“Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation” – Milan Kundera
Trust you are keeping well and safe. It is likely you are between your third to sixth week in a partial or total lock down, and you may have incorporated some routines to better cope with your new reality.
It is interesting to note that while some businesses have increased their revenues, most sectors have experienced a hit. If yours is the latter, you may need to get to the drawing board and rethink your business strategies at this time.
Over the past few weeks, I became increasingly aware of Microsoft Teams adverts on almost every webpage I visited. They must have used a retargeting mechanism to get my attention, as an active zoom user. As a previous employee of Microsoft, I know that Teams was not one of their best selling products. However they have since pivoted their marketing strategy to aggressively compete with Zoom – who appears to have the market share of video conferencing services during this pandemic, where virtual meetings have since replaced physical ones.
According to the American Marketing Association, “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
I believe that engaging in some form of marketing activities at this time, is extremely critical for organizations of all kinds and sizes . Some of the activities in marketing that you should engage in as a business owner include – Marketing Research, Digital Marketing, Branding and Developing New Marketing Strategies.
In one of the podcasts I listened to during one of my early morning workouts, I learned that Amazon had their biggest breakthrough during the last major economic recession in 2008. They achieved this because they doubled down on their marketing efforts and overtook the traditional bookstores through the sale of e-books on Kindle. Another example was during the crisis in the early 1970’s, Volkwagen was one of the leading car manufacturers. However they scaled back on their marketing strategies, while Toyota embarked on aggressive marketing strategies. This winning streak has continued for the past three decades.
Our world has been upended and has gone virtual: Education, work and even casual hangouts with friends are now all conducted online. On Easter Sunday, my extended family – parents, children, siblings and their families connected on zoom from the US, Nigeria, UK and Kenya. It was an amazing experience! Yes, the world will eventually revert to a physical interaction, but there will be serious lasting changes to all consumer behavior. This is one of the reasons you have to double-down on developing and implementing aggressive marketing strategies for your business to thrive during and after the pandemic.
To support you in achieving this, Edmond Idokoko, Marketing Strategist and Marketing Lead, Microsoft MEA (West Africa Cluster), discussed and answered business questions about SME Marketing Strategies to adopt during and after the pandemic season in the previous FB Live of the African Entrepreneurs’ Forum. Click here to be a part of my community (if you are not already a member of our group).
About Edmond Idokoko
Edmond has extensive local and international experience in creating applicable business and marketing strategies and translating them into effective beneficial plans to deliver on business growth objectives. He has led teams to deliver business results across West Africa.
He is both an entrepreneur-in-practice and a keen advocate of SME Enterprises; he serves in business advisory capacities to several organizations, facilitates training sessions and mentors entrepreneurs at Fate Foundation and Entrepreneur Start Up Academy.
Edmond is a committed life-long learner, who has attended several programmes from notable institutions such as Northwestern University, INSEAD and Cornell University.
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