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Sales and Marketing

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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3 Strategies for Boosting Sales

What are your strategies for boosting sales this year? You’ve written your new year resolutions and one of them is to make more sales, but how? While doubling or tripling your sales isn’t impossible, you must use the right sales strategies, with which anyone, including you, would record a significant boost in sales. That’s why this article gives insights into increasing your sales. So, let’s dive in.  Identify customers’ preferences: One thing is sure; your customers have products they prefer over others. You can identify their preferences by asking directly or observing their requests. If your store is exclusively an online one, you can also take advantage of quizzes and short, fun surveys to do this. Then, you ensure that you have these most sought-after products available all the time.  Have both short and long-term sales goals: Yes, selling out most of your products as soon as you stock up is a legit goal, but it is a short-term one. Rather than focusing on just that, you should also focus on gaining visibility, acquiring and retaining customers. Working with these long-term goals in mind helps you to be intentional about quality assurance, customer service and other processes that’ll guarantee the satisfaction of your customers. Lastly, make your products affordable, give discounts and provide customers with a myriad of product offerings to choose from. They’ll definitely come back for more, sing your praises around and remain loyal to your brand.  Would you like to share other strategies for boosting sales? If yes, let’s have them in the comments. Also read: How to Leverage 360 Degrees Marketing Technique to Increase Sales and Turning your Clients into Sales Ambassadors.

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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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Achieving Product-Market Fit in your Business

To begin, product-market fit means that your product, on all fronts, meets the needs of your customers.   To achieve this, you must first identify your most important assumptions and hypotheses. Once you have done this,  you need to conduct preliminary experiments. These experiments include the following: Opening a blog to publicise your product and learn from feedback. Visiting online discussion forums such as Reddit and Quora to ask open-ended questions, and gather feedback Creating surveys using tools such as SurveyMonkey Creating a landing page and collecting pre-orders for your product Creating and running test advertisements on social media channels such as Facebook and LinkedIn As you begin to get feedback on your Minimum Viable Prototype (MVP), compare it to your initial hypotheses. If you are correct, congratulations. If there are discrepancies, then it’s time for you to change strategy or ‘pivot.’ Unlike conventional businesses, pivoting isn’t evidence of failure in entrepreneurship – it’s a sign of progress. Oftentimes, a successful startup doesn’t hit on an effective business model until after Plan A, Plan B and even Plan C fails. The important thing is to ensure that you control your financial outlay, and the time and effort required to run the business until you achieve product-market fit. You know you have achieved product-market fit when your target market has adopted your product and is willing to use it and/or pay for it consistently. ACTION STEPS Brainstorm your assumptions and convert ten of these assumptions into key product-market hypotheses to be tested Run tests to prove the validity of your hypotheses Be willing to change strategy or ‘pivot’ if feedback from users suggests another direction until you achieve product-market fit. Creating a product that your customers cannot live without doesn’t happen in a day. The process requires active listening, tweaking, re-tweaking, patience and dedication. 

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Defining Your Business Hypothesis

“No business plan survives first contact with customers” – Steve Blank, Silicon Valley entrepreneur. The lean startup movement, pioneered by Eric Reis, is an approach for dealing with the inherent uncertainty in entrepreneurship. It is particularly well-suited to early-stage startups when: The starting point of the lean startup approach is the creation of a Minimum Viable Product or MVP. The MVP allows you to go to market and test the response of the market to your product and/or service. The MVP could be a physical product, software, or service. How to Define Your Business Hypothesis The form of the hypothesis is as follows: I believe [target market] will [do this action/use this solution] for [this reason] Hypotheses are usually based on assumptions. You need to isolate the most important assumptions for your product and/or service and test them first. Based on the work of Tom Eisenmann of Harvard Business School, assumptions fall into four key categories. Each category could give rise to several business hypothesis as follows: 1. Customer Value 2. Technology and Operations 3. Sales and Marketing 4. Finance and Profit As a team, consider each assumption and rate them: Select the assumptions with the highest scores as your key assumptions and hypotheses. Once you have identified your most important assumptions and hypotheses, you need to conduct preliminary experiments.

