Market Entry Strategy free essay sample

Anna’s Car is one of the top automakers in the United States that is currently planning on selling its new revolutionized Smart Cars to two foreign countries, Japan and Germany. The company believes that the increasing trend of going green and concerns about the environment in Japan and Germany will merge significant profits shortly after entering those two markets. Anna’s Car has evaluated various market entry strategy alternatives and is now hesitating between direct exporting or foreign direct investment for Germany and franchising or joint venture for Japan. Direct Export The main advantage of direct exporting for Anna’s Car is going to be fact that the company will be able to produce Smart Cars in the United States and then sell them to customers in Germany. Anna’s Car would have a great control over the entire export transactions and would gain the freedom as far as deciding which target buyers to approach or who to use to distribute the cars in Germany. We will write a custom essay sample on Market Entry Strategy or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page There is also potential for higher profits and a better chance to build a closer relationship with the German marketplace and its buyers. However, Anna’s Car will have to devote more time, personnel, and company’s resources to ensure a smooth and successful endeavor. Many internal organizational changes will be necessary in order to support more complex functions. The important step will be to choose the best channels of distribution and make business connections in order to sell Smart Cars. However, before exporting cars into Germany, Anna’s Car will need to go through custom procedures which involves filling out customer declarations. Furthermore, the company will need to ensure it carries a CE (â€Å"Communaute Europeenne† which stands for European Community) marking that â€Å"indicates that the respective party has successfully assessed the goods for compliance with European safety standards which has to be accompanied by a signed Declaration of Conformity (DoC)† (German Business Portal, 2010). Once selling products in Germany, Anna’s Car will have to pay value added tax – VAT – that all entrepreneurs who are engaged in business that is generating income have to pay. Foreign Direct Investment Anna’s Car may also choose an option of self growth through investing in building and establishing branches and manufacturing facilities in Germany, instead of producing cars in the USA. This form of market entry would lead to increase in profits due to the eligibility of tax cut that is given to those who are interested in foreign direct investment in Germany. However, Anna’s Car first would have to invest a lot of money in opening up factories and sales offices and dedicate a significant amount of time before the business is established in that country. The good news is that Germany has a welcoming attitude towards foreign companies that are interested in direct investment. The German market is open for investments in practically every industry sector, especially in the auto manufacturing industry. According to the Trade Invest â€Å"German law makes no distinction between Germans and foreign nationals regarding investments or the establishment of companies. The legal framework for FDI in Germany â€Å"favors the principle of freedom of foreign trade and payment† (FDI, 2010). In fact, there are more and more international companies that discover Germany due to its security and rewarding investment location. The UNCTAD World Investment Prospects Survey 2009-2011 confirms Germanys reputation as one of the most attractive business locations in continental Europe. Germany ranks second within the EU-15, and seventh internationally in the â€Å"most attractive business locations in the relevant regions 2008-2010 categoryâ€Å"(American Chamber of Commerce, 2010). The Trade Invest explains that study on the attractiveness of the European economic area (2010) also shows that Germany is the number one business location in Europe and even the number five worldwide. Based on this, it will be very advantageous for Anna’s Car to do business in Germany. Franchising Anna’s Car is evaluating an option of buying a franchise of Toyota, Nissan, or Suzuki in Japan. That way there will be less chance of failure in case something goes wrong as Anna’s Car would be buying an established business that has been very successful. Statistics show that â€Å"franchises stand a much better chance of success than people who start independent businesses; independent businesses stand a 70 to 80 percent chance of NOT surviving the first few critical years while franchisees have an 80 percent chance of surviving† (Coltman, 2009). Also, Anna’s Car would receive a lot of help with starting the business and running it afterwards which would be necessary as the company will be performing operations in a foreign country hat has different rules, culture as well as language. Anna’s Car would get all the equipment, supplies and instruction or training needed to start the business. If the negotiations go well, the company would be also able to receive ongoing training or help with management and marketing (for instance, parent company’s national marketing campaigns). Supplies and inventory will cost less than if Anna’s Car was running an independent company. The research shows that â€Å"franchising in Japan has shown a steady growth: the franchising system has been recognized by the Japanese society as a tool of innovation and development for the economy of the country† (Info Franchise, 2007). Starting franchising in Japan may be quite easy as the franchising system is not as regulated – there is no need to get license and register or file a document to become a franchisor. However, in