Building SME resilience through E-marketing in Ghana

UNIDO, with the support of EU, is building resilience of Ghanaian small and medium enterprises’ (SME) in addressing the challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic through enhancement of their digital presence to make more customers aware of their products.

As a major tool for increased prominence on the digital market, 30 SMEs completed a 3-month Executive E-Marketing training comprising a mix of online classes, self-study and group coaching sessions. Participants learnt new strategies, tools and techniques, to adopt different e-commerce business models, to select the perfect online customer, and to assess online competitors and prepare world class content for their social media to stand out.

During the course graduation ceremony, the EU Representative,  Georgios Tsopanakis, emphasized that the project is showing tangible results in these difficult times, by adapting and providing very concrete, needed and targeted support to SMEs. He highlighted that the UNIDO-EU partnership works very well and UNIDO provides good quality work and value for money in the implementation of the activities funded by the EU in Ghana.

Skills gained allowed the companies to increase the presence on social media with the highest increase reaching over 200% of followers on Facebook and Instagram. An immediate impact was demonstrated in a sample of companies with up to 43% increase in the number of on line transactions and 40% increase in sales. Utilizing the social media, companies succeeded in increasing the number of orders and gain new customers, thereby prominently increasing their international sales.

Training course is currently being replicated in South Africa in partnership with the Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF), to target 40 women-owned SMEs.

As part of the EU funded West Africa Competitiveness Programme (WACOMP) in Ghana, UNIDO supported SMEs operating in the cosmetic, fruits and cassava value chain to enhance their digital skills and acquire new tools to better embrace digital transformation, with a pragmatic approach to innovation and quality.

Watch the video on the e-marketing training course here.

For more information contact Juan Pablo Davila (J.Davila [at] unido.org (J[dot]Davila[at]unido[dot]org)).

image