Did you launch a business in Kenya ?! Congrats! Now you’re ready to get your name and brand out there and then attract potential customers (PS - if you’re still looking for CFO or accountant, contact Revise today). The following article will walk you through the Ways to Promote Your New Business in Kenya.

1. How to Promote your Kenyan Business on Google?

Promoting your Kenyan business is a must if you want to stand apart from your competitors and out to your customers, so let’s get started with the most popular channel: Google. Using Google to promote your business is a no-brainer. Capturing more than 90% of the market share, it’s one of the best ways to get in front of consumers that are actively searching for solutions. Here are the best ways to use Google to get your name out there:

1.1. Create and verify your Google Business Profile in Kenya

Your Google Business Profile allows your business to appear in Google Maps results, the local section of search results in Kenya, and the Knowledge Panel in search results when someone searches for your business name and location. This free directory listing is essential for local businesses, especially as Google continues to tailor search results based on location.

To maximize your Business Profile, verify ownership of your listing through your Google Business account. Once verified, you can optimize your listing to appear higher in search results and for more relevant searches. If your business ranks on Google Maps or appears in the Local Pack, it's like free advertising—your business is promoting itself 24/7.

1.2. Get a website

Having a website is a must for any business, regardless of how traditional your industry may be. Your website is often the first place potential customers go to learn more about your business. Even if they find you on social media or Google, they will visit your site to gather information.

A good business website serves multiple purposes: it tells your story, provides contact details, reflects your brand’s personality, and offers a promotional tool that works 24/7. Beyond that, it’s essential for measuring the success of your other promotional tactics. Analytics from your website will give you valuable insights into which marketing strategies are working best.

Although there are free website options available, investing in a paid website with your own domain name, professional design, and scalable features is critical for business growth.

1.3. Implement search engine optimization

It’s one thing for you to promote your business; it’s another thing for Google to promote your business. SEO is a set of practices that align your business with Google’s ranking algorithm. But because this algorithm has evolved to use machine learning and user behavior to produce the most accurate and quality results for searchers, optimizing for search engines is really just optimizing for searchers—particularly those searching for what you have to offer.

SEO isn’t just one tactic, but many tactics that collectively work together to improve your rank. Also, because Google has superb location-based results, you have just as much of a chance as big retailers to show up on the first page of Google— without spending a dime! (With the exception of the costs to get a website, of course).

SEO tactics to promote your business include:

• Adding relevant (industry- and location-based) keywords to specific places on your website.
• Producing original, high-quality content regularly, with tagged images.
• Maintaining high page load speeds and security.

When your business is ranking high in results, Google is basically promoting your business for you—and not just to anyone, but to the people searching for what you have to offer. Doesn’t get much better than that.

1.4. Create a Blog for Your Business in Kenya

Content is a powerful driver of SEO, and a business blog is a great way to create content that ranks. A business blog allows you to produce educational content in your brand’s voice that targets keywords your ideal customers are searching for on Google. This not only helps in SEO but also establishes your business as an authority in your field.

Great blog posts include how-tos, lists, interviews, thought leadership posts, and more. Each blog post increases your chances of appearing in search results, driving more traffic to your website.

Great blog posts can be any of the following:

• How-tos and instructional posts
• Lists of strategies and resources (top 10, 5 best, 3 crucial, etc.)
• Q&A or interview writeup with an industry expert
• Thought leadership posts
• Example/template posts
• Guest posts
• Customer testimonials or case studies
• Seasonal posts (such as this one)

1.5. Share Your Content

Once you’ve created blog content, it’s important to promote it. Share your blog posts on social media, through email newsletters, or turn them into downloadable guides to collect leads. With compelling content, your blog posts may even get shared by other credible websites, further promoting your business.

The more traffic you get to your site, the more important it is to ensure your content loads quickly. For growing websites, a content delivery network (CDN) can ensure fast loading times.

