Digital Marketing in Nigeria - A step-by-step Guide

Digital marketing is important.

And, yes, it's essential when you need to grow more in sales as a business. 

As it is, consumer's behavior and interaction with businesses really have changed as they trust more in business that lives online.

In fact, with Google dominating the most market share nearly 98.49% in Nigeria tell why most consumers trust products or businesses that go live on Google even more.

That's because customer's trust for purchase decision now depends on the community of multiple touchpoints they encountered during their buyer's journey that help build more on awareness and consideration in their decision stage.

It's essential you know long ago why consumers really don't convert for what you want them to buy but why you want them to buy.

It's just a two-way agreement, for both of them they work in different hooks.

• What you want them to buy - It's a common process that businesses use to deliver most of their messages to prospects out there which is so rigid to the interest of the audience's point of view.

When you come out as a business with the intention that shows you only want them for a business and nothing more that way they'll as well show the intention why they really don't want you for business.

Just because they believe they're humans like you and they need to be respected and nurture better for your business. 

But just that digital marketing isn't used for that reason to channel out a proper inbound strategy to grow more in qualified leads.

Most of the concept used in digital marketing today doesn't have a purpose of what is teaching out in Nigeria.

Even with the rapid growth of digital marketing agencies in Nigeria more often you see they all do the same there's not too many dynamics in what their content brings, the brand story looks too direct and plain to the call of the audience.

Many as they now haven't realized yet the negative impacts it brings to businesses or when there's so much need to acquire more in clients just because not anymore you have to tell prospects who is a good fit for your services what you do.

It sucks as you need to make them know for a reason to believe.

Not any more people just buy but they buy more from a good brand. So if you ain't churning your digital marketing strategy right to the audience's interest you'll struggle more in generating more qualified leads.

• Why you want them to buy - Not every brand or digital marketer in Nigeria happens to realize why they could gain more qualified clients through the concept of driving human feelings.

It actually a concept just a few yet know about when you study the way it ranges from the digital marketing point of view.

By now you'll have realized technology has evolved and humans interaction also changes but one thing that changes drastically isn't the competition standpoint you already know that happens almost every given year.

But one of the big reason we're seeing digital marketing change so much rely on the adoption of customer's new trends and interactions.

With a number of smartphone users in Nigeria predicted to grow to more than 140 million by 2025.

It shows why the online market will so much dominate the physical market trend. One of the reasons we're going to see these changes relies so much upon the GenX and Y1.

Why? they're demographic who's technology-minded, who they know the importance of having a big influence in the online market place.

There're instances upon how we're seeing things change with many are home driving bunches of Nairas which only happen will the help of digital marketing.

So that for many reasons still direct some questions to you as a brand, with so many opportunities on the internet today and with prospects finding you as a business tell me how have you leverage the trend?

If you don't, your competitors will.

That's because they're willing to stay ahead for every customer's touchpoint.

By now you should know how shoppers more often undergo their journey, more often they use Google as the starting point before they decided on making a sensible purchase decision.

If by any means your business isn't doing so well and your competitors do you'll have more struggle in the case of generating more qualified leads.

So that's why you've to mind more using digital marketing as a cornerstone to build a home for your contacts, equivalent to your customers for more in sales.

Today, I've got you some strategies you can as well use to level up your digital marketing game to grow your business overnight.

1. Use email marketing to build authentic fans

Long ago, most of these marketers use email marketing to drive catalyst towards sales as that to them it's a great way to keep in touch with their customers plus the potential ones.

Which means then email marketing is a form of digital marketing use to deliver some timely and personalized messages that help grow customer's desire to care more for a product.

Not only just email marketing help grow customer's desire to business for leads, in fact, in addition to the history of email marketing, only a few years down the line, Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corporation, sent an email to nearly 400 users on Arpanet, advertising DEC machines. The result?

About $13 million in sales. 

