Hosted by Ajira Digital on 25th February 2022
According to statistics, 93% of all online interactions start on such engines. 81% of customers research things online before they buy them. 84% of today’s customers think a website makes one’s business more credible than companies that only have social media profiles. These statistics reveal what was the main theme of this webinar as Hasnain Noorani the Founder and Managing Director of Pride Group, taught how Kenyan business owners could expand to the African market.
Tapping into the African market calls for growth in businesses. The secret to this growth lies in understanding the buyer problem; where purchasers are too busy to get to shops and hence end up relying on the same sellers due to lack of knowledge. CV is the solution to the buyer problem, the acronym stands for Communication and Visibility. These two, according to Hasnain, are key ingredients for growing any business. Communication calls for meeting as many people as possible and having one’s business card(s) during those conversations – networking. Visibility involves rigorous activities in social media pages – branding. A dynamic and very active website is also key to visibility. Bill Gates says “If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business.”
The pandemic provided a wake-up call to digitizing business i.e. digital methods of delivering products and services. Digitization reduces cost, automates business processes and reduces the reliance on manpower. Having an impact requires an online presence. No business in this era can successfully achieve optimum success without online sales. After all, how else will other business people in the African market get to know what one does? The challenge when it comes to visibility is that business owners have websites that are static and not updated, others lack the technical knowledge to operate the website, others find it time-consuming and expensive to maintain others are simply not connected to updated technology.
Differentiating between online existence and online presence is key. Online presence is what all business owners should aim at as it is the silent salesperson that deeply explains what one does. A good online presence is what attracts a valuable audience, not followers. Performing Search Engine Optimizations (SEOs) too is helpful.
Although there are limited platforms for the African market to showcase various businesses online, Amazon, Alibaba Group and Airduka.com are examples of platforms that have utilized the e-commerce business revolution.
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