1.6. Run Google Ads in Kenya

While SEO is a long-term strategy, Google Ads provides immediate exposure in Kenya. Google Ads appear at the top of search engine results pages, above organic and local listings. Google Ads offers flexibility, advanced features, and detailed performance metrics, making it one of the most powerful advertising tools available.

Though it requires trial and error to optimize, a well-run Google Ads campaign can be well worth the investment. Ads can take the form of text ads on the Search Network or banner ads on the Display Network. If you’re ready to start advertising, check out step-by-step tutorials on how to run Google Ads.

1.7. Create Listings on the Main Directories in Kenya

Smaller directory sites pull data from larger ones, which means that by creating listings on the major sites, you’ll also likely begin showing up on smaller directories automatically. Below is a list of the major directories to start with. All of them are free, but often have paid options for advanced features.

• PigiaMe
• Kenya Business Directory
• Google
• Facebook
• Bing

1.8. Optimize your listings

It’s not enough to simply create listings on directories—you need to optimize them. Fill out all the fields, add photos, and collect reviews to improve your listing’s appeal and ranking in search results. Consistency across all your listings is key; make sure the information matches what’s on your website. Monitoring and fixing inaccuracies in your listings can also boost your ranking.

1.9. Get Online Customer Reviews from Kenya and Abroad

We just mentioned collecting reviews, but because reviews are so important for small and local businesses, they deserve their own section.

Word of mouth is one of, perhaps the most, powerful way of promoting your business to the right people. Testimonials on your own website are great, but reviews on official platforms like Google, Facebook, and Yelp are even better.

These websites can increase your exposure, and because they have measures in place to prevent fake or spam reviews, people trust the reviews here more than anywhere else. Plus, reviews are a major ranking factor for local search results.

1.10. Monitor and Respond to Reviews

Many online directories allow anyone to add a listing, so even if you didn’t list your business, it may still be on there, collecting reviews. Be sure to claim your listings wherever possible, and monitor these sites frequently. This way you can respond to reviews—which is another great way to promote your business. Not only can you resolve (and even reverse) negative reviews, but the way you answer reviews (positive and negative) can reveal your brand’s values and give potential customers an idea of what it’s like to do business with you.

2. How to Promote Your Kenyan Business on Social Media?

Social media is another free way to get the word out about your small business. The most popular business accounts are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but make sure to consider using other sites that might be specific to your niche, such as Pinterest or Reddit.

2.1. Prioritize Facebook

Facebook is the largest social network online and it can be a great way to keep in touch with existing customers and to reach new customers. Promoting your business on Facebook can vary substantially depending upon your industry, but here are some basics:

• Create a Facebook business page with your contact information and a CTA.
• Use Facebook events to promote and maximize attendance to your events.
• Run Facebook live sessions, of tutorials or behind-the-scenes sneak peeks.

And don’t forget Facebook ads!

Facebook advertising allows you to reach highly specific audiences, since you can target according to user profile information such as marital status, occupation, interests, and more.

2.2. Connect and Contribute on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become more than just a place to post your online resume; it’s also a place to join in on group discussions, connect with potential customers, form new partnerships, or just to do general online networking. Potential customers can check out you or your company before doing business with you to find out how many employees you have and to get more information on the background of the company personnel.

You can also promote your business indirectly on LinkedIn by providing perspectives in group discussions and/or providing links to relevant content on your website. Just make sure you’re not always promoting your own content.

2.3. Upload Videos to YouTube

Video marketing is a great way to promote your business, and YouTube lets you do it for free! Promoting your business via YouTube is an effective way to help potential customers or clients connect with your business. Putting together a quick overview video of your business and then uploading it to YouTube gives you a nice sales tool that you can post on the homepage of your website or circulate in emails to prospective clients.

You can also post educational videos, tutorials, or how-tos in your YouTube channel in order to get discovered by people looking for what your business offers. There are plenty of affordable options out there for making videos; just check out our post on DIY at-home videos.

