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Guide for Marketing Your Small Business In Nigeria.
In our earlier post about the idea which spawned Triift Africa, we were enthusiastic about the prospects of helping small businesses grow using #HustleToPortfolio (We were first to claim it). Since then, we have provided many businesses with advice that details low hanging fruits that can be utilized. We have done this by increasing their profitability, providing low-interest loans to help them scale, and forming partnerships with them to grow. This warms our hearts and drives us to do more for small businesses in Africa.
Through our partnership with African entrepreneurs, Triift Africa understands where the shoes pinch and how best to assist. Getting your business idea off the ground comes with many responsibilities, such as operations management, finance management, and now marketing. With so much information to consume every day, getting out there can sometimes be a struggle. Will my business be lost in the shuffle?
Billboards, TV commercials, and all that other stuff your growing business cannot afford probably come to mind when you think of marketing for your small company. If you put your brain to work where your budget cannot, marketing doesn’t have to break the bank. You can use the following ideas to market your small business successfully.
Recommendations, reviews, and referrals
Marketing for small businesses is often overlooked due to these 3 R’s. Have you heard the phrase “word of mouth”? A friend’s recommendation increases a customer’s likelihood to purchase a product four times over. Despite the rise of technology, personal recommendations remain the most trusted. You will find out about your business from your customers when you deliver excellent products and services. Take advantage of the 3Rs by following these steps.
- Encourage your customers to write reviews and referrals. They want to know their views matter, since people prefer not to exchange money for money, but their opinions are worth something.
- Create a simple reward system for references. You could offer coupons for referrals, or ask your customers to share your posts on social media to receive discounts. Think like your customers, build a referral program that takes them into account, and don’t ask for more than what is comfortable for them.
It is not necessary to be in every social media platform, but rather the one that best fits the business’ target audience. In order to reach your target audience, you need to be creating content they will like and connect with. Making your marketing feel human and relatable, rather than just being another name and profile post stuff no one cares about, is the key to this. You can do it this way.
Planning is the key to achieving good and sustainable business success.
Remember what it says about putting energy into the right things rather than everything, so plan your marketing strategy, choose effective tactics, and go from there rather than wasting time on everything? Understanding your target audience and defining your marketing objectives
- Commit to consistently posting content on social media and develop a plan. Your uniqueness sets you apart from your competitors.
- You don’t want to keep selling when you can just give? Your social media accounts should contain free tips relating to your products and services. Value-creating brands are appreciated by their customers. Check out Triift Africa on Instagram for tips on how to grow your business.
- Create rich conversations, engage with customers, and give your business a human face by using free tools like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger. Keep in touch with individuals and reach out to them. You could eventually have close to a thousand people following your brand, which can eventually be used to drive traffic to your website or drive sales at other touchpoints.
SMS and email marketing.
Keeping your business in the forefront of your customers’ minds drives top of mind awareness. In Africa, most SMS are similar to emails, so you can decide whether to use available platforms for emailing your customers or sending them SMS messages.
Consider making your emails or SMS more appealing to your customer by personalizing them, attaching offers and deals, and adding a bit of humor. It all boils down to having a successful strategy.
Weblogs and websites.
Having a website acts as an online storefront for curious customers who are in different stages of their buying journeys and may be eager to do business with you.
In addition to letting people know about your products and offerings, having your own blog lets you tell a little bit about your brand. Websites are much more powerful than simple business cards, but people frequently just create websites to have something on them.
Pay-per-click marketing and search engine optimization
It includes all the activities you undertake to make your online digital assets (websites, blogs, social media, etc.) visible to search engines (SEO). You can benefit from higher search rankings if your website or blog answers real questions.
You can advertise via PPC by saying, “Hey Facebook or Google (there are many other platforms), you know who I want to reach, I will show you my brand and for every click, I’ll pay” You can use this method to drive valuable traffic and customers to your business at a reasonable cost.
Partnerships.
There are more than a dozen ways that small businesses can market themselves. Here are a few more:
- Attend conferences and events that pertain to your service or product.
- Create Whatsapp, Facebook and forum groups for your small business. Nairaland is a good forum for Nigerian small businesses, but you need to know how to navigate its vast audience.
- Consider participating in local trade shows, purchasing samples, business cards, and fliers.
- Your business logo should be catchy as well as your catchphrase.
- Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. In any gathering that requires it, you should be able to speak clearly and quickly about your products and services.