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).