By Emmanual Acha
The Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) says it has trained at least 50 non-oil exporters in the South-East on digital marketing.
Mrs Salamatu Audi from the Policy and Strategy Department of the council said this on Friday during the e-Commerce training for the zone in Enugu.
Audi said that the training was to assist the exporters to effectively use the e-Commerce platform of the council.
She said that the training was organised by NEPC in collaboration with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
She said that it had become expedient for exporters to facilitate their businesses via digital marketing because of the high rate of insecurity and dwindling economy.
According to Audi, digital marketing gives people the opportunity to access free online portal.
It also helps to provide exporters the platform to have a “Domain Name” to market their products.
“Before now, our exporters could not do much in marketing their products because of the distance and cost involved.
“To break barriers in business, you need to be technologically savvy and have online shops.”
Audi said that under the digital age, the physical shops were no longer enough to participate in the global market.
“So, we are collaborating with NITDA to train Small and Medium Enterprises operators,” she said.
She said that the participants “had already reasonably built their capacities in the global market”.
She said that they would be given free personal domain names, where they would market their products for one year.
Also, the South-East Regional Coordinator of the council, Mr Arnold Jackson, said that the training was to help the participants showcase their products in the global market.
Jackson said that e-Commerce had revolutionised global trade and that people need not phisically move their products about before selling them.
“We want to expose exporters in the zone to e-Commerce platforms with a view to ensuring that they sell their products via the internet.
“With the current reality in the country, the best thing to do is to go digital but certain parameters must be put in place to be able to sell on that platform,” Jackson said.
Also, an official of NEPC, Mr Tony Olenloa, said that non-oil exports had become the only viable means of survival for the country.
Olenloa said that as part of its services, NEPC had helped exporters to withstand global competition.
A representative of NITDA, Mr. Oguntade Adeseye, said that digital marketing had helped companies create value for their customers and build strong customer relationship. (NAN)
