Struggling to keep their businesses afloat despite the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, entrepreneurs from the Cordillera provinces who attended the Digital Marketing Training under the OTOP Next Generation Program or OTOP Next Gen felt a reassurance that they can bring their losing enterprise back with online marketing.
During a recent training conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry-Baguio-Benguet Office, forty-two (42) mentees from the different provinces of the Cordillera CAR were able to meet and interact with experts in digital marketing and promotion in both physical and online mode. Because of the need for social distancing under the new normal in conducting conferences, the participants were grouped in three batches with the first and second group under Food Industry and the third group under furniture, wearables and home style.
DTI-CAR ARD Juliet Lucas and PD Freda Gawisan visited to give support to the participating MSMEs who disclosed massive losses of income and capital because of the pandemic. Their families, specially their kids, were badly affected and much more to a mother who has a special child who bartered her knit wears for diapers.
Digital Marketing is the promotion of products or brands using electronic device or the internet. The participants learned that digital marketing can be an opportunity or avenue for them to increase sales and expand market access through DTI market touchpoints such as the OTOP Hub, GO Lokal, Manila Fame, National Food fair, Sikat Pinoy and even through email and social media, among others.
In another recent development, a lecture on Entrepreneurial Mind-setting was conducted by DTI-Apayao prior to the awarding of livelihood kits to 15 beneficiaries from various municipalities in the province of Apayao through the Livelihood Seeding Program – (LSP-PBG). The livelihood kits include sari-sari store showcase, loom weaving threads, handicraft materials, cacao fermenting cases, food processing equipment and barber chairs, among others.**