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How to Create a Brand Identity

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett, Investor Identify the essence of your brand and position your company appropriately in the marketplace. Karen Kang, a renowned brand strategist, in her book “Branding Pays” defined the following five-step system to reinvent your brand. Positioning Define your unique value. Positioning provides the rational foundation for branding. It makes your brand credible. It articulates your unique value and provides meaningful differentiation. Messages Develop the key messages that support your value. You may wish to revisit the elevator pitch we defined in the previous step and flesh it out into a set of talking points that help you articulate your positioning in a clear and concise way. Brand strategy Define an authentic, 360-degree brand by combining your rational and emotional value. The key elements you will need to create are your core values, strengths, brand personality, brand image, and brand promise. It helps you to deliver on your brand in thought, image, word, and deed. Ecosystem Develop a strategy for relationship building and management. In the end, it’s not what you say but what others say about you that determines your reputation. Your ecosystem acts as a marketing and sales team that can catapult your brand from unknown to desired. Action Steps Develop an action plan that includes brand improvement and brand communication so your brand can be known and recognized. Write your top three priority actions for building your brand over the next 30 days.

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How to Leverage Networking to grow Your Startup

The idea of networking contributes to the growth and relevance of a start-up. We are familiar with the saying “no man is an island”. Running your business on a solo mode might retain the focus or vision of the business but it shuts the owner from the real experiences of other business owners. In this article, we would look at how building a solid network can maintain a start-up business. Success in business especially for a start-up trying to gain traction is not only dependent on how much the business is able to control financially, neither is it by the size of the team. There are other activities that not only boost a start-up but ensures its sustainability. Research has shown that many successful start-ups developed meaningful partnerships, which enabled them to achieve success quickly and sustainably. This is known as networking. What is Networking? Networking in business involves building relationships with potential partners for your business. It should not be mistaken for just hosting business meetings, exchanging business cards, joining business communities and organizing pitch parties. Notwithstanding, these are processes of networking that may get people to be interested in your business, trust what you do and desire to partner with you. These connections, if optimized, can boost a start-up business and expose it to more opportunities. What can networking do for your start-up business? Networking attracts excellent skills: Networking offers a large range of skills to make selections from. A start-up business with strong connections cannot lack top skills in its decisions. It cannot be limited to just the available but have the option of picking its desired. Networking helps you through competition: One can hardly talk about a business and its sustenance without recognizing the place of competitors – how they charge and what they do to stay as market leaders. Exposure through your business network gives insights to what you can do to stand out and also face competition in the industry without wearing out. In simple terms, networking breaks down the bulk of handling competitors as by others experiences, one is guided on essential approaches for effective results. Networking provides you with more negotiating power with potential investors: Investors seek to support a business that not only promises good return on their investment but will deliver rightly and on time. A strong network gives a business credibility and gives investors the assurance they need before they invest in your business. Also, your network can introduce you to other potential investors. Wider customer reach: Customers of a business are spread abroad. Networking links the business with its potential clients who in turn advocates on behalf of the business. The effect of this is a wider reach to the right customers thereby, increasing the business customer base. This connection is beyond boundaries; could be online or offline reach. Impact on business strategy: By exposure through networking, a start-up business gets to improve its strategies in communication, financing, operations and other aspects. Networking influences positively from the structure of the start-up business through its publicity even to the personal brand of the founders.

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Web 3.0: More power to the people!

