All Hail the New Business Catalyst: DIGITAL!


Stuck in traffic on my way home in Lagos a few days ago, I couldn’t help but notice the large screen on Maryland Mall – for the umpteenth time. Apart from illuminating the stretch to Maryland, it is a TV of sorts. So I performed a little exercise. I took note of the number of advertisements I saw on that screen within three minutes of the car standing at a halt. About seven in all. From financial institutions to movies, the adverts did two things: caught my attention and I could internalise them. This really got me thinking about how digital is changing the way business is done and indeed changing the world. 


Digital as the new business catalyst
A catalyst is something that creates a reaction, without itself undergoing any reaction or change. It is also an event or thing that causes great change. The forward looking organisation is adopting digital in the entirety of its value chain: from inbound, to sales and marketing, service and all the support activities that enable the business to perform. For the purpose of this post, we will focus on digital strategy and marketing.
Digital strategy helps to a transform a business by making use of technology to interact with its people, improve internal processes and create value-driven customer experiences. This requires a deliberate strategic approach and should be fit for purpose – meeting the needs of business and its various audiences.
 Digital marketing  is the art of communication where customers and prospects are engaged without ‘selling’. In other words, digital marketing is exposing your different target audiences to the value of a product, service or brand without directly saying ‘please buy me’.  Examples of digital marketing include email marketing (or direct mailing), social media marketing, influencer marketing and search engine optimisation. Digital marketing also embraces the human element, which is influencer marketing. Little wonder, a lot of companies and products now adopt ‘ambassador marketing’ , exposing the followers of an influencer through his/her own channels to reach specific markets. You would notice artistes; actors and actresses get a lot of ambassadorial deals and make deliberate efforts to show that they have been signed on to their followers. That is influencer marketing
You may ask how digital marketing is changing the way business is done. The opportunity for business to relate with their targets real time means that products and services can reach customers and prospects in good time and through various channels. Customers and prospects in turn can build long lasting, productive relationships with their brands.
Digital marketing also affords business, the advantage of speed: to create awareness, to make enquiries, to facilitate orders and to make payments.
 In summary, technology has been playing a significant role in the way we communicate, we engage and the way we do business. Technology has become the business enabler that determines how businesses thrive, perform and outperform themselves to achieve results.

What opportunities for Business?
Business can take advantage of the opportunities that digital marketing offers: Here are my favourite three:
Data Analytics: Ever wondered why you get the same kind of sponsored posts on your social media accounts, where you are shown related pages or accounts of the things that interest you the most? This is the outcome of data analytics. It is a business to consumer (B2C) tool used to categorise, analyse consumer data to study purchase trends and patterns. Digital makes these possible, helping businesses make informed decisions on marketing segmentation targeting and positioning
Brand building: Strategic and consistent messaging through digital marketing can help an organisation improve an organisation’s brand building efforts. When good communication meets great customer experience, the brand becomes the preferred choice.  
Up selling and Cross selling: Through the same channels and platforms, business can now reach different target market segments and increase the access to its various products and services. With the multiplicity of channels: search engines, social media amongst others, selling one product can help to sell other products real time. The advantage of this is that it is cost effective and efficient.

To my favourites across industries, thumbs up for being ‘new’ organisations. And the winner is:

Financial Services: Guaranty Trust Bank
FMCG: Munchit
Telecommunications:  Airtel
Manufacturing: Lafarge Africa
Real Estate: Adron Homes
Lottery: Bet9ja
Not for Profit: ACT Foundation

What are your preferred brand choices? Share yours in the comment box.

For MSMEs only: would like to articulate a digital strategy for your business? Then send a mail to titilopeoguntuga@gmail.com
Join me again soon, and don’t forget to follow me on LinkedIn: Titilope Oguntuga

Tilloppss

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Brand Building Beyond COVID-19

Hello Champs, With the global emergency confronting the world, and a new normal that we all have to imbibe, there's definitely a new way of doing things  for everyone, marketing professional and everyone committed to thriving at such critical times. Recently, I joined conversations on an online banter session organised by LifestyleHues, a brand and marketing agency. It was indeed an interactive and engaging session that left every participant rethinking how brand building should be done. Find in the accompanying video, highlights from the session. There are indeed a lessons for  brand and marketing professionals, micro, small and medium scale enterprises, business owners nd for everyone looking to build new thriving brands post COVID-19. Looking forward to seeing your comments and questions Tilloppss
Read more

Brand Wars I

The world is at war. Just like nations, people, are at war, brands too try to outshine themselves in some silent subtle wars. Plus, its a global phenomenon. Brands in various categories and across industries strive to be more visible, gain top of the mind brand recall rate and ultimately, mind and wallet share which culminates in market share. This is really not about the war brand/marketing managers engage in to outshine one another. It is more about the activities engaged in to measure to their key performance indices. This is a 3 part series of evident wars I have noticed in Nigeria over the last few months between brands, people and even institutions... Part 1 is between consumer mobile brands Samsung and Tecno... Lets go there... 
Read more