Seasoned digital marketer discovered his business skills on Facebook
Gesora Mwasi, founder and lead Digital Brand Strategist at IDMA Agency-a digital transformation agency that seeks to connect brands to their target audiences through digital integrated marketing strategies.
Gesora Mwasi earned his first income from digital marketing in 2009 while in first year at Strathmore University. He made an impressive Sh10,000 by selling a Facebook page with about 20,000 followers to some company. The deal opened his eyes to business opportunities on social media.
“I ventured into digital event management where I helped high end restaurants and clubs leverage social media to increase their monthly through curated concepts that appeal to the target audience and leverage on social media networks to drive the numbers.”
He did this all through his stay at the university to boost his pocket money and practice entrepreneurship.
“After graduation, I decided to take it more seriously and venture into digital marketing full time. I engaged two friends and we had a good run and later dissolved the business because my colleagues wanted to pursue other interests.”
Gesora wasn’t left empty-handed and with about Sh40,000 he registered his company IDMA Agency and developed marketing materials.
No connections
Starting out in the corporate world wasn’t easy as he had no connections just fuelled with passion and optimism and getting first time clients proved to be an uphill battle.
“Before I landed my first client, I had understood the word tarmacking candidly. I made hundreds of calls and moved from office to office demonstrating value and capability and finally one company agreed to try us out.”
Excited at the opportunity to showcase his marketing skills, the agency made lots of promises to the client and blew the budget. Unfortunately, the contract had to be discontinued to prevent him from going on a loss.
“I learnt a lot of valuable lessons from the engagement which helped shape my service delivery onwards for the better.” Gesora says he learnt to price better, negotiate for better contract terms and the importance of mentors in your path in entrepreneurship who would have helped avoid a lot of trial and errors.
With more than seven years’ experience now in the field of marketing and business development, Gesora has acquired excellent skills in strategy development, project management and customer relationship building.
He says for one to do well in a similar business, one needs to have digital marketing expertise, an unwavering commitment to continuously learn, because the digital scene keeps changing by the day and be able to deliver value to your clients.
The company serves medium and enterprise clients that have between 51 and 250 staff members and an annual turnover above Sh100 million.
Gesora Mwasi, founder and lead Digital Brand Strategist at IDMA Agency.
“Our service ranges from Sh80,000 up to Sh3.5m depending on the project and our clients’ unique needs and requirements.
We offer discovery, strategy, brand management, digital development, experiential marketing, integrated digital marketing and capacity building which involves training top management in delivering digital success.”
His future plans now include launching a digital ad-manager in the last quarter of this year in South Africa, which is part of the company’s strategic move to expand its geographic footprint across Africa.
The ad-manager is a programmatic advertising platform that allows brands and agencies to run programmatic campaigns using display, native, video or rich media formats to attain dynamic campaign objectives.
“Companies are now focusing on digital advertising and buying online advert space on a bigger scale across multiple digital platforms is a need we have fully met for the market. This platforms helps a client decide where their adverts will run in the World Wide Web, for how long and at what price.” The platform also allows versatile targeting options enabling clients to segment and target users based on Behaviour, Platform Placement, Tech Used, Target Audience Demographic and many more.
“The platform also offers clients the opportunity to optimise towards desired marketing outcomes using automated tools powered by machine learning and algorithms. This will be a first for an agency in Kenya.”