Web 3.0. Metaverse. Artificial Intelligence. Machine Learning. NFTs. Cryptocurrency. Internet of Things… – you have to have heard about one of these buzz words, let us break it down In 1989, the internet came into existence. It was called Web 1.0 or the Static Web and provided access to information with absolutely no interaction but importantly it was a decentralized platform where development, ownership, and operation were not controlled by a few. Web 1.0 was the dominant and more reliable form of the internet till 2005 when Web 2.0 was introduced.  Web 2.0 is the internet as we know it today.  It is also known as the social web, it is very interactive and led to the formation of big tech companies that created interactive web platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, iTunes, YouTube, and so on. On Web 2.0, platforms and apps are developed, owned, and operated by big tech companies. These big tech companies created centralized platforms whilst making it easier to connect, browse and transact.  In Web 2.0, these platforms and apps collect data from users and the owners of the apps use the data for what they please. The biggest challenges are that they use users’ data for their financial gain and that they decide what should be on the internet and when it should be on the internet.  But Web 3.0 is shifting things, by giving power back to the people (decentralized like Web 1.0) whilst creating open-sourced interactive web platforms (Web 2.0). Web 3.0 is the creation, operation, and governance of the internet by users, creators, and practically anything online. Ownership is defined by digital tokens and cryptocurrency; the more you have over a network, the more control you have over its operations and governance. This leads to the number one criticism of Web 3.0 whereby early adopters and venture capitalists are more likely to own more tokens and cryptos leading to more ownership of the web.  Web 3.0 is focused on decentralization and ownership. Web 3.0 processes information and data in a human way and interprets the information using artificial intelligence mainly machine learning. This data is generated from various sources; this is where the internet of things comes in. Any device that can be connected to the internet will generate data that you can choose to sell so it can be used to offer more personalized solutions to you.  This is bad for big tech companies as the selling of our data to advertisers is where their revenue comes from. As such many of them are moving to the Metaverse – a digital world where digital assets can be purchased and sold by anyone. These big tech companies are creating digital assets that can be sold.   Although Web 3.0 has not been fully nor officially launched, there are a few early-stage platforms that have already started rolling out Web 3.0 such as Siri and Alexa, which are platforms that collect data from ios or android devices connected to the internet whilst using artificial intelligence to decode the information and understand it in a human way.    Contact Versa Research your trusted data, research & consulting partner! https://seekingalpha.com/amp/article/4480677-what-is-web3?source=acquisition_campaign_google_premium&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=14926960698&utm_term=128319903825^dsa-1455561509464^^555659366580^^^g&external=true&gclid=Cj0KCQiA95aRBhCsARIsAC2xvfx-IlWBWYeMtKmlyWnCA25LMQSiOn-5j7avDJSiap80Q64P2qLwuWAaAstWEALw_wcB https://www.investopedia.com/web-20-web-30-5208698

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Why You need a Functional Website

The vision of every business is to achieve its set goals, meet the demands of clients and create solutions peculiar to life challenges. Irrespective of the drive of a business, accomplishing more results with less resources is usually an approach most use in achieving these visions. Thanks to the impact of digitization in day-to-day activities, every business ranging from small-sized to large-sized get a chance to be optimized as there are many opportunities to get on with. Ecommerce enables businesses to trade goods and services over the internet in the various levels of business-to-business, business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer relationships. Why Online Visibility is Important? Is there a need to put your business online? Of course. Among many reasons, looking for the right audience is a major factor in running a business. Generally, different audiences exist, hence, the need for wider reach to find a niche in the market. Businesses put themselves up online majorly through websites, social media platforms, emailing strategies and mobile apps techniques. As much as it is important to set up a website for your business, it is imperative that you ensure the website is functional and responsive. Facts about online visibility and reputation management: 98% of the audience expect to see visual structures that are appealing. Understand that your audience/viewers have needs for which they seek solutions and would not appreciate unresponsiveness when in search of solution. Gain is the bottom line of businesses. This can be in the form of financial profit and other business support. Competition exists in business. Your business may not be solid, it doesn’t stop the presence of competitors in the market. Residing on the few facts expressed above, a functional business website can go a long way in helping your business succeed as there are many things it can do. On the business side, the cost of operating and managing a business website is minimal compared to setting up physical strategies of reaching target audience and engaging market interaction. Less operational cost with effective results generates more revenue. Why Social Media Presence is Not Enough In a bid to get your business running, creating Ads, posting on social media platforms is not sufficient to maximizing the benefits of digitization in business. These can give publicity to your business but having a website that is effective is more beneficial as it creates an online presence for your business. Having a website for your business gives your business the feel of trustworthiness. The integrity of a business is core in attributing organizational values both from the business team and clients. When a client gets introduced to your business and finds a center to get more resources on what your business entails, it creates a sense of credibility to what you do, hence, confidence to engage in your business. Furthermore, if the website is responsive, customer services available and call-to-action prompt, the impression alone gives the viewer a level of satisfaction. How a Functional Website Provides Significance Having a website that showcases your business and gives you the opportunity to reach a wider customer base. Offline operations may not offer these opportunities as there are mobility limitations and other factors. A functional website helps you identify loopholes, monitor customer interaction, track customer patronage, fetch reviews and give insights to the business. These activities help you in making business decisions in finances, publicity, operations, customer relationship, potential areas in need of your business solutions. Lastly, in a business, market augmentation is such that an expansion in target audience or product line occurs. This is very much achievable when your business is online and has a website that is functional. Effectiveness of a business component has a way of rubbing on the choices of the market audience. What is a functional business website like? A business website that is functional has good content. It is compatible across devices. The creative visual designs attract viewers and make them stay longer on the site. It displays only relevant information. The website is easy to navigate.      

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