As one of the United Kingdom's closest European neighbours and just a short trip away across the Channel, France might well be the ideal commercial partner for Britain. France offers significant potential for business growth. With more and more French people using online shopping, Marketing in France is steadily on the rise.
Data from Statista predicts that the e-commerce market in France will show an annual revenue growth of 6.4% from 2020 to 2024 and is expected to reach an impressive market volume of 57 million euros by 2024. Not surprisingly, more and more British companies are looking for new opportunities to penetrate the French market and start doing marketing in France.
Below are some valuable tips for interested companies. We have included advice on studying the local market, the importance of localising business communication, and the best ways to introduce a business to France. We will look specifically at digital channels, SEO Strategies in EU, pay-per-click ads and communication via social media. Let's see how to reach French customers!
1. Studying the local market and its regulations
Before selling in France, an in-depth analysis of the local market and its main characteristics is essential. A company interested in doing marketing in France should consider these aspects:
● Is my product/service required?
● Are there products/services similar to the one I am proposing? How do they compare to mine?
● How many local direct competitors do I have? How do their offers compare to mine?
● What are the logistic infrastructures for the movement and shipping of goods?
● What delivery costs are incurred in sending goods to the customer?
Answering these questions will give a general idea of the situation and opportunities in the French market and help you develop a good strategy for doing marketing in France.
2. How to Reach French Customers
How to reach French customers? After considering the market, it is important to focus on the overseas client, whether a customer or another company. The key question at this stage is: Who is my ideal client when starting a marketing in France?
To answer this question, it is essential to understand the customer's needs and desires, what benefits he expects to receive from the product/services purchased, and his purchasing power. A digital marketing Agency like Mintense can help you understand how to reach French customers.
3. Differences between Britain and France in the business world
This point is helpful for both B2C and B2B worlds, as it is crucial to bridge the gaps across cultures to improve communication. It is worthwhile considering: How your company should approach French clients to start doing marketing in France
The significant cultural differences between France and Britain; how to move towards the French way of interacting and operating to strengthen business relations.
How an awareness of cultural differences will help your company understand where successful business strategies in the United Kingdom may be less effective in France.
4. Communicating in your customer's language
To approach a new market and reach as many people as possible, it is vital to communicate in the most widely used language of the country. In this instance, the corporate language must be French and should be localised for the consumer's market.
Localising means making the messages suitable for the market you are addressing, using idioms or colloquial French expressions. This will familiarise the British company and help it integrate and blend in with local companies rather than standing out as a foreign entity. In this phase, it might be helpful to have a digital marketing agency like us to develop a tailored strategy for your company and help you understand how to reach French customers with your business.
5. Testing the new market with digital channels
Before exporting your products/services, you should consider conducting a test to see how interested the French market might be in your company.
For this phase, digital channels are a valuable source. Through these channels, the company can begin to promote itself and gauge the response of overseas customers without having to incur significant investments, like opening a shop or renting a warehouse. This part is fundamental to deeply understanding how to reach French customers.
The digital world reaches both consumers from the B2C and B2B world and helps businesses foresee their potential abroad.
On the practical side, to test the market in France, the website needs to be translated and localised by a native speaker; an SEO activity also needs to be implemented in French to make the company show up among the first search results on Google. It is also essential to start promoting the company through the most popular social networks. Does it sound like a lot to deal with? Trust Mintense and we will create the ideal strategy to start doing marketing in France.
6. Setting business goals
Very often, there can be a tendency to focus on studying the country and overseas clients without prioritising goal planning. Simply wanting to do marketing in France is not enough to define your purpose: you need to have a clear idea of how much you are willing to invest in France and what you want to achieve.
Are you hoping for more customers from France? Or perhaps to be the leader in the French market in a particular sector? Are you aiming to penetrate the market beyond the Channel to increase turnover while still considering it a secondary market?
In order to learn how to reach French customers, you need to clearly set your business goals. Moreover, for each of these objectives, a different strategy will be applied.
7. Rely on experts
To successfully sell abroad and understand how to reach French customers, the company needs to rely on professionals who know the particular market well and have experience dealing with it.
For over 17 years, Mintense has supported companies that go abroad with a targeted programme on digital channels.
Furthermore, to engage fully in the various markets, Mintense has opened branches in the United Kingdom and France and is preparing to open others in Europe to become the expert Performance Marketing agency on a European level. Trust us and start a Marketing in France.
How do French customers expect to pay and receive an order?
French payment habits are card led, and the card that matters is the domestic Carte Bancaire scheme, which most French cards carry alongside Visa or Mastercard. A checkout that quietly rejects those numbers loses sales you never see. Payment in three or four instalments is widely offered on higher value baskets and is treated as ordinary rather than as a credit product.
Delivery is the other habit worth learning. France runs an unusually large network of pickup points in shops and lockers, and a great many buyers choose collection from a point relais over home delivery, both for the price and for the convenience. Offering only home delivery from Britain, with an uncertain date, puts you at an immediate disadvantage against French sellers and against the marketplaces where French shoppers already hold an account.
Mintense runs its French operations from an office in Lille, which is what keeps these details checked rather than assumed.
Which French rules and habits shape your marketing?
French law expects commercial communication aimed at consumers in France to be in French. Advertising, product descriptions, terms and instructions all sit inside that expectation, so an English page with a translation bolted on is a legal question as well as a marketing one.
Your site needs mentions légales identifying the company, and general conditions of sale covering prices, delivery and the right to withdraw. Cookie and consent rules are actively enforced in France, and banners that assume agreement are a known target for complaints.
Two commercial habits catch British sellers out. The national sale periods, the soldes, run on dates fixed by law rather than whenever you decide to discount, so your promotional calendar has to work around them. And August is genuinely quiet: a B2B campaign launched then reaches an audience that is not at its desk.
FAQ, selling and doing business in France
Do I have to sell in French to trade in France?
In practice, yes. French law expects commercial communication addressed to consumers in France to be in French, and French buyers behave accordingly: an English only site loses them at the point where they need certainty about price, delivery and returns. Localised French written by a native speaker does more than translation, because it carries the terms people actually search for and the tone French buyers expect from a supplier.
Which payment methods should a French checkout offer?
Cards first, and specifically cards issued on the domestic Carte Bancaire scheme that the great majority of French consumers hold. Add PayPal, and payment in three or four instalments if your basket values justify it, since split payment is mainstream in France rather than niche. Show prices in euros with VAT included for consumers, and make delivery costs visible before the customer reaches the checkout.
How do French shoppers prefer to receive deliveries?
A large share choose a pickup point rather than home delivery, collecting from a partner shop or a locker at a time that suits them, usually for a lower delivery charge. Offering pickup point delivery alongside a home option, with a clear date and tracking, removes one of the main reasons a French buyer abandons a foreign shop. Returns should be equally straightforward to send back from within France.
How is French business culture different from British?
Expect more formality and a longer route to a decision. Address contacts as vous until invited otherwise, use titles and full names in writing, and assume a first meeting establishes credibility rather than closing anything. Written proposals carry real weight. Plan around August, when much of the country is away and B2B activity stops. A French telephone number and address on your site measurably improve the response rate.
Should I sell through French marketplaces or build my own site?
Both, in sequence. A marketplace puts your product in front of French buyers who already trust the checkout, which makes it an inexpensive way to test whether demand exists at your price. Your own French site is what builds the margin, the customer data and the search visibility you keep. Use the marketplace to learn which products travel, then invest behind the ones that do.
