internet marketing strategies Question And Answer
Development of Marketing strategy for a technology service (internet cafe chain)in multiple african countries?
How can I go about developing an appropriate and coherent marketing startegy for a proposed internet cafe chain and I'm aslo looking for ideas on potential cross selling opportunities and strategic alliances.
Answers
well, there is a lot to this question.
in a few words, my advice would be: first try your ideas on a smaller scale... test it. pick a more or less representative area and try to set up a couple of places there... accompany your launch with necessary advertising campaign (whatever works in africa, sorry i don't know the region at all). give it some time, learn from your mistakes.
then do the same but in other countries. i would have selected local representatives, trained them on the example i already have, and gave them instructions on how to do it.
I would have to assume you have prior experience in running Internet cafes as well as different countries in Africa.
I believe the best strategy would be to either:
1) Establish a small chain of Internet cafes in your home base. Then to get master franchisees in the other countries. These master franchisees would have a more thorough and deeper understanding of their country which will allow them to tweak your cafe to suit the different markets and regulations in their countries.
2) Get a franchise from the US or some other country (maybe Singapore or UK) and make yourself the master franchisee for the whole of Africa. Then you make sub-master franchisees for the other countries. Again for the reasons mentioned above.
3) If you have investors with deep pockets, you can buy established Internet cafes or Internet cafe chains in the different countries and centralize management in your home territory.
My recommendations are based on some principle i abide by:
1) Don't re-invent the wheel. Just tweak it. Hence my recommendation to just get an established franchise or to acquire existing cafes.
2) Leave the local marketing and operations to competent local people who have deep knowledge of the territory. You cannot hope to match their knowledge simply because they have their roots there.
Good luck and i hope you succeed.
Ps I'm available for consultation haha
