Target Market Selection and Detection of Potential Customers with Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods Based on Marketing Intelligence

The importance of desk research and therefore electronic databases, which have an important place in the management of foreign trade operations, needs more emphasis than in previous periods. This study makes a ranking among alternative markets by using the data obtained from marketing intelligence sources and a methodology for solving decision problems arising in the selection of target market for Turkish iron & steel exporters, and the TOPSIS method, which is one of the multi-criteria decision-making methods. The criteria used in the evaluation of alternative markets included in the study were determined by making use of the literature of international trade theories and the marketing intelligence resources presented within the scope of the study. In addition, a face-to-face interview was made with an iron & steel company exporting the product with the code 7210 in Samsun in the target market selection, and the existing criteria were submitted for approval and the different proposed criteria were included in the analysis. The AHP method was used to determine the criteria weights with the interviewed firm. According to the results of the research, in which 31 different alternatives were listed in the context of a total of 15 criteria; In the ranking of target market alternatives for Turkish iron & steel companies exporting the product with GTIP code 7210, Spain ranks first, Czech ranks second and Belgium ranks third. In line with these results, the research focuses on the top three alternative markets and identifies six different potential customers with three different methods.