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E-Marketing for SMEs in Africa: Challenges #4, and Conclusion

November 9, 2018 (updated November 9, 2018) Published by kccadmin

Challenges of E-marketing for SMEs in Africa

Despite the above-mentioned prospects that e-marketing offers for SMEs in Africa, its challenges cannot be overlooked. They need to be stated so that they can be addressed appropriately so they can procure maximum benefits for these SMEs.

Bostanshirin gives the following points as some challenges that e-marketing for SMEs in Africa can pose:

Lack of trust:

Closely related with the problem of security and privacy is the issue of lack of trust on the part of customers which has been recognized as a great challenge on the way of online marketing growth. Today, despite the rapid growth of online transactions several people still mistrust electronic methods of paying and still have doubt whether the purchased items will be delivered or not. On the other hand prevalence of online fraud has made customers hold negative or doubtful attitudes towards online transactions. So much more clearly remains to be done to build up the trust and convince the customers that interactions which take place in the virtual world are as real and honest as those happen in the real, offline world.

No doubt, it is an on-going, long process and needs more time to realize. It should be stressed that unless this trust has not been built, internet marketing cannot be taken advantage from to its fullest potential. So it is imperative for those in charge of online marketing to understand the reality of new virtual world. One of the prominent realities of this new world is that “today trust and customer power have partnered to revolutionize marketing. Marketers and IT managers are challenged with the task of changing the online climate in order to gain retain online consumers. This has generated tremendous interest in learning about online trust and in developing new site designs to respond to the increased power of customers” (Urban, 2008).

Conclusion

As stated earlier, the internet has greatly changed every aspect of our lives. This paper introduced with the probable advancement of SMEs in Africa, and how it creates the middle class with wealth worth considered. SMEs in Africa can also be beneficial to the global economy if it is developed in the next decade; one of the tools being e-marketing. This paper delved into the prospects and challenges that e-marketing can give to SMEs in Africa. Some of the challenges posed by e-marketing can be turned into opportunities if looked into efficiently.

E-Marketing for SMEs in Africa: Challenges #3

November 8, 2018 (updated November 8, 2018) Published by kccadmin

Challenges of E-marketing for SMEs in Africa

Bostanshirin gives the following points as some challenges that e-marketing for SMEs in Africa can pose:

Security and Privacy:

Information privacy is among major topics to be taken into consideration in today’s evolving electronic world. It is clear enough that nowadays customers’ data can easily be shared with other companies without asking for their permission. Moreover, their more crucial personal data such as usernames and passwords are not immune from hackers (Lantos, 2011).

Another related problem is spams and pop-up ads which is considered by majority of online customers an instance of intrusion of privacy (Drozdenko & Drake, 2002). These security and privacy issues are among challenges in online marketing. Effective internet marketing, therefore, depends on resolving the related problems in this regard. The major dimension with respect to privacy is the choice or consent. This dimension has its roots in this belief that consumers whose data have been collected by the respective company should have control over the ways in which their information is used. Especially they also should be granted the right to have control “over how their personal information is used beyond the purpose for which it was collected”.

E-Marketing for SMEs in Africa: Challenges #2

November 5, 2018 (updated November 5, 2018) Published by kccadmin

Challenges of E-marketing for SMEs in Africa

Bostanshirin gives the following points as some challenges that e-marketing for SMEs in Africa can pose:

2. Lack of face-to-face contact:

Lack of personal contact is another deficiency of online marketing which has been addressed in online marketing research and literature (Goldsmith and Goldsmith, 2002). Internet transactions involve no embodied, personal interaction and that is why some customers consider electronic modes of providing customer service impersonal and enjoy the experience of shopping in a brick and mortar, physical store. They prefer to talk to store personnel in a face to face manner, touch the related product with their hands, and socialize with other customers. Virtual marketplace cannot provide for this function of offline shopping and lacks personal interaction.

E-Marketing for SMEs in Africa: Challenges #1

November 2, 2018 (updated November 2, 2018) Published by kccadmin

Challenges of E-marketing for SMEs in Africa

Bostanshirin gives the following points as some challenges that e-marketing for SMEs in Africa can pose:

Problem of Integrity:

On the other hand, one of major problems with marketing campaigns is that they employ several offline and online promotions channels such as press, brochure, catalogue, TV, cell phone, e-mail, internet, social media among other things, while they lack a comprehensive, harmonizing marketing framework. Each item is used in isolation and accomplished as a different task not as a component of an integrated campaign aimed at realization of specified and particular objectives. This deficiency can be compensated for by taking a holistic approach which synchronizes different traditional and internet age modes of marketing communication as moments of an integrated structure. With respect to virtual, online component of an integrated marketing what is “also worth noting is that like offline marketing, all aspects of online marketing are inextricably linked, and in many cases, interdependent.

