Keystone Bank trains SMEs on ways to boost sales during COVID-19  

In light of prevalent economic realities of COVID-19 on businesses across the globe, Keystone Bank Limited, has advised Micro Small and Medium Enterprises in the country on the need to increase online presence and grow sales using digital tools.

This was the takeaway of a 5-day capacity building training tagged: “Boost With Facebook Digital Marketing Webinar Series”, organized by the bank in partnership with Facebook via its Nigerian representative, Rabbington Media, for SMEs in the country.

According to the lender, the webinar series which is part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, aims to find new ways to help SMEs wade out of the harsh economic tide posed by the onset of the corona virus pandemic.

“The widespread outbreak of the novel Covid-19 (Coronavirus) has impacted the world economy negatively and has led to significant shift in customer needs and behaviour as well as a total overhaul of operating models of businesses. In the face of this current socioeconomic reality, the need to increase online presence and grow sales using digital tools has become a burning concern for a lot of small businesses.

“It is in the wake of this rising need that Keystone Bank partnered with Rabbington Media to host the “Boost with Facebook Digital Marketing Webinar Series”, a 5 days’ session which ran from the 1st to the 7th of July with two sessions per day.

“The topics covered ranged from “Using Facebook Ads to reach your target audience”, “Using WhatsApp to scale your business”, “Finding new customers using Instagram” and more. It was a packed series of 10 episodes of exciting trainings with over 2,000 attendees participating in the sessions,” the bank said.

Commenting on the initiative, the Head of MSME at Keystone Bank, Helen Nwelle, said: “the COVID-19 pandemic has affected a large number of SMEs who can no longer operate through physical stores and outlets and as such, the need to have an active online presence cannot be over-emphasized.

“Hence, the sessions provided a lot of learnings to enable businesses take advantage of the digital tools available on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram etc to reach new customers and grow their businesses.

According to Okemini Otum, the Chief Executive Officer of Rabbington Media, the Sessions were very impactful and engaging, with an ever-ready and keen audience for each session.

“The turnout was far beyond our expectations, and we want to be able to reach many more SMEs through more partnerships like these. We commend the passion and commitment from Keystone Bank in seeing to the success of the project”.

“The numerous testimonials from participants at the webinar proved how timely the training was and the needs it addressed in their various businesses and participants took away learnings which a lot of them immediately began to apply into building an online presence for their businesses’’ Otum added.

Keystone Bank, a technology and service-driven bank offering convenient and reliable solutions to its customers, with a full-fledged Retail Banking Division which over the years, has developed various capacity building events focused on empowering entrepreneurs in the country.

The bank recently launched an online MSME Academy and the next Webinar which is scheduled for 17th of July will build on the take-aways from the Facebook Digital Marketing series and is tagged “Maintaining a thriving SME brand in the face of COVID-19.