Note also that videos tend to show up in results for very niche searches, sometimes at the very top, like this one:

2.4. Advertise on YouTube

As with the other paid strategies mentioned in this post, YouTube advertising can be an investment that pays off if it’s done right. You can advertise on YouTube by creating video ads that play before videos in relevant categories, or through text ads that appear in search results:

2.5. Engage your audience on Instagram

Despite being one of the more recently launched social media platforms, Instagram is the third most popular platform out there. With its diverse posting formats (permanent images, short-lived Stories,  live sessions, Story Highlights, and more), there exists a variety of ways to use Instagram to engage your audience and promote your business. You can:

• Promote your sales and deals with hashtags to expand your reach.
• Run contests with a free or discounted product/service to generate positive buzz (and obtain a list of leads to reach out to).
• Offer advice and tutorials to stand out as a go-to resource.

2.6. Share on Twitter

Twitter is another free channel that can be used to promote your business online—mainly if your audience is comprised of 18-24 year-olds. It tends to require a bit more activity to build an audience, but if you’re consistently active, you can master the platform and experience its benefits.

2.7. Give Pinterest a shot

While Pinterest is fundamentally focused on sharing photos, the fact that your photos can link back to your website creates an opportunity to promote your business and drive more traffic to your site.

Pinterest is especially powerful for ecommerce businesses looking to reach a female audience (Pinterest users are heavily skewed towards the female demographic).  If this fits your profile, you may want to think about getting active on the Pinterest network.

2.8. Try out TikTok in Kenya

TikTok was only launched in 2016, but it has already surpassed Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Pinterest in active users. Its ease of use in creating compelling videos with special effects makes it a great video marketing platform—and not just for Zillenials. You can jump right on the platform to provide how-to, tutorial, or behind-the-scenes videos, but you may want to promote your new Tik Tok channel across other networks.

2.9. Join online communities

One of the best ways to get a leg up is to offer a hand up to others. Join communities and groups relevant to your business or industry on LinkedIn, Reddit, and Facebook, and offer people good advice and suggestions when they have problems or questions. (Make sure your own profile information points back to your business, of course.)

This is a great way to build a genuine reputation and form solid connections with people relevant to your work. What goes around generally comes around. And remember that while you’re helping one person with their query, you’re being observed by a thousand silent others who will see your name and what you’re doing.

2.10. Try an influencer marketing collaboration

Your business can be a part of communities both geographically-based and niche-focused, and influencers are celebrities within your niche. They’re not on the red carpet or hosting their own talk shows, but they are highly respected, wildly popular, and deeply trusted experts in your niche. Influencers have a large social media and/or blog following, which means that getting mentioned or featured by one of these influencers can promote your business to a massive, relevant audience.

Influencer marketing is a careful strategy, however. Before reaching out to an influencer, take the time to familiarize with their accounts across all networks; comment on, like, and share their content; and be sure to approach them with a specific ask and something of equal value in exchange. For example, you might offer them a month of free classes in exchange for a review on their blog and mentions on social media. Or you might offer to write a high-quality guest post on their blog that benefits their audience while also supplying a backlink to your site.

And here’s a fun example of an influencer Tinashe Mwaniki promoting Carrot Oil:

2.11. Invest in social media advertising

Social media advertising is among the most forward-thinking, highly-utilized, and profitable forms of digital advertising today. More than 3.6 BILLION people use it and it’s constantly evolving to offer ease-of-use and exceptional value for your advertising dollar. When done right, paid social promotes your business to a highly targeted audience with these advantages:

• Familiarity: Meet people on the channels they use most.
• Cost-effectiveness: Advanced targeting ensures your ads are shown to only the most relevant audience.
• Supporting content: Your organic posts serve to support your sponsored posts.
• Brand loyalty: Attracting more followers to your accounts helps to build community and loyalty around your business.
• Analytics: Know what’s working so you can allot your budget accordingly.

3. How to Promote Your Business in a Local Community in Kenya?

For local businesses, the community is a critical component of their success. Retailers and restaurants understand this implicitly, of course, and even those businesses focused more on the wider world still have a considerable attachment to the place or places in which they operate. That said, let’s talk about a few ways to market your small business in your local East African community.