Therefore none of the elements of marketing should stand in isolation. The website will never be visited if there are no links to it, viral marketing requires email or social media websites to communicate the message and search engines are useless without websites to link to it. So is it that in any internet marketing strategy, all components must dovetail together (Charlesworth, 2009).

E-Marketing for SMEs in Africa: Prospects #7

October 31, 2018 Published by kccadmin

Prospects of E-marketing for SMEs in Africa

E-marketing has the capability of offering numerous benefits to SMEs in Africa. Using the research conducted by Bostanshirin (2014), the prospects that e-marketing offers to SMEs in Africa include the following:

Personalization:

Personalization, which comes with customization, is another important aspect peculiar to marketing online through internet. Personalization refers to tailoring products and services to customers’ preferences based on their online, registered purchase history. This process results in offering customized products to customers. In this way, customers are sent personalized messages which produce much greater impact compared with impersonalized, generic messages send indiscriminately to mailbox of customers.

With the aid of gathered data of customers’ preferences, the sites can be customized for the target audience which brings about an increasing interaction and builds up a “sense of intimacy” between marketer and audience. This is especially important due to the fact that traditional modes of marketing such as mass media, TV, and newspapers cannot be shaped by their users’ needs, demands, inclinations, and preferences (Bhui and Ibrahim, 2013).

E-Marketing for SMEs in Africa: Prospects #6

October 29, 2018 Published by kccadmin

Prospects of E-marketing for SMEs in Africa

Trackability:

Another aspect of the online marketing is its possibility of tracking. Internet enables measurement of everything taking place on it. The number of clicks that a particular promotional piece receives and amount of website traffic is easily measured. In this way, the marketer is enabled to track the visitors to their website and understand their behaviour. Internet also allows the companies to find out whether their campaigns are working or not, the kind of customers that are interested in their products, and they are from. The ability to track online customers increases dramatically due to the fact that “internet constitutes the most accountable media ever.

E-Marketing for SMEs in Africa: Projects #5

October 18, 2018 Published by kccadmin

Prospects of E-marketing for SMEs in Africa

Cost Effectiveness:

It goes without saying that, compared with traditional advertising media channels, which are very resource consuming, online marketing is clearly cost-effective and can accomplish its objectives at a fraction of the cost (Godes and Mayzlin, 2004; Sheth and Sharma, 2005; Buhalis and Law, 2008; Poon and Jevons, 2010). For instance it is obvious that the cost of launching an advert online is far less than placing an ad in a magazine or on a billboard. The cost of establishing one’s virtual presence, networking with other institutions and communication with consumers is significantly low. Consequentially, internet marketing enables the companies to save their resources, an aspect which is highly appreciated by companies since the online marketing campaigns do not require massive investment.

E-Marketing for SMEs in Africa: Projects #4

October 17, 2018 (updated October 18, 2018) Published by kccadmin

Prospects of E-marketing for SMEs in Africa

24 hours – 7 Days Availability:

Internet can now provide customers with timely information due to its availability 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (Lane, 1996). Due to the establishment of online shops, customers are now able to acquire information and shop online any time of day or night they wish and prefer. There remain no time limitations in this regard because online businesses have no special closing and opening times. People may visit physical markets after searching internet or the other way round they can surf internet for competitive prices after visiting physical stores (Sharma, 2011). Besides that there is no doubt that online purchase is more convenient since there is no need to go out of home, visiting different stores and take the burden of comparing different products and prices. The buyers can do their shopping much more effectively from the comfort of their homes. Needless to say a lot of time and energy is saved this way.

E-Marketing for SMEs in Africa: Prospects #3

October 16, 2018 Published by kccadmin

Prospects of E-marketing for SMEs in Africa

3. Elimination of Geographic Barriers:

Online marketing also removes all geographical limitation from the practice of buying and selling. So internet allows an unlimited global reach (Allen and Fjermestad, 2001; Teo and Tan, 2002; Sigala, 2008) at outstandingly lower cost. Due to massive cost of traditional media, global reach was once the exclusionary realm of huge Multinational Corporations, but the advent of cost-effective internet technologies has enabled SMEs to enjoy this kind of reach. Overcoming the geographic barriers, marketers are now able to present products and services to different groups of customers across the universe with the simple condition that they have access to internet (Mohammed, 2010).

E-Marketing for SMEs in Africa: Prospects #2

October 15, 2018 (updated October 15, 2018) Published by kccadmin

Prospects of E-marketing for SMEs in Africa

2. Empowering Effect:

Another prospect of online marketing is related with its enabling effect especially on SMEs since “internet can extend market reach and operational efficiency of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)” (Dholekia and Kshetri, 2004). In fact, internet creates a kind of democratized environment in which marketing has been restructured in such a way that even small businesses are given a good chance to promote and brand their products on a much more larger scale (Jobber, 2001; Tapp, 2008). Email marketing, blogging, launching websites, are among easily affordable inter-fostered channels that can provide small businesses with the ability to survive and compete.

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