MAZ trains 3 000+ professionals in digital marketing skills

MORE than 100 foreign students have graduated through online training courses facilitated by the Marketers Association of Zimbabwe (MAZ) since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when physical lessons could not be conducted.

Through its Business Institute, MAZ provides training for a range of business professional courses, which have been amplified by digitisation and are attracting more foreign students.

MAZ head of marketing and operations, Mrs Enia Zimunya, said the successful rollout of online training courses and graduation was evidence that Zimbabwe is offering the best education standards, which are being sought by the region.

Covid-19

“We were forced to introduce online courses due to Covid-19 and they enabled us to train anywhere. Right now, we are training students from Zambia and Malawi, and soon we are entering Kenya with our digital online courses,” she said.

“We approached their marketing institutions and they liked what we were offering because no one was offering it.

“Most African countries tend to rely on European countries but now they know we offer a good alternative.

“With Zambia, we have had more than four graduates while in Malawi we had the second graduation last year and this year there is a huge number of students coming from that country.

“Even after Covid-19 has toned down, we will continue to offer them because even here in Zimbabwe we are providing lessons throughout the country,” said Mrs Zimunya.

She said there was a need for businesses and organisations to step up efforts on digital marketing to enhance the electronic commerce experience by customers.

Mrs Zimunya said MAZ has trained around 3 000 professionals in digital marketing since 2016.

“There have been some significant baby steps taken on digital marketing. Most of our corporates now have websites, most of our corporates are available on social media platforms and use various platforms for advertising and marketing,” she said.

“However, there is still a lot that needs to be done because some just create websites but they do not transact in them.

“People do not have the full e-commerce experience because in developed countries I no longer need to go to the physical shop as I just do everything online and my product is delivered.

“In Zimbabwe there are few companies doing that and the reason being infrastructure challenges, delivery costs and internet costs that are extremely high while the payment solutions are offered by few players, which force people to physically do the shopping,” she said.

Mrs Zimunya said there was a need for companies to tap into the huge diaspora community through online shopping to increase their sales. — chronicle.cl.zw