Small businesses in Botswana continue to face challenges on a daily basis despite all the interventions that government is doing to try and help them. One of the challenges faced by these businesses is in the area of advertising.
In Botswana and elsewhere, advertising is an expensive undertaking and more so for small businesses, which have very small or non-existent budget to advertise.
The Small Business Magazine is a quarterly magazine conceptualised to primarily afford small businesses a reasonably priced platform on which to advertise as well as provide information that could help small businesses grow.
Even though it is called small business magazine, it is not only focused on small businesses but also on corporates that deal with small businesses such as banks, accountants, suppliers etc.
The publishers of the magazine, Square Around Creative Group, cite what they believe are extremely high advertising costs as one of the reasons they came up with the magazine.
Managing Director of Square Around Creative Group Sethata Seremane said the magazine will be distributed free of charge to the public so as to have it in the hands of a maximum number of people in the country.
“There are many small businesses in Botswana doing amazing things but, unfortunately, not many people know about them because they are unable to advertise nationally because of prohibitive costs hence our coming up with this magazine,” Seremane added.
The magazine will be distributed in the two cities of Botswana and in major towns and villages through strategic partners based in these locations.
Seremane that revealed they will also try and help create beneficial linkages for small businesses wherever possible by linking them with relevant suppliers, trying to create business to business dealings amongst them as well.
A local businessman, Kabo Moroka, hails the idea as a great idea because he sees it growing to successfully help small businesses market their products and services.
The first issue of the magazine is said to be planned for the end of March 2013 and already there are contributors who are from the academic and the business worlds so as to bring a balanced view of business to the magazine.
Seremane says that it had not been easy to market the magazine, especially to corporate companies because most of them say they want to see the first issue first before they could advertise. At the moment, the magazine is counting on support from small businesses as they are the ones that are in desperate need of advertising so that they could manage to grow their client bases.
