Building a cross-border e-commerce marketing planning framework system is one of the necessary conditions for enterprises to truly start cross-border e-commerce business, because only by building a relatively stable and systematic framework system can it indicate that the enterprise has taken the initiative to control its own destiny and knows what it is, so it is not easy to follow the crowd, follow the crowd, and lose its direction.
In the ever-changing market, it is very important to keep some unchanging things. The stability of the three-layer framework increases from bottom to top, that is, the enterprise market strategy has the highest stability. When we determine the market positioning and brand, it should remain unchanged for a considerable period of time. It is the basis for us to formulate tactics, and it is also the direction that cannot be deviated in daily combat tasks. The execution of tactics and combat tasks will strengthen the brand position of the enterprise. Tactical tasks must also remain stable within a certain period of time. For example, customers and products, we cannot provide golf training simulators to high-end customers today, and sell cheap labor protection products to low-income households tomorrow. This positioning change will cause the team customers to be at a loss, and of course it is impossible to do a good job in cross-border e-commerce.
At the same time, it should be noted that customer needs are changing rapidly, and it takes a long time to provide products around a certain demand point. This is the value of planning. We need to go through careful research and make rational choices when choosing what needs of customers to meet. When planning, we should always ask ourselves a question: Is this demand a demand? Is it a strong demand, or is it only a weak demand, or is it a pseudo-demand? The combat-level tasks have the lowest stability and are the most innovative layer. Frontline personnel should be encouraged to change quickly based on market feedback. For example, in social media marketing, TikTok has emerged overseas in recent years and has become an important platform for short video and live broadcast marketing. Then the specialists responsible for social media marketing should quickly “settle down” on TikTok for marketing. The marketing cost of early users is often lower. At present, the cost and effect of live broadcast marketing on Alibaba International Station are good. The cross-border e-commerce marketing planning framework attaches great importance to systematicity. There is an internal logical relationship between each task. Whether we realize it or not, they are inseparable and influence each other. For example, Company A assists other online marketing models through the official flagship store of Alibaba International Station to provide high-end business people with a golf training simulator kit that can be used in the office and is priced no more than the cost of two golf courses. This is a simplified description of the cross-border e-commerce business of Company A, in which people, goods, and markets are closely related. Any change in any element will generate a new business model, which requires independent accounting or the configuration of a dedicated team in management. If the e-commerce platform is changed to Amazon and the business model is changed to B2C, the platform rules are completely different. In practice, a relatively independent team must be established to be responsible. If the customer object is changed to professional golf players, then the demand for products such as simulators is likely to be weakened into a pseudo-demand.
We define a set of tactical tasks consisting of people, goods, and markets as a strategic business unit (SBU), then
SBU=customer x channel x product
The cross-border e-commerce marketing planning framework is not created out of nothing. In its construction, it refers to Kotler’s marketing management framework and David’s strategic management framework. The framework does not follow the 4P, 4C or 4R models, but does not deny the significance of these simplified models. The framework pursues more systematicity. It is precisely because of the systematicity of the framework that the construction of the framework is not easy, often takes a lot of time, and becomes a daunting task for many companies.