International Marketing Report: Cultured Cities' Toronto Strategy

This report examines the international marketing strategy for Cultured Cities, a start-up company aiming to expand its online city guide service into Toronto, Canada. It analyzes the marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion) to determine the most effective approach for entering the Toronto market. The report details the company's services, target audience, and pricing strategy, including the freemium model. It also discusses distribution strategies, leveraging digital platforms and the city's infrastructure. Furthermore, the report explores promotional strategies such as SEO, social media marketing, and email marketing, emphasizing the importance of engaging content and building brand visibility. Recommendations are provided, considering the differences between the Australian market and the target market of Toronto, to maximize the chances of success.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL MARKETING
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Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Authors Note:

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Executive Summary:
In the current scenario of globalization, competition has strongly increased. The report elaborates
the marketing strategies in the light of the given company, Cultured cities. Tourism market in the
in the recent times is primarily determined by the offers and demands of the consumers. the
marketing mix elements, like product, price, place and promotion is considered to evaluate the
most appropriate method that is to be adopted. The promotional strategy used by the business
would help in developing the awareness and demand for the services. Furthermore,
recommendation is also provided that by identifying the major differences between Australia and
target country.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
About the Company:........................................................................................................................3
Marketing Mix:................................................................................................................................4
Product:........................................................................................................................................4
Price:............................................................................................................................................5
Place:............................................................................................................................................5
Promotion:...................................................................................................................................6
Recommendation:............................................................................................................................7
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction:
The report throws light on the marketing strategy that would be used while entering into
the international market. Cultured cities, the start-up company aims to expand its business at an
international level. The chosen international city in which the company can expand its business
is Toronto. Toronto is based in Canada and is one of the most educated and cultured cities of the
world. An effective marketing strategy is needed to explore the available opportunities in the
preferred city. This will help the organization to take maximum advantage from the identified
market opportunities.
With the help of marketing mix or the 4P’s of marketing, the consumer needs in this
market can be easily evaluated. The 4P’s of marketing includes product, price, place and
promotion (Festa et al. 2016). The promotional and pricing strategy that is to be used by the
company to penetrate in the market will also be discussed. Canada is known to be as the leading
country with regards to the technological start-up business throughout the world. Most of the
cities in Canada are highly advanced in all the cultural, economic and political aspect. While
Toronto being the capital city of Canada is the home to various important offices of the foreign
owned subsidies as well as Canadian business.
The report aims to describe the insight of the marketing mix strategy. Moreover, the
alignment of the business environment as compared to Australia will be discussed.
Recommendations will also be provided while analyzing the market opportunities within the
chosen city, Toronto.
About the Company:
Cultured Cities is a start-up business that was founded in the year 2016 by two B-school
graduates (Cultured-cities.com. 2018). The service provided by them is in the form of online city
guide that would help the people to discover popular and new venues, deals and events. The
potential customers availing the services are budget conscious consumers, young and free
university students and travelers or backpackers. All the popular events, local bars, cheap meals,
deals and hidden gems are presented in a very user-friendly manner with an interactive map of

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that particular city by the volunteers. The company has launched its business in Melbourne and
Perth and will soon expand its business in Sydney.
Marketing Mix:
The marketing initiatives have to emphasize the easily accessible services to convince the
potential customers. it is highly significant to make the people believe that information provided
to them is worthy. The services obtained should be good value of the price described and up to
the expectations of the consumers. Through the 4P’s of marketing the elements needed to be
adapted to meet the consumer’s demand can be ascertained.
Product: the primary aim of the service is to bring together enthusiastic volunteers and
writers to contribute towards making the city of Toronto a popular place and providing the
various tourists with the opportunities (Khan 2014). This would help them to understand the
different options available to them when they visit a new city. In addition to this, it will also
provide them with an opportunity to different business in Toronto to promote their business.
They could gain opportunities and engage in high revenue generation. Product is actually the
combination of both the tangible and intangible products. The product is the destination that is to
be experienced by the people the views of the location travel to the Toronto.
The entertainment provided at the destination as well as the facility and accommodation
provides the basic package as a product. Therefore, it is a composite product and in the absence
of either of the components, the entire product mix is incomplete in form (Arif and Balo 2017).
As each of the element has its own significance in the product mix. The content development of
the online website will be helpful in providing efficient services to the customer and services.
Detailed information about the city nightlife, club, cafes, sights, venues and deals helps the
visitors to make adequate buying decisions for their clients. Initiating new services is actually the
life blood of any business. An effective content provides the potential users all the information
from the company.
In today’s time, great content engages the customer by providing abundance of
information. All the important questions of the potential customers regarding Toronto should be
answered by company’s website before any query posted by them. a development project is
needed to be managed so that all the key parameters relating to the project can be ascertained.