This first email blast foreshadowed a bright future for the world of marketing, developing what is known today as one of the most efficient and important segments of internet marketing.

If yes, we hold that true, but let's think of it now that technology has evolved, with a majority of prospects creating a behind the scene drama for brand authenticity.

It means not just then that competition was even fair enough, imagine comparing then to now, I think it's actually insane. 

Now, technology is the big reason that we're seeing drastically change to consumer's behavior, technology is the reason why competitions grow, for every damn year.

And the technology that's drastically changing the future trend is known as digital marketing.

For this reason, it means if you're going to generate more qualified leads into qualified fans intent you don't anymore have to entertain but educate, inspire, and delight your prospects about what you do.

And that may come through showing your business in person, building your business for a human connection, stay more than your products, and do more than just a business.

With the population of email newsletter subscribers growing rapidly more in Nigeria, 70% of those above the age of 21 years check their email inbox once in a given week.

With over 20% do more than once in the same scenario, that shows email marketing is really striving for leads intent in Nigeria, it's an authentic digital marketing source to grow your business more for nurturing die-hard fans.

If that is the case, how can you do just that?

A good example of this is David's topic about fandom for business, there's so much you can practice and learn from that article.

But here's the epic thing about what he said about fandom for business, How are you ensuring that your marketing builds brand awareness and positive ROI? is it with analytics? Automation? The latest marketing software? If so, you need to think deeper.

For the past decade, people have been bombarded with superficial communication, funneled into automated email sequences, and tracked by data collectors. More tech is not going to make your marketing more impactful.

Instead of becoming statistics, people want something else. They want a true human connection. They want purpose more than products and services. And they want to build meaningful relationships with the brands they buy from according to David.

With buyers more educated than ever, businesses need to find new ways to stand out from the competition. Focusing on what customers love helps customers build distinctive brands, it also creates customer loyalty according to David.

As per that, it's one of the reasons customer's interest grows, customers do more better once their emotional state grows towards a business.

They often offer more hands for help when they see true commitment and desire from the employees who're passionate about their works and not too much have the interest to make them buy but delight them to buy.

Nearly 90% of employees in Nigeria are not so passionate about their works. In fact, they're only after the Niara and go home. 

In reality, if you have an employee who doesn't take their job over their family and everything else, they ain't your employee, they're just there to add up with numbers.

That's why many entrepreneurs in Nigeria are suffering more to grow their business not to talk of driving more in sales, how Fandom can change Nigeria's entrepreneur content game is the guide that can change you for who your employees are.

Using digital marketing channels like the ones below:

• Email newsletter
• Email Template
• Chatbot to boost a one-on-one conversation.

All that isn't just enough to grow people to become die-hard fans overnight.

Instead, the best way you can go about everything is to know who your ideal customers are:

Be sure that the purpose of your business is clear and is around to those who love you for your business, your customers.

That way, try to build purpose using digital marketing bottom line like email marketing and be sure you stay above your products.

In fact, one of the easier ways you can build fans for your business using email newsletters in Nigeria is to personalize the copy of your messages to care and delight your prospects even more.

Instead of bombarding them with some product announcement that you felt they should so much know about, why not make them become fans before they become customers?

Just because technology has evolved and to use the normal old format, that's emailing them some product announcements isn't so crucial anymore, the end-process will only make them have a reason to do business with you and nothing more.

Which means they're just there to do business for a short while, not to stay forever as fans for your business.

Customers who aren't proud to use your business stickers anywhere, anytime, anyday, aren't your customers.

The anatomy of digital marketing really has changed over into another fashionable realm that businesses and entrepreneurs in Nigeria should have realized even by now the implication, opportunities, and reality it might bring over time.

It isn't about cold calls anymore even with the marketing automation available, yet if you ain't getting the content strategy right is unlikely you'll make such business grow.

The future of digital marketing in Nigeria relies in the power on how you build customer satisfaction and qualified fans for your business.

