The second phase of a training targeted at Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SME) owners to enhance their businesses using digital marketing strategies has commenced.
The training is organised by Diamond Bank in partnership with Facebook.
The training exercise, which took place across seven states (Ibadan, Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Port- Harcourt, Aba and Umuahia) with over 1,000 SME owners in attendance, is aimed at scaling up the skills of small businesses to cater to millions of Facebook users in Nigeria and beyond.
Addressing newsmen in Port-Harcourt, Head, Regional Businesses – South, Diamond Bank Plc, Nkem Okoro, said “As one of the fastest growing retail banks in the country, Diamond Bank is always at the forefront of leveraging technology to drive emerging businesses. The idea behind the training is to give our SME customers an opportunity to merge their personal and business Facebook accounts to increase exposure to potential customers.”
“There are over two billion people on Facebook and with that, our customers will be able to showcase their products to this large population as well as get leads that will take their businesses forward.
“We have over 120 SME customers participating in today’s event and we intend to actualise our promise to provide them financial and non-financial services. We provide such non-financial services knowing that when our customers succeed it will trickle down to us,” commented Okoro.
Commenting on the initiative with Facebook, Head, Emerging Businesses, Diamond Bank Plc, Ayodele Olojede, said the Bank recognised that access to market was a limiting factor in doing business, adding that, “We also recognise the contributing factor of small businesses in the growth of GDP. It is therefore important to continue to support them to scale up and improve their productivity. What we are doing today is to teach them how to create and monetise their online visibility. Facebook is already a market for 26 million Nigerians and yet business owners are unaware. That is the reason for this training, to support businesses to grow. This is one of the second series across the country and we are planning to reach between 10, 000 and 20, 000 customers nationwide.”
One of the participants, Sharafadeen Olaojo, owner of Abudu Mudas Concept in Ibadan, said, “I have learnt how to market products online by locating my audience and giving them direct information. Sometimes when you go on Facebook, you do not give the specific details to be able to attract the required audience, I have learnt how to restructure and how to create the right profile.”
Diamond Bank plc is Nigeria’s lead driver in providing enhanced customer experience through innovation and technology. Recently, the Bank recorded a landmark figure in the value of funds disbursement of over N1 billion to small business owners under the cash flow-based SME lending scheme in partnership with the Women’s World Banking (WWB), and this has earned the leading financial institution ranked among the first five SME customer bank in Nigeria in the KPMG customer service survey 2018.
