African small business owners are struggling with strategies to attract new customers
Key Challenges for African SMEs Identified.
Outside the challenge of businesses securing initial investment, Sage South Africa have discovered that the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Africa are facing difficulties growing their loyal customer base and winning premium clients.
In fact, Facebook, in collaboration with the OECD and the World Bank, revealed in a recent survey that attracting customers is one of the top five challenges for 71% of all South African SMEs.
Specifically, Sage’s collaboration with community small business owners revealed SMEs lack insight into the benefits of blogging and e-mail campaigns, how to make use of their competitor’s strategies to boost their own marketing campaigns, and the importance of an attractive, intuitive and responsive website.
These modern approaches ensure businesses can maximise customer engagement and increase the likelihood of winning new and repeat business, so, by failing to implement efficient and best-practice strategies, African SMEs are being confronted with self-imposed stifled growth.
Furthermore, with SMEs often being managed by small teams or even sole owners, dealing with the large amounts of administration required to run a business, as well as trying to stay on top of the latest market trends and technologies, is proving too much for many owners.
With SMEs contributing toward 80% of the continent’s economy, it is essential business owners understand how to address these challenges to support future growth to enable Africa to become a global labour force leader.
Fortunately, while these surveys identify the areas where African small business owners are most struggling, Sage also provides insight for how to begin effective marketing and brand-building campaigns, as well as strategies for long-term management, ensuring business owners always stay updated with the latest methods and tools to reduce workload or improve business visibility among customers.
While many SMEs across Africa fear moving their business online may be too complicated, the numerous free and convenient resources and applications make it simpler to hire temporary and permanent staff to deal with administration issues, while intuitive website builders and social media make it easier to attract customers and build a loyal base.
Read the full research here: 5 challenges facing small business in 2017: Our Sage advice
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