spite of such freedom, Anna’s Car will need to be aware of the Medium-Small Retail Business Promotion Act that enforces some regulations, specifically the tax provisions. Furthermore, Anna’s Car will be able to count on the Japan Franchise Association (JFA) that consists of leading Japanese franchisors and companies which are interested in franchising and whose purpose is to provide help and support to every entrepreneur that wants to start franchising in that country. Joint Venture Another option of entering the Japanese market can be a joint venture in which partners share ownership of a newly created business. The advantages of such entry market for Anna’s Car would be using the ownership’s experience about new market environment, speed, sharing of resources, high profits, and leverage. The joint venture would also enable partners to combine their strengths so they can be more successful in business. However, there are some risks that need to be taken into account too. For example, joint venture partners share not only the rewards but also any losses or there may be a potential conflict between partners which most of the time arise out of cultural differences. The main thing for Anna’s Car before entering into a joint venture will be ensuring that its interests are properly reflected in the joint venture agreement (management responsibilities, shareholder rights, and exit strategies in case one of the partner decides to leave) and that this agreement will be enforceable under Japanese law. Conclusions Anna’s Car has a great potential of becoming very successful in Germany and Japan, especially in times when protecting the environment has become so important in almost every country in the world. The company needs to decide which market entry method is the most suitable for it by firstly evaluating its overall strategy, current resources as well as competitive advantage. Since different regions offer different advantages as well as obstacles, Anna’s Car needs to be able to adapt and acclimatize in those two countries. Also, following the specific rules of entering a foreign country will be crucial in making sure that the company doesn’t get in trouble with the law.

How To Easily Find Content Marketing Ideas

How To Easily Find Content Marketing Ideas I couldn’t believe my eyes. It seemed like every single content marketing idea that I had just come up with was already readily available on Google. And when it came to social media content and content marketing these names- Neil Patel, Kevan Lee, Belle Beth Cooper, and Garrett Moon- kept popping up again, and again, and again. As a young, budding content marketer, I was distraught, and yet curious. How were these people able to come up with all these content marketing ideas and topics- some of which had barely germinated in my mind? Were they extraordinarily creative? Were they even mortal? As it turns out, yes, they are all regular human beings just like you and me. And just like us, they had to start somewhere, too. The good news is, thanks to technology, we live in a time of unprecedented access to resources and knowledge. By tapping the right sources, you  can easily come up with enough marketing  ideas to last a year and beyond. Before we get started, it’s important to have a place where you can note down all your ideas- which is also known as a â€Å"swipe file†- even if they are just half-formed. Your swipe file could be on a  Google Docs spreadsheet, , or recorded with a plain ol’ pen-and-paper. If you’re ready, let’s dive into it. How To Easily Find Content Marketing Ideas via @legendt 1. Look At What Others Are Writing About- And Do A Better Job You probably already have a list of blogs and publications that you look up to and hope to emulate one day. Why not start emulating them right away? Have a look at their top posts, and come up with similar ones, but better. There’s a reason why these blog posts did well for them, and if your target audience overlaps with theirs, you can be sure that this will be a win. Backlinko’s Brian Dean calls this  the skyscraper technique. Here are four ways that you can make your post superior to the original (Thanks, Brian!): Make it bigger or longer:  Go for broke, and find 100 ways to do help your audience  instead of just 50. Making a comprehensive guide gives your audience a one-stop solution for what they're searching for, shows your expertise, and builds your credibility. Make it more up-to-date:  A list post that did well in 2015 will likely do well again in 2016, and the year after, and so on. Build on what you know already works with your more recent  knowledge. Make it look nicer:  An infographic that visualizes text content that resonated with readers will certainly attract more attention. Heck, infographics are some of the most-shared types of social media content, and  content with visuals included about every 100 words can grow your shares by 30%. Make it far more detailed:  100 bullet points will never compete with 100 points with brief descriptions. Case in point: I recently noticed that there were multiple posts on beautiful resume designs that topped the first page of Google, but the biggest post listed only 50 examples. I decided to shoot for a list post of 70 well-designed resume examples. This particular blog post  ended up becoming our most-viewed article for that week  and was shared more than 600 times on our social media channels in the same time period as well. Not too shabby. If you’re not sure which blogs to look at, try entering your topic keywords into BuzzSumo, which will then magically churn out a list of the most-shared related content on the blogosphere: 2. Listen To What Your Customers Are Asking About Think that it’s hard to come up with content marketing ideas for your niche? Try doing it for a pool company, and you’ll realize the true meaning of hard. Yet back in 2009, Marcus Sheridan’s company River Pools and Spas was able to use content marketing to dominate the pool industry. His solution for coming up with topics is exceedingly simple: To answer his customers’ questions. â€Å"The problem in my industry, and a lot of industries, is you don’t get a lot of great search results [online] because most businesses don’t want to give answers; they want to talk about their company,† he said in an interview  with The New York Times. â€Å"So I realized that if I was willing to answer all these questions that people have about fiberglass pools, we might have a chance to pull this out.† When brainstorming with his clients over at his online marketing consulting business, The Sales Lion, Marcus reveals that he has â€Å"never had a company come up with less than 100 questions in 30 minutes.† There are a number of ways to find out what your customers are asking about in your industry and business: Ask your sales teams who have regular interactions with the customers. Use a live chat app such as Zopim or Olark to chat with them online. Even better, organize a community meetup to engage with your users face-to-face. Hootsuite does Hootups, for example, while we run PiktoTours  regularly at Piktochart. This method is highly recommended- we get a lot of invaluable feedback and suggestions from these meetups.Simple and effective #ContentMarketing:  Listen to questions and respond with valuable answers.3. †¦And Listen To Others In Your Industry,  Too Your customers might be an excellent source of potential  marketing ideas, but they might have missed out on a question that others asked. How do you find out what the rest of the industry is curious about? Find out where they gather to talk shop. Facebook groups, Twitter chats, and forums are some of the platforms that will bring them all together. It pays to become an active participant, as you can get industry-wide exposure over there. Another popular platform that attracts questions across a variety of industries is Quora. According to Marc Bodnick, Quora’s head of business and community, the QA website has around  500,000 topics as of 2014. That’s a whole lot of potential blog topics to pick out right there! To optimize your efforts, focus on questions that have a lot of followers, answers, or views, like this one: With 1,700 followers and over 300,000 views, you can be sure that many people are curious to know what the perfect startup team is. Sounds like a great blog post in the making! You can find most of these high-traffic questions in the topic FAQ: As a bonus, you can post your answer to the topic with a link to the blog post you’ve written to get a boost in traffic as well. It will drive traffic to your blog in no time. This is because all the followers of a question will receive a notification email as soon as you post your answer. Game, set, and match. Answer your audience's questions and share your take where they already hang out.4. Interview Industry Rockstars Every industry has its rockstars. Startups have Elon Musk. Designers have Jony Ive. And marketers have Seth Godin. And their success and experience make them a treasure trove of tips, tricks, and advice- things that your readers are dying to learn. To get the most from them, it’s important to know them well first. Here’s where a little journalistic inquiry will come in handy. First, find out what their stories are, and what is so extraordinary about them. Look for content marketing ideas and think about what your readers can learn from them  like Contently did when they interviewed Seth Godin on the future of branded content.  Come up with topics accordingly. What is their secret to being so productive? How could they do what they do so darn well? What were some of the greatest mistakes  they've made? Connect their expertise to what you know your audience will dig, and you'll have a winner. 5. Be Authentic Okay, that sounds like fluff, but hear me out. People love stories.  It’s built into us- we can’t help but look for the story in everything. This is because  it's â€Å"a way for humans to feel that we have control over the world.† And you are most uniquely qualified to talk about your own stories. I don’t mean  for you to make up fictional tales. Talk about your journey, struggles, and opinions. For example, what are your goals, and how are you trying to achieve them? Groove’s Alex Turnbull managed to build out  a popular blog out of their singular mission: To reach $100,000 (and now $500,000) in revenue. Think that you have nothing worth sharing? Everyone does, according to  John O’Nolan from Ghost: "These posts aren't just an exercise in narcissism, they can be incredibly useful for other people in your industry. Everyone has to start somewhere, and by learning from your mistakes the next generation can progress even quicker.† Companies like Buffer  and iDoneThis  have also dedicated whole blogs to telling the inside story. Put the spirit of point 1 into action (publish better content than anyone else), and have a look at what kind of topics these example companies tackle- they could apply to you, too. 6. Keep Up-To-Date Every industry has its  own set of buzzwords and trends  that constantly go in and out of fashion. If you’re quick enough, you can ride these waves and come up with post after post where you can put your two cents worth in. Take the â€Å"guest blogging scare† of 2014 for instance. Google’s former head of the web spam team Matt Cutts had denounced guest blogging  as a spammy practice, foreshadowing that Google would not view them kindly. The marketing community blew up: One by one, articles which mostly  disagreed  with  Matt started popping up everywhere. The most convincing writers were able to lead the conversation on this topic. Buffer also did a great job  analyzing what the change of Twitter favorites to likes would really mean for marketers, just a day or two after the news was released. You can stay abreast of trending topics in your niche by using Google Alerts. Create an alert with keywords that are relevant to you and your company, and have it send updates to you as and when things surface. NinjaOutreach  is also an effective tool for finding out what topics are currently hot in the social media world: Also, do keep a close lookout for recent research and studies on topics in your niche as well. A recent study by Constant Science found that  roughly 65 percent of participants think that web content is a â€Å"hit or miss† or â€Å"unreliable.