Omodara Adediran, Author at msmehub2

Strategies for Marketing: Case Study of the Friendly Fruit Seller

Marketing on the Streets – Lesson from my Friendly Fruit Seller On a Saturday morning, I combined my morning walk with a quick grocery run and stopped by my regular fruit vendor to buy some fruits. As we were standing there, a lively procession passed by, featuring guys on roller skates, blaring speakers, dancers, and an energetic hypeman. My favorite fruit seller quipped, “Na so dem dey do o, dem go still go far far o (That’s how they do it; they’ll go far!)” I couldn’t help but chuckle and shake my head. I was familiar with the supermarket responsible for this event and shopped there regularly, though I wouldn’t call myself a loyal customer. While I observed the small event taking place, I began to contemplate the noticeable differences in customer engagement approaches between my fruit vendor and a nearby supermarket. This reflection highlighted important insights for businesses looking to establish and maintain customer loyalty. Many businesses fall into the trap of overlooking their loyal clientele in pursuit of new customers. However, the key lies in recognizing the potential of your current customer base. These satisfied customers could transform into enthusiastic advocates for your brand, given the right attention and care. On the other hand, there’s my friendly fruit seller, whom I faithfully patronize because of his dedication to customer engagement, quality of customer service and his cheery attitude. Strategies for Marketing from the Friendly Fruit Seller There’s a lot of strategies for marketing that we can learn from my friendly fruit seller about sustaining a loyal customer base: 1. Adaptability: You see, my guy always operated a ‘cash at hand’ payment system i.e. you buy bananas and you pay with cash; the one we see, not transfers or crypto. When the whole cashless period hit Nigeria, he opened an account (or maybe he always had it) and gracefully made sure we could make transfers without missing out on our weekly supply. Also Read: Marketing on the Street: Lessons from a Moi Moi Seller 2. Product Information: My guy is as knowledgeable about his fruits as the farmer who grows them. He can tell you a ripe watermelon from a white one, a sweet pineapple from a sour one, you name it! He then keeps us abreast of the seasons and when our favorite fruits are fading away. He knows his stuff! 3. Customer Service: This young man knows how to treat a customer well. Watching him attend to multiple customers at a go is a vibe! Plus he understands each customer’s needs, especially the regulars. He knows who prefers flawless fruit and who would rather not bother with cutting it themselves. Reminds me of a quote from Daniel Priestley’s Oversubscribed; ‘You build such a powerful relationship with buyers that they ignore other sellers‘. 4. Loyalty/Promotions: We regulars enjoy regular sprinkles of “jaras (extras)” and special discounts, because the fruit seller knows that we will be back and so, he does what he can to keep us happy. Unlike our neighborhood supermarket that runs a complicated point system that has not yielded any return. Now we may argue that it’s easy for him to manage because it’s a Nano business and applying these strategies for marketing at scale may be tough, which is true. I however do see the feasibility of applying some of the simple lessons I have stated here. In the dynamic world of business, the essence of customer loyalty often gets lost in the pursuit of expansion and novelty. The story of my friendly fruit seller serves as a reminder, urging businesses to invest in genuine customer relationships, personalized service, and meaningful loyalty initiatives. Embracing these fundamental principles, even on a larger scale, can pave the way for enduring customer loyalty and sustainable business growth. Let us draw inspiration from the streets and adopt the invaluable lessons offered by those who truly understand the art of customer loyalty.

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Elements of a Creative Marketing Brief

