The impact of international marketing strategy on export performance: The case of automotive exports to Germany

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of export marketing strategy applied by firms operating in international markets on export performance. In this study, export marketing strategy is measured by the adaptation strategy applied to the elements of the international marketing mix. As export performance, we focused on the change in the export of the firms. The sample of research is Turkish firms which are actively involved in exports of automotive sector to Germany in the years between 2018 and 2019. 118 firms have taken participation in the study as a result of the data obtained from the Ministry of Trade. SPSS19 program was used in order to analyse the data collected through the survey. As a result of the applied regression analysis, it is concluded that firm performance has a positive and significant relationship with customer experience and a negative and significant relationship with the adaptation level of the distribution channel.