According to the “Survey of Japanese Companies Operating Overseas” released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, the total number of Japanese companies operating overseas as of October 1, 2009 (number of offices) was 75,531, up 3 This is an increase of 3,711 bases (approximately 5.2%) over the previous year. The number of “global marketers” who are marketing to the world continues to increase, as evidenced by the recent progress of cross-border EC and inbound-related businesses. On the other hand, however, we also hear that global marketers are facing major problems. In this article, we will introduce 10 problems that global marketers face and how to solve them.
Insufficient Traffic to Website
Many companies that have been able to get a lot of traffic to their websites in Japan due to the strength of their existing brand and the name recognition of their products and services are struggling in the global marketing arena because the same methods are not working for them.
Unclear Value Proposition
When conducting overseas digital marketing, the need arises to communicate in the language of the people in the target country. In such cases, the content that the global marketer wants to convey may not be conveyed well to the people in the foreign country, and the transaction may fall through.
The Quality of the product or Service
It seems to happen often that we order products or request services, but the quality is different from what we expected. Many global marketers seem to be stumped by the difficulties inherent in global marketing, where it is extremely difficult to go to the site and check the quality.
Difference in Perspectives
The global marketer is in a very important position, being in charge of marketing their company, but they also have the weakness of not being able to easily observe and check what is going on overseas. It seems that often there are discrepancies between the global marketer’s idea of a marketing strategy and the local marketer’s idea of a marketing strategy that is not acceptable to the global marketer.
Difficult to Simulate Projections
Marketers with extensive experience in global marketing are rare, and many global marketers seem to have no small amount of anxiety about the marketing strategies they have developed. In addition, there are few senior managers or supervisors within the company who are familiar with global marketing, and many global marketers are troubled by the fact that they are unable to consult with anyone.
Difficult Naming
Even in Japan, coming up with a name for a product or service is considered extremely difficult, but it becomes even more difficult when it comes to global marketing. In order for a product or service to sell, it is of course necessary to use a name that will be liked by the target audience and that will be easily diffused.
Ineffective Promotional Campaigns
The inability to come up with an effective sales promotion campaign is a problem unique to marketers, but it seems to be even more pronounced for global marketers. Global marketers often try to implement successful sales promotion campaigns in Japan in other countries, but they often fail to do well in global marketing and suffer from the same problems.
Traffic but no “Signups”
Many global marketers are concerned that even if they increase traffic to their websites through social networking and advertising, it does not lead to actual product or service signups.
Coloring for Target Customers
Many people are struggling with what colors to use when advertising on social networking sites or creating multilingual websites.
Difficulty in Creating Topical Advertisements
Creating effective advertisements in Japan is considered extremely difficult, but when it comes to global marketing, the difficulty seems to be magnified many times over.
Conclusion
In this article, we have presented 10 problems faced by global marketers. While global marketing is a very large market, the difficulties of marketing are not comparable to those of marketing in Japan.