If you're going to stay above anyone else the concept begins now from the way you stay passionate about your customer's need and interest.

Why?

A customer who isn't your fan isn't your customer. Customers who have a passion for your business has everything for your business.

So, the moment starts with the given digital marketing tools within your reach, use that to build customers who're a big fan before they become customers.

2. Still use digital marketing to build awareness and leads

I've heard a lot of commotion around marketers in Nigeria why offline marketing isn't the thing anymore, well, I almost agree with that.

Just because there's a reflex in the customer's need more importantly, in the way they differently build trust.

According to Nairametrics research, Nigeria's largest company has spent a whopping #85.7 billion on advertising, branding, marketing, and promotion "ABMP" expenses in 2019.

To you, that's a lot of money just to build customer trust and brand awareness. 

Just think of it this way, Globalcom, Airtel, and MTN spend millions Niaras, annually, not only they do that all spending on billboard advertising, fortunately, they don't.

                                                   (Image credit - Medium)

They even spend more on digital marketing than anything else. Even in addition to the nairametrics research above, big brands spend a huge chunk of their money on billboards, TV ads, Newspapers, and digital ads.

Which means brands are really competing everywhere, but must they do that?

I'm not saying you should completely stop the spending on traditional ads, that's because some brands will still have success with traditional marketing.

Since technology has evolved you'll need the concept of digital marketing if you want to survive.

And yes, you need to figure out which platforms your customers are using to interact richly for information.

If you're trying to target audience on the level of tv ads with the given stats below, unfortunately, you won't succeed based on the number.

As it is, Gen Y1 and Y2 are spending more time on the internet so if your brand is spending more money on traditional commercials.

It's time you need to adapt and improve your digital presence.

Tv, billboards, radio, and newspapers alone won't generate qualified leads intent anymore.

That's because the internet is too accessible for consumers. Other digital marketing channels can't compete anymore.

It's just simple.

Consumers spend their time doing research on the product to buy, while conducting research, if your brand isn't accessible they'll find someone else.

It's that simple?

That's more reason you have to improve your digital marketing tactics.

If they can't find you, they believe nothing like your business exists.

Kindy, do me a favor, the next time you conduct research about a product, you go-ahead doing that using your mobile phone.

You conduct that just because your mobile is accessible and internet friendly.

Just with a few minutes stroll on the website, you're ready to make a purchase decision.

That's because of just a few minutes stroll your purchase desires were meet, and other channels can't compete, they still need to optimize for mobile search to generate more leads.

For this reason, let's take a look at the benefits of digital marketing.

So, the benefits and importance of digital marketing in Nigeria.

• It help boost ROI
• It help with segmentation.
• With digital marketing there is a reason for acquiring more in customer retention.
• It boosts business reach
• Discovering of marketing benchmark and insight
• Grow businesses big
• It increase product engagement
• With digital marketing you can boost brand awareness
• It boosts authority and product value.
• It helps with lead generation 

3 Invest so much in SEO

Algorithm changes almost every time, 99.9% of Marketers don't like these changes.

What do we have to do when it's Google that changes its algorithm?

The sad thing is that till today we can't still figure out how Google makes these changes.

What exactly to optimize for and how Google Rank brain ranks websites in SERP.

As a marketer, one way or the other that really affect leads.

If any of these changes whatsoever affects your search rankings just don't stop the good practices of SEO.

You can bounce back when everything is right and double your sales funnel overnight.

Just don't panic, it's Google for you

But I've got this to tell you if you Google search "iPhone" just from the screenshot below.

You see that the unpaid version of the search engine dominates without even a single ad appearing in the search result lists.

What does this mean to a business that wants to attract an online shopper?

Let's say you're online shopper this is the most familiar way you'll undergo your buyer's journey.

And, yes, even for everyone else.

But the real truth is that if you look just from the screenshot above you should have noticed that the version of apple was split in terms of country directories.

