Smart digital marketing will grow businesses in 2017- Umeh

At a time when businesses in Nigeria have been negatively affected by the current economic recession and are seeking solutions for growth in the future, Elo Umeh, Founder of Twinpine mobile advertising says businesses need to leverage the digital revolution by tapping into the power of ‘Big Data’ through information technology (IT) networks, which will help boost businesses in 2017.
Umeh who spoke on the future of mobile marketing at a forum organised by Twinpine to inundate the integrated marketing communications (IMC) industry in Nigeria on best approaches to conveying brands’ to stakeholders, said choosing cost-cutting measures might be impacted negatively with declining value preposition.

“The narratives have always been cost-cutting, but for businesses to be sustainable or defensible in 2017 you cannot continue to cut cost, otherwise, you will not be competitive in the market,” Umeh said.

A report by Gemalto revealed “2017 will see mobile advertising spending exceed desktop ad spending for the first time, and by 2019 spending on mobile will represent 64 percent of all internet advertising spending in the country. However, creating the ideal ecosystem for mobile marketing in a given country requires patience and perseverance.”

According to Umeh, a similar report released by Twinpine earlier this year placed Nigeria as the most mobile telecommunications induced nation, with 76 percent of internet traffic coming through mobile. Nigeria is now ahead of India and South Africa with 65 percent and 57 percent internet traffic coming through mobile, respectively.

In the Nigeria 2016 mobile trends report, Twinpine indicated that with Nigeria’s total population estimated at 184.6 million, there are 74.7million mobile users, 40 percent mobile penetration and 30 percent smartphone penetration rate.

As desktop traffic decreased from 57 percent in 2011 to 18 percent in 2015 and mobile share of traffic increased from 42 percent in 2011 to 79 percent in 2015, analysts say mobile advertising is the way forward for businesses in Africa as their customers move to mobile.

Predicting Nigeria’s IMC space in 2017, Umeh said, “From this report, I think, it will pay any company that focuses on leveraging data and engages itself in smarter marketing. I think there will be more brands looking into their data offerings as main strategy. We have local brands that will begin to collect data about their users and request more targeting and ensure their budgets are well spent. I think data is going to be the central thing going forward. So, individuals and brands need education in this direction to achieve better results through smarter marketing. Therefore,

Twinpine’s position is to work with such brands to understand the identity of the people who own smart devices.”

“This year, probably, due to the recession, the narratives have always been cost-cutting, but for businesses to be sustainable or defensible you cannot continue to cut cost, rather, focus on getting more value for spend,” he said.

Oduntan Odubanjo, Chief Operating Officer, Twinpine, urged companies to embrace digital marketing, stressing that data is the foundation of the transformation evident in organisations, especially the small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

“For the smaller businesses, it starts with collating data about your immediate customers, building a database at different points; it lies squarely on taking conscious efforts to collect data, register people and understand your customers’ demography. So, by smart-targeting the people you get more loyalty and essentially build up,” Odubanjo said.

 

Jumoke Akiyode