Background
GrowthBond, funded by the UN, provides online marketing financing for SMEs that can't access traditional bank loans. By automating credit assessment and enabling real-time funds tracking, they help the 450M+ underserved companies worldwide. When the International Trade Centre (ITC) needed to tackle youth unemployment and the digital skills gap in The Gambia simultaneously, GrowthBond brought their automation-first approach to the challenge.
Challenge
The Gambia faces a dual problem: small businesses lack the resources to run modern digital marketing, and young people have no path into the digital economy without training, experience, or a portfolio. Both groups were stuck — businesses couldn't afford expertise, and aspiring marketers couldn't build it without clients.
“It's nearly impossible to be competitive in the international freelance market without proper training, experience, and a strong portfolio.”
Solution
GrowthBond and ITC built a program where both sides win: ITC funded SMBs to hire newly trained freelancers, and GrowthBond ran the entire recruitment, training, and follow-up flow through automation:
- Click-to-Messenger ads drove applicants from Facebook into a qualification flow
- Automated lead qualification filtered candidates and saved approved applicants to Google Sheets
- Sequences kept enrolled students on track with reminders and class notifications
- Two local mentors ran live trainings on Facebook, with automated reminders sent ahead of each session
Impact
The program generated results across both sides of the equation:
- 370 applicants for the freelance marketing program
- 61% sign-up rate
- 57% show-up rate
- 130 companies expressed interest in hiring trained freelancers
“We expect to continue receiving a constant flow of companies lined up to hire freelancers in the future.”
Ferdinand Kjærulff
CEO, GrowthBond