vulnerabilities related to security controls and system performance under recovery conditions.

3. Analyze risk of hardware and software failure

Organizations should consider what the risk of hardware and/or software failure entails for the venture and for overall operations. How stable is the equipment and software the organization uses or plans to use? What are the potential consequences of failure?

Want to learn more about how to mitigate possible risks by developing and implementing strategies and activities to monitor and manage them? Check out the FITTskills Feasibility of International Trade online course!

4. Analyze outsourcing risks

It is very common for organizations to hire third-party company to handle systems development and maintenance, network administration, disaster recovery services, application hosting, and cloud computing. It is crucial that organizations choose vendors carefully, in order to ensure their viability, capability, reliability, track record, and financial position.

5. Identify controlled technology

Some organizations buying and selling technology will need to research what constitutes controlled technology in their jurisdiction. For instance, in the U.S. there is a Commerce Control List (CCL) listing goods and technologies requiring permits in order to be exported from the U.S.. If an organization is trading in these items, it must analyze the required permits that must be obtained.

For export control purposes, ‘controlled technology’ means specific information that someone would need to develop, produce, or use goods whose export is legally controlled.

This information could be plans, manuals, models, and so on. It could be written, printed, recorded, saved electronically, spoken or passed on it some other way.

For example, most goods designed specifically for military use are controlled exports. Therefore, information for them, such as production drawings, is a controlled technology.

Organizations should access services and publications in the relevant jurisdictions to obtain more specific information about controlled technology and possible exclusions.

6. Measuring impact

Once the foreign physical asset risks have been analyzed, their potential impact must be measured.

Consider a hypothetical example of an Canadian confectionery company, CanCocoa. CanCocoa has decided to expand its e-commerce operations and is going to launch its business in the United States. The plan involves attending trade shows and events in the United States to launch the online store. CanCocoa is not currently planning on opening retail outlets yet but it is considering this for the future. CanCocoa is debating how to process the incoming U.S. order and customer inquiries. It is exploring whether to handle the orders in-house or outsource this work to a third-party company.

CanCocoa has hired a third-party IT consulting company to analyze the potential risks in this new venture. CanCocoa has identified a potential outsourcing company and has provided that information to the consultants.

7. Rank potential risks and specify desired outcomes

The consulting company takes the information CanCocoa has provided and ranks the potential risks. They provide CanCocoa with a threat profile summary, outlining the types of risk they could encounter as well as the likelihood of the risk occurring.

The threat profile provided to CanCocoa indicates the organization will want to look into mitigation strategies to address the priority issues, including cyber-crime, outsourcing, internal fraud, and hardware/software failure. The company may want to investigate another outsourcing provider that has more security measures in place to reduce its exposure to outsourcing risk. It may also want to look at a capital investment in more stable hardware/software before launching the venture. This analysis addresses the critical areas the company needs to fix before launching its newest venture.

Once the data is collected and analyzed, the organization reaches a decision point. This decision cannot be made by considering technology risk alone. Once all the risk factors have been analyzed, an organization must choose from the risk management options. These are:

• Risk avoidance
• Risk transfer
• Risk reduction
• Risk retention

An organization must prepare a strategy based off the risk management option they have chosen.

Has your organization been the victim of cyber-attacks? How did you handle the situation? Let us know in the comments down below.

The post 7 steps to minimize technological risks appeared first on Trade Ready.

In a highly competitive economy, no company can afford to be operating below its potential. This goal of gap analysis is to identify the difference between the way in which a company’s inputs and resources are currently allocated, and the optimal allocation of those inputs and resources. In doing so, gap analysis can provide insight into areas where there is room for improvement.

Gap analysis naturally flows from benchmarking. Once a company understands the level of performance that is general in its industry, it can compare that to its own performance. Such analysis can be applied to the internal organization (and the deployment of human resources), business direction (strategy), internal processes, and the use of technology (especially information technology).

Through gap analysis, a company can determine what additional investment of time, money and human resources it needs to make to achieve a particular outcome.

To take an example, if a company notices through benchmarking that most of the companies in the industry are now using EDI, it can use systematic gap analysis to determine what it would take to move its own operations from a paper based to and electronic format.

Gap analysis is useful in new product development. A company with established products may find that consumer needs and preferences are changing. As the gap between consumer expectations and the company’s products opens up, the company can use gap analysis to help in the development process.

It can cost what it would take to bridge the gap between existing and new product features, determine the gap between existing sales and expanded sales of the redesigned offering, and test the gaps between current profitability and potential profitability of the new products.

In terms of gap analysis as a planning tool, there are four areas in particular where it is applied.

Usage gap

This is the gap between the total potential in a market and the actual current usage by the consumers in that market. It is difficult to estimate total market potential, including all segments covered by all competitive brands. It is usually done by determining maximum potential individual usage, and extrapolating this by the maximum number of potential consumers, though this depends to a larger degree on judgment rather than strict scientific analysis.

The maximum number of consumers available will usually be determined by market research, but it may sometimes be calculated from demographic data or government statistics. The maximum potential individual usage, or at least the maximum attainable average usage, can be derived from market research. The existing usage by consumers can be derived from panel-based market research such as that undertaken by The Nielsen Company (formerly A.C. Nielsen).

Most marketers accept the ‘existing’ market size, projected over the timescale of their forecast, as the boundary for their expansion plans. Although this is often the most realistic assumption, it may sometimes impose an unnecessary limit. For example, the original market for computers or video-recorders was limited to the professional users who could afford the high initial prices involved. It was only after some time that the technology evolved sufficiently to penetrate the mass market.

