A 72 year old dentist recently visited our office and asked us why everybody was talking about digital marketing. He said his junior colleagues said they increased the number of clients they have by a significant percentage through the help of some digital marketing agencies abroad. The young dentists never explained the full details of what the digital marketing agencies were doing for their businesses.
The septuagenarian dentist would not listen to anything except we explain what digital marketing is to him and how we can use digital marketing to revive the falling client base of his dental practice. After few months of engagement, the 72 year old dentist had to employ extra staff to respond to telephone and email enquiries about his dental services. He was inundated with patients and his profit grew, thanks to our digital marketing service.
[irp posts=”800″ name=”SEO: How a business went from near zero sales to N10 million ($27,000) per month”] [irp posts=”174″ name=”SEO: Master this and become a Millionaire”]What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is the use of social media, internet, email, search engines and other digital channels for the marketing of goods and services. Digital marketing is basically the new way businesses create awareness for their brands, products and services using digital technologies.
As computers and internet are causing disruption in the traditional ways of doing things so also is digital marketing disrupting the traditional ways companies market their products and services to consumers.
Digital marketing became very popular in the late 1990s but till today, most businesses in Nigeria do not know what digital marketing is, talk less of reaping the huge benefit this concept can bring.
Digital marketing can be done in two ways viz online marketing and offline marketing. I will concentrate on the online digital marketing because it is the most effective and efficient in my opinion.
Online marketing basically means the marketing of goods and services with the use of internet. Digital marketing through online means can be categorized under the following headings:
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
As discussed in one of our previous notes, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is how you use some strategies or tactics to improve the online visibility of your website, web pages or business.
Making your website to appear as number 1 on Google’s Search Engine Result Page (SERP) can improve your sales by a significant percentage.
When someone wants to search for a real estate attorney, he is likely to go online, search for the keyword ‘best real estate attorney’ in Lagos. The web searcher is likely to contact the attorney whose website appears in the first to third entry on Google’s Search Engine Result Page (SERP).
The traffic a website gets because of its prominence on SERP is called organic traffic. It is the cheapest type of internet traffic and it can boost your turnover and profit significant if you know how to go about it.
To improve your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), you need to implement some strategies. Content is king if you want to benefit from SEO. You also need to master all the signals search engines use to rank your web pages.
We can improve your SEO significantly with what hat strategies; you just need to contact us NOW.
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
PPC is those small adverts you see on web pages. An advertiser pays a publisher who then puts the advert on his websites, one anybody viewing the publisher’s website clicks the advert, the visitor is re-directed to your website.
You pay per every click on the advertisement on the publisher’s website. Some publishers like Google host PPC advertisements on a network of websites who have agreed that Google can use their websites for adverts.
PPC can be very expensive with low Returns on Investment (ROI) or even outright loss if you target the wrong keywords or you are not skilled in crafting good PPC advertisement wordings. It is advisable you contact experts if you want to go this way.
You will spend little or no money on PPC if you deploy the best strategies for your SEO. However, in some cases, you need to deploy PPC advertisements.
Content marketing
Content marketing is a type of marketing used by those who create, distribute and sell content to a targeted audience or group of people online. There are several reasons why businesses use content marketing strategies, some of the reasons are:
- Brand awareness and lead generation
- Increase the number of customers
- Improve online followership base
- Make online sales
Contents sold online can include eBooks, articles, infographics, videos, blog posts, podcasts and newsletters etc.
YouTube is a typical of online channel that can be used to publish videos and other digital materials and make money out of it. Some businesses make millions of dollars from their YouTube channels.
In Nigeria, a popular comedian called Ogbeni Adan makes a lot of money from posting comedy videos on his YouTube channel. We can craft and publish digital materials for businesses in order to make money, improve their brand awareness or generate leads.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Have you seen those small ads that appear on Facebook, Twitter or instagram? You are likely to answer in the affirmative. Do you often see people with huge followers on social media platforms (influencers) helping brands to advertise their products by sharing their comments? If yes, then you already have seen examples of social media marketing.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is simply the use of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to market goods and services. A lot of people have profiles on social media websites. In fact, most people below the age of 50 years spend considerable time on various social media platforms daily. Since you want your brand, products and services to be known by people, is it not wise to target people on social media.
SMM is a key digital marketing tactics and if dome efficiently, you will smile to the bank.
Email Marketing
Have you seen that pop up form or exit form that appears on websites? The forms ask you for your name and email address in exchange for a gift in form of eBook or free trainings. If yes, then you have seen how email marketing works.
Email marketing is the sending of electronic messages to a group of people. This is done online and you must find a way to get the email addresses of people before you send them a group email. Otherwise, your email will be flagged as spam and it will not be delivered to the inbox folder of the recipient.
Most people will not buy first time when they see your products or services online, you have to remind them about your offerings later, this is what email marketing does.
You can use email marketing concept to send newsletter or articles on a weekly basis to your website’s visitors.
It is a fantastic digital marketing tool.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing a digital marketing concept in which a business allows other businesses or people to help them to market and sell their products and services online on a commission basis.
Mr. Uche sells laptops on his website. Mr Uche gives you an affiliate link to embed on your website. Once, anybody buys Mr. Uche’s laptop through the affiliate link on your website. You automatically gets commission on sale from Mr. Uche. It is a very simple digital marketing concept.