A short and sweet guide on writing a creative marketing brief… “It did not convert! It did not drive sales! This is not my target audience! There is no engagement! Nobody liked the posts! My followers did not increase and the list goes on. The common statements you will hear from entrepreneurs when they review their marketing activity. Before we investigate further, ‘Can you please show me your brief’? One of my greatest takeaways from numerous marketing campaigns is, your campaign is only as good as your brief. Look, if you’re trying to get any tangible result from your marketing, you must know how to put together a brief. There are no shortcuts, it just has to be done. A lot of failed campaigns can be traced to an unclear brief or even or even worse, no brief at all. You need a good brief to save time on projects, get you the results you need and reduce conflict. Let’s start with all the things that briefs are not: Without further ado, I’ll jump right into defining what a creative marketing brief is and what the essentials should be. What is a Creative Marketing Brief? Hubspot defines a creative brief as a roadmap that takes a project from ideation to completion. It ensures the scope, timeline, key stakeholders, and purpose of the project are communicated clearly. The creative brief is the single source of truth for everyone working on a project. If questions come up or tasks become unclear, the creative brief will steer things in the right direction. Adobe explains further ; Creative briefing isn’t just cobbling together a document, it’s wielding a tool that facilitates clear and thorough communication from the beginning of the design process. A clear brief can prevent last-minute changes, misunderstandings and conflicting objectives Now that we know what a brief is, what should it entail? Essentials of a Good Creative Marketing Brief Wondering how to write one? Hubspot has some great templates here. I wanted to keep this article short and sweet, because you have work to do! Please promise me( in the comments section) that you will commit to using creative briefs today. Do it for your business. Now go and write some result inducing briefs!You have got this !???

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Understanding the 3 R’s of a Marketing Plan

A new year is here! Is it too late to be super excited? I delayed this writing just to ensure that I have your full attention and to be honest, I recently resumed work and I am still a little sad about it. Anyway, back to this important piece. I am here to explain the 3 R’s of a marketing plan to you, in less than 1,200 words. An ambitious goal, but stick with me, it is going to be worth it. We shall focus on three things. Reviews. Reward. Repurpose. Remember these three words because they will set you free this year. They will set you free from the daily hustle of trying to acquire new customers, and the daily grind of coming up with ‘engaging content’. Save your energy this year because who knows what the almighty algorithms will bring forth? We will not be discussing your objectives, goals, products, target audience and all the others that you already know. Instead, we shall focus on the things that you do not pay attention to. Let us start with reviews: Reviews are golden for you this year. They are unarguably one of your most powerful tools and you have to get them. Wondering how? I wrote all about it here. Plan for them, beg for them and then creatively use them; whatever it takes. Next up is rewards: For a business to remain profitable, retaining customers should be top on your list. The focus should be on keeping your customers as opposed to trying to acquire new customers everyday. How do you do this? One way is to put a customer reward system in place this year. Go the extra mile, treat your customers well and do what you need to do (within reason of course), to make them your super fans. This is a great goal because you can then get to keep them, cross sell or up-sell to them and the best part? They will bring in more of them (new customers). Is there any loss in this game? I do not think so. I know you must now be wondering how to go about this. Well, you have to understand your customer so well that you can determine what is valuable to them and proceed to offer exactly that. I have to mention however, that you should not always make it one of those freebies that we all know has something in it for you. Believe me when I say that we can see through those discounts, we can. If you are still with me, then congratulations, because this is the final step! The last thing is to repurpose your content. Leave the struggle to jump on every trend. This year, I want you to study all the content you created last year and ask yourself, ‘what can I reuse?’ I will give you an example. You are an agripreneur and you created a reel showing us a day in your life as a farmer, including how you water the plants, keep pests away and determine harvest days. This reel is your masterpiece, because from it, you can get the following: 3 ways to keep pests away from your home, why products need to ripen before harvest or the perfect conditions to send your produce to you. Of course these are just examples and if I actually had the video, I would give you a good number of reels, images and articles that could come from this easily. What is my point exactly? Repurpose your content and save your resources because you will need them. I hope with these few words of mine, I have been able to convince you to use reviews, reward your customers and repurpose your content.

