Many businesses today outsource their IT requirements, but not many people are familiar with the concept of the outsourced marketing department. In fact, with so many marketing agencies available, most businesses are spoilt for choice.
So why did Greydale enter such a competitive market in 2017, and to what can we attribute its success?
We chatted with Lavinniah Muthoni Mwongera about starting the company, the effects of COVID, and where the company is headed. Here’s what we learned about Greydale.
“We’re here to help and we immerse ourselves in your business.”
“Some organizations don’t have large marketing and communications teams and this can be a challenge when you’re competing with the businesses that do.
That’s where we come in!
We understand that for most companies, their primary goal is lead generation and brand building. And we know that the weight placed on each differs per company. We work together with our clients to design a marketing strategy aligned to their business that will help them achieve their goals.
We believe every business deserves an equal opportunity—so we’re here to help!
From our perspective, when we’re starting work with a new customer, it can be easy to just jump right in and get to work. But we think it’s important to take a step back and understand what the client is trying to do with their marketing plan—and how we can help them do it.
We’ve found that by understanding our clients’ business strategies, we can help them shape how marketing and communications can support them. This is where the immersion in a customer’s business begins. We support organizations’ business development plans by creating and executing tailor-made strategies designed for their specific needs. We conceptualize, develop and implement strategies that ensure our clients can effectively interact with their target audience.”
More about the Greydale Differential
Kenya is one of the fastest-growing African economies, and several other marketing and communications companies are vying for business. Despite this, Greydale Africa is still the company of choice for some well-known, established organizations.
Lavinniah believes that Greydale Africa is your agency of choice if yours is a tech organization. “We have specialized our services to serve this market within the East Africa region and can scale across Africa through our partner network. Being a full-service agency means we provide an array of bespoke services. We are flexible enough to collaborate with a client’s existing agency.”
Being an affiliate of WE Communications – one of the largest communications and integrated marketing agencies in the world allows Greydale to scale their business and offer services in countries where they may not have physical presence.
Marketing Magic
When asked what brings the sparkle to her eye, Lavinniah tells us “It is the whole process of bringing an idea to reality then building it to a point it elicits desired action from a target audience. The whole process of brainstorming, designing, developing then executing a project is such an exciting experience and working at Greydale allows me to do that continuously.”
You always remember your first
Greydale’s first customer was SYSPRO, back in 2017, and they remain a loyal customer to date. Onboarding them was very exciting. “We have had the opportunity to continuously be creative in telling their stories on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), successfully developed customer activities to generate leads, and worked on digital marketing campaigns that have achieved outstanding results.”
More recently, Amazon Web Services have made announcements to expand their investments in Kenya and we feel very privileged to be part of their journey as they grow their business in Kenya.
Aha moments
Lavinniah’s aha moments lie in the business aspects more than the actual marketing moments. Learning about streamlining business processes and that delivering with excellence is critical to the success of attracting and retaining clients. In an industry where creativity, imagination, and agility are at the core of everyday work, sometimes having detailed processes and structures can seem mundane and boring. However, having defined processes, good people, and the willingness to go the extra mile is critical to the success of Greydale as a company.
And then there was COVID
COVID was tragic for so many reasons and had devastating effects on families, communities, and the world economy. Put into perspective, we feel grateful to have survived the pandemic while so many lost lives, loved ones, jobs, businesses, and more.
Like many other organizations, in 2020 and 2021 we shifted our major client activities from physical customer activities to digital activities. This necessitated a change of strategy as a business and drove us to invest more in digital marketing tools. We unfortunately also had to downsize as a company in terms of headcount, as well as significantly reduce the operational overheads.
Onward and Upward
We made it through an exceptionally tough five years, so we know we can make it work, no matter what. We aim to be the agency of choice for technology companies coming to do business in East Africa.
Our focus is always on the future. We know that success is not just about surviving but about thriving. That’s why we’re looking to expand our product offerings and grow our portfolio of clients in East Africa.
We’re looking forward to growing our existing customers and meeting new challenges head on. We’re proud to be a part of the growing economy in Kenya and excited to see what the future holds.