Customer Education in the African Market.
“This is a brilliant idea, but will people use it? The African market is not ready for this yet.”
This was the response I got when I pitched a product idea to a mentor sometime last year. Brilliant man with lots of insight, he wasn’t convinced that the market was ready for the solution I had pitched to him. Countless others, including the mentor, have received response like this I later found out. I guess that’s why it is called the last frontier market. There is heavy need to educate the populace whenever a new innovation is birthed.
Customer Education is all associated activities that ensure that users understand a product or service, know how to use, and trust a product; including its working process. Bryan Phelps, founder and CEO of Big Leap defines Customer Education as “various methods of informing your customers about your products and services”. For any product, or service, to have widespread acceptance and growth there has to be an audience of educated users ready for that innovation. It is one of the most important steps of the customer journey and market development process
As much as the world or a market needs a certain innovation, there is a great need for the audience to accept their need and be receptive to a certain class of products. Every new innovation is usually met with a level of significant resistance, sometimes even outright damnation. An example that readily jumps at you is the adoption of crypto currencies and blockchain technology across the world in general. Over a decade in and in spite of evidence of the usefulness, and how far user education and adoption has come; there is still massive rejection and condemnation about the space.
“People fear what they can’t understand, hate what they can’t conquer…” — Nas
Importance of an Educated Market
North America has arguably the most educated consumer market in the world. This has enabled it to become a hub of technological innovation, and the spring board of the biggest technology companies and products in the world. While this can mostly be attributed to the quality of the engineering teams on the continent, it also has a lot to do with the readiness of the market. This readiness allowed the advances to be more and more daring. This could be a culmination of the work of salesmen who traipsed the US, convincing and teaching people to use innovative products. These beneficiaries, along with the media that arose in that era, in turn taught their kids and thus kick started the advanced market that is North America. (personal research). For the most part, these educated users serve to guide and shape the direction of the products through the feedback loops that the companies will have initiated.
Africa is the ultimate frontier market, and we’re seeing more interest from investors, global companies and talent to prove that. It is also the most uneducated market by and large. This presents a challenge for the new innovations that are trying to gain foothold. A number of technologies taken for granted in other climes seem to fail here, or at best take a long time to gain ground. A clear example is the adoption of QR codes.
Quick response are a type of bar code which are used to store information or even authorize a process or transaction. QR codes have being around for a while, with the associated developments being done over time. Few years ago QR payments options started to pop up in Nigeria, the adoption was very poor. However, in recent times, there has been a massive increase in the visibility and use of the QR in Nigeria, from ads to links, and now even Payments.
Strategies for Customer/Market Education.
Customer education is often a long term play. For the most part, for products to get to the growth phase there has to be significant adoption and acceptance. This will result from understanding and even knowledge of an entire industry (not just the product). This is most easily displayed with financial innovations.
There are various strategies that brands and organizations can use for customer education. They include;
1. Blogs and Editorials
Lots of brands create written and video content to attempt to educate users on how to use their products. They leverage periodic media such as the newsletters, company blog, written posts, medium, etc. to get users familiar with and understand their products and what it does. I am more likely to subscribe to a newsletter if it teaches me more about an industry than to advertise a product blatantly.
2. Video ads and content
Another proven method that companies use is the creation of educational video. These are generally kept on the company’s social media pages such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram etc. Video content that teaches their target audience and the general market about the industry and best practices is created, with the hopes of educating the customer. This could serve as attractive bait into the sales funnel.
3. Product Evangelism:
Another proven strategy brands explore is to go out, sponsor events and acquire brand ambassadors. This is fairly capital intensive, but it is also a more engaged approach at customer education. In the simplest term, these ambassadors sell the products to their fans and supporters, large numbers at a time. Companies can also host social events that help with that education and motivation. An example is Banks that hold entrepreneurial programs to try and educate and motivate the next set of entrepreneurs. These banks in turn gain new customers.
Final Note
As the technology ecosystem in Africa advances, it is becoming more and more apparent to founders and leaders that customer education is a major thing to invest in. For this reason, we see brands spend serious funds to sign on popular celebrities as ambassadors, while some go as far as spend millions to sponsor popular social events. All this is in the bid of getting brand exposure and presence of mind in customers. More serious companies have gone on to build out media and communications teams, hiring expert journalists and media professionals to help educate the public and spearhead their story telling efforts.
While all this important and laudable, the most important part of customer and market education is the ‘education’. This should see brand and companies seeking to educate the public in a seemingly selfless mode that doesn’t seek to force the brand’s product down the consumer’s throat. This should serve to educate the market about advances and proven and better ways of doing things. This will make the target users more sophisticated and help to get them to trust the source of their education. This trust is the ultimate goal of this strategy.
Nothing achieves better than word of mouth or ‘peer to peer sales’. Humans have more trust for people that look and speak like them, and in most cases people that have had contact with them before. This is personalized and human approach is why the sales model in the US worked. This human approach allows the new user to develop a conviction and attach a face they can trust to a brand from the very start.
From a survey I conducted, 9 out of 10 persons are much more likely to try something their friend suggested than what they saw in an advert. This even goes so far that even after seeing an advert, they’ll seek out friends that have used a product or service before they try it themselves. Africans are very communal people, and this has led me to conclude that despite the large amount brands spend on adverts, the best way to get sell to and grow an educated customer base is through human interactions (peer to peer sales).