What message do you want to carry across?

The final step in your planning your export promotion strategy is deciding on a core message that you want to carry across. Remember – this is only the export planning stage. The implementation of your export plan comes later – in step 10 of the export process! At this point you don’t have to go into any detail about your promotional message or actual promotional campaign. It is fine to provide a brief overview of what core message you want to carry across about your company. It doesn’t have to be a single statement; it can be a few descriptive sentences highlighting marketable aspects of your firm and its products. This information will later be adapted and refined to underpin you ultimate promotional campaign.

While this core message will serve as your starting point and only requires a short paragraph to highlight the key points you wish to carry across, you should not pay it scant attention; it does require some thinking on your part. For example: Do you want to carry across the message that you are competing on price, quality, design or features? Do you want to say something about the company; its history and success in South Africa? Do want to say something about your export motives?

An example of a core promotional message

An example of the core message that you will use for the rest of the promotional campaign, may read something like this: