Factors Affecting Product Marketing Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : Marketing

How Can Countries Use National Culture to Promote Exports?

Contents

Introduction.

Problem Statement

Aims and objective/ Research questions.

Scope of the research.

Justification and potential output of the research.

Conceptual Framework and hypothesis development

Design thinking and use.

Impact of design thinking.

Design thinking in Coles supermarket

National culture in export promotion.

Hypothesis development

Research Methodology.

Research approach and sources of data.

Proposed data collection and analysis of techniques.

Organization of the study.

The budget of the research.

Gantt Chart

References.

Introduction to Factors Affecting Product Marketing

A manufactured article that is ready for sale needs to be advertised and promoted. The primary source of promotion is product marketing, which serves as a connecting link between developing the product and constructing its brand value by increasing the brand awareness. However, marketing of these articles in international market is difficult. International relations with the clients have been a major focus of marketing personnel nowadays (Van Hong & Nguyen, 2020). This research thus, explores the impact of national culture on the export of goods and services. Communication plays a very important role in building international channel relationships and it is due to communication people of the country can promote the export of goods in the international market. There are many advantages of promoting export through national cultural factors in the international market as it helps in the economic development of the country (Broocks & Van Biesebroeck, 2017). It may also help in overcoming the domestic recession that might have hit the country. There are different types of cultural factors that may influence the export promotion. These cultural factors include language, material, education, religion, values and ethics, social organization and so on.

National culture influence proves to be beneficial for promotion in those countries where the national culture is almost the same. It is thus important to understand culture as sometimes product and services may not be culturally acceptable by a country which is entirely different from the manufacturer’s country (Bilton, 2017). It has been found through research that negotiation for any product or services is influenced by the culture as well as on the rules and regulations of both the countries in which the trade is going to happen. It may also happen that a company’s culture transcends the national borders and become more effective in the foreign land then the place where the company is originally present. The export promotion gives companies an opportunity to enlarge themselves in the international market and increase the economies of scale to generate better profit. For undertaking this research the company chosen is Coles supermarket. Coles supermarket expanded its business in the international market for increasing its economies of scale. In this research, the company is focused to identify which factors help in increasing promoting goods and services in the international market as export business is one of the main business of the country to enhance profitability for the country. Forecasting about the product is difficult thus it is important for the analytical department to find whether a particular business will be successful or not.

Problem Statement

The current export of the goods and services in Australia is low. The companies are not thinking of expanding their business because of less understanding of how the exportation is done and very little knowledge in international trade. Some of the companies did not work well in the international market after the acquisition because of different cultures. Thus, if the country wants its companies to progress, they need to come up with new promotion strategies that influence the companies to start exporting products, raw materials or services to the other countries. Product marketing is a complex network of defining factors that can affect the complete process (Dheer, 2017). These factors include social factors, technological factors, competitive factors, economic factors target market and so on. International export is a matter of chosen risk and tough research, weighing the options can prove to be a difficult task. If the margin of risk is too high than the profit margin, questions the need for international export seems fair and very reasonable.

Aims and Objective/ Research Questions

The aim of this research is to find out how national culture can promote exports. The research question of the research is to find out factors that affect product marketing and how it can be used for international trade.

Here are some primary objectives of the research.

• To find out factors affect product marketing of a country.
• To identify factors that help in influencing companies to start exporting products
• To examine how Coles, try to use its culture in exporting goods
• To understand how to promote export business in the country
• To find whether export bring immense opportunities for the company to flourish
• To study is it risky to start international trade in the market?
• To find the advantages of product marketing in the export business?

Scope of the Research

In this research, the focus of the researcher is on how to use Australian culture in promoting export in the international market. The scope of the research is thus limited as it covers the national culture of Australia to influence product marketing only (Munch & Schaur, 2018). The specific parameters of the promotion led strategy of Australia would be covered so that the companies start exploring their products in the international market. 

Justification and Potential Output of The Research

The research would be conducted in an ethical manner. If there would be a requirement of consent, then before conducting anything the consent of the authority would be taken. The research would be done in a fair manner so as to get the actual output of it (Junge, Severgnini & Sørensen, 2016). This research is very important for understanding which factors impact product marketing and how the culture of a country can help in promoting its export business.

