Visiting a Market

Visiting a market gives you invaluable insight. There is no real substitute for experiencing a market place firsthand and making the contacts you’ll need to do business.

Attending overseas events, such as trade fairs, or participating in a trade mission can be a great way to test markets; attract customers; meet and appoint agents or distributors (due diligence is required of course!) and make sales.

It’s worth considering the following:

• If you’re planning to visit a market, do as much preparation as possible beforehand to make sure that you visit relevant sites, venues or companies and maximise your time there.
• Can you organise a programme of appointments in advance with potential licensees, partners or customers? Plan your time from the outset and factor in any time differences.
• Check whether there any organised overseas trade missions planned to a market relevant for your business that you could join.
• Bring relevant information with you such as potential pricing for the market, professionally translated documents and company information etc.
• Make sure you’ve brushed up on ‘cultural requirements’ to avoid any unnecessary ‘faux pas’.
• Consider learning a few phrases in the language of the market – a little effort goes a long way!
• After the visit,  don’t forget to follow-up promptly with any contacts or leads.

Next Steps

• Check whether you can obtain funding for attending a tradeshow with DIT’s Tradeshow Access Programme. Please click here for information about the TAP programme.
• If you are a Life Science Company KIB may be able to arrange a market visit through the Boost4Health Project. Please click on this link to view contact details.