by Brigette Mashile
The other day I saw a reel that said to get something new you have to do something you have never done before. Simple, and yet so massive. I tell my friends that by changing one small thing in your day, you are shifting the entire day, week and month. If you decide to wake up 30 minutes earlier, you will soon realize you need to sleep 30 minutes earlier, which will affect the time you make supper, the time you get off work, etc. It will give you a new experience and something new about you.
We recently finished the website I've been building for all of the 10 years of Roka Roko. It is up, functional, and pretty. This is a new cash generating opportunity for us, and a great one at that in the digitally rich world we live in. Personally, I love it. But I realized within a month that we need something new to accommodate this website. It is demanding me to be different, to ask for help and to build in new boundaries. Here is a list of the small but effective changes I believe I need to start:
1. Marketing
Telling people about a website is harder than telling them about a dress I made. I have learned. The dress is an end product, a client simply sends money and has the dress. The website is a place of more options, and a payment process my darling clients don't enjoy. This taught me that we need to find a different way of advertising Roka Roko, the old ways simply are not resulting in sales. My clients want to stick to the old process of chatting on WhatsApp, confirming and paying into an account. We have to crack this as soon as possible.
2. Advertising
Showing people what is on the website is a constant job, but we shouldn't overwhelm people. How do you determine the line, when is it enough posting on TikTok and what is not enough? The website needs targeted kinds of shouting, and the strategies must change regularly. It is almost like a TV ad that we need to run and manage. I am being challenged to think in a new way, present the product in a different way, and to admit some things don’t work anymore.
3. New clients
The website client is not the WhatsApp client; therefore, we are attempting to attract a new client. This is a whole different dimension to the game. The client we are sourcing doesn't know about Roka Roko yet. This sound both challenging and exciting. We have to build a ‘new products’ campaign, it has to present Roka Roko website as a new product a new client needs. Also, the habits of the new client are different; the first most important assumption is they love shopping online; so do we ignore the WhatsApp clients’ reservations about online shopping and concentrate on the potential clients…. or do we run a campaign for both groups?
4. Safety
Scams are real. This is the reality of our digital, virtual and online life. The website was built with the knowledge that I have clients who know the brand, trust the brand and speak well of the brand. Now, if the online client is a new client, then that is not the person we based it on. Therefore, we need to build trust, first, with the new client.
As a client, I do have reservations about ordering online. We worry about scams daily, about losing our hard-earned money. I can imagine what the Roka Roko new client is thinking, and this is probably the reason chatting on WhatsApp helps. I try my best to keep clients informed at all times about their orders, so as to ensure them that we are still here and their order is on the way. Crime is everywhere, but luckily the processes to protect us are keeping up by offering trustworthy payment gateways and two factor authentication.
If you have an online business do share your processes, we are here to learn every day. This is a new field and need all the help we can get. Oh, yes, asking for help. Last point, I have had to ask for help from a website developer (TheRad on Instagram) and a marketing specialist (Que Lebatha on Instagram), and I need an influencer! The developer did a stellar job and Miss Lebatha is a gem. Asking for help is what people who build multi-million Rand businesses do, so I had to get comfortable with it. Thank you.
Have a great day.
Brigette Mashile is the founder and creative force behind Roka Roko, a custom fashion design business based in Johannesburg, South Africa. The company passionately delivers quality tailored and trendy fashion to make their customers happy, and specializes in styling women by creating unusual combinations with fabric, culture and style. Brigette has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Witwatersrand and a Fashion Diploma from Studio5 School of Fashion. She’s a former fashion buyer for a major retailer in South Africa, and an international direct selling company. She’s been passionate about fashion since the age of 10 and gained invaluable experience in the fashion world running informal fashion creation businesses until the day her own Roka Roko brand was born. Find out more by visiting the Roka Roko website www.rokaroko.co.za
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