Date: February 15, 2021
Understanding that social media is an essential way to reach customers, gain valuable insights, and grow the brand, Zubair Small Enterprises Centre (Zubair SEC) featured leading business projects run by entrepreneurs and members of the centre on Zubair SEC YouTube account.
Adel Al-Hubaishi, senior advisor at Zubair SEC interviewed two members of the centre who founded the Grandma’s Mixes and Al Hara Ice Cream Project business projects on the Zubair SEC’s YouTube account and quizzed them on their business journey. The members spoke about the challenges and success of their successful projects.
This initiative comes within the support strategy provided by the Zubair SEC to its members with the centre constantly striving to diversify the methods of support provided to members entrepreneurs. The aim of the centre primarily has been to develop the culture of entrepreneurship in Oman.
Explaining that the centre used the Zubair SEC YouTube account to air the interviews to give the members publicity they merit, Adel Al-Hubaishi, “We understand that social media is one of the most cost-efficient digital marketing methods. Using social media will greatly increase brand recognition since these mediums engage with a broad audience of consumers. The videos we posted have been viewed by a large number of audiences. With nearly all of Oman’s population using social media platforms, they are a natural place to reach new and highly targeted potential customers. Our members have greatly benefitted from this social media initiative we adopted. We hope to conduct and publish more such interviews by visiting other business owners who are members of the centre and introduce their commercial projects to the community.”
Zaima Saif Nasser Al Salami, founder of Grandma’s Mixes who featured in the video thanked Zubair SEC for making a tangible effort to introduce small enterprises affiliated to its membership to the larger community.
She said, “The centre provides various means of support and communication for entrepreneurs by communicating with them and visiting them in order to find out about projects and the latest developments. Introducing us to the community through the establishment of exhibitions and markets and through social media has been very helpful.
Grandma’s Mixes offers a range of herbal and henna-based hair colour and hair care products. he uniqueness about Grandma’s Mixes product range is that only natural ingredients from Oman are used to prepare them, mainly the Hinna plant that is very popularly planted in the Sultanate, especially in Al Sharqiyah.
She added: “The visit of the senior advisor of the centre to the Grandma’s Mixes factory and introducing the community to the processes we follow and the way we operate has helped us greatly as far as exposure is concerned. We have received a great response from the public. We were contacted by old and new clients who have shown keen interest in our products.”
Zaima said, social media has proven to be one of the most effective channels to promote products online. One of the major strengths of social media marketing is its ability to create relationships between businesses and their audiences.
Salem Al Ghammari owner and founder of Al Hara Ice Cream Project was also included in the social media project aired by Zubair SEC.
Thanking Zubair SEC for featuring him in the social media interview, Al Ghammari said, “It is important to use platforms that are commonly used by customers so that we can reach out to target audience at a more effective rate. Social media channels such as YouTube help us attract the right customers and help us showcase our product to potential customers at the right time. The interview conducted by Zubair SEC helped us get a lot of publicity.”
Al Ghammari said: “We started the business in November 2019. Our business model is a mobile ice cream “bus” cart which sells variety of ice cream flavors, cool refreshments, tea and coffee. Usually, the vehicle stops near the Kalbuh Park located at the end of the Corniche with the Muttrah mountains on one side and sea on the others. Since the cart is mobile, we can move the project to participate in public and private celebrations and festivals, but our permanent location is the park. We are fortunate that we do business from this wonderful site maintained by Muscat Municipality.”
He added, “We innovate our products from time to time. We have added flavours such as roasted marshmallows, coloured sugar rolls, chocolate fingers, biscuit sticks and some sauces which are very popular. We also sell freshly made biscuits with almonds, chocolates, rose, cinnamon, coconut and cardamom favours. We also offer drinks such as coffee, tea, red bean, hot chocolate, water among others.” He explained, “Since the beginning of the project, the turnout has been wonderful as everyone loves the quality of the products. The interesting design of the hot ice cream bus adds to the appeal. As a very small enterprise, we entered the world of trade with great caution. The support of the Zubair SEC was a great source of confidence. We would not have been achieved success without the continuous support from Zubair SEC and the advice from its consultants.”