At Growthink, we have been fortunate to aid in launching and scaling several brands across the African continent. From on-the-ground activations to optimising the top of sales funnels, to tracking conversion both online and offline, we’re passionate about building great products and brands that become household names.
As the pace of global economic growth continues to slow down, Africa’s fast-growing markets present highly attractive opportunities for business. But be warned, it’s no walk in the park. Over 60% of the last quartile of the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index is occupied by African countries.
We’ve gained invaluable insight from years of scaling and developing brands and wanted to share five indispensable lessons with you:
- Have the right product-market fit
Is the market excited about your product? You tested it with potential clients, but have you canvassed a wider audience? Does it have early organic traction across different countries? What works in one place may not work everywhere. Know who you’re selling to, and be specific.
There are many tools both online and offline that can be used to test your product in the market outside of looking at your organic growth and retention rates. Can you set up a Customer Experience tracker that’s light and tests the relevant touch points? Can you add software like hotjar to your website to understand user journeys that is gathering data as well as polling your potential customers for their feedback?
We’ve seen many brands exit countries and markets as the result of the lack of due diligence on the product market fit.
- Know your audience and the language they use
There are eleven official languages in South Africa, only one in Nigeria, but over 500 languages are spoken on the ground. Kenya has two official languages and four spoken ones. What about Ethiopia? There are five official languages but ninety-two spoken languages in the country. And did you know that the calendar year in Ethiopia today is 2015, and not 2023? Ethiopia uses both the standard Western calendar and the Orthodox Tewahedo calendar.
You may be asking yourself so what? Most countries list English as an official language, and people are people, right?
But if you truly want to understand your audience and how your product resonates with them, you will need to make sure that you can understand the nuances of each territory so as not to alienate them. Some of these are unspoken, understood differences and some are now legislated. An example would be that you can no longer use non-local models in Nigerian advertising. Fall short of understanding this, and your product will not have the same impact that you’ve meticulously calculated in your growth plans.
- Have the right team on the ground
Companies often believe that a great product is enough for success, but time has proven that results are optimised when the on-the-ground team is actively promoting the brand in conjunction with centralised functions.
‘If you build it, they will come’ won’t quite cut it. Local differentiation matters. The right combination of on-the-ground teams that can activate the brand and more centralised functions working in unison, will get you further, faster.
- Have the right combination of channels and messaging
Functions like brand management, performance marketing (even with localisation of language and creative), messaging and value prop design can be done through a centralised approach. However, functions like organic social, activations and PR need to be run and executed on the ground so you can capture the full country sentiment.
- Understand what your full costs will be
Many brands think their CPAs will be the same across regions and countries. If you compare like for like, we know South Africa is, on average, two to five times more expensive than West Africa. East Africa usually sits between these two when it comes to cost. There are variances country to country and of course product by product, activation and channels.
If you’re using Above the Line channels like TV and radio, knowing what you can and can’t do in each country is really important. For example, because of the Arab Spring Egypt does not accept advertising on TV without a number of registration checks, whereas other countries have less stringent controls.
Doing business in Africa is rewarding, insightful and can mean huge growth for your business, but it is not a straightforward road. It’s also not one homogenous market with similar needs and anyone scaling their brand across multiple territories should be aware of many pitfalls that they will need to navigate.
What would your lessons be for scaling brands in the African continent?