How access to affordable marketing services helps business owners reach broader markets
In Jordan’s bustling marketplaces, countless micro and small enterprises (MSEs) and home-based businesses (HBBs) share a common struggle: reaching new customers. While these business owners are passionate and skilled at what they do, many lack the digital marketing expertise to effectively showcase their products online. Limited digital marketing skills, high costs of professional marketing services, and poor visibility on online marketplaces make it difficult for small businesses to grow.
Safa AlGhizyel is a talented maker of handmade wool cardigans, but despite her craftsmanship, she faced this challenge firsthand. “I had challenges utilizing my social media page to showcase the products that I make. I struggled to capture quality images of my products, relying on inconsistent social media posts that failed to generate sales”, she shared. Her experience reflects a common market constraint: talented entrepreneurs often cannot reach customers beyond their immediate networks.
This is where The Growth Pillars for Marketing Services (TGP) - a digital solutions company in Amman - and the Informal Livelihoods Advancement Activity (Iqlaa) - funded by the U.S. Embassy Amman - stepped in. Through a Market Systems Development (MSD) intervention, Iqlaa partnered with TGP, facilitating the redesign of its business model and the development of solutions that address the broader barrier of market access for MSEs and HBBs.
To understand the market, TGP conducted research with nearly 400 businesses, identifying their top priorities: increasing sales, improving marketing skills, and producing higher-quality visual content. Using these insights, TGP developed two complementary solutions: Marketing BelArabi - a user-friendly, Arabic-language e-learning platform - alongside affordable, tailored marketing service packages.
The solution empowers business owners in two ways. Entrepreneurs can learn the skills themselves through practical e-learning modules covering mobile photography, content creation, social media management, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), among others. Delivered by established marketing trainers, the courses offer high-quality self-paced lessons tailored to MSE owners in the Jordanian market, making professional-level marketing training accessible to businesses at a fraction of what marketing agencies charge.
Complementary to the e-learning platform, the second part of the solution is a set of marketing services packages that offer flexible, professional support aligned with businesses’ budgets and growth stages. Businesses can select from specialized packages in social media marketing and management to strengthen their branding and online engagement, website design and development to build a digital presence, and SEO optimization to boost search visibility and drive organic traffic.
The dual approach of the intervention ensures entrepreneurs can either develop their skills independently or access affordable expert services as needed, enabling them to better promote their products, generate sustainable online revenue, and accelerate their business growth.
I learned how to take professional photos of my products using my phone, which helped me reach a broader audience through my social media pages
Safaa, Entrepreneur
For Safaa, the impact was transformative. She completed four courses in digital marketing, branding, social media, and financial management. “My online engagement has tripled, and for the first time, my sales are consistently growing! This platform gave me the skills an expensive agency would have charged me thousands for,” she said.
What sets this transformation apart is how Iqlaa works with the market itself, not just individual businesses. Rather than providing one-off training or short-term support, Iqlaa partnered with TGP to strengthen its capacity, expand its offerings, and embed services that meet the real needs of MSEs and HBBs. By working at the ‘marketing’ market system level, this intervention addresses systemic barriers to market access, ensuring that solutions are scalable, sustainable, and driven by market demand.
The changes continue because market actors like TGP own and drive them. TGP operates as a self-sustaining business, providing affordable, high-quality marketing solutions to small enterprises. Entrepreneurs like Safaa benefit from services that are embedded in the market, not tied to donor funding, allowing them to grow their businesses over the long term.
TGP aims to reach 575 MSEs and HBBs across Jordan. As it expands in reach and offerings, more business owners will gain the tools and skills they need to access new customers, increase sales, and become competitive in a digital economy.
Beyond marketing, Iqlaa is applying the MSD approach to strengthen the wider ecosystem for small businesses – addressing other key market functions such as access to inputs, logistics, and finance – to build a more resilient and inclusive market system. By tackling systemic barriers, Iqlaa and TGP are creating lasting opportunities for small businesses across Jordan to grow, compete, and thrive well beyond the life of the project.