Planning to export? Using – and affording – commercially available sector-specific market research

The third in the Cintra Translation Planning to export? series focuses on finding and affording relevant commercially available sector-specific market research.

Hot drinks, cold drinks, men’s grooming products, cold and cough remedies, small appliances, medical appliances. Whatever market you’re in, and wherever you want to export, commercially available reports will help you crunch the numbers and get a feel for the extent of new opportunities. Before you buy, though, get in touch with your local UK Trade & Investment trade team. Ask them to talk you through their Export Marketing Research Scheme. It’s free, and in addition to helping your in-house staff to research markets alongside their day job, UKTI advisors will help with briefing any specialist marketing agencies you may decide to bring on board. And so that you’re not reinventing the wheel on research that’s already out there, the UKTI will also help you pick a path through the stacks of commercially available in-depth reports. Best of all, they can offer some financial help towards buying relevant off-the-shelf publications.

Leaving aside off-the-shelf publications for a moment, we’ve mentioned in a previous blog that you can actually commission British consulates overseas to compile information specifically for your business. The Overseas Market Introduction Service (OMIS) is accessed through the UKTI, and is a fast and cost-effective way to get reliable, up-to-date answers to country-specific questions. Typically, costs for full in-country reports are equivalent to half a long-haul airfare and they’re researched by people with local know-how.

What else is out there?  Euromonitor and Mintel are the big names in commercial market research. Each year Euromonitor publishes more than 17,000 reports on 27 industries, 200 sub-categories and thousands of companies in 80 countries. Mintel has a similar reach, and like its competitors, cuts its research into packages on new products, trends and market size. Reports don’t come cheap, but this is exactly why it pays to find out more about theUKTI  Export Marketing Research Scheme.

Avoiding risky business A bit further down the export route, once you’re considering hooking up with new partners and customers in your marketplace, Experian International Business Reports can help you manage risk. Available through your local chamber’s export services, and the British Chambers of Commerce website, these reports help you do your due diligence on over 45 million businesses in more than 238 countries worldwide.

Top Tips. A subscription to your trade association could repay you handsomely with sector-specific knowledge and experience of markets abroad. Find out if your sector is represented at the Trade Association Forum.

What do you do with all that research once you’ve got it? We come back to the value of your local UK Trade & Investment trade team. They’re the ones with the expertise to help you shape it all into a plan and then turn that plan into profit!

Planning to export? Read Cintra Translation’s other how-tos on researching new customers and markets abroad

What’s on offer through the UKTI – the British Government’s Trade and Industry arm.

Expertise on tap from the British Chamber of Commerce and your local Chamber of Commerce.