With the challenges associated with direct marketing these days extending beyond operating costs (which include staff and premises and the high cost of marketing utilising conventional marketing methods) increasing numbers of small, emerging businesses are seeking to find ways of reducing the costs of product promotion and by extension, broadening their market base. For small companies in Guyana, particularly, the challenge of broadening their market base has been further compounded by the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and the health considerations associated with physical exposure.Recently, four Guyanese entrepreneurs, Miguel Gurchuran, Sandra Craig, Rodeik-ah DeFrietas, and Govinda Singh, joined fellow entrepreneurs from across the Caribbean to participate in a three-week virtual programme under the theme ‘Migrating Your Business On-Line’ hosted by the International Visitor Leadership Programme of the United States Department of Trade. A release issued by the United States Embassy in Georgetown, said that over the course of the exercise the participants “examined strategies for refining their business goals; explored e-learning tools and resources to help their continuing education in marketing and business development; and discussed practical issues needed to bring their businesses online.”
The participants, according to the release, “were appreciative of the knowledge base to improve their entrepreneurial capacity for business expansion and committed to sharing this information with other small businesses owners.” With local small businesses increasingly seeking options to the high-cost, ‘brick-and-mortar’ option for establishing a business, increasing numbers of entrepreneurs, notably in the agro-processing, fashion, craft, and beauty industries, are beginning to rely more heavily in reaching out to potential customers through the electronic media.
While pursuing the online option does not mean abandoning the ‘storefront’ approach, local small-business owners have told this newspaper that “migrating your business online” can considerably reduce costs including what they say is, these days, the mounting expenses of storage space. Some local small businesses simply move their products directly to the client allowing for quicker delivery and reduced paperwork for the business owner.
Limited local opportunities for this type of market-enhancing training has meant the small businesses are required to spend exorbitant sums in ‘manual’ production, expenditure that impacts negatively on profitability. In the absence of a reliable online marketing infrastructure, emerging businesses must assign significant budgets to keep in touch with customers and broaden their client base. With emerging local businesses now discovering, increasingly, the value of online marketing facilities to attract more potentially lucrative external markets, the response by both government and the private sector to this need has been strictly limited.
Heavy reliance on more costly and, in the present circumstances, logistically challenging actual marketing events, including market days, has meant that small businesses have had to embrace the option of investment in various virtual marketing initiatives or else, close their businesses.