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How to Get Reviews from your Customers

I’m not sold on bugging people for reviews. Something about it just feels very unreal plus the way business owners hound me for them sometimes is just tiring. When I cave in, it turns out to be something I just do so you can let me be. That’s the problem I have with it; it usually comes off as pretty unauthentic and people can tell. Well, that was what I thought until I had to get them myself. I was proud when I started writing this piece, some weeks back, but after struggling to get reviews from a pretty successful workshop – let’s just say I am now humble. What we think; if people love a product, they will recommend it, whether or not you beg them. What happens in reality is that people are busy, have tons of messages hitting them every second and really do not have all the time in the world to give you feedback without being reminded. It will happen naturally with some people, but with the rest, you’ve got to creatively prompt them. You have to tread carefully though because if you push them too hard, they get irritated (you don’t want that). If you don’t push them at all, they don’t consider it important. So what do you do? How do you get reviews? I have a few tips for you. Ask tough, clear and specific questions: What do you like about the shoes? What do you dislike about the shoes? Did it come in with no damages? Was the order process stressful? Will you tell people about how much you loved the product? Ask the painful questions and resist the urge to defend yourself; you’re not in court. Grow a thick skin too though, those things can hurt. Call your customers: Sometimes you just need to pick up the phone and call the customer. Tell them you want to ask about the product and ask for their consent to use their feedback for marketing. Let them get comfortable. Ask different unrelated questions, related questions and then talk about the order. Capture their excitement, especially the oohs and ahs. Schedule quarterly or yearly focus groups: Use these to get in-depth information on how your business is doing.. They can also double as product tasting events. I’m a genius in organising these; I have done so many and the results are always jaw-dropping. What to do when you get customer reviews? Share the good and the not so good: This may be an unpopular opinion but reviews are a lot more authentic when we see both. Maybe not the ones where you’ve really pissed of the customer though; might be safe to leave those ones out for everyone’s good. Get creative in your use of reviews: Please not every time ‘blanking out whatsapp and making screenshots of names’. Sometimes take the time to turn your reviews into a work of art. How about a mini cookbook or user generated recipes? There you go, you are welcome. Use every channel you’ve got: I have gotten some great reviews using Instagram stickers and then turned them into a video. Sometimes I relied on scribbling furiously during a workshop or painfully going through the replay of a conference to get the awesome moments. One thing is certain though, the struggle is REAL ! But, you can do it. These are just a few ideas that I’m hoping will help you get creative on the different ways you can get reviews from customers. You need them. Testimonials are important and when they are creative, they are powerful. What are you going to try out today?

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How to Use FOMO in Marketing

The fear of missing out (FOMO) is more powerful than the fear of losing “― Naved Abdali Crocs are not that cute, let us be honest. There is no other way to say it, irrespective of how many charms you put on them and how well you spell your name, they are still not that cute. Only three years ago, some of you would never be caught dead wearing them. I have a pair, but hey, I choose comfort over beauty ALWAYS! Geles are torture and you cannot afford that Aso-Ebi. If we know this (and yes, deep down we do) the question is, why do we still put ourselves through so much grief? Why do we use our money to buy pain? I will tell you why: FOMO; the fear of missing out which some refer to as peer pressure. It has led us to do things that are the opposite of how we truly feel, all because we do not want to feel left out. Interesting right? I still remember my first encounter with FOMO. It was years ago in my university days when a doughnut seller would chant with such energy ‘Hot doughnut.’ She always managed to ‘appear’ when my tummy was rumbling. Interestingly, I remember not liking doughnuts very much (I still don’t) but the scramble and the fear of ‘missing out’ got me out of my bed to join the hustle to get her to my room. It was not just her then, there were jewellery sellers, makeup, and clothes sellers who came at the right time and brought with them this fear. It made no sense to me then, how could it? I was just an innocent consumer. Fast forward to a few years later and FOMO resurfaced even stronger than before. I felt it in movie trailers, the streets of Instagram, at work and even restaurants…it was everywhere. Just in case you still have not noticed it, I will give a few examples: Ever rushed to watch a movie because everyone was raving about it? Ever went to a restaurant that you knew could do long-lasting damage to your pocket because the food bloggers labelled it cool? Ever started running on Lekki bridge (when you know you hate running) because all your friends were recording Nike steps on Instagram? Ponder no further people; it is FOOOOOOMMMOOOO! Now that we can recognise it, we must also know that FOMO, like every other potential marketing strategy, can be used for good or bad. It is important that you are responsible with it and note that you must not abuse it. I am here to teach you how to use it for good. It starts with offering a superior product or service. I cannot overemphasise how important this is; if not I am afraid, the only person missing out will be you. The next step is to identify your Unique Selling Point-USP (I know you have heard this before, but trust me, it’s important). You must know what truly stands about your business; this can be recyclable packaging, an ingredient, flavour, secret recipe or even the way in which your product or service is sold. When you have figured this out, the next step is for you to know what value is to your consumer, what they care about. Do they care about their clothes folded in triangles or do they want their laundry dropped off for them? Do they want their beans picked or in powder form? This information, you must have. Next step is to weave the needs of your customer with the USP and then launch the 3C’s! Communicate this clearly, creatively, and confidently (say it with your full chest, my friend) . Nobody will appreciate that selling your biscuit in recyclable packaging is great for the environment and that it can change different colours till you tell them with your full chest. Next step, try limited and exclusive offers ‘not every time, it is available till eternity. Sometimes, create something unique that is not always available’. Leverage your reviews (the real ones please) that project what stand about your product or service offering. They should be your secret weapon; hold on to them and use them as your ‘pepper them spray’ that you can sprinkle when you need to. Now that you have learnt, lesson is over, please feel free to raise your shoulders high, you have officially arrived! You now know what FOMO is, go forth and use it strategically and responsibly.

