Implementing the research brief represents the crux of the research you will do. In this regard, we have already indicated that the research should be implemented in two steps:

1. To compile a shortlist of countries with potential for your firm and narrowing this initial selection down even further to no more than two or three countries. Once you have a meaningful shortlist of one to three countries, you will then undertake more in-depth research on the country(ies) selected to better understand and segment the marketplace and market environments you will be competing in, into meaningful components. This, we explained, is referred to as market research.
2. To better understand the foreign customers in the market segements of the foreign countries you have identified in the step above. This information will help you develop a successful export marketing strategy for these market segments. This is known as marketing research.

In the rest of this section, we deal with these abovementioned steps in more detail. Let’s move on.