Foreign trade marketing needs to be more patient

The advantage of low prices made in China is gradually lost. How will Chinese suppliers seek survival and development? How to formulate an effective promotion strategy? How to make the order profitable? Where is the future development direction of export enterprises in Shenzhen? Ms. Yang Yunping, General Manager of Meiyang Glass Products Co., Ltd., shared her insights on how to deal with the changes in foreign trade at the Shenzhen Station of "Zhisheng Future Export Forum".

Yang Yunping: Our company is Shenzhen Meiglass Products Co., Ltd., which is a traditional Glass products, usually wine glasses and vases are the most common products. Our company is mainly engaged in trade. Our export markets are mainly concentrated in Europe and the United States. The market in Europe has been sluggish in the past two years, so now 80% of the market is concentrated In the Americas, South America is also under development, but it is still not ideal, so the most important thing is the United States.

Clarify the positioning and choose the right customers

When it comes to market positioning, let me talk about our company, because we It is a trading company, not a factory, so we have also participated in the Dubai exhibition, and we have seen that the price they sell locally is cheaper than the price we get from the factory, so our positioning was not very clear at first. We are doing all of them, but we do not clearly specialize in a certain type of product. Our market positioning is gradually summed up in the process of doing trade. Just like our current positioning is to not do low-end products at all, and prefer mid-range and high-end products.

Traders have their irreplaceable advantages

It is also very troublesome for us to deal with factories by ourselves. Some do not do what they do. We also have QC stationed in factories. If foreign factories directly contact medium-sized factories or When dealing with small factories, the industry faces the same problem. If you directly follow the trading company, we can help him with quality problems. The second is to solve other problems of QC and service, so I think trade will always exist.

For example, when we purchase in Anhui and Chongqing, we do not purchase from local factories in Chongqing, but from local trading companies, because they know the local factories better, we cooperate with factories and trading companies.

Foreign trade promotion requires more patience

The way of foreign trade promotion, generally speaking, is the general network promotion, exhibition display, which is such a means. Everyone does not necessarily spend the same amount of money or the same amount on the B2B website. Less money. The account managers of Global Sources often come to our company to give some suggestions. I can only review the waste of this platform. If we spend the money and fail to achieve the goal, we must not have done it properly. The background of Global Sources has many functions. We haven't made good use of it.

From this year, we have specially hired full-time personnel for network promotion and network optimization. It may have been operated by business personnel in the past. In fact, when business personnel are busy, they rarely take account of account operations, or everyone has Everyone's way always has different consequences. So this year, we hired a special person and a full-time promotion to do this.

The second is the way of exhibitions. There are about six to seven exhibitions every year, except for General electronics exhibitions, as well as industry exhibitions, industry exhibitions The competitors you will face are more professional. In fact, when you participate in the exhibition, people often ask how the effect of our exhibition is. I told them that the possibility of getting an order at the exhibition is almost zero, and there is no buyer. The patience to sit here and talk to you about how big the order is, including the promotion effect of the B2B website, I hope everyone has some patience.

The purpose of exhibition and website promotion is definitely to get orders, but it also needs to show that I am still alive here. The small company we have been doing for more than ten years is still alive. I will show up at every exhibition, and by the way, I can visit our customers locally. For example, when I go to Europe, I will go to the major supermarkets in Europe and see major European Headphones in supermarkets are piled up like a mountain. Why do we make them so small? What is the problem? We can take this opportunity to understand customers and the market.

Three points of experience in foreign trade marketing: publicity, network-wide marketing, and self-owned brands

For my experience in marketing, I would like to mention three points:

The first one is about exhibitions. It is the Hong Kong exhibition from 2007 to the present. Other exhibitions have also participated, but not many. In recent years, they have participated in foreign trade exhibitions. Let me talk about our mental journey. We must participate in international well-known exhibitions when participating in the exhibition. Because of its popularity, it will still have a certain effect if you go there. The first exhibition is relatively closed. In addition to participating in international well-known exhibitions, they also need to participate in certain countries. I know that Poland is a small country, but its coverage is very wide. Poland is sold to the whole of Europe. We can participate in local exhibitions in Poland. Our foreign trade company is also a good way out. In addition, as Mr. Yin mentioned just now, we have very, very small opportunities to receive orders on the spot at foreign exhibitions. Some customers do not want our Chinese factories to participate in the exhibition. Some customers say that you should not mention my name at the exhibition. There is a The American customer has done a lot, and he told us not to mention that you have cooperated with our company in front of other American customers. When we participated in the Miami exhibition, many customers would say why you came to participate in the exhibition. When we visited other companies at the exhibition, they said that they would not cooperate with the Chinese suppliers who came to participate in the exhibition. We will encounter this kind of problem when participating in the exhibition.

Let me tell you a little episode, because we went to the Miami show and the Dubai show. I went with my husband. We brought a lot of catalogues to the show. There were very few people in our China booth. The catalogues we brought were thrown away. It's a pity, it's impossible to memorize it. What should I do in this situation? I will take my catalog and distribute it to them one by one. At that time, my husband said "you are crazy", I said it doesn't matter, they want it. It doesn't matter if you want it or not, it's better than throwing it away. Therefore, it is suggested that everyone, whether it is the salesperson or the boss, whether it is the CD or catalogue you bring, must be sent to them. Anyway, the purpose of going abroad is for publicity, and there is no other purpose.

Don't come back immediately after attending the exhibition. Generally, we go to the exhibition for four days and travel for two days. It's better that you take the initiative in the past two days, and call the foreign customers you have contacted, that is, the customers who have cooperation intentions. Just like when we went to the United States, we greeted them in advance. They used the extended Lincoln to pick us up, and they were very enthusiastic. Not as difficult as we thought. In general, many foreigners are still very gentlemen, and if they make an appointment in advance, they will generally not refuse in person.

The second aspect is about the whole network marketing. We traditionally do B2B, but now many B2C and many companies are walking on two legs. In the past two years, I was very confused whether B2B was going to be replaced by B2C. There are many century-old stores in Europe. All are closed or sales have dropped a lot than before. After learning and communication, I found that B2B will not be replaced by B2C. Just now, Mr. Yin mentioned that many bosses spent money. They spent 200,000 to 300,000 yuan to become a 6-star Global Sources or a 5-star Alibaba. The boss pays the money, and the boss doesn't care about the backstage use. It's business. The operator is operating, it doesn't work, does the boss want to use it? So whether the boss wants to operate the backstage is one thing, but he must pay attention. From the friends and companies around us, your inquiry is really doubled if you pay attention to the backstage or not. In the backstage, you should pay attention to our company. A place to show strength. I would like to thank our customer service manager of Global Sources Resources, because we didn't pay much attention to this area before, thinking that as long as we release the product well, we don't pay much attention to showing the strength of the company.

About B2C, the whole network marketing is now advocated. The concept of whole network marketing was proposed this year. You can pay attention to it. It is not only limited to B2B, B2C, C2C, but also China's WeChat, Facebook, and video. This is a Comprehensive marketing is more complicated to say, but we can start it bit by bit.

The third aspect is the brand. Compared with the company of the three bosses, our company is a typical small business. We didn't pay much attention to the brand in the past, and the price competition was really fierce. It is to take this brand line, no matter what the inside is, from the outside step by step, the company has a strategic plan at the beginning of this year, and now it has begun to be implemented.