South African Business Need To Be Online As In Yesterday!
Access to the Internet has virtually sprung up overnight to some people, and we understand why it seems this way in that South Africa has a technologically driven, albeit trend driven, society.
The internet has been accessed by a select few, those with the pockets to afford it (I remember my 56k dialup at home notching up a 1 grand bill and getting the shock of my life), and the net has progressed since those days. Once those prices started dropping, adoption became higher as more affordable options (BIS being one of the main motivating reasons the youth can afford to access the net at a very low price entry point) became evident.
People started moving from just accessing from work, but now at home, on their phones and even at their favourite restaurants (and most recently on planes and taxi cabs). But most businesses have lacked innovating the adoption specifically for their needs.
Below are just a few reason’s I can just list that alone should persuade businesses to go online, (you can view our infograph here):
- At the end of 2011, South Africa had 8,5 million internet users, with an expected 10 million end of 2012, this is up from 6.8 million in 2010.
- 7,9 million of those users also access their internet through mobile devices.
- On social media alone; Facebook has 5,3 million users, Twitter 2,43 million and 1,93 million on LinkedIn. Twitter last year only had 1,1 million users.
- E-commerce revenues are widely tipped to climb more than 30% a year for at least the next five years [1]
- R135 billion is the projected online turnover by 2015.
This from a country only 10 years ago still had dial up internet as it’s primary form of internet access. With this explosion and influence through connections, brands without proper online strategies are left to their own devices, no PR campaigns, no influencing users on your brand over a competitor, no online customer service, and eventually no leads or potential online sales. We suppose to some that’s something they willing to be content with, but remember competitors are aware of this too. Next month marks 3 years we have been in business, and in that short time we have been able to have well known brands on social media that people have some use of (found the gap and started earlier), and our own clients also have been happy with their online growth. We understand that:
- A strong online presence draws in new clients. Today’s consumers search for exactly what they need by using keyword searches online, Google making $36 billion of their total $37 billion turnover from advertising. It’s a reality in today’s market!
- A strong online presence strengthens customer relations. Interacting with your clients through social media sites is both efficient and effective. It also allows customers to access you immediately without having to go through the brouhaha of a customer service team.
- You can become an industry authority. Like ourselves we started as 2 young entrepreneurs with passion and dedication. Now we charge for consulting and support services because people know we know what we talking about, and they just need to search to find that. We have distinguished ourselves from our competitors in that we care and understand small business needs because we are in their shoes too (we think of it as if we believe in selling you these products we naturally would be using those methods and platforms too right?). If it’s not good enough for us why would it be good enough for you?
So what are you waiting for? Develop a reasonable strategy for your company’s online marketing growth, and then get your business out there. If you can’t take our word for it, ask market leaders like FNB and Nedbank about their online platforms and strategies and see how much of a success adoption has been for them vs the other 2 okes.
We’ll see you in another 3 years.