The International Entrepreneur:

Marketing American Products to Saudi Arabia

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The Scenario:             (Note: click on the blue upper-case words to get their definitions)

As the Secretary of Commerce for the United States, part of your job is to monitor US trade relations with other countries. What you would like to see most is an even BALANCE OF TRADE between the United States and other countries. Unfortunately, you have not been seeing this happen too often lately. For example, Americans are using more gas than ever, and are buying much of it from the world's largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia. Although the United States has been spending a great deal of money on Saudi Arabian oil, Saudi Arabian consumers have not been buying a lot of US products. This has resulted in a substantial TRADE DEFICIT with Saudi Arabia. Things have gotten so bad that even the President of the United States has become aware of the problem and has asked you to do something about it. In a recent meeting, the President looked directly at you and said:"We buy lots of oil from Saudi Arabia, but they don't seem to want any of our products! I need for you to create a marketing proposal that will show how a US product can be marketed to Saudi Arabia."

In this webquest, you will create the marketing proposal the President wants.

The Challenge

Since you work in the Federal Government, you will complete your proposal by filling out a form- but don't worry, this one truly is easy. It's called the Marketing Proposal Form 1136-1b, or just the Marketing Proposal Form for short. It has four parts. Each part matches up with one of what marketers call the "Four Ps of Marketing." The four Ps of marketing are: Product, Place, Price, and Promotion. These four words give you an easy way to remember remember the four main decisions that people in business have to make, which are (1) decide what product to sell, (2) decide where to sell it (3) decide what to charge for it, and (4) decide how to tell people about it.

The Marketing  Proposal Form

So you see this whole webquest is really about filling out the Marketing Proposal Form. Here is an explanation of its parts and what you'll do for each one:

There is a catch, however. The form also asks you to explain why you made the choices you did. In fact, the explanations you give for your choices are more important than the choices themselves. So remember to give REASONS for  your answers. The best reasons will be something you know about your TARGET MARKET.  For example,  you may choose to market sunscreen to Saudi Arabian consumers because you know they live in a hot, sunny environment. Sometimes it may not be possible to find a specific piece of information to support your choices, but keep in mind that good guesses can also be good reasons for doing something.

Remember, the key to doing well on this task lies not in the choices you make, but in how well you explain the reasons behind your choices!

Getting Around the web site

To help you fill out the Marketing Proposal Form, at the bottom of this page you will find a NAVIGATION BAR with links that are named for each part of the form. You will find these links on pages throughout this web site; use them to get to information that will help you fill out each of the four parts of the form. 

Ways to Access the Form

Before you start, you'll need to decide on how you want get to the Marketing Proposal Form. To do this, there is a Simple Way and a More Complicated Way. Read about them below, then choose which one you would like to use.

Simple Way:

The Simple Way is to just print out the Marketing Proposal Form and write your answers in the spaces provided with a pen or pencil. This is the best way for most people. To choose the Simple Way, click here, and print out the first two pages of the form (to avoid printing the navigation bar). Then click on the button of the navigation bar at the bottom of the page to get help with the first section of the form.

More Complicated Way

If you would like to type in your answers to the parts of the form as you work, you can open the form in a new browser window. This is a more complicated way to fill out the form because you have to know how to get back and forth between the windows. For most people, the easiest way to do this is to move the windows around so that you can see both windows at the same time. Then you can click on whichever window you need to use.

If you would like to use the more complicated way and open the Marketing Proposal Form in a new window, click here to open the new window. Then bring the other window to the front and click the button on the navigation bar at the bottom of the page to get help with the first section of the form. When you're finished, you can print out the form and turn it in.

When you're done with the four sections of the form, if  you like you can go to the Conclusion page and tell what you thought about this webquest.