“Marketing” you say? And I see you raise an eyebrow. “We’re NGOs not business enterprises,” you say. And you’re right. Marketing is a key function of business practice. Marketing is about making the customer aware of a product or service, making them buy the product/ service, and ultimately building a brand. But marketing principles also hold well for non-profits because they too require funds to carry on existing functions and build capacity for the future. So, the donor is our customer here, and the cause or project is a product!
As a writer for the Nairobi Business Monthly, I frequently cover the hi-tech industry, and one area I have been watching keenly is that of mobile marketing. Did you know that in Kenya we have over 28 million mobile subscribers and over 7 million mobile internet users? And that according to recent research by InMobi, a mobile advertising company, the average Kenyan mobile user is on his phone for over 6 hours daily? Meaning, he spends almost a third of his day on his phone!
This means that even though, many mobile users are not yet connected to the internet, the cell-phone is becoming an important gate-way for messaging and advertising. So whether it’s through broadcast SMS or mobile apps, your organisation needs to be looking at how it can use mobile marketing to connect to its donors and supporters.
If you’re interested in learning more about this trend, here is tech blogger Moses Kemibaro on Mobile as media – Why it will change everything about marketing in Kenya, and the rest of Africa. Kemibaro is also InMobi’s Sales Director for Africa.
Excerpt: “….when mobile is used as as marketing media, it is one of the most cost-effective, ubiquitous, measurable, targeted and scalable medias in the world today and more so in countries like Kenya in Africa. The reach for mobile media in Africa is over 600 million mobile subscribers and Kenya has over 28 million mobile subscribers.” – Moses Kemibaro
Promote Your Cause! 