Your best friend owns a small children's clothing store located in the downtown area of a community of 50,000 citizens. Business has been slow the past year due the construction of several new strip malls and a new Wal-Mart store (Increased competition). She discovered you were taking an online marketing class, asked you for your advice for ideas that would increase her sales (She owns her present building and will not relocate her business, even though the downtown area is losing stores to the new strip malls). Based on

1. What you have learned in this course what would you tell her.

2. Define and discuss cross-border alliances. What are they and how do they work?

3. What are the benefits of list segmentation to direct marketers?

4. Why do marketing managers need research and what is its role in decision making?

5. Marketing strategy consists of selecting a segment of the market as the company's target market and designing the proper marketing "mix" that meets the needs of that segment. Discuss how this is achieved.