There are basically two types of marketing, one is traditional marketing and the other is digital marketing. This article will focus on digital marketing.

The five main components of marketing include product, promotion, Price strategy, location, and customer service (The 5 items in the marketing mix). With that in mind, I want you to know that while traditional marketing is offline marketing, digital marketing on the other hand happens online but both forms of marketing involve the same marketing principles– “Product, People,
Price, Place and Promotion”. My job here is to show you how the good old marketing techniques have evolved into today’s digital marketing.

Business people like us love numbers a lot. After all, there is a saying that “what you can’t measure, you can’t control”. I feel excited when
I learn according to google that in 2000 361 million people were online and today nearly half of the world is online. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report states that active internet subscribers increased by 8.26% in the 4^th quarter of 2018 alone, indicating rapid growth. This is good news for digital marketing in Nigeria and you can take my word to the bank.

Do you remember in the opening title I promised to share breaking news about my neighbor who has gone digital? Well, her name is mama Ebuka (not her real name). Mama Ebuka is not like an area mama who is popular with everybody. She is just a regular person doing her own thing. I came to know mama Ebuka because she’s my wife’s customer. My wife owns a “popup shop” apart from her 9 –5  job.

One day Mama Ebuka lit the atmosphere with news that she has bought a new Android cell phone. That day, we all celebrated her new status as the proud owner of a smartphone. As if that was not enough mama Ebuka broke another news that she has joined Facebook. Please I will like to quote her in her own words she says, “I don’t know that this is what you people have been enjoying since. I have met my old friends in secondary school on Facebook, friends that I lost their contacts a long time ago. My friends call their husbands
“hubby” on Facebook thank goodness I have learned a name for my husband kudos to Facebook.”

Mama Ebuka is just half the story of my neighbors going digital. I noticed that many people in my area have also acquired internet-enabled cell phones and they tend to do a lot of online shopping

By the way, may I announce to you that I live in a low-cost housing community where people live in “yards” as in “face me – I face you”
houses, if you know what I mean. All the same. Even though it’s a poor neighborhood they represent the biggest market by population in this country. Trends easily go viral here because everybody knows everybody. That’s why I take them seriously. Just a little inspiration and you can sell just about anything in my area(community).

After some research though, I found out that this trend I am seeing is actually driven by the adoption of online shopping among the young people in my community. We will explore this more in the other topics. Next…