The usage gap is critical for brand leaders who may already hold a significant share of the existing market. Their best strategy is to expand the size of the total market rather than to try to get a few more points in the existing market. Smaller players, however, will generally be limited to finding profitable niches where they can extend their offerings.

Product gap

The product gap represents that part of the market that a company is excluded from because of the characteristics of its existing products or services. This may be because the market is segmented and the organization does not have offerings in some segments, or it may be because the positioning of its offering effectively excludes it from addressing some potential consumers because others are doing a better job of serving them.

Some segmentation may be the result of deliberate choice on the part of a company that has set priorities for what it wants to focus on. In other cases, it has come about by default and the product gap analysis can be used to improve its positioning in the market.

Competitive gap

There is also a gap resulting from the competitive performance. This competitive gap is represented by the difference between the company’s performance and the share of business achieved by similar products, sold in the same market segment, and with similar distribution patterns. The competitive gap represents the effects of factors such as price and promotion.

Market gaps

There is another perspective that takes the ”product gap“ to its logical conclusion by looking for gaps in the “market.” These are basically market segments that have not been identified or are not served by anyone. Identifying such gaps may open up entirely new opportunities for product and service development, regardless of what a company is currently doing.

The post Want to find new ways to improve your business? Try using gap analysis appeared first on Trade Ready.

Once a company performs, gathers and analyzes the results of its international trade research efforts, it is ready to make global marketing decisions. The next step is to determine how to effectively link research with applicable decisions in global marketing.

Size up the competition

To assess its prospects properly, a key task for any company is to identify its potential competitors, determine how well established they are and learn what it can about their current and future competitive strategies and tactics.

Although primary research is likely to be required to obtain some of the more detailed information (e.g., extent of competitor control over distribution channels, or customer and trade intermediary perceptions of competitor advantages and disadvantages), many of the pieces of the competitive picture can be assembled on the basis of secondary research.

Useful tools for identifying potential competitors include the Internet, trade and industry journals and associated buyers’ guides, trade directories and market research reports.

Journal articles can help develop an understanding of the competitive situation in a market, and advertisements can provide further details about the companies involved and their product offerings. Depending on the prestige and target readership of the publication, its annual buyers’ guide issue may be used as the basis for compiling a comprehensive list of the serious competitors in an area.

Trade directories can also be used for this purpose; the tighter the geographic and product focus, the better. In some cases, agents and distributors representing the competition can also be identified from these sources. Market research reports often provide information about estimated market shares of leading competitors and insights into their competitive positions.

Having identified the leading competitors and some of their products, a company can make effective use of the other research tools. By scanning publication indexes for the names of these companies and products, a wealth of information can be obtained about the competition.

Newspapers, the trade literature, consumer publications, corporate annual reports and brokerage house reports can all provide useful data. Consumer publications are valuable in that they may contain product reviews or yield information about product recalls.

Corporate annual reports and brokerage house reports can provide insights into the financial condition of competitors and possibly disclose information about their R&D, marketing and investment activities.

Where the company is looking at a developed country market, the quickest and easiest way to identify sources of information pertaining to companies and product names is by conducting a literature search on the Internet or in an electronic catalogue of library holdings. For those who are inexperienced in conducting searches on the Internet, it is possible to have the search done by a library that offers assistance.

Working with a reference librarian will help to prioritize and specify the company’s information needs and to identify the databases that are most relevant for the information required. An estimate for the cost of the search will also be provided, so the company can decide whether to proceed with the search.

Narrow down the optimal target market

The process of selecting a target market can be regarded as a kind of filtering process. Several market opportunities are initially selected, then various criteria are applied and assessments are made based on the information assembled. The effect is to screen out some of the less attractive opportunities, leaving only those that offer the best expected returns.

Canadian companies looking for a broad assessment of international market opportunities are also well advised to refer to a series of international business strategies prepared for various sectors of the Canadian economy. These are updated annually by sector teams representing both the industry in question and government researchers. These sectoral strategies, together with other country information, can be accessed on the website maintained by Global Affairs Canada (GAC).

Other factors may also be relevant for a company when deciding to choose which market to focus its international market research efforts on. For example, a company or individual may have a cultural, familial or lingual tie to a specific market, and thereby have a competitive advantage to research and enter that particular market.

Case Study – Cadbury Purple

There is no one correct way of performing a screening to identify a target market. A practical approach to identify promising countries includes the following four steps:

1. Filter the opportunities at a macro level, considering such factors as economic statistics (including analysis of trade statistics), social structures, geographic factors and political environments. The objective here is to eliminate countries with low potential, high risks and complexities that could make exporting difficult.

2. Focus on how potential markets relate to the products. Here the opportunities are filtered to establish a select group of countries with high market potential. To do this, researchers must analyze growth trends, market size, import restrictions, the level of economic development and cultural acceptance.

3. Assess the ease and cost of market entry, the strength of the competition, requirements for product modifications, projections of sales and estimates of profit potential. Considerable primary research is required to furnish the information required for this analysis.

4. Refine the results of the analysis. In order to establish a priority ranking of the target markets, the remaining opportunities are examined in light of the company’s resources, its strengths and weaknesses, goals, plans and return on investment criteria.

Regardless of where the market information is gathered or which target market a company is researching, the entire point of international trade research is to provide marketers and decision makers with necessary and fact-based data from which to draw conclusions and make decisions regarding the international marketing plan.

Depending upon the product or service to be offered to a specific international market, marketers and company decision makers need to know specific details about the market in order to prepare and execute a sound and successful international marketing plan.

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