5 Very Important Things Ghanaian Businesses Take For Granted

Content marketing involves investing time and energy into websites and features such as blogs and FAQ sections. It is becoming common for businesses in Ghana to have websites however these websites are left so dry of content that they were better not in existence. Hardly does one come across a blog or FAQ section on business websites in Ghana.

Take for instance websites of UT bank, RLG, Kasapreko and all the other big businesses in Ghana and you will realize they invest less into content marketing. They either have a newsletter form (which is not taken seriously) or an FAQ section which doesn't serve its intended purpose fully. What is absent is blog sections. Ghanaian businesses just hate blogs.

The primary goal with content marketing is not typically to make a direct sale (although it happens), it is to deliver content over an extended period of time, preferably through email or other means.

The secondary goal is to become a “thought leader” in your industry. The benefits of this is that your content gets you on the radar of larger publications, who will then link to you naturally.

Now let's take RLG for a case study. Assuming RLG had an active blog section on its official website that regularly churns out important articles about the world of technology as it relates to Ghana. After sometime, tech savvy Ghanaians (who have the potential to use RLG products) will begin to visit this blog for news and updates about technology. The more people visit this blog section the higher the chances they would visit other sections of the same website and as people visit sections that explain RLG products, they get interested in what RLG offers and eventually these site visitors become RLG customers.

This is a very low cost marketing strategy which startups especially must adopt since they do not have much financial resources to engage in the very expensive traditional forms of marketing.

Another benefit of the blog section is that, these regular articles that the business produces get crawled by Google and other search engines and kept for future potential customers who may be having their Zero Moment Of Truth (ZMOT). ZMOT is that point in time when someone decides to look up information, reviews etc. on a particular product the person intends to buy.

What form of advertisement is better than having tech-pundits, bloggers, social commentators among others referencing the blog section of RLG for a particular piece of fact or statement they are using?

The most benefit a business can derive from content marketing in my opinion is trust. The more valuable the information you put out there, the more people (who are potential customers) trust your business and the services or products you offer. These people will consider you an expert in your field of business since you have for a long period satified their information need. They will forever remain loyal customers and will refer many other people to your business.

Note: There are other forms of content marketing that a business can engage in.

2. Email Marketing
Do you know what smart entrepreneurs or businesses do with the traffic they receive from content marketing? They build an email list. Outside of direct sales, there is no better business outcome attached to first-time visitors than when they subscribe to receive newsletters and email updates from your business.

So after all your efforts in content marketing (created a blog section on your website etc.) and you are beginning to see several visitors to your company's website, it will be dumb on the part of the business if it does not collect emails.

I know in Ghana, we are not very good at this email thing. Nevertheless, they are people like me who do everything with our emails (I am sure there is a lot more of us with the popularity of social media).

Email marketing basically involves putting a 'Subscribe to our Newsletter' form on your website and other channels and using the emails you collect as a competitive advantage. If on your site, the 'Subscribe to our Newsletter' should be seen on all pages of the site especially where the blog section is. And make sure it is very conspicuous.

The more the visitors to your blog section, the higher the chances they will subscribe to your newsletter in order not to miss future 'juicy' information.

After collecting all these emails, the business can now be sending regular personalized messages to these potential customers. And trust me, there is a 99% probability they will respond positively to your messages if crafted well than they will do to your facebook page posts which might not even get to them because of facebook's new policy for pages.

People feel privileged to be on the email list of companies they trust and will be glad to share whatever information you send them with friends. In fact, most businesses abroad have had their product launches gone viral because the people on their email list decided to share the next 'coolest' thing with their friends who in turn reshare to their other friends. Wouldn't you wish to be the first to know via email what promotions MTN will be launching in the next couple of days? Wouldn't you, thinking to be very important to MTN and the first to hear such news tell your friends about it? This is how email marketing works.

According to ExactTarget, 50% of online users bought something as a result of an email which is higher than any other marketing channel.

To be continued ...
This article will be continued in the second part (3 remaining points will be talked about). You can visit http://www.opinionghana.com for more interesting and intriguing articles or like the facebook page www.facebook.com/opinionghana for the best articles.

A Year of National Service; A Period of Great Service

It was some few days to September 11, 2012 the day I set off to begin my National Service that I got to know I was posted to a place that sounded familiar. I was posted to Abakrampa Senior High School (aka ABASS) in the Abura-Asebu Kwamankese District Assembly (AAKDA) of the Central Region obviously to teach having graduated with a BSc. in Mathematics and Statistics from the prestigious University of Cape Coast (UCC).

