Tinkamanyire Kizito
Sep 7, 2018 · 5 min read

DIGITAL MARKETING IN UGANDA.

Uganda like the rest world is fast transforming into the digital era, in health, agriculture, entertainment, socialization, industry, education down every little aspect of an individuals day to day life and businesses are no exceptions, micro and macro alike.
Digital Marketing is basically promotion and selling of products and services through interconnected electronic mediums like computers, phones, electronic billboards, tablets and so on. For generations business owners greatly depended on tangible marketing techniques like newspapers, posters, flyers, radio adverts, use of field marketing and sales agents and many more. Recent trends however show that businesses are slowly adopting to Digital Marketing as opposed to what I would call the traditional methods of marketing mentioned above.
Digital Marketing in Uganda is thriving mainly due to the boom in the use of social media, ready and relatively cheap internet access, cheap and user friendly devices like smart phones, tablets, desktop computers, modems, routers and so on. Due to the need for efficient Digital Marketing and management, businesses, organizations, companies, government bodies and affiliates have adopted by hiring professionals/ specialists in this field to conduct and manage Digital Marketing from the inside while others have hired/ subcontracted firms that specialize in providing these services on an intensive, effective and large scale basis.
Just like any other sales and marketing strategy there is, Digital Marketing an investment and a step by step process with twists and turns that ought to be carefully followed to realize relevant and impressive return on investment (roi). Some of these steps include digital branding (e-branding), target marketing, content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media optimization (SMO), customer relationship management (CRM), brand association, brand awareness and many more.

E-BRANDING/ CONTENT CREATION & MANAGEMENT.
Before venturing into the Digital Marketing, please ensure that there is enough compelling and quality content the aid the process. Such content MUST be carefully branded and unique to stand out among thousands of others on the web. E-branding is basically ensuring that whatever content is being distributed has something to do with the business, product or service being marketed. This can be through incorporating slogans, logos and brand ambassadors on the content that is being created. Examples of Digital Marketing content include photos, artworks, video clips, blogposts, articles, audio clips, gifs and so on. E-branding is important in digital marketing because it ensures that the service or product being marketed stands out from the rest being marketed through the same platform.

TARGET MARKETING.
This involves fragmentation of the ready or potential customers/consumers of a product or service and concentrating marketing efforts on these key smaller customer groups. The people in these market fragments are known as Target Market. To succeed in Digital Marketing in Uganda, one has to have a good grip on target marketing. For example, there is a huge beach party going to happen over the weekend and the people most likely to be interested are youths aged 16 to 30 (target market). It is no point marketing this event on TV before the 9pm news because we know at around this time, it is usually the aged people (32 years and above) watching the TV. An effective medium would be social media where the target market for such an event spend most of their time. With efficient target marketing, the cost of running a Digital Marketing campaign i greatly reduced.

BRAND AWARENESS.
After creation of relevant content and identifying the target market, you ought to start distributing this content, making the potential customers aware of the product/ service being marketed. This can be done through social media campaigns, blog articles, online product and service reviews/recommendations, micro blogging and many more. This is usually the official onset of Digital Marketing.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT.
Unlike traditional marketing practices like use of print media, Digital Marketing is an instant two - way street. This means once you send information out there, the potential clients and customers can send a feedback instantly or at whatever time they please. At this point it is important to have a professional customer relationship management strategy in place to handle all feedback generated from the digital marketing campaign. Once people see information about a service or product, the will make contact inquiring about the service or product and how you respond to them determines whether they will or will not buy, order, book an appointment or make a positive review/recommendation for such a service or product.

Digital Marketing can be boosted by paid ads or unpaid strategies. With Paid Ads, companies like google, Facebook, Instagram, twitter and other online public relations platforms automatically direct marketing of a product or service to the exact target market according to their huge databases that include customer details, behavior and preferences. Unpaid strategies involve manually distributing Digital Marketing Materials to potential clients and customers of a product or service.

To have an effective Digital Marketing campaign, one ought to use professional techniques like:
Search Engine Optimization which is the process of maximizing the number of new and regular visitors to a particular website or webpage by making sure it is ranked or shown among the top results from search engines. [1] The easiest way to do this is usually through the use of specific and targeted keyword(s) on the destination website/ webpage so that once a user types these words or anything close, the website/webpage intended is shown among the top search results.

Social Media Optimization. This involves posting, sharing and reposting Digital Marketing materials over various social media platforms like twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and so on with the aim of attracting users to a particular website or web page.

Brand Association in Digital Marketing involves the unified effort in marketing of two or more brands that require the same target market. Take an example of a phone manufacturer like Infinix marketing a specific product or service together with a telecommunications giant like Africell.

Influencer Marketing. This involves the use of influencers to recommend or give positive reviews about a product or service. Influencers are individuals with a high and trusted following/ fan base online. This is by far one of the most efficient form of Digital Marketing there is.

Content Marketing. [2] As a form of Digital Marketing, this involves uses of appealing/ compelling and neatly presented marketing materials to customer or potential client. These are usually in form of memes, photos, artworks, carefully edited short audio and video clips, gifs and many more.

DIGITAL MARKETING FLOW.

[1] Steve Olenski {2018} "5 Search Engine Optimization Tips All CMOs Need to Understand" https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2018/06/27/5-search-engine-optimization-tips-all-cmos-need-to-understand/#734140912640

[2] Senatra Sneha {2018} "Is Digital Marketing a Key to Success for Growth of Your Business?" Franchise India. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/316723

Article by Tinkamanyire Kizito

Tinkamanyire Kizito

Written by

Poet | Indigenous person | Boogieman | Lone Wolf

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade