Four Powerful Hacks for Effective Digital Marketing

As at April 2022, about 5 billion people were reported as active internet users; this is about 63% of the world’s population. And 93% of these people (4.65 billion) are on social media. In Nigeria alone, over 108 million people used the internet and 76.7 million of these Nigerians were online buyers in the year 2020.

Hence, taking your business to the internet is one sure way of expanding your reach. Whether your business is online or offline, big or small, to advance in this digital age, your business needs to have an active online presence and this is where digital marketing comes into play.

Self Marketing
There are over 500 digital marketing agencies in Nigeria; companies that either market businesses for customers and/or train individuals on how to self-market their businesses. While it is more convenient to have professionals do the marketing for you, it is common knowledge that these services do not come cheap. Hence, the do-it-yourself trend.

However, there are underlying questions about the self-digital-market. Questions like: is it enough to know how to design graphics and package your business? Is it enough to have millions of followers on all the trending social media platforms? What does it take to effectively market your business online and reap bountiful results at just the right time?

This week’s episode of The Hub features answers to these questions and literally provides the necessary knowledge to digital marketing. The podcast hosted SkyHub Nigeria’s co-founder, Ahmed Yusuf, who spoke at length about the benefits and challenges of digital marketing in Nigeria. During the interview, he also gave hacks and tricks that every business owner should note when leveraging digital marketing. Here are explanations to the easy hacks he told CrestHub.

Easy Hacks for Effective Digital Marketing:
– Have Basic Knowledge:
Mr Ahmed, who had years of experience in digital marketing and training individuals on the topic, is of the opinion that every business owner should be digitally savvy, especially small-scale entrepreneurs who are just starting and on a low budget.

He said, “in the beginning, you’re going to be bootstrapping a lot. There isn’t going to be a lot of resources. But if you know how to market yourself, how to build simple landing pages, how to design graphics and rank on search engines, it’s going to be better than depending on a third party.”

Having basic knowledge on the topic helps you stay afloat. It helps reduce the number of mistakes made along the way and helps you plan ahead and make the right decisions.

– Use simple tools:
Be it planning or marketing tools, the trick according to the digital marketer is to stay simple. Choose the easier and readily available tools such as trello for planning your tasks, google forms for collecting data, canva for designing graphics, google docs for documents and the right social media for advertising.

– Send more text messages:
“WhatsApp marketing is one thing that is going to grow a lot in the next couple of years, but one of the fastest ways to reach people in Nigeria is through bulk SMS”.

Although Nigeria has a growing internet penetration, the country still lags behind in internet connectivity and unlimited data plans. Hence, not a lot of people stay connected all the time. Also, there is the tendency that your messages on social media might be skipped or ignored. Thus, text messages to your contacts/customers stand a higher chance of meeting them at the right time.

– Know your crowd:
Buying and selling of social media accounts is becoming a trend in the Nigerian digital marketing space. Marketers in this category buy social media accounts from their original owners—people with thousands/millions of followers—so as to reach a larger audience, at a faster pace. While this technique works for some marketers, it doesn’t work for all.

“I don’t advise any of my customers to buy emails, social media accounts with already existing followers/contacts because most times, they’re not your target audience. Don’t get numbers from third parties and randomly reach out. That is going to be a very big turn-off. If you’re going to build a contact list, make sure that everyone on that list gives you their consent to message them and is interested in what you are selling”, he advised.

What every digital marketer must understand is the need to plan their audience. Knowing who likes what and which product or solutions different people need, helps you plan how to market. It is easier to economically market your business if you know which issues you solve and which set of people need those solutions; marketing blindly only leads you on a blind goose-chase.

In conclusion:
Patience is a virtue! Digital marketing is not magic and as such, it takes time and dedication to get desired results. As a digital marketer, you must be patient and deliberate. You need to understand that not everyone will patronize you the first time they hear about you because competition is fierce. But one thing that sets you apart is your content. If your product is top notch and your strategies on point, then eventually, it will all pay off. Rushing the process will only steer you off course.