As an alumnus of UCC, I knew of a place called Abura which was close to the university’s campus and so I was very excited to be virtually living around UCC once again. But to my disappointment, after reaching the Regional National Service Secretariat to begin the routine registrations in order to start my service, I got to know the AAKDA district was a little far away from the UCC campus. In fact, it was about a 40 minutes drive from campus. I said to myself at the moment “At least it’s not too far away from the university”. I have grown to love UCC and so once I was in the Central Region, I wanted to be close to it.

So many months passed and as I write this piece, I have some few more days to end my service to the nation. I learned a lot, gained much experience and became a more responsible man in the course of my service. I will share some of my experiences with you as patriotic citizen on duty.

Life as a ‘ruraler’

Abakrampa (aka ABK), the town in which the school is located may be described by others as a village, but I prefer to call it a small town. It is relatively a rural area. ABK is a town I have fallen in love with not because I was served with bush meat frequently as a teacher (I never saw bush meat being sold or eaten) but partly because it was a quiet, peaceful place and also because it was the first time I was coming close to my childhood experiences after leaving my village some 19 years ago.

After several years, I came in contact with people whose only occupation was peasant farming, I saw hunters carry their long guns on their shoulders, saw women and children bath outside at night among others. I also felt the impact of the chieftaincy institution once again. These are scenes that left an impression on me.

ABK is a small town, so small when you start walking from one end of the town, you will reach the other end in about 5 minutes (I may be exaggerating). Not so many business activities went on in this small town yet there were about 10 places you could buy phone credits. There were 3 chemical shops, a mosque, about 5 churches, one real chop bar and about 4 ‘blue kiosks’.

As an outsider, you could not get the food of your liking especially in the evenings. Those you will get were also short of taste standards. You had to train yourself to eat kenkey (Fante or Ga type), ‘etiwu’ or be your own cook. This was frustrating for me when I first arrived but I quickly adjusted to the situation.

Due to the town’s small nature, an indigene could easily identify you as a teacher even when you are not tucked in. They loved to call teachers ‘Tee’ and will mostly greet you even when the one greeting is far older.

One thing I did not like much was meeting my students in town whenever I left my room. As a young person, my appearance at home made me look just like them and I thought it funny for a teacher and student to be wearing pair of shorts with some ‘chalewote’ at a kenkey joint. Interestingly, I was so close to my students, they made me feel like one of them whenever I met them in town.

Life as a Teacher

I don’t admire the teaching profession much but I do love teaching. I love to profess knowledge concerning a particular subject or topic and so I was honoured to be selected to teach my area of expertise, Mathematics. A subject most students dread yet the single most important subject on this earth (you are allowed to disagree if whatever subject you have in mind does not include Maths).

I was assigned to Form 2 General Arts 1 and Form 2 General Arts 2 and later Form 1 Home Economics. Clearly, these are not classes which like to learn Maths yet I took up the challenge.

There were times when students supposedly grasped a particular topic completely yet when a class test was conducted, the modal score was below average. It was disheartening in these situations as it looked like you did not do a good job even when during the lessons they appeared to have understood all that you taught and could answer questions you posed to them.

I fell in ‘love’ with my students despite their poor performance sometimes, which was understandable as it had become clear to me, they had a poor foundation having attended rural government schools. Whenever school went on recess, I was wishing for a quick resume to meet them once again.

My greatest teaching experience was handling the Form 1 Home Economics class. This was a class of about 90 students who were all females and most of them unwilling to understand Maths. They brought out the patience in me. What I would have caned students in the senior classes for, I allowed it to pass in this class. All this, I did in order that I don’t scare them the more and also, so I will be able to fix their shaky foundation in Mathematics.

In all the classes I taught I always favoured the girls, something I hated my teachers for. I don’t really know why I favour them but it maybe because I now understand the challenges they (girls) face. I learnt a lesson, never judge people until you have been in their shoes.

Did I mention my students nicknamed me? The culprits were all in my senior classes. Some called me Modulo, apparently because it was the first topic I taught them whilst others called me Suhum because I mentioned to them I attended the great Suhum Senior High and Technical School aka Sutesco. I took no offence since we (personally I never engaged in nicknaming my teachers) used to call our teachers names. I remember one of my teachers in Sutesco was called Celine Dion because he talked slowly and softly. Again, I learnt another lesson, what goes round comes around.

My interaction with the permanent staff was healthy. I respected them a great deal. Some of them really love the work they do. My opinion that nobody wants to be a teacher was changed overhere as some exhibited serious commitment to their profession. I will miss them a lot but one thing I will miss most is the daily dose of political debates at the Staff Common Room.

The school had a really disciplined headmaster. Sometimes, I rather wanted to call him a ‘difficult’ headmaster because of his actions. He had a vision for the school and he was hell bent on achieving them. The visions were largely good but in carrying them out he sometimes fell out with some of his staff. I will remember him for his bold and strong stand on issues. I remember once I led my colleague national service persons to his office to negotiate better motivations. (Motivation is some money incentive teachers receive from the school every term). He never seemed to have agreed to my submissions yet he carried out our suggestions. It came as a surprise and we were grateful to him for that. He, Rev. E.D. Kamasa (the headmaster) became a Dr. in the course of my stay thus adding one more title to his name.

My memories of my colleague service persons will be profound. We were a happy family of five. Three Mathematicians (Ebenezer, Eric and myself), a Music teacher (my roommate, Joseph) and a Reverend (Mr. Buabeng). We stuck to each other in the course of our stay and I am sure we will forever remember one another wherever we find ourselves.

It was a great experience for me to have served my country as a core Mathematics Teacher. It is not all hell and suffering for National Service Persons. Sometimes, it is up to you to love what you do.

God bless our homeland Ghana.

National Service Traffic Module will Serve us Good

In Ghana, the introduction of new policies and interventions almost always comes with a lot of public criticism and partial scrutiny alongside the political bantering. Mention can be made of the introduction of the Talk Tax, the Toll Booth Levy, the National Service Agric module among others. Maybe, we borrowed this conservative attitude from our colonial masters, the British. We are not ready for change until the change itself has taken effect.

We woke up one morning to the news of an introduction of a Traffic direction module by the National Service Scheme (NSS) and once again this seemingly good and harmless initiative was greeted with scorn and unpreparedness. The debate continued until the political actors interfered for fear of a political ramification and sacked the NSS boss.

Had we taken sometime to be humble as our Ghanaian backgrounds teach us and not be elite in our approaches to our problems as a nation, we might have seen the sense in the traffic module.

Some have said, why should our graduates finish school only to come and stand under the sun to direct traffic after spending huge sums of money on their tertiary education. To me, this is a trait of eliteness. Just for the sake of a first degree or HND we have acquired, we feel big enough to become a traffic warden for a year?

This is the attitude that has deepened the unemployment situation in the country. Our graduates will not do any job aside being in an air conditioned office with a suit and tie. As a people, we have forced our graduates into thinking they are super beings just for the sake of their tertiary education.

As a National Service Person, we are obliged to serve our motherland in any capacity the country deems fit and if the nation thinks being a traffic warden to control our streets and reduce the carnages on the roads is what is appropriate, why the hue and cry.

The traffic module will give service personnel at least two opportunities; to be patriotic and humble and use the rich experience acquired in the classroom to reduce the accidents on our roads. Let’s remember a similar traffic module in Egypt under their national service scheme involves graduates. In developed countries, people with more degrees do similar jobs.

A graduate is not over qualified for a job as a traffic warden. In fact even in Ghana, those who direct the traffic are policemen with years of experience who happen to be our fathers and mothers. Are we saying by virtue of our certificates, we are more wiser and better than our parents to be on the road? And it is not like this job is so disgraceful because these same graduates when recruited as policemen will willingly direct traffic on our roads.

Interestingly, as a national service person, there are no pay disparities between being a traffic warden, a teacher or an office assistant in our public institutions. Should we allow our graduates to direct traffic, the nation will be teaching these graduates to be patriotic and appreciate any lawful job so far as it benefits the nation.

Again, there is the question of the service persons being inexperienced. When this came up, the NSS boss by then appropriately responded by saying the persons posted to direct traffic will be duely trained as traffic wardens. This is an opportunity for these graduates to learn the job of a traffic warden and carry it into the future when they have their own cars on the roads.

Another issue with this module is the question of why the NSS will introduce this module when it fails to meet the demands of private institutions. It is true posting a person to the private sector will benefit the individual and the institution financially however the nation will be at the losing end. The monthly allowances given to service persons is to help the nation save some money and so if we end up sending these service persons to private institutions, in effect we are helping the private institution to save money at the expense of the government. And so priority is always given to the public sector.

Whiles people express all these reservations about this traffic module, our roads are in dire need of traffic wardens and due to the unavailability of traffic lights on some of our roads, accident cases are increasing. The MTTU is also under staffed to assign people to these roads. So the question becomes, what do we do in this circumstance? If desperate situations call for desperate measures, I see no wrong in allowing our fresh graduates to help the country in these desperate times by serving as traffic wardens on our roads.

God bless our Homeland Ghana.

The Other Side of NPP’s Rigging Allegations

Once again another successful election period has ended and all credit must be given to the Electoral Commission (EC) and Ghanaians. We deserve commendations for holding the most serene elections in Ghana’s history.

