Marketing


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)
  • Adapting to technical and legal norms
  • 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
  • Existing competition, including the number and size of potential competitors
  • Distribution methods – the current methods of distribution and their requirements
  • 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?
  • What types of partners would help my business grow – agents, import-exporters, trade societies, etc?
  • 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;

  • Producing what the customer wants should be the focus of business operations and planning.
  • Creating profitable sales volume, not just sales volume, is a necessary goal.
  • Coordinating between marketing activities and all other functions within a business that affect marketing efforts.
  • To get details about marketing, please refer following site;

 
 
The information on this site is not intended to constitute legal advice or to substitute for obtaining legal advice from an attorney licensed in your state. This web site is not intended to be advertising under applicable laws and ethical rules.  These materials have been prepared by the French American Chamber of Commerce with the expertise of our staff and members for informational purposes only and are not legal advice.  Anyone viewing the information should not act upon it without seeking professional counsel. The information contained in this website is provided only as general information which may or may not reflect the most current legal developments.