What is the purpose of this section?
The Action Plan section of your export plan should include subsections addressing the following topics:
Start working on the Action Plan section of your export plan
Why is this important?
- What needs to change in your company to create optimal support of its export marketing efforts? List things such as hiring a new employee, training staff, or allocating budgets.
- What does the company need to do to prepare its export product for the target market? List things like creating new labels, making production line modifications, changing to metric-volume packaging, or reformulating the product.
- What still needs to be learned about the target market? You might consider doing cultural research or learning more about the country's way of doing business.
- What information or resources do you need to assure that your pricing structure is accurate and competitive? Do you need more information about shipping or a better understanding of how much it will cost to change your packaging?
- What must happen before your market-entry and/or promotional strategies are ready to go? Do you need to find a distributor, obtain mailing lists, or conduct detailed market research?
- What specific activities are you planning to use to promote your product in your target market? What trade shows are you planning to attend? How many sales trips are you planning?
- What do you need to do to accomplish each of your objectives? List the specific tasks, or steps, you need to take to accomplish each objective. For example, you may need to label your product for sales in Japan. In that case, your individual tasks might include determining the Japanese government's exact requirements for labeling, having material translated from English into Japanese, and identifying a printer who can print Japanese characters.
- In what order do you want, or need, to complete each of your objectives?
- Within each of your objectives, in what order do you need to accomplish the individual tasks?
- Who in your company will be responsible for accomplishing or monitoring each task or set of tasks in your export marketing plan? Monitoring includes assignments such as overseeing contractors that your company hires to assist with your export plan.
- What financial resources do you need to complete each task, or set of tasks, in your action plan? Include all relevant costs such as packaging, testing manufacturing, marketing, staff time, and travel.
- By what date do you plan to accomplish each of the tasks, or set of tasks, in your action plan? Be realistic. Consider when you want to achieve your objective and your company's overall goals for developing export markets. Also, consider the availability of human and financial resources.
- How much time and money can you realistically expect your company to allocate to each task over what period?
- Periodically, check your results against your company goals. Adjust your plan, and perhaps even your goals, as you gain more experience.