3.1. Strive to get local press

For some reason, the idea of pitching your business happenings to the local press feels intimidating, but the truth is, local blogs, newspapers, online publications are always on the hunt for fresh content.

Reach out to your local news sources and see if you can contribute an article—whether it’s a thought leadership piece, a list of resources, or a newsworthy update about your business. If your business’s story is compelling enough, you might even be able to get someone else to publish a featured write-up.

You can also ask to write about an event you are hosting in your community, or invite a local writer to attend for free in exchange for a recap.

If you have a little more budget, you may even consider a public relations partner, firm, or app to get your stories published in multiple media sources.

3.2. Form partnerships in Kenya and abroad

Partnering with non-competitive businesses that serve the same clientele can be a great way to promote your business in your local network. Once you have established a relationship, you can cross-promote each other’s services through your email lists and in-store flyers or coupons, or by engaging them through social media. Don’t be afraid to get creative to maximize the promotional value of the partnership.

3.3. Network network network

Attending local networking events is a great way to increase your presence in your community. This works better for some types of businesses than others. If you provide services directly to other small businesses or consumers, then local networking is going to be far more rewarding than if you sell products online, for example. However, every kind of networking helps, even if it’s just to share ideas and inspiration with other business owners.

Whether online or offline, inexpensive marketing techniques like these can get your business humming with the energy from new customers and clients.

3.4. Attend, host, or sponsor local events in Kenya

Even in a world that is increasingly digital, attending, hosting, or sponsoring events in your community is a great way to promote your business while strengthening your connection with local customers.

You could run a class at your location, offer to teach a class at a school, library, or other local establishment, or even just host a fun seasonal and/or family-oriented event. Leverage the time you put into creating and teaching the class by having a friend take video of you teaching, then put that video on your website and on YouTube.

3.5. Try out direct mail

Despite the dominance of digital media today, sending postcards, flyers, letters, or other types of mail can still be a very effective way to promote your business to nearby customers. One of the biggest challenges with this promotional method is that you can’t exactly target your mailings, so you’ll need to print out and send a high volume of mail in order to get a response. The benefit is that if you get it right, promoting your business through the mail can help you get new customers with a very repeatable process.

You could also send your loyal customers little gift packages during the holidays to keep them coming back and (most likely) promoting your business to their friends and family.

3.6. Advertise locally and offline

Newspapers, magazines, radio, and even television are some other traditional places for paying to promote your business. If you are considering promoting your business through print ads or any of these offline strategies, the key is to make sure you are tracking everything so that you can know the effectiveness.

4. Other effective ways of promoting your Kenyan business

These three promotional strategies are last but definitely least—they’re just a bit miscellaneous with regard to the way I grouped the strategies in this post.

4.1. Attend trade shows

If you are targeting a national audience and you want to sell your products to retailers, going to a big trade show might make sense. If you are unsure of how beneficial the trade show will be for you, and you have some time to figure it out, you might consider just attending as a visitor before investing the money in your own booth. If you have a good relationship with a company already planning on exhibiting at a trade show, they may let you “hang out” in their booth for a portion of time, where you can observe and learn, and maybe even promote your business free of charge.

4.2. Run email marketing campaigns

Email marketing has been around for ages, but the strategy has by no means become less effective over time. In fact, 77% of people prefer to get permission-based promotional messages via email versus other modes of communication. Email is a popular channel for consumers and businesses alike:

• People like to stay informed.
• People constantly check their email.
• Email offers detailed reporting.
• You can segment your lists for targeted, personalized emails.
• Email marketing generates a 30x average return on investment.
• Email marketing platforms offer flexibility, creativity, and most importantly, ease of use.

4.3. Make advocates out of your employees

Good leadership and proper treatment of your employees will naturally turn them into advocates for your business. Hold brainstorm sessions, encourage employee blog post contributions, host fireside chats, get them involved in local events, run family and friend promotions—value them and they will value the business they work for. You can then encourage social media sharing and equip them with news and tools to effortlessly spread the word about your business.