In this first step of setting your export promotion strategy, you will need to decide on which of promotional elements you will use to promote your firm abroad. There are essentially six elements to choose between. They are:

• Advertising
• Sales promotion (including participation in trade fairs)
• Direct marketing,
• Internet marketing
• Publicity (or PR)
• Personal selling

Knowing the difference

In order to select an appropriate mix of these six elements, you need to understand what each element entails. To this end, we discuss each of these elements in greater detail in order for you to understand (a) what is involved in each of these elements of promotion, and (b) to enable you to decide whether this element is suitable for your company.

Choosing a promotional mix

It is unlikely that you will use only one means of promoting your firm in the foreign marketplace. Instead, you are likely to use a ‘mix’ of these six elements. For example, you may choose to place an advertisement in a trade magazine in the target market, which you backup with an e-mail marketing campaign. You may also decide to make use of trade fairs (a form of sales promotion) to promote your company and you may also use personal selling by calling on your top twenty potential customers. But before you can decide on which elements to choose, you need to know what they involve, so let us move on to discuss each of these elements.