Effective export marketing requires planning: knowing how you are going to position yourself on the market and what that involves in terms of product development, distribution, pricing and promotion. This requires that you understand both your company and the market, and that you can connect the two. It also involves making choices on corporate social responsibility: what are the commitments your company wants to make and how should that be reflected in export marketing? Once this is done, companies need to make an action plan and consider which financial and human resources they need to put it into practice.
IN2NI expert Klaus Duerbeck and ProFound consultant Robbie Hogervorst have been supporting new participants of CBI’s health ingredients programme in South Africa in developing their export marketing plans. Klaus Duerbeck guided the companies through the first part of the export market planning process during a training in October, coming to an understanding of company strengths and weaknesses. Robbie Hogervorst picked up on this process, guiding the companies on doing a market audit during a recent training in November in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The trainings brought to light the need to combine class-room training, one-on-one guidance and discussions between companies. It became clear that, not only can companies benefit from the guidance from international experts, they can also learn a lot from each other, and come to new, relevant insights. Together.