市场选择和市场细分

选择所进入的市场是重要的战略决策。在某些情况下，该决策指的是选择进入某个国家或某些国家；而在另外一些情况下，则指的是选择进入跨越国界(甚至跨越文化)的某一个细分市场。

打算开展国际营销活动的企业需要确定其拟拓展业务的区域的经济类别、具体国家以及具体细分市场。原则上讲，任何一个国家都是其市场进入的备选地。因此，有必要将可能成为目标的市场数量减少到一个易操作的范围。

Market Choosing and Market Segmentation

Choosing which market to enter is a key strategic decision. In some cases this will mean choosing a country or group of countries, in other cases it will mean choosing a market segment that crosses national (and even culture) boundaries.

Firms contemplating international marketing campaigns need to determine the regional economic groupings, individual countries and specific market segments in which they intend to do business. In principle, every country in the world is a candidate for market entry. It is necessary, therefore, to reduce the list of possibilities to manageable dimensions.

国外的营销机会总是有的，但是抓住机会并非易事。寻找出口市场就像勘探地理矿藏：直接观察或许不大可能，但其存在的可能性却可以根据其周边环境特点作出评估。有两种方法可以找到合适的国家或者这些国家的细分市场：一种是确定目标消费者的特征，然后考察相关国家以确定哪些国家有足够数量的此类消费者群体值得进行市场进入的努力；或者也可以有另一种选择：确定一些最容易销售公司产品的市场（比如说，由于该市场中很大比例的人群使用某一种语言，或者因为当地商业模式“跟本国非常相似)，然后调整公司的产品和广告信息使之适应这些市场。

Marketing opportunities in foreign countries usually exist but are difficult to locate. Searching for export markets is akin to exploring for geological mineral deposits: direct observation may be impossible, but the probability of their presence can be assessed from the characteristics of environments where they might be found. Two approaches to the location of suitable countries or market segments within countries are either to define the characteristics of the target consumers and then examine countries in order to determine which countries contain sufficient numbers of that customer type to make entry worthwhile or, alternatively, determine the markets in which it will be easiest to sell the company's product (e.g. because a significant proportion of the population speaks a certain language, or since local business methods are essentially similar to those found at home) and

adapt the firm's output and advertising messages to make them suitable for those markets.