How to Get Started With Marketing Your Small Business In Africa.

A few months ago, we shared about the idea that birthed Triift Africa, we were excited about the prospects of helping small businesses grow from #HustleToPortfolio (We called dibs on the hashtag already). In that time, we have helped a good number of businesses with advisory services that detail low hanging fruits that they can take advantage of for increased profitability, low-interest loans to help them scale, partnerships to grow, and the feedback we have received warms our hearts and charges us to keep doing more for the small business ecosystem in Africa.

Triift Africa has worked with a number of African entrepreneurs to understand where the shoe pinches and we want to help. One of the perks of getting your business idea off the ground is the many roles you must play: operations manager, finance manager and now, marketer. Getting your business out there can be frustrating especially with the sheer amount of information your customers have to consume daily, you are likely asking, won’t my business get lost in all that noise? This will help you make sense of it all.

When you think of marketing for your small business, you probably think billboards, TV commercials, and all that stuff your growing business cannot afford. Well, marketing doesn’t have to break the bank if you put your brains to work where budget can’t. Here are a couple ideas that can help you get the good word of your small business out there.

African Business Man. Photo by Adeolu Eletu.

Referrals, Reviews and Recommendations

These 3 Rs of small business marketing is often underestimated. Remember what they say about word of mouth? People are four times more likely to buy a product when it’s referred to them by a friend. we still trust personal recommendations more than anything else. When your business delivers value and excellent products or services, your customers will talk about it to their friends and relatives. Here’s what you can do to make 3Rs work for you.

• Directly ask for referrals and reviews from your customers, let them know their opinions count, people like to know that they are not just exchanging money with you, they want their opinions to be valued.
• Create a simple reward system for references. You could give your customers get a discount for every referral, or ask them to make a post about your business on social media for a discount. Put yourself in the shoes of your customers, build a referral system that takes them into consideration, don’t ask for more than they are comfortable giving.

Social Media Marketing

You don’t have to be on all social media platforms, just the best fit for business’ target audience. Once you get all of this in place, you need to start creating content that your target market actually likes and can connect with. The key to this is to make sure your marketing feels human and relatable, not just another profile pushing out content no one cares about. Here is how.

No good and sustainable business success comes without planning. So, plan your marketing strategy, make informed decisions about effective tactics to use rather than expending energy on everything, remember what they say about the bird in hand? define your marketing goals and understand your audience

• Create a plan for your social media content and commit to consistently putting out content. This helps you stand out of the pack.
• Give and keep giving, aren’t you tired of selling? Give out free tips on social media relating to your products and services. Customers appreciate brands who go out of their way to create value. Need tips to grow your business, Check out Triift Africa on Instagram.
• Give your business a human face, engage with your customers, create rich conversational experiences using free business tools like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger, reach out to individuals, and make sure to stay connected. In time, you could grow an audience of thousands, representing an anchor stream of traffic to your brand’s website or even to drive sales at other touchpoints.

Email and SMS Marketing.

Staying ‘always on’ drives top of mind awareness for your business. Depending on what information you collect from your customers, you can decide to send an email using readily available platforms or SMS; which in most parts of Africa is the equivalent of an email.

In your email or SMS, make your customer the focus, personalise your messages, attach some offers and deals, throw in some fun. In all of this, success comes from having a strategy for success.

Do you need growth ideas for your business or you want to join our community of builders supporting small businesses, send Triift Africa an email at hello@triift.com

Websites and Blogs.

Websites are online storefronts and having one helps you take advantage of curious customers who are in different stages of their buyer journeys and may just love to do business with you.

Hosting a blog on your Website also gives you some space to tell people about your products, offerings and tell your brand stories. We’ve seen people just create websites just so they can have something on their business cards, but websites are a much more powerful marketing vehicle.

SEO and Pay Per Click Advertising

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the sum total of all the activities you do to create business visibility through your online digital assets (websites, blogs, social media, e.t.c). Search engines value websites and blogs that answer real questions for real people and reward them with higher search rankings, be sure to make your business. Click this to get started with SEO for your small business.

Pay per click advertising is as easy as “Hey Facebook or Google (there are many other platforms), I know you know my audience, the people who want my product, please show my brand to them and for every time, they click, I’d pay you”. This is a cost-effective way to drive traffic and valuable customers to your business.

Partnerships.

The possibilities to market your business inexpensively is endless. “why build little fires when we can have a big fire together.” Small business marketing in Africa can work that way too. Partner with a business that compliments yours and weather the storm together.

There are dozen more ideas that can help you market your small business, we’d just list a couple more:

• Sign up to speak at conferences and events related to your service or products.
• Join Whatsapp and Facebook groups, and Forums for small businesses, Nairaland is a great forum for Nigerian small businesses, you just need to be able to navigate the vast audience to target your customers.
• Sign up for local trade fairs, stock on samples, business cards and fliers.
• Create a catchy logo and catchphrase for your business.
• Get your smooth talk on. Be able to speak about your products and services clearly and quickly in any gathering that demands it.

How many claps does this article deserve? If you enjoyed this article, feel free to hit the clap button as many times (you know you want to!) or share this with a friend.