One thing though that is taking the shine from this year’s polls is the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) allegations of systematic fraud perpetrated on Ghanaians by the government and led by the Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Afari Gyan.

Despite civil associations such as CODEO, ECOWAS Observer missions, CHRAJ among others describing the just ended elections as peaceful, transparent and fair, the NPP now supported by parties such as PPP and NDP have stuck to their claims of the elections being rigged in favor of the President-elect John Dramani Mahama.

Whilst others have sought to justify the NPP’s challenge of the election result in court describing it as having the potential to add something to our young but fledging democracy, I want to take a look at possible reasons why the leadership of the party may want to hold their current view.

Firstly is the attempt to maintain Nana Akufo-Addo as the flag bearer of the party for the 2016 General elections thus the ‘psy-ops’ being operated on NPP supporters that Akufo-Addo did not lose the elections but was robbed of it.
 
Many political pundits have argued that Akufo-Addo may just have to retire his Presidential ambitions and allow others to take over the flagbearership of the party after failing twice in his attempt to become President. But with this convenient excuse of him being robbed, delegates of his party may have to give him one last shot since there exist a precedent in Ghana’s history where the late President Mills was tried thrice before he became President.

Secondly is the National and Regional executives’ unwillingness to accept the fact that they have let down their supporters once again thereby exposing their incompetence. This posture is very human especially for these executives who have assured their party faithful that by hook or crook Nana Addo will win the elections.

Another reason though sounds weird is that, the NPP haven checked their finances after loosing elections two times consecutively, maybe playing on the mind of the President-elect in order to get some financial compensation for the expenses made during the campaigning. This is very possible for a corrupt President who fearing his position being challenged in court may dole out some money to the NPP to silence them.

Again, it just might be that some judges of the Supreme Court have promised to help the NPP’s course should an issue like the one currently being raised is brought before them. This particular reason is very unlikely but in a country where the NPP is seen to be controlling the judiciary, it cannot be left out. If this happens to be true, I personally suspect the delay in sending the matter to court maybe a ploy which involves some members of the top echelons of the judiciary carefully crafting NPP’s case.

An assurance by some foreign powers to the NPP may lead them to take their current stance on the elections. This reason is one that is very plausible considering happenings around the world where the ‘powers’ that be like to install puppet regimes that they (the powers) will like to control.

Forget about all the congratulatory messages being sent by these foreign Presidents, they are just being diplomatic. One thing that lends to this credence is why the NPP insists on holding demonstrations instead of heading straight to court knowing very well these protests will not change a vote.

Interestingly, it started with the NPP alone crying foul, now the PPP, the NDP and just yesterday, the PNC have caught up with the song of rigging. Before we realize, the international community will begin to change their perception about the elections and call for a re-election.

Lastly is the scenario where after the elections were announced by the Chairman of the EC, some Deputies at the EC have assured the NPP of being able to manipulate the results should they complain of irregularities. The manipulations could lead the court to think something fishy went on during the counting and tabulation and thus call for a re-run of the elections.

I will like to state at this point that, the writer of this article has no proof or whatsoever of any of the possible reasons why the NPP will be crying foul. This piece is an imaginative work which could be true considering the NPP alleged that fax machines were hacked into.

The ’War’ That Killed Ya-Na

Some sections of the Ghanaian public believe Ya-Na, the King of the Dagbon area died as a casualty of war. They say a war was fought at the palace of the late King and as a result he and 29 others lost their lives.

This seemingly is a nice reason not to arrest anybody for the gruesome and heinous crime done against a respected King. With this excuse all the participants of the ‘war’ are guilty and as such everybody in that area must be responsible.

Interestingly, you would want to ask yourself if anybody ready for a war will allow the enemy to reach his compound before responding appropriately bearing in mind that women and children live in that compound. This compound turns out to be a palace where you don’t expect to have everything for war as is seen in the olden days.

To make the excuse more reasonable, the ‘it was a war’ preachers say the late king had armour in his palace. Yes you don’t expect a highly placed King to have only house knives and hoes in his house, even individuals have sophisticated guns they use to protect themselves. But as to whether the armour really existed or not, I think the security personnel can tell.

If really it was a war, there are still crimes committed in wars and those perpetrators of these war crimes must be brought to book. For it is in finding the killers of the Ya-Na that a lasting solution could be observed in the Dagbon area. Demonstrations against the court rulings that acquitted those alleged killers shows how deep the problem the killings have brought.

Qathafi of Libya is been threatened of war crimes though rebels are attacking his country and he is doing his best to prevent the rebels from taking over.
So the Ya-Na may have protected and defended his family from the hands of the ‘warers’ and we all know he died a brave King. So justice must be done for his people.