A Name for Your Day

The Akan people of Ghana name their children after the day of the week they were born and the order in which they were born. These “day names” have further meanings concerning the soul and character of the person. Some Notable day Names are Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, Yaa Asantewaa, and Kofi Annan the former UN Secretary-General.

​To find out your day name go to google and search ” what day was”your date of birth” When you know the day of the week you were born you can purchase a refrigerator door magnet with your Ghanaian name by clicking here or by visiting https://www.web-this.com/shop

Using social media to support business growth in Africa.

Social media has changed the way we communicate today and there is no question one continent that has benefited from the use of social media is Africa.

According to the Pew Research, 1 out if every 10 people in Africa has a cell phone with social media apps installed. While the use of social media has been limited to connecting with friends and family, there is great need for businesses and organizations to harness the business potential of social media for growth.

Social media is widely used and accepted especially facebook, which provides a medium for businesses to advertise and engage with their clients.

Due to the fact that mobile Technology has been so easy to deploy in most African counties, the availability of devices to connect makes social media accessible.

To have an effective social media campaign in Africa, the business objectives have to be very clear. This will help develop the right message for the campaign. Are the ads for a product, service or educating potential customers?

Keeping facebook ads simple will be vital in communicating a message to customers. This is important because for many facebook users in Africa, keeping relevant information simple will be easy to consume and act on.

The ad has to be intuitive, relevant and provide an expected outcome. Most often when a customer clicks on an online ad, they are disappointed to be taken to a home page of a website which does not address what the ad promised. Specific landing pages have to be designed to provide what the ad promised to guide the customer or visitor to the right page.

In addition the cost of social media, marketing is lower in most African countries, meaning the advertising cost for any business or organisation will be relatively low.  This means they can reach more customers.

Finally using the right images and content to convey the messages will result in great impressions which, will convert to sales.

By Akwasi Oppong, Web This Marketing LLC

How to map your business objectives to the different phases of your Consumer Decision Journey.

 

The customer decision journey by McKinsey has become the model for learning about how our customers approach a purchase decision. What results can you obtain if this model is aligned with your business objective and customize this process better for your customer?

Initial consideration Set – In this phase of the customer decision journey, they want to relate with good brands they are familiar with or one that solves a particular problem. The question a firm should be asking is, do consumers recall and recognize my brand? And will they make my brand part of their decision-making process?

Active evaluation – At this stage, the consumer is researching, asking family and friends or people they know who have that product or service. In order to be effective and in winning this stage, firms should be asking, do my products satisfy consumers need? This will generate answers to help the firm influence customer consideration.

Moment of Purchase – At this point in the customer decision journey, firms want to know if their sales efforts are resulting in wins for their brands. If not a firm has to improve their sales process. There could be issues with their product placement or loopholes in the sales process that make final decision making difficult for customers.

Post Purchase Experience– Firms put a lot into building expectation and trust and when a customer makes a purchase they expect to see some of what was promised during their decision journey. Firms should carry the pre-sales wooing experience to post sales since that is what customers will remember most. One question that will help firms achieve this is, does the experience I deliver fulfill my customer expectation?

Experience and Loyalty Loop – Every firm will do anything to be in this phase where their customers keep coming back and also become their brand advocates. They use and also recommend their products to friends and family members, thereby shortening the journey for new clients and more wins for the brand.  Firms who are not at this stage yet could be asking, how do customers advocate for my brand?

By Akwasi Oppong, Web This Marketing

Speak to us about creating a winning digital marketing Strategy. www.web-this.com

How Social Media Credibility Impacts your Marketing Strategy

Social media has changed not only how we interact with friends and family but also how we do business and interact with our customers. Companies of all sizes have joined in to see how social media can add value to their business and also increase revenue.

All marketing experts believe social media helps grow businesses. However, it has been very hard to quantify the direct effect of social media on sales. In the Infographic by Adweek and Social Times titled “Examining the current State of Social Marketing” written by Kimberlee Morrison, one of the challenges they found was linking social media campaigns to Sales/Revenue.

The report goes on to say nearly half of top marketers said they have not been able to demonstrate social media spending’s effect on their business, and only 15% of marketing officers have been able to demonstrate Social Media’s quantitative effect on their business. However, the evidence shows that Social Media Marketing does work.  54% of B2B marketers have generated leads from Social Media.

Being able to follow the conversion from Facebook likes to a long term customer has not only been hard to measure but also track.

“Social Media Credibility is the perceived image a customer gathers about a company based on what others are saying about them on social media.”

This includes how the company is listening, interacting and also responding to customers request and above all creating a buzz about their brand. So what does Social Media Credibility do for you? While those who follow and like your social media page may not be your customers they create a likability factor for your real customers to stay, interact and do business with you.

The real measure of your post, likes and followers on social media is how it makes new visitors feel about your brand. Today, before a company enters into any contractual agreement with another company, their social media presence is one way of doing due diligence to take a social measurement of what people are saying about the company and also how they are responding.

This gives a real life profile of the company far better than any self-written corporate capability statement.

Social Media Credibility is what makes you want to go to the restaurant in a busy downtown with a long line of customers waiting while others with similar services have no customers. In a way, it is like a celebrity endorsement of a brand but this time the celebrity is you and me who have used and experienced the brand. The endorsement is even more credible since we are not being paid to endorse the product or brand.

How do I measure my Social Media Credibility? Here are some thoughts to help determine your social credibility.

• How current and relevant are your posts?
• Do you have a good combination of text, videos and images on your social media?
• How well are you engaged in Social Listening and response to followers even when the comment is not in your favor?
• If your industry is very technical plan some fun post that get people talking outside your industry focus. This will make them curious about your company and connect to know more thereby building your credibility.

Professor Hari Sundaram at the university of Illinois is working on a study in which he is using an app to study the behavior of people who want to adopt new habits but somehow cannot seem to change. He gives an example on healthy eating saying, if you are about to go out for lunch and you get an alert on your phone that  7 out of 10 of your friends have just eaten salad this may influence your food choice.

This will help motivate you to attain your desired behaviors by the choice of food your friends made. In this instance, you are going to be influenced by the actions (likes) that you see or have experienced which will make you more likely to adopt a similar behavior.

In conclusion, we are influenced by the decisions people have made in the presence of social signals, knowing what your friends or other people are doing at a particular time will influence your choice.

In the context of Social Media we are influenced by our perception of a product of brand by how others are interacting with it. We may end up buying an item even though the people who liked it on social media, “just liked it”.

By Akwasi Oppong. Web This marketing

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