Meeting on Marketing Assistance provided by the project and discussions on next steps to take place in collaboration with the industry

February 3, 2005

Following the assessment done by the expert and ACIT & EDEM staff on marketing skills amid footwear producers, as well as aiming synergy of project’s efforts with footwear producers in enhancing more sales and employment, a thematic meeting on marketing assistance provided by the project and a discussion on next steps was held at ACIT offices on February 3, 2005.

The theme on marketing was selected given the lack of marketing efforts identified generally amid footwear producers. These efforts are considered important in increasing the “Made in Albania” image in the domestic market, attracting potential buyers & foreign partners and ultimatelly  becoming competitive. Though a first set of five companies are already identified as direct companies to be assisted by the project (based on best knowledge by project’s staff on these five companies), the theme on marketing issues & assistance was selected in order to extend the assistance to as much companies as possible, sharing the same common problems in marketing.

The objectives of the meeting were:

• to present ACIT and EDEM availability for marketing assistance and types of assistance provided (brochure, portal, marketing plan, market information, etc)
• to collect companies’ interest on our assistance (through their participation in discussion and filling out specific forms)
• to discuss next steps: shoe exhibition to take place sometime in Autumn

Agenda of the meeting was designed so that presentation and discussions could take place. ACIT Executive Director moderated the meeting, while presentations from EDEM Marketing Advisor, EDEM Communication Specialist, ACIT Cluster Coordinator (click here to open the presentation in pdf format) and Albanian Yellow Pages took place. Basically, cases and demostrations of marketing plan, e-technology used in marketing, brochure publication and EDEM assistance provided to other industries constituted the core of the presentations.