Conceptual Framework and Hypothesis Development

The conceptual framework is including in the research to illustrate what the researcher is thinking out from the research. It defines some independent and dependent variables of the study. Independent variables are those which have a direct impact on the dependent variable whereas the dependent variables are being tested in a research. This part of the research must be conducted before collecting the data. This is mostly represented in the visual format. The business of export depends on the nation's culture. Similarly, product marketing is dependent on factors which makes it easy to sell the product in the market. culture is independent variable whereas promotion of export and product marketing is the dependent variable.

Design Thinking and Use

Design thinking is a process which refer to cognitive or strategic thinking. It is an iterative nonlinear process used by the people to redefine problems and create an innovative solution for it. It is used for redefining skills to understand rapid changes in the environment. There are five stages of design thinking (Micheli et al. 2019). These include empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test.

Impact of Design Thinking

Design thinking helps in shaping the experience of innovators and in this case it is going to shape the experience of marketers who have a duty to sell their product in the market. Here are some factors that affect product marketing (Oxman, 2017).

A business is run by knowledge and hard-work but the success of that business depends upon its awareness of the customers and their needs. One's lifestyle, religion, stature, spending potential and interests are the primary factors that affect their spending choices and needs. Thus there is a need to build a strategy with a target in mind, knowing the demographics of the target audience can prove to be a really good kick start. Information regarding the buyer's age, gender, economic status helps in bifurcation and selection of the desired audience. Understanding the target audience makes the process much more strategic and competitively easy. It is identified that a customer is as interested as his/her purchasing power (Sharon & Dori, 2017). The higher the inflation rate, the lesser the purchasing power. With the rising prices, sparing index is comprised which can prove to be an ultimate challenge of customer persuasion. The long-lasting economic slowdown affects employment rates, incomes and GDP, which in turn restricts the customer demand and purchasing power to a great extent.

Marketing strategies offering exciting discounts can help lure the customers and keep the product breathing. High-end goods are mainly purchased on credit which comes with hefty interest rates, these interest rates make the product much more expensive for the customers who were primarily struggling to buy the product. This can result in restrictive customer behaviour and affect the sale of a product (Corrigan et al. 2019). A successful business is advanced in every area. Technological advances are a very strong marketing factor, targeting a diverse audience. Social media, artificial intelligence, e-learning and other daily developing trends are a magnificent source of advertising and marketing. They hold the power of shaping the future of a product and building long term product and customer relationship. More than half of the world's population is actively using social media, if a business lacks in building its social media presence, the business lacks in marking its presence.

Competition in sales and businesses is mainly beneficial for both the parties involved. Competition boosts performance, opens the door for innovations, provides services and goods at much lower prices and decreases the chances of forced compromises. The process of promoting the sales of any given product or services is called advertising. The process mainly deals with the emotional aspect of the customer by targeting their needs, values, preferences, backgrounds and way of living (Peppou, Thurgood & Bucolo, 2016). Advertising is planned persuasion by a constructive selection of the target audience.

Design Thinking in Coles Supermarket

Coles supermarket has adopted design thinking in its processes so that it can overcome the issues experienced. Coles supermarket takes care of the advertisements and try to promote the goods in the international market by adopting strategies such as marketing with the new logo application and so on (Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018). The policy measure that takes the exporting of any company or industry to a much higher level by allowing the international flow of goods and services is done by the export promotion tactics planned by the company (Karyotakis & Moustakis, 2016). Export development is important for a company and the economy as a whole. The companies that have the potential of finding their foreign rivals are the ones who invest their time and money in developing such strategies. Exporters facing competition have to develop effective technologies, better strategies and overall increase the product quality to stand tall in the competition.

National culture in export promotion

Export of a product is very much affected by the country’s culture because more often, a product is designed to meet certain needs and beliefs. National culture can be used in promoting the export of a product. Australia has a multicultural environment and thus it is important to find whether its culture can be used for promotion of export or not.

Values: Each international market will have different product preferences that fulfil the values of their customers. Different shapes and colours carry different cultural significance, which should be taken into account before the sale of the product (Wang, Chen, Wang & Li, 2017).

For example, Coles supermarket changed its logo and tagline multiple times only to stay put with the cultural reset.

Languages: A diverse language pallet is a clear indicator of the country’s diversity. The more the languages, the more diverse a country is (Snyder, 2019). This means that the product thus developed, targets a much wider audience than its competitors. Since Australia has multi-cultural environment thus it has a much wider audience in comparison to others.

