Export marketing is generally seen to be more challenging than domestic marketing because of the often vast differences that exist between the socio-cultural, legal, economic, political, technological and physical environments of the domestic market and those of the foreign market, as well as the variety of strategies which one must implement in an attempt to cope with these differences. The key to export marketing is adaptation – to an ever-changing, mostly uncontrollable and often perplexing international environment.

The “SLEPT” factors

In most works on the international environments that you will encounter abroad, the authors will commonly refer to the SLEPT factors. The term “SLEPT” is an acronym which stands for; sociocultural, legal, economic, political and technological and these factors refer to the different environments that you will encounter when doing business internationally. In the next few sections, we will discuss these various environments in more detail: