Introduction
The Dominican Republic is a country on the island of Hispaniola surrounded by Haiti, the North Atlantic Ocean, and the Caribbean Sea, with a population of 10 million. With thirty-one provinces, the Dominican Republic’s capital is situated in Saint Domingo, and its legal system stands on French civil codes (CIA Factbook, 2). With CAFTA-DR, it enjoyed a growth of GDP of 12% in 2008 and inflation of around 6%. Therefore, for an American to start a business in this region would provide an excellent opportunity to have a solid economic position. As the company has projected to drive the consumer market, the target markets are individuals and households. Thus, the marketing and distribution methods would be developed in the following ways (Toolkit Media Group, 1).
Methods of Marketing
To implement marketing methods, several activities have to be done according to the need to test markets’ responses by preliminary prospectus and identifying the investors (Ball et al., 35). These methods have defined as below:
- Prospectus Offerings: In this method, marketing managers have to fix up interest rates and discount rates on the market offerings. The managers are developing a prospectus for the interested group of people.
- Identification of Investors for supporting Offers: In this method, marketing managers identify influential investors who could help the promotional and distributional activities for the offerings of the target market.
Methods of Distribution
Distribution is the way of delivering the offerings to the target markets, with the following methods: (Small Business Notes, 1):
- Direct Sales: When the businessperson starts to sell its offering to the customers directly, and no intermediaries are present between the buyers and customers, it would be considered direct sales. As an American, the person has little scope for direct sales in the market.
- Indirect Sales by Retailers: When the businessperson starts selling their offering to the local grocery shops, it would be in direct sales. To develop this method, it is necessary to maintain a good relationship between the retailers and businesspeople.
- Indirect Sales by Wholesalers: The businessperson has various scopes to distribute its products to the target market when the business runs with the help of wholesalers and agents. However, to adopt this method, the businessperson has to have extensive promotional activities and trade publications in the potential market.
- Indirect Sales by Multilevel Marketers: By developing this method, the distribution could be integrated with direct sales to customers and appointing other persons in the sales and distribution activities.
After choosing the methods of marketing and distribution, the businessperson has to develop target markets according to the offerings for distribution. These criteria for choosing distribution methods are as follows: (Business Knowledge Source, 1):
- Identifying the targeted Customers, their levels like a low or middle-income group of people, their demographic profile, and other information related to their personal life.
- It should select the best method for distributing products or offerings to the target market. It would be possible with the help of a sample survey of the customers.
- Competitors who use the same distribution and marketing methods as the businessperson engaged.
- Businessperson has to find a cost-effective way of choosing promotional or advertising campaigns.
- Availability of capital to develop marketing and distribution methods must be notified by the businessperson for ongoing business operations.
Conclusion
To select the distribution and marketing methods, the businessperson has to stand on unique offerings to the target market with selective pricing, which is the critical success of the plans. This could turn the business into the highest success rate in the competitive market.
Works Cited
Ball, Donald, et al. International Business: The Challenge of Global Competition. 11th edition, NY: McGraw Hill/Irwin.
Business Knowledge Source, 5 ways to choose your method of distribution for your target market, Web.
CIA Factbook. Dominican Republic, 2009. ISSN 1553-8133. Web.
Toolkit Media Group, Choosing Distribution Methods. Web.
Small Business Notes. Marketing Distribution Process. Web.