Religion: Religion influence the culture of the living, their beliefs, the product they use, the food and beverages they use, their living habits, their clothing and accessories, their day-to-day activities and their basic idea of living. Australia has different religion and thus it can be an advantage to country.

Hypothesis Development

Hypothesis development is an important part of the research. In this part of research experience based reasoning is compared with the previous reasoning. It is due to hypothesis development new reasoning can be added in the research. It is done with the help of a different set of spatial rules. The rules used to develop possible hypotheses for the research. There are different approaches to solving the problem using hypothesis. These include ruling theory, working hypothesis and multiple working hypotheses. The hypothesis makes the research more effective. 

Here are three hypotheses to the problem which will be verified through the research.

Null hypothesis- Firms generic strategies are correlated with promotion.

Different firms develop different strategies to promote the product in the market some use differentiation strategies while the other use cost leadership strategy (Paradis et al. 2016). However, to find out whether these strategies are aligned with the promotional activities is something which needs to find out.

Some alternate hypothesis which will be focused in the research are mentioned below:

Hypothesis 1- The culture of a nation helps in promoting export.

Trade in the international market is not an easy task. There is a lot of risks associated with it because the business is conducted in an entirely new environment with new rules, regulations and different consumers. Do many companies do not expand their boundaries in other nations? It is thus important to find out whether the nation's culture helps companies to expand their products in the market or they have to make their own way.

Hypothesis 2- There are many factors associated with the promotion of the export.

It is important to verify this hypothesis because few marketers suggest that it is only the nation's culture that affects the company no other factors are essential. Apparently, when some researchers were researching in this direction they find that there are other factors as well. If there are other factors which can help the promotion of the goods which are those and if not this hypothesis will justify the statement.

Hypothesis 3- It is true that a multicultural company promotes export activities.

It is important to find out how a multicultural country helps the companies to expand the business. Australia is known as a multicultural country as it has different types of people belonging to different culture, religion, language and lifestyle. Is the country’s multi-culture help the Coles supermarket to expand business in other countries or Coles supermarket is unable to cross the border and transcend its business in a new location between new people.

These hypotheses will be varied in the research before finalising anything. The hypothesis with its test makes the research strong thus almost all the research must develop some hypotheses.

Research Methodology of Factors Affecting Product Marketing

The research methodology is a process to identify, collect and analyze all the collected information. It critically evaluates the reliability and validity of the research by undergoing the entire research process which will be used in the research that is it gives the entire path of how the research is going to be conducted. Research methodology generally contains two important sections that are how the data would be collected and how it will be analyzed. There are various kind of research designs like exploratory, descriptive, case study based and so on. Out of these descriptive design will be chosen as the research report is based on factors of marketing production. In this, there would not be a requirement of understanding an experiment (Basias & Pollalis, 2018). The descriptive design would be a good selection as per the context because here the research will discuss factors that affect product marketing.

Research Approach and Sources of Data

Since the research design is descriptive thus the type of data approach would be qualitative instead of quantitative. It is because qualitative data is generally grounded in the subject and interpretivist perspective. Moreover, qualitative research provides more in-depth research on the subject. The result of this study cannot be generalized and must be kept confined to the research. The qualitative data has some popular methods of conducting research and this includes semi-structured or structured interviews else questionnaires for a survey and so on (Basias & Pollalis, 2018). The quantitative method would not be useful in this case as a quantitative study is based on measuring the objectivity of data in the form of numbers. The data, in this case, is analyzed through numerical relations and comparisons using statistical software of package.

Proposed Data Collection and Analysis of Techniques

Two different types of data collection method can be used in any research. These include primary data, secondary data. Based on the type of research approach, primary data collection method will be used by conducting survey of the marketers. All the data that would be collected will be analyzed with the help of thematic analysis using SPSS (Nowell, Norris, White & Moules, 2017)

Organization of The Study

The study should be a pioneering one as it would include different factors that directly or indirectly impact product marketing. The research questions of the study which were formed just after the problem statement will use for designing the entire research. The second chapter will elaborate on the factors of product marketing. This chapter will contain some literature reviews of scholarly journals which help to further strengthen the research. These journals will help in identifying the gap which will be covered in the research (Išoraitė, 2016). The literature would be searched with the help of the keywords. The next chapter is a research methodology which will help in finding how he research is going to conduct, how the data will be identified and how this data will be analyzed to find out inferences from them. That is, it helps in creating the entire path of how things will go ahead. The nest chapter is an analysis of the data collected. This chapter will give interpret the analysis to find out inferences from the research. The second last chapter is a conclusion. This chapter will include all the findings of the entire research. The last chapter is recommendations. It will give some suggestions for the companies or industries on improving the ways of promoting export. This will be the entire follow of the research study.

