4. Read the text and answer the following questions. 1. When is necessary to do if a company wants to sell the goods in a new market?
2. What is a feasibility study?
3. What are the ways of getting (assessing) the market potential?
4. Where can manufacturing companies exhibit their samples of goods?
5. Do they display a full range of their goods at a trade fair?
6. What is an advertising campaign?
7. What is the aim of promotion of goods? What should potential customers do if they want to buy something?
When a company starts to sell goods in a new market, they often do some market research or a preliminary study to see if the project is feasible. They research (investigate) the market potential or do a feasibility study to see if they will make money by selling in the new market (i. e. to see if the product/project is viable)
One way to assess the market potential is to take a stand at a trade fair where com¬panies can exhibit samples of their products and see what response they get from prospective customers. The Trade Fair is an exhibition of goods and a company exhibits a sample of its product at its stand. This as also a form of publicity (or advertising) and the company representative will probably hand out publicity brochures to advertise (or promote) the product further. Often journalists (the press) write about the trade fair and sometimes companies hold a press conference if they want to promote a particular model or range. (Each different type of car, bike etc. is a model. All the different models made by a company make up its range. The full range of goods is normally displayed in the company's catalogue. The catalogue is a book¬let or brochure).
Another way of promoting (or publicizing) a new product is to place advertise¬ments in magazines or newspapers. Advertisements are also called adverts or ads for short. A plan to do a lot of advertising of one product is called a campaign. Starting an advertising cam¬paign on a new product is known as launching the product.
The aim of publicity/promotion is to interest customers (or buyers, or clients) in the product. Initially customers/clients might make inquiries about the product. When they decide to buy, they place an order. At a Trade Fair companies are trying to win (obtain) as many orders as possible. However, before a client places an order he wants to know many things: how long delivery takes, whether the company can supply replacements and spare parts, what the after sales service is like, etc. (All the individual parts in a model are called components. If one of the components breaks the customer will want a replacement spare part. If the product is complicated, skilled workers might be needed to fit spare parts or to service or maintain the machinery. Any maintenance or servicing the company does after it has sold the product is called after-sales service).