Amazon, Clickbank and Jumia etc have affiliate schemes.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM is the way you promote your websites by improving their prominence on Search Engine Result Pages (SERP). This is a bit similar to SEO as the aim is to improve the ranking of your website or web pages on SERPs.
Digital Offline Marketing
The four main categories of digital offline marketing are:
Radio marketing
Television marketing
Phone marketing (mobile ads, cold calling and SMS marketing)
Enhanced offline marketing (interactive LED billboard)
Digital Marketing Success Stories – Results from some of our clients
Our team has combined experience of more than 90 years in digital marketing and brand management. Some of our team members have consulted for Fortune 500 companies in the US. Our team members have delivered over 1,000 digital marketing jobs in several countries.
Project Urology
A Nigerian born urologist who had practiced in the US for several years decided to relocate to Nigeria. He was tired of living in the US; he just wanted to use his unique surgical skills in Nigeria.
The urologist built a urology clinic in Nigeria. The urologist was shocked that after 12 months, he could only perform 5 surgeries. Patients were not trooping in as he thought, nobody knew he existed.
The urologist researched about digital marketing and he contacted us. Within 8 months of engaging us, the number of surgery he did increased by 500. Today, the surgeon does an average of 80-100 urological surgeries a month plus other urological work. Patients pay him about N1 million for each Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia surgery.
Project Agriculture
A company selling a particular type of agro input contacted us about how to make their products known and how to improve sales. We reverse engineered the digital marketing tactics used by the giants in the industry. Within 4 months, our client who could hardly sell 12 units of agro input now sell a container load of the agro input within 30 days. A container load contains 650 units of the agro input.
Note that our client is a start up; our client has been able to sell more units of the agro input than the leader in the industry. The industry leader is a multi-national with a very deep pocket.
Project Law
You will agree with me that 80% of the earnings from litigations and legal advisory are taken by the top 1% of the legal firms in Nigeria.
Our client is a young lawyer who graduated less than 5 years ago. When he opened his chambers, he went there daily to just read newspaper because clients were not coming. The young lawyer is skillful in property and real estate law but nobody knew him as then.
He engaged us, we developed a blog for him, we did research our buy intent legal oriented keywords and we wrote articles based on these keywords for him. His social media accounts were well managed with top of the class images, infographics and psychological colours.
Today, our client makes over N10 million monthly on just advisory alone. Digital marketing turned his business around.
Project Nollywood
When people consistently talk about you on the internet and the social media, you can be sure that you are likely to make more money. Research has even showed it that some negative mentions of your brand on the social media and the internet can prove beneficial to your brand.
A Nollywood actress contacted us; she just wanted her name to be the talk of town on the internet, social media inclusive.
We did a total digital media package for her. Her poor looking website was redesigned, a blog was created, her social media accounts were updated 4-7 times daily and we used top SEO tactics to make her name and brand have better prominence in search engines especially Google.
We did also did online reputation management for the actress. Both reactive and proactive reputation management was done. Parasites were ranked to drown all the negative mentions of the actress on the internet.
Quiz, simple gifts and somewhat controversial posts were developed to sway people’s opinion about the actress and to continue to talk about her name and brand endlessly on the internet (social media inclusive).
Our efforts resulted to over 3,000% increase in earnings for the actress; she got more invites to shows and conferences. She got more brands to appoint her as ambassadors and her side business boomed. All thanks to our digital marketing offering.
Project Digital Marketing Course
A school engaged us to carry out a digital marketing course for some of their members of staff. It was a 3-months retention digital marketing training.
The school just wanted to increase their students’ enrolment. We taught the members of staff how to built and develop wordpress websites, how to create high conversion landing pages, SEO strategies, email marketing and social media management.
After our initial engagement, we were retained to continue to provide some digital marketing offerings their staff cannot provide.
Today, the school has increased their students’ enrolment significantly; their brand has over 2000% more mentions on the internet and social media. The digital marketing training turned the fortunes of the school around.
Project Politics
A top politician engaged us to improve his name and brand prominence on Google and the social media. He also wanted us to do reputation management for him whilst also swaying people’s opinion about his personality.
We used SEO strategies, parasites’ ranking, troll farm tactics and social media management to magnify his positives and drown his negatives. His opponents could not match his digital marketing tactics. Perception is reality. We changed the negative perception people had about him; he won his opponents with a resounding victory.
Q&A
Q: I own a business but it is very difficult for me to get customers, can digital marketing help me?
A: Yes, digital marketing can help any business. We have seen businesses that leapt from almost ground zero in sales to millions of naira in sales using digital marketing strategies.
Q: Is it advisable I have an in-house digital marketing team or I outsource it?
A: Both have their advantages and disadvantages but from our experience, most successful companies have external digital marketing consultants that work with them. It is always better you stick to your core competences.
Q: Are billboards and other traditional marketing tools better than digital marketing tools?
A: Ask yourself, how many times in a day do you look at billboards and how many times in a day do you check your Smartphone? It is obvious that digital marketing is the way to go. To let people know about you or your products, you have to communicate to them through the tools or platforms they use often, which is the internet.
Q: Can you work for companies in other countries?
A: With the internet, the whole world is borderless; some of our clients are not based in Nigeria.
Are you still sitting on the fence while your competitors are using digital marketing strategies to smile to the bank? Do you want to improve your sales? Do you want to drown the negative reputation you have on the internet? Now is the time to speak with us now and engage us.
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