Ivory Coast: Home to Many Fantastic Companies

The world is changing. We're experiencing an era where businesses can operate remotely and across international borders. The lines between marketing and sales, strategy and execution, are blurred.

Emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), automated email marketing, virtual reality (VR) and mobile marketing help businesses evolve, innovate, and grow. As a brand owner or marketer, you need to keep up with this pace or risk being sidelined by your competitors.

Ivory Coast is one of the world's most beautiful countries and is rich in tradition, history, and culture. While the country is generally known for its beautiful beaches and luxurious nature, it also has a high performance IT industry that's thriving.

In recent years, the country's digital landscape has evolved to become more sophisticated. Internet access is highly available and speeds are fast. In addition, many luxury brands have established headquarters in the country and attracted significant investments, creating high quality, local jobs.

This combination of a beautiful country, world-class infrastructure, and high-quality job opportunities means that more and more multinational companies are relocating to or setting up shop in Ivory Coast. In fact, the number of foreign companies registered in the country has jumped from just 500 in 2015 to 5900 in 2019. This surge is likely to continue as the country becomes more accessible due to better infrastructure and increased stability.

As the world's fourth-largest economy, Ivory Coast is a hub for international trade and investment. With so much economic activity taking place on an international level, it's important to have local knowledge and experts who can provide support. Thanks to its highly-trained workforce, proximity to major European markets, and advantageous location, Ivory Coast is an attractive place for companies to establish a foothold in West Africa.

Ivory Coast is home to many fantastic companies, such as Accenture, Amazon, Google, and IBM, among others. These multinationals bring in significant jobs and investment, not to mention the countless subcontractors and support staff that they employ. In 2019, Ivory Coast welcomed over 20,000 new residents, more than double the amount it accepted during the height of the financial crisis in 2015.

The presence of international businesses, along with the large number of skilled expat workers, gives the country a distinctive edge in providing Transformation digitale Côte D'Ivoire services. Whether you're setting up shop as a startup or growing an existing business, you'll find the skills you need.

According to recent research by TikTok, the video platform, 77% of consumers prefer to learn about new products through videos or animations.

In line with this trend, animated videos are on the rise and performing well across all online platforms, according to HubSpot research. If you're unfamiliar, an animated video is one that contains moving images and sound to help tell a story. For example, a gif is an animated image that could be used to great effect in an online marketing campaign.

Videos allow users to engage with content more naturally because they're less likely to be distracted by heavy text messaging or busy website layouts. Plus, videos allow users to interact with content on their own terms – through speech, sound, and gesture – rather than via click-throughs or taps on a screen.

If you've ever shopped at Nordstrom, you may have noticed the retailer's charming animated videos of fashion products in action. The Minneapolis-based company makes it a point to entertain their customers with videos – both live-action and animated – of their everyday products in action. Nordstrom's videos give an inside look at their fashion processes and help consumers imagine what their products look like worn by real people.

Netflix is also a master of marketing through storytelling. Its expansive catalog of content is designed to entertain and educate its users about a variety of topics. In 2019, Netflix launched a marketing campaign that reimagined a classic animated film, DuckTales, with live-action comedy and character-based marketing elements.

The video library of Netflix's chief content officer, Mike Rowe, contains dozens of classic and contemporary animated films that the company can repurpose for marketing purposes. Rowe's videos are an invaluable resource for marketers looking to expand their knowledge about animation and engage consumers through this form of storytelling – whether you're a big brand or a small business trying to grow your reach online.

The marketing power of celebrities and influencers cannot be denied. In 2019 alone, the world's most famous faces and Instagrammers helped brand Sky high Fashion gain nearly 500,000 new Instagram followers.

The fashion company behind the @skyhighfashion Instagram page is no stranger to the camera. Founded by two Swedish entrepreneurs in 2018, the brand grew rapidly after launching its initial product, a backpack, which became a viral sensation on social media.

To follow suit, fashion companies have started creating their own celebrity-studded accounts to drive traffic to their websites and boost product launches. Luxury brands including Ralph Lauren, Burberry, and Victoria Beckham have launched accounts dedicated to marketing their products.

You don't necessarily need to have a celebrity or influencer on your side to gain traction online. Thanks to platforms like TikTok, which is widely available on mobile devices, anyone with a voice can become a marketing superstar and help your business grow.

Virtual reality (VR) is another form of digital marketing that's gaining popularity. In 2019 alone, VR headset sales are expected to hit 22 million units globally, according to Linchpin SEO.

This year, VR headsets like the Oculus Quest and the HTC Vive will be available for less than $500. Although the cost of these devices may be high, the impact on a business' bottom line can be significant. Imagine being able to show customers the features of your product in a way they can't experience it themselves – like getting hands-on with a new smartphone or PC and trying out software applications before purchasing them.

Thanks to the expanding role of AI and automation in marketing and sales, virtual reality can be highly effective at helping businesses of all sizes and types grow. As with any new technology, though, there are a few things you need to keep in mind before you dive in.

Where Do I Start?

First and foremost, you need to set up a VR production studio – whether you have the space or hire freelancers to work remotely with you. VR can be tricky to create and navigate, especially if you're doing it all yourself. You also need a computer, a smartphone, or a tablet to play and interact with content in VR. (You'll find more about setting up a VR production studio in another article in this series.)

Once you have your equipment, you can start developing content for your virtual reality channel. To get inspired, you can visit places like the British Museum in London or the Louvre in Paris to view historical exhibits or artworks that are on permanent display. You can also use software like Google Earth or Microsoft Photos to browse through billions of pixels of high-quality images of places you've never been to and things you've never seen before.

Keep developing content for your channel and when you've got enough material, start pitching your VR project to potential sponsors. If you're serious about digital marketing and sales strategies, you may want to consider further training and education – especially if none of the courses you've already taken in school prepared you for the digital marketing world.

While VR is effective at drawing potential customers into your website and growing your bottom line, it's not without its drawbacks. First and foremost, creating content for VR takes a lot of time. For every hour of video you create, you'll need a minimum of four hours of post-production work to bring it to a standard that's pleasing to viewers – not to mention the technical expertise required to pull it off.

The second downside is that while it's possible to produce quality content for VR, it's not always easy. If you've never done so, it may be tricky to find the right people to help you navigate the technical side of VR – especially if you're doing it all on your own. Even then, it can still be a time-consuming process.

The last downside, which is related to the first, is that while VR is often the focus of many marketing campaigns and business presentations, it's not always the most effective approach. Some prefer to simply read about products instead of using VR to learn about them. Plus, as we mentioned earlier, many can already experience many of the features of a product they're trying to sell via videos on social media platforms like TikTok.