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Through SMART model, which is specific, measurable, agreed, related and time-limited features
the objectives can be achieved (Salam, Inam and Awan 2015). This would help in monitoring
progress and flexibility should be made within the plans.
Price: pricing is one of the most crucial decisions that are to be made for the success of
the business. The amount that is to be charged for the services will help in determining the
revenues of the business in future. Developing a pricing strategy to enter into the market for a
start-up business is highly significant. There are three factors that should be considered before
charging for the services. These factors are costs, customers and competition. Canada is a highly
developed country with the stable and strong economy. This indicates that the market is perfect
for investing and setting up prices that would lead to maximum revenue. The target audiences are
the travelers, backpackers, professionals and customers who are highly budget conscious (Phan
and Vu 2015). The volunteers providing the contents are also the young people, travelers and the
local people of the Toronto city. Therefore the pricing strategy would be such that would create a
positive impact on the loyal customers. This will be further helpful in attracting and new
customers.
Through fermium model the company, Cultured cities can gain maximum revenue with
this effective pricing model. Freemium is generally an internet based model used by the
businesses. Basic services are provided to the customers free of cost but additional charges are
levied on the premium features (Wu 2016). This strategy is quite helpful in increasing the user
base besides generating more revenue and profit by implementation of this micropayment
strategies.
As Cultured cities is a start-up business and initially distributing the services for free
would be best and highly effective to attract more customers. Though most of the customers
would not be able to reach the stage of premium but this model will help in attracting new
prospective and premium customers. The freemium technique will not charge for the basic
services provide to the customers but later on charges will be added to explore more about the
city. Through Freemium the company can easily monetize their services offering in the business
market of Canada (TechCrunch. 2018).

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Place: various distribution strategies can be preferred for providing the online tourism
service in Toronto. In the recent time of digitalization, internet is an important medium that is
widely used nowadays to contact to each other at different parts of the world. The transportation,
infrastructure facilities and communication act as an important factor for the development of the
business in that particular country. The transit system of Toronto is created in a user-friendly
way. This helps the local people besides the travelers and the backpackers to easily travel around
the city. Besides an adequate transit services, the country also indulges in providing paratransit
services. In Toronto, the urban transit system is effective that is useful in serving the people.
In the recent scenario, a deal with Google Waze, which is a navigation app that helps in
tracking the traffic and incidents in the preferred routes (PlanetWeb.ca. 2018)? This has further
made the city a better environment for residents as well as the visitors. Proper infrastructural and
technological development of the place is essential to make the business more successful. In
order to provide better services, the company will open its new company in Toronto, Canada.
By creating a basic website, the in-depth knowledge about the services will be provided
to the local people. the basic services involves all the in-depth knowledge of the travel
destination, history of the city, resorts and this can be communicated through the company’s
website (Samiee, Chabowski and Hult 2015). The website will include all the photographs,
contact and location details. In addition to this, the website will help the potential customers to
make bookings for their products. Furthermore, the target customers can ask for more
promotional literature mailed to them and can also make other requests directly to the operators
Promotion: Promotional strategy will help the business to identify their target market to
establish effective goals. Cultured cities are an online service provider related to the specific
cities. Better promotional strategies would further help them to assist the business in connecting
and understanding with the customers and clients. Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
the business can be promoted to the people. SEO is the process in which the online site of
Cultured cities would be made more visible to the public in all the search engines. This would
lead to more traffic from all the people that search for all the services offerings. The ranking of
the search position arises from all the technical structure of the website (CityNews Toronto.
2018). The content development strategy also should be useful to make attract more customers.