† Research-backed blog posts are an advantage you can easily tap on. For example, we focus a lot on design-related topics over at the Piktochart blog. As such, I check the Visual Design section of Nielsen Norman Group’s website  daily to see if there are any great tidbits that I can latch on to. 65% of people think web content is hit or miss. Data-driven, research-backed content stands out.7. Refresh Old Hits Not every blog post that you write will be a hit. Chances are that one or two might be, and end up bringing the bulk of traffic over to your site. These articles are your crown jewels.  See how you can create updated versions of them that are relevant to today so you can repeat that initial success. Hubspot does this on a regular basis: Also, it’s worth putting in some time to analyze what makes them so good, and see if you can spin some content marketing ideas off of them. Do a blog content audit  to find out which of your posts are suitable to do this. As Crew’s editor Jory Mackay found out, it is a tedious process, but well worth the trouble. If your definitive guide to making infographics  is regularly bringing in substantial repeat traffic, for example, it shows that there is interest among your readers in the process of creating infographics.  Topics like "100 infographic ideas that work",  which comes before the creation process, and "50 ways to market your infographic",  which comes after, might also be attractive to your audience in this case. Success shows audience interest. Learn from it to inspire new #marketing ideas.This Is Just The Beginning... As you can see, content marketing ideas are a dime a dozen. Coming up with them is the easy part. The tough part comes after, when you put pen to paper (or your fingers to the keyboard)- that’s a whole new ballgame  with different rules! So don’t get too wrapped up in ideation. Once you have a decent number of topics, get started right away. As Derek Sivers puts it: â€Å"To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.†

The Google Company Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Google Company - Case Study Example This amounts to employees hating their jobs hence low productivity. This case study explores how best performing companies and for this case Google motivate their employees to work to the extent of making these companies the top-producing organizations in the world. Top companies like Google have restructured their management model to provide leadership and an enabling environment that would motivate their employees to work hard and produce the highest output. Google didn’t become a household name just by chance, it is because it has a culture that values their employees and motivates them. It’s quite clear that any company that wants to proceed to the next level and become a household name has to find new ways of rewarding and motivating their employees for their good work. They therefore need to embrace a culture that promote free thinking, motivating employees to work together and provide a working environment that is comfortable, promotes humanity, individualism and personal freedom. Having a chance to work for Google is a dream for many and it’s not just because of what the company has achieved since its inception, it is because of its good working environment. ... (Think leader 2013) About a decade ago when the company was just a start up, the co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had this dream of making Google where the worlds’ best talent will work. And they had an idea on how to achieve this i.e. by creating a working environment and culture that will keep every employee happy and also keep them motivated. This will ensure that they do their best and be loyal to the company. (Brain Mass 2012) Google also motivates its employees by ensuring that the managers assign tasks that are inspiring and challenging to the junior employees. This makes these employees feel the aspect of career progression and learning something new every day. It is a tradition that each employee is given an opportunity to dedicate 20 percent of their time on a project they choose. Employees will be actually be paid by indulging in these projects so long as they are within companies’ legal and business scope. This is how products like AdSense and Google S uggest came about. This makes them motivated as they feel that aspect of being managers. It also promotes innovation and this is no doubt why Google is one of the most innovative companies in the word. This kind of freedom to concentrates on a project they love make them move away for their routine jobs hence drawing an inspiration about their job. Therefore employees just don’t join Google because of the outward perks and rewards, they do it for freedom! (Gary 2007). Besides the compensation and other benefits alike free health and dental check-ups, insurance, tuition reimbursement and paid vacations, Google employees also enjoy other unique benefits. This includes a 100% paid maternity benefit of up to 18 weeks. Also new mothers and fathers enjoy help to make things