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In simple terms, marketing activities and
strategies result in making products available that satisfy
customers while making profits for the companies that offer those
products. Marketing is the process of planning and executing the
conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, and
services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and
organizational objectives. Furthermore, the American consumer is not
the same as the French consumer.
Then, how are the customer and business
objectives met? You see in the above definition that the process of
marketing begins with discovering what product customers want to
buy. Adapting to the consumer’s tastes and expectations is the
critical first step in marketing, and one that will determine your
business’s success or failure.
Conceptualizing
your Marketing Strategy
As an entrepreneur you must account for the
significant cultural differences between
France and the United States. Often, however, this step is
overlooked. Examples of successful adaptation include Red Bicyclette
wines, L’Oréal Paris, Danone, etc.
By studying these examples, the entrepreneur
thus notes certain implications of the
Americanization of the product:
- The
changing of packaging to conform
to American use and codes
- The
changing of brand name to
facilitate ease of pronunciation or to advance a marketing message
(e.g. Red Bicyclette)
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Adapting to technical and legal norms
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Preparing customer services
packages that conform to American practice (e.g. guarantees,
warrantees, product returns)
- In
certain domains, the augmentation of product units per package
These implications serve to highlight that
marketing requires a high level of preparation on your part. As
successful enterprises such as L’Oréal have shown, knowing the
market should be the key priority for an entrepreneur looking to set
up a business or organization in the US.
Therefore, an
analysis of the market should incorporate:
- The
size of the market for your product, its preferences, demands, and
expectations
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Existing competition, including the number and size of potential
competitors
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Distribution methods – the current methods of distribution and
their requirements
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Evolutions in demand and supply for your product, and at what
point does the product find itself actually (e.g. rising demand,
decline, or stable maturity)
Once a sufficient understanding of the market
is achieved, you can begin to define a concrete position vis-à-vis
penetrating the American market. However, you must thus be sure that
you have sufficient local knowledge in place before beginning a
marketing campaign. In this manner, local services can provide you
assistance. These include: appropriate personnel in place that can
guide and administrate entry into the market, the approval and
advice of public institutions, specialized operators of
international commerce, and private consultants. In addition, you
can find the best local experts by consulting the various Chambers
of Commerce and local marketing societies in the region.
After establishing contact with such experts,
it is important to discuss several key questions in order to
formulate a precise marketing strategy:
- It
is necessary to adapt my product to the local market?
- It
is necessary to modify the name of the product?
- How
to package the product in order to render it appropriate and
forceful within the local market?
- At
what price range and premium should the product begin?
- How
to promote the product, and what means of media should I choose?
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What types of partners would help my business grow – agents,
import-exporters, trade societies, etc?
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What type of distribution is appropriate for the product (heavy
distribution, selective distribution, etc.)?
Marketing and
Promoting the Product
Next, what kinds of activities are included in
marketing? The marketing process then continues with setting a
price, letting potential customers know about your product, and
making it available to them. Marketing activities are numerous and
varied because they include everything needed to get a product off
the drawing board and into the hands of the customer. The broad
field of marketing includes activities such as designing the product
so it will be desirable to customers (using tools such as marketing
research and pricing; promoting the product so people will know
about it using tools such as public relations, advertising,
marketing communications; and exchanging it with the customer
through sales and distribution.) It is important to note that while
the field of marketing includes sales, it also includes many
additional functions. Many people mistakenly think that marketing
and sales are the same-they are not.
Basically, these are the fundamentals of a real marketing mindset;
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Producing what the customer wants should be the focus of business
operations and planning.
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Creating profitable sales volume, not just sales volume, is a
necessary goal.
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Coordinating between marketing activities and all other functions
within a business that affect marketing efforts.
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