The Budget of The Research

The budget for conducting the research is essential to know beforehand so as to avoid leaving the research in the middle of the work. if the budgets cost estimation can be carried out further for research then only the research should be conducted. There are a lot of things which are required in the research like analysis software, data collection methods and so on. Based on all the activities here is a small budget of the entire research.

Gantt Chart

It is a periodic activity tool that schedules the entire project in the type of chart. It is very useful for seeing the dependency relationship between activities. It is one of the best tools for planning projects of different sizes. It tells about the priorities and thus is mostly used by all the researchers. The Gantt chart depicted below demonstrates a nine-week timeline with different types of the task such as identification of the problem statement, conceptual framework, research methodology, data analysis and discussion and so on (Sharon & Dori, 2017). This chart depicts the overall timeline of all the operations that are going to be conducted in the research. It is basically used for simplifying the project outline of the complex projects. The left of the chart contains activities whereas the top of the chart would explain a suitable time in which that particular activity would be complete.

References for Factors Affecting Product Marketing

Basias, N., & Pollalis, Y. (2018). Quantitative and qualitative research in business & technology: Justifying a suitable research methodology. Review of Integrative Business and Economics Research, 7, 91-105.

Bilton, C. (2017). The disappearing product: Marketing and markets in the creative industries Edward Elgar Publishing, Location: UK

Broocks, A., & Van Biesebroeck, J. (2017). The impact of export promotion on export market entry. Journal of International Economics, 107, 19-33.

Corrigan, S., Kay, A., Ryan, M., Ward, M. E., & Brazil, B. (2019). Human factors and safety culture: Challenges and opportunities for the port environment. Safety science, 119, 252-265.

Dheer, R. J. (2017). Cross-national differences in entrepreneurial activity: role of culture and institutional factors. Small Business Economics, 48(4), 813-842.

Elsbach, K. D., & Stigliani, I. (2018). Design thinking and organizational culture: A review and framework for future research. Journal of Management, 44(6), 2274-2306.

Išoraitė, M. (2016). Marketing mix theoretical aspects. International journal of research granthaalayah, 4(6), 25-37. 

Junge, M., Severgnini, B., & Sørensen, A. (2016). Product‐marketing innovation, skills, and firm productivity growth. Review of Income and Wealth, 62(4), 724-757.

Karyotakis, K. M., & Moustakis, V. S. (2016). Organizational factors, organizational culture, job satisfaction and entrepreneurial orientation in public administration. The European Journal of Applied Economics, 13(1), 47-59.

Micheli, P., Wilner, S. J., Bhatti, S. H., Mura, M., & Beverland, M. B. (2019). Doing design thinking: Conceptual review, synthesis, and research agenda. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 36(2), 124-148.

Mohajan, H. K. (2018). Qualitative research methodology in social sciences and related subjects. Journal of Economic Development, Environment and People, 7(1), 23-48.

Munch, J., & Schaur, G. (2018). The effect of export promotion on firm-level performance. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 10(1), 357-87.

Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. E., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International journal of qualitative methods, 16(1), 1609406917733847.

Oxman, R. (2017). Thinking difference: Theories and models of parametric design thinking. Design studies, 52, 4-39.

Paradis, E., O'Brien, B., Nimmon, L., Bandiera, G., & Martimianakis, M. A. (2016). Design: selection of data collection methods. Journal of graduate medical education, 8(2), 263-264. 

Peppou, G., Thurgood, C., & Bucolo, S. (2016). Designing competitive industry sectors. Design Management Journal, 11(1), 3-14.

Sharon, A., & Dori, D. (2017). Model‐Based Project‐Product Lifecycle Management and Gantt Chart Models: A Comparative Study. Systems engineering, 20(5), 447-466.

Snyder, H. (2019). Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 104, 333-339. 

Van Hong, P., & Nguyen, T. T. (2020). Factors affecting marketing strategy of logistics business–Case of Vietnam. The Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics.

Wang, X., Chen, A., Wang, H., & Li, S. (2017). Effect of export promotion programs on export performance: evidence from manufacturing SMEs. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 18(1), 131-145.

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