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Social media marketing in the recent times is also one of the most popular modes to
create maximum revenue. This would be helpful in building the organization very helpful and
would lead to nurture a social media audience. The content that is to be conveyed to the
customers should be strong enough to attract the potential audiences. This would lead to build
greater brand visibility and also greater reputation for the services (Kubacki et al. 2017).
If the promotion of the business is done in a most effective manner, it would create a
great impact on increasing the sales of the company. Creating an account in sites like Facebook,
Instagram and Pinterest would work best for promoting the business. the strategy should involve
promoting the overall content to the target customers. While posting the message in such
promotional sites, main aim of the advertisement should be that a large number of customers
should be attracted. The content should have high appeal to attract and retain the target audience.
The people of Canada would not appreciate constant flow of promotional messages. They would
rather be liked to get entertained and informed, instead of just getting the advertizing message.
While posting the content to the followers, it is also important to get involved in the
conversations.
Through email marketing also the company can provide maximum potential to gain
maximum customers. The ROI is very less and it’s almost cost nothing to execute the
promotional activities (Dadzie et al. 2017). The subscribers from the websites can be collected
and mail can be delivered to the followers on the social media sites and this would help in
promoting about the latest information regarding the city to the customers. Providing newsletter
about the new club or bar in the city to the people of Canada will help the customers to gain
maximum advantage.
Recommendation:
The consumer prices in Canada are lower than in Australia. Moreover, other prices such
as consumer prices, restaurant prices and groceries are relatively lower than in Australia. But the
rent prices and consumer prices including rent are higher in Toronto than in Perth. Canadian
values self-reliance more than the people of Australia.
The companies are actually depended on the people who run the businesses. In Australia,
hierarchy is mainly established for convenience. The superiors are always accessible and the

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manger mostly relies on the teams and individual employees for expertise. While in Canada, the
culture is made through interdependence among the people. While entering into the business
market of Canada, it is important to share all the relevant information freely. As the people of
Canada values a straightforward information exchange the information provided to the potential
consumers should also be adequate. Canada is a normative society and the people values have
great respect for traditions and also put a major emphasis in achieving quick results. Before
expanding its business in Canada it is important that Cultured Cities should showcases the
preferred cities with high respect and also focus on the heritage value of Toronto.
The process through which the services is to be delivered in Toronto should also be made
more effective by encouraging pay-per clicking marketing techniques. The advertisement, offer
and website page should be in good harmony and synchronization as it helps in maintain the
interest of the consumers. The website page should be free of all unnecessary whistles and bells
and distractions. This would further help in boasting the products benefits to the consumers.
In Australia, various e-commerce companies’ fails to realize the biggest marketing assets
are at their fingertips that is their customers (Sam, Li and Chatwin 2016). in reality majority of
the customers identify that the word-of mouth plays a major role while making any decisions.
Therefore referrals with the help of social media would prove to be helpful in recommending
about the products and services. Moreover, appreciating the loyal customers would be helpful in
penetrating in the business market of Canada. A well-written and periodically emailed newsletter
is a powerful method of increasing revenue and improving customer loyalty.
Increasing the clarity and transparency of information would also lead to create a better
experience for the user and improve the conversion rates. Increasing the likelihood for
appearance in all the search engine results in positive outcome by using relevant content. Alike,
Australia people living in Canada possess a positive attitude and have great tendency towards
optimism. The people put major emphasis on leisure time and are fun-loving in nature. People in
Canada are more inclined towards drinking so more information regarding the pubs and bars.
therefore, more information should be given to the travelers and backpackers about the bars and
pubs present in the city. \the pricing strategy used by Australia is mostly in the form of
subscription method but while entering into Canada, freemium model would lead to gain
maximum market penetration and gain competitive advantages.

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Conclusion:
From the analysis of the market and country, it is ascertained that the marketing mix of
the chosen country is Canada is appropriate to expand the business. Through effective
promotional strategies and monetization models, the needs of the consumers can be fulfilled. In
the era of globalization, the environmental condition is highly complex due to the intense
competition in the market. The company, cultured cities helps in providing the overall
information about the city, Toronto. The invisibility of the product gives more importance to the
marketing strategy. With the help of marketing mix elements such as price, product, promotion
and place, the company will adapt to the environmental condition of Toronto and thus realize its
mission. Through its promotional strategy right information is provided to the people at the right
time for the travel services. By interactive communication, promotional and informational
benefits would be provided to the potential customers.

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