Marketing Commercial Records Centres in Zimbabwe: the Success Story of Archive-it Services®

This research project presents an assessment that was carried out to investigate the marketing activities of Commercial Records Centres (CRCs). The major aim of the project was to find out how CRCs, Archive-It Services as a typical case, managed to penetrate the Zimbabwean market especially during the economic meltdown period. Of major interest to the study were the marketing strategies that are employed by Archive-It Services in its endeavour to gain ground and recognition. The case study research method was adopted. Questionnaires and interviews were employed as primary data collection tools. Secondary data was collected through content analysis of the company‟s records such as director‟s annual reports, company‟s profile, brochures and registers. For data presentation, tables, pie-charts and graphs were used. The research study found out that, although there are some financial and technical challenges that are being faced, marketing is actually one of the top priority functions at Archive-It Services as manifested by the number of marketing activities that the company carries out. This eventually explains the company‟s success in introducing such an uncommon idea especially in the Zimbabwean market where the current economic conditions are not so favourable for ventures of such nature. Recommendations include familiarisation with the marketing concept, introduction of advertising as part of its promotion toolkit, aggressive campaigns and continued prioritisation of marketing on resource allocation