Event Update:SOS Business Surgery-Brand Development(17-11-11)

Hello, my name is Donna-Ray Campbell and I write the 'Event Update' column on behalf of Stimulus for the Entrepreneurial Report.             

SOS Business Surgeries are events that we hold monthly that give an opportunity for entrepreneurs to learn life skills, share experiences and gain information that will allow them to take practical steps to development. At these events one2one sessions can be booked in advance for a closer and private review of you particular situation.

Our SOS Business surgery took place last night at Freshly Ground Cafe. Our topic for the event was selling your brand online and offline (in the streets). For the first half of the session we had Mr Fungai Tichawangana, the CEO of Aripano Infinity, owners of The Zimbo Jam online portal among others. Mr Tichawangana is the leader in online marketing and online business in Zimbabwe therefore he was the obvious choice to tell us in detail, the benefits and the reach that online marketing has.

Mr Tichawanganga took us on a whistle stop tour through his journey in establishing and running 'online businesses' in Zimbabawe over the last decade. He shared how the ease and accessibility of the internet has been his driving force to develop online portals resulting in him building his entire 'media empire' online . It was certainly an eye opener to have a Zimbabwean based business / business man whose businesss is solely online give us the neccesary information first hand. To be told the benefits and that it works in Zimbabwe is one thing but to hear it first hand from a living and breathing individual who has done it and got results was very convincing and encouraging. We explored current statistics, for example, Zimbojam has on average 3 million page views  on their website monthly, which means that advertising on their site exposes your advertising campaign to a large number that will be going to the site anyway therefore we do not have to look for them. I think these are figures worth the time and consideration of marketing your business online.

We then had our very own Miss Rudo Nyangulu facilitate a group activity in which we were separated into two groups, 'online' and 'offline'. We were given the task of creating a company and design a marketing strategy online and another group did the same only this time they were offline. This was a very interesting exercise as initially we had to brainstorm and come up with a product and company name. We then put our branding skills to use and creating a marketing  campaign. Each group then present their campaign and explained how they arrived at it.  The presentations were very interesting,  we had a jewelry company created online called 'Afribling' and an events company called 'Taf events' who had no internet access at all. This exercise was in aid of bringing to light the fact that neither form of marketing is sufficient on its own, online marketing is complimented by other offline marketing strategies so include both if you want to have the greatest impact on your target market.

Thereafter we had a discussion session where we all highlighted faults that we saw in each campaign and we all reviewed our idea's it was very entertaining as well as informative. It was great to see young entrepreneurs defending their opinions and utilising knowledge and information  we had gained  at previous Stimulus events. it was so encouraging to see that people have been learning at our events. I so look forward to our next event as they are now a very interactive occasion.


Photography provided by E:thos Photography

Mr Fungai Tichawangana

Mr Tichawangana talking us through the various ways of marketing our businesses online

The group Discussion in the second half of the meeting was very animated

The discussions had serious points as well as the entrepreneurs got into the detail of their brief