THE MARKETING PLAN

The marketing plan is sometimes referred to as marketing mix because it

represents a mixture of decisions made in specific areas but which must blend
together. The exporter has to make decisions designed to exploit, to the full, the
potential identified in overseas markets. As we have seen it is possible to
rationalize these areas into the four broad categories: Product, Place,
Promotion and Price.

PRODUCT

All exporters must accept the fact that most successful products are modified
for sale in overseas markets. Very few products are sold in the exactly same
form in all markets and the reason for, and nature of, modifications will differ
from one market to another Illustrative of this point is the fact that most products
which are thought to be the same throughout the world are,in many cases, not
the same at all e.g. Coca-Cola.

The reasons for such products modifications are numerous but include:

 Official regulations/trading standards/power supplies.

Enormous differences exist in health, safety, and technical standards, voltages,

calibrations, fittings, controls, instructions etc... A manufacturer of electric coffee
percolators found that they couldn’t export them to Canada, unless they
contained a form of electric wire made nowhere. With no mains electricity how
can we sell washing machines to African villages or Indian peasants?. The
answer is to reinvent.

 Size, weight and volume.

French woman tend to have bigger feet than English women, whilst Japanese
women have smaller feet. Many Finns, sleep in smaller bedrooms than are
usual here. The larger retail packages found in the USA are increasingly
common in other developed countries.