Companies have a great advantage if they are able to expand their product into different countries. This would provide them with a bigger pool of customers. However, it is easier said than to be done. The global market competition is fierce and a company should have unique aspects for its product to survive. In addition, entering international market is not easy because not every product is customization to meet each culture’s expectations and needs. Consequently, the idea of globalization arises to help companies have a better understanding of other cultures in order to provide people with products and services that aligns their needs and expectations.

Fortunately, internet is now playing a massive role in helping companies understand the trends of what is going on in other countries, so that they can react to the market behavior of the customers in different countries accordingly.

Chris Horton mentions five ways how pepsi is utilizing social media to target consumers with a “high-precision rifle rather than a shotgun”.  Article can be found in following link: http://goo.gl/l6Ot8R

These strategies as mentioned by Chris Horton are “consumer engagement, user-generated content, data aggregation, geo-local, and inbound marketing.” These strategies invite consumers to be more engaged with the pepsi products and also provide the company with great information that they can use for their marketing campaigns. As a result, today’s massive activity on internet and social media can provide companies great information in a cost effective way to learn different customers’ behaviors.

Hong Kong Disneyland was a case of international expansion that for many years was struggling, but it managed to survive and be super succussful. According to Bruce Einhorn on www.businessweek.com, HK Dinseyland made HK$4.9 billion year ending in september 2013. For many years, the HKDL lacked originality and did not differ from local theme parks pretty much. However, in recent years Disney pulled off some great marketing campagins and strategies in HK that helped them achieve the best marketer of the year award in 2013 in HK. Jennifer Chan in her article some of the strategies such as lets animate, which is a mobile “platform for users to create [customized] celebratory e-cardsadorned with iconic Disney characters, syncing with social media where users are encouraged to share their works on email, Facebook and Twitter.” http://goo.gl/UkiaZx

This is a great example of change of international marketing strategy and use of internet to target consumers in order to satisfy their expectations and needs.

Market always has price sensitive consumers that purchase items based on comparing prices and choosing a lower one. However, after the 2008 recession, the economic power of many consumers became weak. As a result, the number of price sensitive consumers increased by the shrinking of middle class.

So, how would a company attract price sensitive customers? after the 2008 recession that was the worst one in 50 years, P&G changed its market portfolio in order to target high end and low end market because there is a lot of growth opportunity in these two categories. According to Ellen Byron, “a wide swath of American companies is convinced that the consumer market is bifurcating into high and low ends and eroding in the middle.” http://goo.gl/wYvNFE

Based on the market segments P&G chose, products will also be divided into low end and high end that will satisfy the needs of these two market segments. Companies like Tiffany & Co have implemented such strategy as well. They eliminated the lower end products that used to attract the middle class and have focused only on high end consumers. As a result, they have reported increase in sales during the past holiday seasons.

Market segmentation plays an important role in marketing strategy. It will help the businesses focus on the customers’ needs better and cater its products according to their values; be it price sensitive or high end shoppers.