Listen To Your Customers-Vodafone CMO

Agnes Emefa Esssh

Marketers have been urged to remain dynamic and listen to customers in order to come out with marketing strategies to beat the current competition in the industry.

According to Agnes Emefa Essah, Vodafone's Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) responsible for overseeing the Vodafone brand, marketing and communications strategies, the trend of marketing has change over the years with the advent of the internet.

She said marketers need to listen to their customers and adapt to the changing ways of working in order to remain relevant to customers.

'The internet has come to stay and we must take advantage of it,' she told the audience at the TEDx Accra, a conference to share ideas through short speeches.

Speaking on the theme, 'The Next Chapter - How technology has changed the face of marketing,' Ms Essah gave an overview of the evolution of marketing over the years thanks to the internet.

She said 20 years ago the marketing profession was about creating and retaining loyal customers using the traditional means.

She said her outfit marketed the first mobile phone by highlighting the importance of using a mobile phone with the catch phrase, 'Me gyina abonten na mekasa,' even though it was cumbersome.

Before the advent of technology, communication was not fast as it used to be, a typical example was the letter system where an individual will have to wait for about five weeks to send and receive a letter from a relative oversees.

'Today, with the internet we can immediately communicate through social media like Facebook and email and marketing has also not remained the same,' she said.

Ms. Essah said the once limited functions of the first phones introduce into the country have become unlimited with phones able to take pictures and control household gadgets.

This, she said, has affected the marketing profession where time and place has become essential in creating and retaining loyal customers.

The industry has become more competitive because information is fast and people are sharing things with the press of buttons, hence the need to stay on top by adapting to the new techniques of working, the Vodafone CMO disclosed.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri