My product of choice is Nicotine Gum and the country of entry in India. Nicotine gum is a product for helping smokers to gradually and slowly stop addiction to Nicotine. Nicotine gum is consumed through chewing the gum, and the content is absorbed to the body through the mouth lining ( Stead et al., 2012). The absorbed gum content helps smokers to minimize their craving for Nicotine slowly. Nicotine gum is used as a nicotine replacement therapy, and it is an over the counter medication. The medication comes in different levels of dosage depending on the smoker level of addiction.
My target market will be New Delhi, India. The Indian population is estimated at 1.83 billion people as of 2020. New Delhi, India's capital city population, is estimated at over 30.2 million people. Indians are smokers, with an estimation of 120 million smokers, according to the WHO. A significant number of these smokers are in New Delhi. This makes New Delhi a perfect target market. The focus and the target market for the Nicotine gum would be middle class and high-end class smokers who can comfortably afford the gums.
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The four demographic market variables likely to impact our product include age, class, education, and gender. I have chosen these variables because they directly help us narrow down to our target market. The more precise we define these variables, the better our product. For example, smokers are adults mainly aged 20 years and above, at least in the Indian market. Class is reasonable for Nicotine because they are not affordable; only those with social class would be attracted to this product. The level of education is also important, while we will do a lot of marketing, but the more educated people are likely to have heard of nicotine gum, how it works. It would be easy working with more knowledgeable persons. Lastly, in India, men are known to smoke more than women. There are more men addicts in India compared to women addicts. In a WHO statistics report, people aged 30-34 die more from tobacco use. The statistics also show that 42.4% of tobacco users are aged 15 years and above (WHO, 2018).
The most appropriate market entry strategy for nicotine gum to the Indian market would be through export. Exportation involves marketing the product locally in our country of origin and then transporting them to India. Exportation is ideal for nicotine gum because it would not involve the need to build a new plant in India, which may be very expensive. All we need to do it to establish our offices in India and stores and establish our marketing strategy. The products are branded to suit the Indian market and demographics; they are then transported in our stores then distributed to the retailers directly from our stores to reduce costs.
Nicotine gums are relatively new in India. We will need to do a lot of education before properly breaking into the market. However, we believe that the nicotine addicts and their relatives would be interested in getting this innovative product to replace their smoking habit. Nicotine gum is addictive, and once a consumer starts taking, they are also likely to replace the tobacco with the gum, which is a plus preference for us.
Our main positioning theme is 'benefit.' We will be telling our consumers the benefits of nicotine gum. Nicotine gum helps tobacco smoking, and it does so regularly without side effects. The benefit message will be branded on the products and on our marketing material. The message will also be available through medical brochures that are packed with the product, and the sellers will be educated to give the message.
The preferred advertising would be social media. Almost every Indian in the urban center and our target market are assumed to have a smartphone. This increases our reach at very low costs. Social media will allow us to target the specific market group through content marketing. Through social media, it will be possible to engage the customer through creating awareness, educating the users. Television adverts would also work in our favor in terms of creating legitimacy and popularity amongst our users. Networking and community initiative will be another very effective method for this product. The consumers will be targeted on the ground, giving them the opportunity to test the products and give some for free.
Retail distribution would be more appropriate for the delivery of the gums. Retail is more reliable because we will not have middlemen who will further increase the cost of the nicotine gum. Through retail distribution, we have the opportunity to have a tighter focus on our primary competencies. Retail marketing allows us to conduct more reliable and efficient marketing. Retailing also allows us to reach a wider market much faster compared to other forms of distribution like wholesaling. Through retail marketing, it will be possible to directly connect with the customer on the ground and get valuable feedback. Other forms of distribution do not allow us to get feedback to help us customize the product according to customer needs. Lastly, we are likely to experience faster growth through retail marketing because there is no limit.
References
Stead, L. F., Perera, R., Bullen, C., Mant, D., Hartmann ‐ Boyce, J., Cahill, K., & Lancaster, T.
(2012). Nicotine replacement therapy for smoking cessation. Cochrane database of systematic reviews , (11).
WHO. India Factsheet 2018. Accessed 1 April 2020
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/272672/wntd_2018_india_fs.pdf?sequence=1
