Musa Kalenga is a respected thought leader, entrepreneur and marketer and is passionate about empowering people to become digitally mature. In this webinar for Henley Business School, he reveals tools for digital advertising that any organisation can use. Here’s some of what you will learn in this webinar:

1. In order to optimise your digital channels, you have to create messaging that is compelling and drives people to action – to find out more about your product and service – which will eventually lead to a sale.

2. There have been 5 fundamental shifts in how people interact with technology:

• From desktop to mobile: Africa has leapfrogged desktop and gone straight to mobile and people now spend 2.5 hours a day on their mobile.

• From big screen to small screen: surveys show people are more attentive to their cell phones. Adverts need to be designed according to the smaller real estate on the small screen. You are also able to reach mobile users the entire day (as opposed to prime time on traditional platforms) and they are more receptive to messaging because of the relationship they have with their devices.

• To multiple devices: 83% of South Africans use 2 or more devices to access the internet.

• From search to discovery: the platforms you choose to advertise on is determined by whether your product or service is one that people search for or discover.

• From text to visual: the screen on phones today are larger than they were 10 years ago and this is to accommodate users’ response to and use of visuals to communicate. There are also text visual ratios that adverts need to comply with for different platforms.

3. Entrepreneurs need to recalibrate their thinking around media and test different platforms according to the product or service they sell. Testing and learning are the best ways for business owners to refine their understanding.

4. Nine times out of 10, digital platforms outperform traditional media platforms and the mechanisms to track this have never been easier.

5. There are 3 stages of digital engagement you can use to measure business impact.

6. Engagement is a process and you will learn how to maximise this process. The success of any campaign cannot be determined by likes, shares and comments – your messaging must motivate people to “thumb-stop” (stop scrolling) and transact.

7. The advertiser’s objective is the full funnel: awareness, demand generation, acquisition, transaction.

This is part of #SMESessions, a series of free webinars for entrepreneurs from Henley Business School. Register for the sessions on their website. Here is Musa’s webinar.