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Marketing on the Street: Lessons from a Moi Moi Seller

Marketing on the street, also known as street marketing, provides incredible insights into how goods and services are provided to customers in public settings. The marketing strategies from these local geniuses are creative, practical and straightforward. This is the story of a recovering ‘Moi Moi addict’. This addict realised after a year of reflection that the friendly neighbourhood Moi Moi (boiled bean pudding) seller, Iya Barakat used the simplest marketing tricks to turn her into a Moi Moi addict. It all started one fateful afternoon. I was on my way back from the mosque, with my mouth ‘dry’, trudging along slowly and carefully till it hit me! A whiff of goodness swirling in the air with no control. As I stopped to inhale the smell, a voice said from nowhere, ‘Moi Moi wa o’ (Yoruba for boiled bean pudding is available). I stopped to buy a meal’s worth; Okay! Okay! Maybe it was two meals. That was how an addictive relationship started. Now that I am out of the community, I cannot help but reflect on the brilliant use of street marketing by this experienced road seller. I will highlight a few: Let us start with the superior product quality: Iya Barakat’s Moi Moi had a consistency that was truly admirable. Her pudding always tasted great and even better, the same way. The aroma was so inviting that all the discipline in the world could not help you ignore it. Then the consistency with time! Iya Barakat’s special delicacy was always ready on Friday afternoon, specifically after Friday prayers. With the aid of tested and trusted coolers, the Moi Moi remained hot till evening, when the next set of victims stopped by. There was brilliant customer service laced with reminders. She and her staff NEVER forgot to greet me on my way back from the mosque. They sweetly reminded me to place an order, then coincidentally wrapped the bean pudding simultaneously. A visual reminder in case it did not ‘click’. If I now missed all the signs, Iya Barakat would switch to prayer mode as I headed back. This happened just when the smell had escaped from the pot, and the Moi Moi was sizzling. At this point, my tummy (being the snitch) would have lost all home training. It would rumble in protest, alerting my brain that only my heart and soul were fed at the mosque. Emotional marketing, no? If all of these failed, Iya Barakat would brandish her last card. She would report to my flatmate about how I deprived her of delicious bean pudding. Then sweetly add ‘e pele o, remember that Moi Moi is in high demand’. Fear of missing out, no? If this does not convince you that Iya Barakat should give a masterclass in street marketing, I don’t know what will.

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+234 1 454 1985

msmehub@fatefoundation.org

Omodara Adediran

Strategies for Marketing: Case Study of the Friendly Fruit Seller

Elements of a Creative Marketing Brief

Understanding the 3 R’s of a Marketing Plan

How to Get Reviews from your Customers

How to Use FOMO in Marketing

Marketing on the Street: Lessons from a Moi Moi Seller

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