Find The Best Routes.

Today's Marketing Cookie is about the bumps in the road you are likely to encounter when marketing your company on a global stage. This cookie that I've baked up will be unlike any other because I will draw statements and insights from an article recently published in The Marketing News, written by Jim Slusser. (Yes, Jim is the same marketer who sent me today's awesome fortune.) What can I say? With a marketer as smart as Jim, I'm not sure I could have said it any better. The piece was titled "Navigating the Path to Globalization," and this link will allow you to download a PDF of the full article.

Jim kicks off by explaining that the world may be flat, but the path to globalization sure isn’t. The marketing challenges and opportunities that accompany globalization add a few bumps in the road, and given the increasing breadth and reach of the global marketplace, your path is only getting bumpier. The truth is, globalization affects every nook and cranny of your marketing strategy. Such global orientation, both internally and externally, obviously poses unique cultural and communication challenges, and it reinforces the base need for a strong brand promise and well-tailored customer messaging.

So you think you’ve mastered social media and your Facebook strategy is finally starting to produce measurable results? Congratulations. Is your SEO strategy on Google driving lots of organic traffic to your site and generating qualified leads? Kudos. Jim asks, "What about the 500 million Internet users in China who don’t use either?"

Do you have your traditional display ad budget and strategy firing on all cylinders? How nice for you. However, the 121 million Internet users in India (still a relatively small proportion of the country’s 1.2 billion people) are accessing the Web via their mobile devices. Jim asks, "Time to revisit the Hindi mobile ad campaign, no?"

To develop an effective and truly globally applicable marketing strategy, you have to consider virtually every marketing tactic that you employ and how it will be received by the given country or target audience. But don’t be overwhelmed. Instead, consider this an opportunity to hone your marketing efforts overall. Let globalization inspire you. Crave knowledge about your customers. Where do they work, play, and live? How do they use your product or service? What problem are you helping them to solve? And just when you think you have your marketing strategy done and dusted, it all changes overnight. And, as today's fortune says, "Stay alert to find the best routes around the inevitable obstacles ahead."