Challenge: define international marketing
International marketing is a skill, a function or an attitude.
International marketing is a great deal of books and college courses. It's a profession for the curious, that involves continuous exploring and learning.
International marketing is probably the new normality when it comes to marketing in general. Because there are no such things as local companies anymore. Every company has to face international markets, foreign partners, global competition.
International marketing can mean a set of activities planned by the Headquarters that help the company take off to other destinations. Or it can refer to the actions executed by the subsidiary that help the company land safely in a specific country.
International marketing is a phase, right after export marketing and before the global marketing, where a company markets it products with a country by country pace.
International marketing can mean building the perception that the company, once successful and stable in its home market, is ready to take it to the next level. It means learning to mitigate or leveraging the country-of-origin effect and using the cultural preconceptions to introduce and position your company.
International marketing means tackling uncertainty and taking on lots of challenges, losing control over context and learning how to start over again. It is a fight between standardization and localization, between centralization and local autonomy.
International marketing means an experience and many many fails, but it's also the best source of growth and expansion. And finally, it's no longer optional.