7 things to consider while online marketing in Ghana

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Do you want to advertise your business in Ghana online? If yes, then for an appealing campaign, there are some factors that need to be considered prior to initiating your online marketing.

You must be aware of the fact that social media platforms have taken the world by storm. Online marketing is all the rage these days across the globe. Not just the Giants but small as well as medium businesses go for online marketing as it is helpful in expanding the reach of the business.

Online marketing is the most successful strategy but in African countries, you’ll have to face some challenges. Digital marketing is yet to blossom in the region. It lacks the stability of plans and their execution. Unlike other countries, the people of African countries like Ghana are not well-versed with technology and its optimum usage. Let’s have a look at the factors to be considered:

Internet Reach

Online marketing is all about spreading your campaign using online platforms. Your campaign will be successful when people will access it and get to know about it. For this, a majority of users should be facilitated with internet connectivity.

Although internet penetration is gradually growing in many parts of Ghana, there are still few areas that have limited reach. If your audience is not online then how will your message go across to them? It’s a matter of concern. So, prior to launching your campaign, check the internet connectivity of the serving area and formulate your plan accordingly.

To combat this issue the best possible solution is that you can use bulk SMS service. It can be used to send your message to targeted audience and persuade them to visit your site.

Type of phone your audience is using
Smartphones are in vogue all around the world. A legion of populaces including businessmen has accustomed themselves to use the smartphones. However, this isn’t the case with Ghana.

A majority of the population of the country are still using either feature phones or advanced feature phones. These phones are small in size with even smaller screens. The people of Ghana use these phones to make calls, send and receive SMS and even to browse the web. The major reason why people go for a feature phone is that they want a long-lasting battery.

If you are using marketing platforms like Google Display Network then you might not reach out to all those who use a feature phone. You might lose more than 50% of your potential customers. Some older generation businessmen usually stick to Blackberries because they have accustomed to it. Definitely, you won’t like to ignore any of these, so you’ll have to opt for a suitable online marketing platform.

Popularity of proxy browsers
There are some people who use smartphones in Ghana. But the next challenge that comes your way is that these people use proxy browsers for all of their internet related tasks. The people do not prefer using a native browser like chrome due to the speed issues.

Even if your phone is 3G, you won’t be able to open the more advanced web page and media content. Every time you’ll try to stream video, you’ll see buffering for longer durations. This made the smartphone users tweak to the proxy browsers like UC browser and Opera Mini. These browsers compress the content of the pages and speedily show the data. They also let you quickly download the data.

The problem with these browsers is that some of them do not show advertisements belonging to those platforms that rely on Javascript tags. Therefore you’ll have to develop your strategies taking this factor as well.

Inadequate counting of audience
When you are planning your strategies then everything is done keeping in mind the audience to be served. An estimation of total number of people to target lets you analyse the success rate of your campaign. For online marketing, the active users to be served are taken into consideration.

The online platforms that give the number of active users rely upon cookies, device ID, and temporary ID for calculation. This makes the system of calculating the audience adequate. If a person has Dual-sim phone and a laptop, then he is counted as 3 users by the platforms. Therefore, when you find that 80% of the intended audience has been reached, the figure would actually be 30-40%. So, take note of this factor also.

Advertisements via applications
The applications have totally taken the mobile phone experience to the next level. It has even become a popular mode to display advertisement. Most of the global ad giants have lost their market share and new companies have evolved. App marketing is in vogue, especially in Ghana.

Currently, Google has just got 20 to 30% of the total in-app inventory in Ghana. Other companies like Nexage, Mopub, Airpush, and Smaato have captured the market. So, it would be better if you opt for platforms other than Google to display your ads.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the most vital tool that builds your web presence. It is a worldwide tool and is a general parameter that should be considered by every marketing strategist.

SEO does not happen instantly nor does it mean to simply put the keywords. It is rather a dynamic process that sees moderations with changing trends in the world of internet. SEO depends on the people using the internet, the kind of search they are doing and the search engines they are using.

SEO refers to everything you do. Therefore, for a better web presence, you should know your audiences well. Research for the kind of stuff they’d like, fine-tune your content and be connected with your audience via social media or other sources.

Web Presence
Web presence is essential to stay connected with your audience and make them believe you. When you’ll enter the market, you won’t be welcomed with roses, and rather people would be apprehensive about you as a newbie. It is therefore vital to make your business look credible to them.

If you developed a website and left it as such then that won’t be of any use. You need to keep your audiences hooked and convert readers to customers. For this, you’ll have to promote your business frequently. You should also keep your website active with regular posts and updates.

Conclusion
Now that you have gone through all the factors, consider them while planning your strategies. There is a huge scope of development in Ghana and hopefully, in the coming times, everything will be great. Till then, you can consider these factors to develop a top-notch marketing campaign.