3 marketing mistakes form the perspective of internationalization

As a small business owner, you need to look beyond traditional forms of marketing. Taking inspiration from abroad is essential but also confusing, especially if entrepreneurs are looking across the ocean. The customs there are different, and audiences also perceive the act of presentation quite differently than they do in Europe.

The result of such copying is high time-consuming marketing with low conversion rates. The costs may not be high, but the marketing is not effective. The reasons are in most cases repetitive and related to the size of the company. 

Since its inception, the Institute has been conducting in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs and owners of small companies outside the technology sector (manufacturing, trading, service businesses), due to the absence of such analyses in the Czech Republic, in order to identify the key reasons for marketing inefficiency from the perspective of internationalisation.

The interviews are part of the institute's strategy and are still in process, however, we already know a recurring common denominator that emerges and is very likely to be the carrier of not only low marketing effectiveness but has a negative spillover to the whole business.

Thus, the following factors emerge as key faults:

  • Wrong choice or combinationa of tools
  • Inappropriate strategy
  • Flawed business processes

These errors often result in:

(a) American strategies that are set in the European environment, and therefore in the Czech environment, without editing, taking into account the ethics and habits of Czech consumers. You can read more about this issue here.
(b) Application of processes and strategies by entrepreneurs who run their business as a single person in the organisation in the same way as a small company with a team or work group.

Entrepreneurs should focus on quality selection of data from which they draw information and on the relevance of applying this data and acquired experience to the processes they have decided to implement in the company.