This means anywhere you making Google searches from, Google uses your internet protocol address to detect where users are engaging from based on location.

But in a case, where your business attracts international audiences and you wish to use digital marketing to boost brand awareness, traffic, and leads. 

Then what you've to do is to optimize for each country code directories which help you in ranking well for that specific country.

                        (image credit: Wikipedia)

Using a specific domain extension, for example, .com, it's so generic it means you signal more to rank worldwide, and doing that you can see isn't the best marketing approach.

For example, when you want to succeed and improve your market SEO share, generate more traffic, the best way you've to do this is to optimize for different countries and languages.

If your business allows international SEO and you want to attract new buyers that speak in their dialects.

You've to think of going global to attract new customers, if your business is an English speaking language, and you've got an audience who came from a non-English country.

You've to stretch your arm using international SEO to boost influence and attract those new customers to your business.

If you're going to target globally, you've to also optimize for different languages.

This is the case, it's just that simple, you don't have to use a translator, you've to go extreme by hiring more of a localize person that speaks in their dialects.

Using that concept will help improve your conversion and generate more traffic for the audience you want for your business.

But there's something, local SEO is leading the pack in Nigeria.

I'll be honest, let's do some random stats.

• 30% of all Google searches have local search intent
• Near me, searches in Nigeria have grown to roughly 120% faster than commercial, and local-based searches.
• 80% of online buyer's keywords in Nigeria contain a local pack.
• 60% of consumers in Nigeria that Google a local product go-ahead for a purchase decision.

So it's clear, the consumer behavior is now localized, you also need to improve your SEO strategy for local buyers.

And that's so simple, you can get it done using google my business, it's just a listing directory that's optimized for local buyers.

4. Segment your paid ads based on your ideal customer

Digital marketing is changing, to get more deal done you have to improve your technology wages.

You've to realize that there's a big shock into the way marketers spend in advertisement these days.

Just from the look of the screenshot below, Google Adwords spend is estimated over 55% more than other ads created.

Image credit: NeilPatel.com

Just think of it this way and Guess what.

Do you know what marketing channel see a boost in return on investment?

According to the research, SEO receives a huge dramatic boost in return on investment.

Nearly, 525% in ROI.

Other forms of digital marketing see some drastic changes, like the one of Google Adwords also boost influence in the budget.

Although marketers in Nigeria should understand one thing here, you are going to optimize for conversion if you want to see any of these changes.

For example, if your marketing team first optimization process is to generate more visitors in order to nurture them for conversion.

The mistake most of these marketers we likely do is that they always optimize too early for conversion.

If you are a brand like Globacom, if you ain't but do me a favor the next time you encounter their advert.

Just try to take a slow pause, if you're smart as a marketer in Nigeria maybe that will make you realized one thing.

For this thing, you'll notice that for any new product they build first on brand awareness.

Why?

Just because is globacom is a thing they can directly optimize for conversion.

But they are smart enough to know if they do just that they'll lose out to some new leads.

But for this reason, they focus more on customer acquisition and retention.

You already know that this brand has a big fan base, why do they still have to spend big on advertisement?

It's just simple, they need more leads and relevance.

Sadly, small businesses may struggle having to spend big, they can't just compete.

But you can as well not have to spend big and still acquire more qualified leads to your business.

The marketing strategy is just so simple, just make it go this way.

Let's say you're ready to make your business boost some reach, there is a way to do that for conversion.

If there is a need to know who is a good fit for your business, it's best you create an ideal customers profile.

The ideal customer profile will help so much with segmentation, therefore, having a big influence on customer selection.

Conclusion

The future of marketing in Nigeria need to stable more with the concept of turning customers into fans through various digital media

Digital marketing is ready to stay and forever, and if you so much want to care about how it's going to stay.

Reading this guide about how to start a digital marketing agency in Nigeria can help you.

I'm Destined boy, a certified digital and inbound marketer.