Marketers are needed to bridge the gap between organizations and customers.
The marketing role in Africa is not an easy task, with the ever-changing economic times in the continent, businesses relevance and ability to make sales and profit is of essence. A survey conducted by Kasi Insight highlighted a number of findings on the state of an African marketer.
1. Marketing is not easy
When it comes to their opinion on the marketing role, the majority of the marketers surveyed (40%) believe that the role entails continuously learning and improving their skills. They are followed by those that believe marketing as a career is better than the actual job (15%) and (12%) who think that marketing education is adequate in preparation/ training for the job. Interestingly, marketers in Africa feel like they are not well compensated in their role with only 9% of the respondents believing that marketing as a career pays well.
2. Experienced marketers understand every aspect of marketing is important (strategy to sales)
When it comes to the different job functions that marketers take in their specific organizations, the top six functions that stood out were Marketing Strategy (57%), Sales (46%), Brand Activations (45%), Brand Management (43%), Communications Planning (42%) and Content Marketing at 40%. Experienced marketers rank marketing strategy at the top while the junior marketers rank sales at the top. While marketing strategy comes second to junior marketers, sales rank fourth among the experienced. Interestingly, experienced marketers rank all the job functions highly compared to junior marketers – evidently from the higher attention that each job function is given.
3. No lack of challenges for marketers
Like all job functions, marketers face a number of challenges that undermine their performance. The marketers' surveyed highlighted their top six challenges as attracting interest for their brand (37%), Lack of resources (31%), Determining marketing ROI (31%), Capturing leads (31%), Delivering and wowing customers at 29% and Converting sales at 28%.
Across segments, female marketers’ top challenge is the lack of adequate resources in terms of technology while their male counterparts struggle with attracting interest to their brand and capturing leads. When it comes to experience level, those junior marketers struggle with attracting interest for their brand while experienced marketers struggle with converting sales.
4. Healthy brands are better brands
In order to keep themselves on check, marketers constantly measure the effectiveness of their strategies. The top four ways in which they measure market effectiveness; Brand health/Brand equity trackers (43%), Marketing revenue attribution (35%), Social media monitoring (32%) and Advertising campaign trackers (32%). The least efficient ways of measuring market effectiveness are Multichannel attribution (15%), Audience measurement trackers (8%) and lead generation & marketing ROI at 6%. Across segments, junior marketers believe that social media monitoring is the best measure of market effectiveness while those that are experienced consider marketing revenue attribution as the best measure.
5. ROI: It’s all about leads and sales
For the marketers surveyed, the top three metrices used to measure their marketing ROI are Leads/Sales metrics at 62%, Audience growth metrics (e.g., Number or Subscribers, Social media followers, etc.) at 51% and Brand Consumption metrics (e.g., Trial, Brand usage) 42%.
Across segments the top 3 metrices for female marketers: Lead/sales metrics, audience growth metrics and brand engagement metrics. Male marketers: Leads/sales, brand consumption followed by audience growth. For junior marketers: Lead/sales comes first, followed by audience growth and digital engagement metrics. For experienced marketers: Audience growth tops the list followed by lead/sales metrics and finally brand consumption and engagement tying at 19%.
6. Reaching the moon on a shoestring budget!
When it comes to ability to meet their KPI’s, marketers are often faced with a number of challenges; Budget constraints at 65%, followed by insufficient resources at 34%, Limited consumer understanding at 31%, Limited data availability at 28% and unreliable consumer data (26%).
Across segments, there seems to be a consensus on budget constraints affecting their KPI achievement. However, male and junior marketers find it hard to understand their consumer; this appears as their second challenge after budget constraints.
7. The pandemic was bad news
More than half of businesses (55%) were impacted negatively with the pandemic, 29% improved their performance and only 12% remained unchanged. Two years post the emergence of the pandemic, marketers are trying to bounce back to normal. However, 18% of these businesses scaled down permanently with almost half (48%) scaling down their operations temporarily. Only 5% were able to increase their operational efficiency within the period.
8. The future is data oriented
With majority of marketers (50%) looking into increasing their budget within the year, there is pressure to identify relevant insight on consumers. This will ensure that there come up with strategies that may lure in consumers. When it comes to the insights that are most important to these marketers, the top three considered are Data or insights must be accurate/reliable (72%), Data and insights must be local and relevant (46%) and Data and insights must drive change and action from leadership (43%).
Marketers can do better
Though the marketing profession in Africa is marred with a number of challenges which are not limited to attracting interests to their brand and converting sales, marketers can always unlock new methods of penetrating markets.
Junior marketers should take some time to learn from their seniors. The fact that they have been longer in the ‘game’ literally means that they understand the market dynamics better.
With businesses embracing technological advancements, marketers should consider digitalizing their strategies. This will have an effect on improving brand awareness especially around the young population.
Watch our recent webinar on 'The State of the African Marketer' and learn more as we dive into the effects of the Covid19 pandemic, the opportunities and challenges faced and the sentiments towards data insights of marketers in Africa.
Our data intelligence platform can provide more insights to help your business make informed decisions in Africa.
Contact our team today to explore how our consumer intelligence can empower your decision-making process. Win with confidence with Kasi insights https://www.kasiinsight.com/thehub
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