Is your SME visible online? If not, you’re planning to fail
Young African American man smiling confident using touchpad working at a clothing store
Technology is one powerful ally that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) should leverage on to market their businesses globally at minimal cost.
In today’s business environment, no serious enterprise should be satisfied with dominating only within their physical locality when they can bark even louder through the internet.
It is not news that using the internet to market goods or services can be a big boost for start-ups. It could be the saviour of those that would probably die at infancy for lack of consumers or adequate resources to meet the demands of the market.
In Kenya, the ability of entrepreneurs to sprout even in the thorniest of business environments is admirable. Every year, while some new small enterprises fail at the embryonic stage, others spring up almost from nowhere. Far from being completely snuffed out, some small business operators survive the test of time and become job creators – and wealth creators over time, driven by an undying entrepreneurial spirit. Now imagine how the internet would help nudge such start-ups onto the next level.
Generally, the internet is considered one of the most powerful and cost-effective marketing platforms of the 21st Century. Unfortunately, many small enterprises only use the platform as a way to be seen to be doing something online, simply to be seen as trendy.
It makes no sense to find a website of a firm established in 2019, with information that was captured before the Covid-19 pandemic struck. So much has happened since. Businesses that do not take their activity online fail to take full advantage of the formidable and wide range of e-marketing tools and techniques available on the internet.
A business advisor may take note of them and offer to provide legal, accounting or even managerial support at cost-friendly rates. A savvy marketer somewhere might see an opportunity to market what the enterprise offers at a commission or a benevolent donor may offer to chip in with some funds, just to ensure the promising small enterprise survives to bring rewards in the near future. That visibility on the internet might mean the difference between running a viable business or closing shop.
Moreover, local SMEs should know that the internet belongs to the global community, not to just a few firms in a certain part of the world, hence, they should be open-minded. The array of income-generating strategies and resources that could be obtained at a click of the mouse are amazing. Shying off from using the internet as a marketing tool at the very least, amounts to planning to fail.
