Poll Question: How do you mostly attract new customers?
Total votes: 181
Poll Results:
WhatsApp Advertising → 80 votes (44.2%)
Word of Mouth/Referrals → 43 votes (23.8%)
Facebook Advertising → 21 votes (11.6%)
Flyers and Posters → 7 votes (3.9%)
Other → 6 votes (3.3%)
Walk-in traffic → 5 votes (2.8%)
Online Classifieds Marketplaces → 5 votes (2.8%)
Website → 4 votes (2.2%)
Newspapers → 4 votes (2.2%)
Door-to-door client approach → 2 votes (1.1%)
Community events → 2 votes (1.1%)
Cold Calling → 2 votes (1.1%)
Key Findings:
WhatsApp Dominates Customer Acquisition: With 44.2% of votes, WhatsApp advertising is by far the most popular method for attracting new customers, capturing more than two in every five responses.
Word of Mouth Strong Second: 23.8% rely on word of mouth and referrals, showing organic customer recommendations remain powerful despite digital marketing growth.
Digital Methods Lead: WhatsApp (44.2%), Facebook (11.6%), online classifieds (2.8%), and websites (2.2%) collectively represent 60.8% of customer acquisition, showing digital channels dominate over traditional methods.
Traditional Methods Minimal: Flyers and posters (3.9%), newspapers (2.2%), door-to-door (1.1%), and cold calling (1.1%) receive minimal support, showing traditional marketing has largely been displaced.
What This Means:
The 44.2% dominance of WhatsApp advertising reflects its unique advantages in Zimbabwe’s business environment. WhatsApp’s widespread adoption, affordable data bundles from mobile operators, ability to share product images and videos, direct customer communication, group marketing capabilities, and Status feature for broadcasting offers make it the most effective and accessible customer acquisition tool for Zimbabwean businesses.
Word of mouth at 23.8% shows that despite digital dominance, customer referrals and reputation remain crucial. Combined, WhatsApp (44.2%) and word of mouth (23.8%) represent 68.0% of customer acquisition, suggesting successful businesses blend direct digital outreach with organic referrals.
Facebook’s 11.6% shows it plays a secondary role to WhatsApp, possibly because Facebook advertising requires more technical setup and often higher costs than simple WhatsApp marketing. The minimal support for traditional methods like flyers (3.9%), newspapers (2.2%), and cold calling (1.1%) shows these have been almost completely replaced by digital alternatives.
Key Takeaway:
WhatsApp advertising (44.2%) is the dominant customer acquisition method for Zimbabwean businesses, nearly doubling the impact of word of mouth (23.8%) and quadrupling Facebook advertising (11.6%). Together, digital methods capture 60.8% of customer acquisition, while traditional methods like flyers, newspapers, and cold calling have become largely obsolete. The results highlight WhatsApp’s position as Zimbabwe’s primary business marketing platform, driven by universal adoption, affordable access, and direct customer communication capabilities that make it more effective and accessible than any other marketing channel.
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