Skip to main content

Marketing Tips from Experts (1): Prove Your Worth with Free Online Content


As women entrepreneurs in Africa, how can we continue to ensure that new clients and customers come our way? In the next three posts, I thought I’d share some tips from marketing experts.

It will come as no surprise that a great way to market your product or service is by proving that you’re an expert. Says Glenda McCarthy-Gaspar, president of Proforma SI, “You’ll have a better chance of convincing your audience that you are worth your weight in gold if you showcase your expertise….”

I’ve found that experts often recommend using blog posts and videos to prove their expertise. If you fix cars, then you might provide instructional posts on how to maintain a vehicle. If you’re a baker, then you might share original recipes or advice on techniques. But what should we keep in mind when creating this kind of content in order to prove our expertise? “At the end of the day, you should focus on drafting content that can be called valuable, purposeful, actionable,” Glenda McCarthy-Gaspar writes at the Online Marketing Institute. “You want to provide your audience members with tips and tricks that they can aptly put into use, or put together opinion pieces that help them understand an industry topic in a more meaningful way.” This will establish you as an expert because you are proving your worth. And if you make such content helpful and free, then your target audience is likely to share it with others.

In the same article at the Online Marketing Institute, McCarthy-Gaspar includes a list of the types of content that you can consider when aiming to demonstrate your expertise. You can read it here. 

I am grateful to Glenda McCarthy Gaspar for sharing this valuable advice.

--Chimuka Moore
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Miyanda Maimbo Kitawa on Facing Challenges (Wisdom from Africa’s Successful Women Entrepreneurs)

Although gender equality is on the rise in Africa, there are more potential challenges for women entrepreneurs than there are for men. However, it isn’t unusual for successful women in business to attribute their successes to the challenges that they’ve faced. In this post, I share the wisdom of Miyanda Maimbo Kitawa , who set up the first human resources company in Zambia at a time when HR businesses didn’t exist there. As you’ll see, her story contains many lessons for women who are facing the challenges of entrepreneurship, especially those who are just starting out. A tough start doesn’t mean you won’t succeed: When Miyanda Maimbo Katiwa drove to Zambia to start her human resources company, she had only a little money to split between her living expenses and what was needed to launch her venture. Having quit her job and been told by her boss that it was impossible for someone without prior experience to succeed in such a business, she knew she was taking a huge risk. “T...
2 comments
Read more

Align Your Brand With Others: A Tip for Women Entrepreneurs

“Aligning yourself with a similar type of business can be a powerful way to expand quickly,” writes Karen E. Spaeder at Entrepreneur . Alignment has long been a tried and tested marketing technique that can also build powerful relationships with others. When you align yourself with another brand or business, you say to both of your audiences, “What matters to one of us matters to both of us. Thus you can attract each other’s potential clients. Alignment doesn’t have to take place online. For example, if when you shop at your favorite clothes store, you receive a “percentage off” voucher from a different store, those two stores are being aligned. The implication is that if you like one store, you will also like the other. As famed marketing expert and bestselling author Seth Godin writes, “Alignment isn’t something you say. It’s something you do.” Here are two easy ways to align your brand with another brand: Choose a social cause to openly support: If there is a socia...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media in Africa for Women Entrepreneurs

Accessibility to social networks may be limited in Africa, but a reported nine percent of the population who do use social media often view it as important and empowering. Given that access to cell phones is widespread in the continent, use of social networks and messaging apps is increasing by the year among businesses, customers, schools, and students . In fact, the 2014 “Emerging Nations Embrace Internet, Mobile Technology” report from the Pew Research Global Attitudes Project (as quoted in ventureafrica.com ) reports that about 78 percent of Africa’s internet usage is for social media. No wonder female entrepreneurs doing business in Africa are using social networks to support each other. In the first of this series of posts for women entrepreneurs looking to use social media in Africa, we’ll review some of the main social networks, as well as how women entrepreneurs are using them.   Social Networks Popular in Africa Facebook long dominated social networking in A...
Post a Comment
Read more