Digital Marketing Strategy for Doing Business in France
According to www.internetworldstats.com 55.1% of the world is internet users. Forty-nine percent of these users are in Asia, and 16.8% are in Europe with North America accounting for 8.2% of internet users. France specifically has 83.8% of its population using the internet (Internet World Stats, 2019).
For my market development strategy I have chosen to use France. France’s population is 65,233,271 with 60,421,689 people in 2017 being internet users. Of those 60,421,689 about 33,000,000 of them use Facebook. Compared to the United States’ population of 326,766,748 who 312,322,257 are internet users; with 154, 871, 340 of them using Facebook. From this we already know that Facebook is the preferred social media platform in France, compared to the U.S. therefore Facebook will be one of the platforms our company will use (Internet World Stats, 2019).
When launching a business in France it is important to know and understand the legal, demographic, political, technological, economic, competitive and sociocultural factors specific to the country, to have a successful business.
Some legal factors to keep in mind are that the French must get paid over time if they work more than 35 hours. It is illegal to send a work-related email after 5 p.m., and they do taxes differently than the U.S.(Kaplan, Crawford, Hennig-Thurau 2017). Demographically they are smaller than the U.S. but have more Facebook users, the country is easily accessible when traveling to and from there, 37.48% of the population are ages 25-54 which means they have a young population that is more enticed to using technology and digital media (Cia.gov). A political factor that one should be aware of is Brexit and how it will affect the economy of other countries. According to the TMF group it takes about a month or longer to register for a business to register it’s building and to get an internet connection. Economic factors to consider are getting credit, taxes and how Brexit will affect France’s economy. In France, businesses pay taxes nine times throughout the year. Competitive factors to consider are local, French companies who are already established and know the ins and outs of the laws and culture of France and who can identify with French customers on a more personal level. Another competitive factor are foreign businesses who have been in France longer and are more established and knowledgeable when it comes to knowing what the people want. Sociocultural factors to consider are that working 35 hours a week is full-time, they get more maternity leave than what people get in the U.S. and maternity leave can be taken by either the mother or father, the French people are more relaxed and want to enjoy life, the language is a factor to consider because they appreciate it when a foreigner knows how to speak French. Speaking French/learning how to speak it, is one way a foreign business can show that it truly cares about it’s French clients (Orme-Lynch, 2018).
When looking at the market segmentation in Digital Ads, Social Media Advertising, brings in the most revenue, mobile accounts for half of the ad spending with the entertainment and media industry being the main sources of display ad spending. Our segments should broken into: Social Media Advertising, Mobile, and Display Ads. Then we can further segment these three categories to help pin point our ideal buyer (Statista, 2019).
The marketing mix will consist of marketing through social media & their mobile friendly apps, display ads at places such as movie theaters, malls, amusement parks, television and other places that provide entertainment. To implement this strategy we will use social media to bring about awareness, attract new customers and build and maintain relationships with customers and other businesses that we work with. To evaluate the results analytics will be used.
References
Dodson, I. (2016). The Art of Digital Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Creating Strategic, Targeted, and Measurable Online Campaigns, 1st Edition.
Statista. (2019). Digital Advertising – France | Statista Market Forecast. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/outlook/216/136/digital-advertising/france
Orme-Lynch, D. (2018, November 14). Top 10 challenges of doing business in France. Retrieved from https://www.tmf-group.com/en/news-insights/articles/2018/july/france-top-10-challenges/
Cia.gov. (2019). Europe :: France — The World Factbook – Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved from: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fr.html
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.internetworldstats.com/
Reference Kaplan, V., Crawford, J., Hennig-Thurau, T., Wise, L., & Rapaille, C. (2017). Small world big chances: Mapping the world’s marketing opportunities. Marketing News, 51(7), 32-41.
