By Recognizing that there isn’t a single and efficient market where businesses and buyers meet, a Zimbabwean start up Zim Business Pages came up with a solution in the form of a riveting mobile application Zim Business Pages that allows for business to advertise themselves on a platform that brings buyers and sellers together. For many businesses, especially small ones, marketing costs too much and requires expertise they may not possess, and they end up getting customers from the few referrals, by word of mouth and that’s not enough to sustain and grow a business.
While social medial platforms have offered the biggest opportunity for digital marketing in Zimbabwe, sometimes it is not easy for the buyers to find the right solution to the business service or product they are looking for hence the need for a centralised digital marketing system, a business directory where you go through a list of all the businesses selling the product that you are looking for and actually find all the information you are looking for. Zim Business Pages Sales and Marketing Director, Thabani Mahubaba, spoke about Zim Business Pages, their objectives, the platform they have created, the app and their hopes for the future.
By Pearson Mbendera
“We came up with a viable digital marketing solution for all Zimbabweans in the means of a mobile application Zim Business Pages. It is a business directory with listings of businesses, their information, what they do and any other relevant information buyers might be interested in.” said Mr Mahubaba
Many entrepreneurs are interested in just making money, but the Zim Business Pages people want to see businesses being conducted better in Zimbabwe and they hope the success of their business will usher in better business practices in the country,
“There are some people who take their customers for granted but with this, customers will rate the service and bad ratings will drive away potential customers and this will drive businesses to do better.” he added.
The App
There are many apps out there that claim that they can do one thing but fail miserably at it, but thats not the case with Zim Business Pages. The application is easy to use and navigate, with everything arranged in different classes all displayed in alphabetical order. With listing arranged in order, it makes it easy to find a business you are looking for.
To begin with, the application integrates well with other applications on the phone like the dialer so as to give better convenience to the user, something Mr Mahubaba is proud of when he said, “The application is well integrated so that if you want to call a business, you don’t have to copy down the number but just click on it and it will take you to your dialer and you proceed to make the call.”
Customers can review and rate businesses, a function that Zim Business Pages hopes will help enhance better service delivery, a big objective the Zim Business Pages start up wants to see accomplished by Zimbabwean businesses and they hope their mobile application will lead that charge.
“We hope that this will help with service delivery, the more negative reviews the business gets, the worse its chances are of getting more business hence the need to improve on the service delivery aspect of businesses here in Zimbabwe. Thabani said.
The application even tells you how far a business is from where you are if you have turned on your GPS, even giving you Google Maps directions so that you won’t get lost, another problem people encounter when trying to get to a new place.
The application works online or offline once it has loaded all the information, but for offline use, you may not be able to do all the functions available while online but you will still have access to the entire directory.
The application allows for sharing the information of businesses using any other sharing application you have installed in your mobile device, thus, even those without the application can benefit from it by proxy.
The application is available for android an for ios.
Advertising on the platform
All businesses are free to advertise on the platform regardless of size and location provided that they are legal businesses. While the target is to offer subscriptions at just a dollar, the fact that the application is relatively new means that business there are a lot of costs the company has incurred and would love to recoup and revenues are still low as there aren’t many businesses that have signed up yet.
“For now, subscriptions costs are $2 for a month, $9 for 6 months and just $12 for the whole year.”
But NGOs and government ministries do not have to pay any subscription fees if they want to join the platform, a public service Zim Business Pages is offering. “As a public service, we are offering free subscription to all NGOs and government ministries that are willing to sign up on the platform and urge all of them to sign up and be seen by everyone.”
I have this application on my phone and swear that it is very good and the answer to many of our prayers. Go ahead and download it
If you are a business, contact Zim Business Pages on the following numbers +263771677706, +236717944921 and +263732944921 and they will guide you to everything that you need to sign up on the platform and advertise your services to potentially millions of Zimbabweans.
To download the app use the following links:
Android Devices : https://www.Sendspace.com/file/0kji2s
Apple and Android Devices: https://www.pwastore.com/pwa/98cacc2deeb2
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