The Business Day SME Clinic has established itself as a formidable platform that advocates the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises by empowering them with adequate and relevant knowledge needed to chart the path forward for businesses, especially in a competitive and highly saturated digital era. The 2024 December edition was themed “Digital Marketing for SMEs,” setting the ground for running for robust insights from seasoned experts, propelling business relevance, sustainability, and overall positive customer experience.
The interactive session hosted on Youtube featured a myriad of thought leaders, including Ms. Chioma Chinweze, Mr. Temitope Oriluwa, Ms. Moremi Elekwachi, Mr. Abiodun Ogunjobi, Ms. Precious Adesina-Ola, and Ms. Mosunmola Onioye. Their contributions waltzed around diverse strategies to mitigate setbacks witnessed by SMEs in the feasibility of digital marketing. Insights were generated to drive sales, visibility, and engagement and build long-term, sustainable relationships with customers.
Kicking off the session, Chioma Chinweze, a brand and marketing professional, expressed how important it is for SMEs to understand the business landscape and follow its evolution to tailor digital marketing solutions that require very little or no capital.
She emphasised that SMEs should look out for the intention of their business, and embed it in the campaigns put out on the web, such that it covers accurate record keeping and content marketing with the right keywords for certain social media algorithms to utilise for desired results in lead conversion or visibility. Speaking on building an effective online community, Chioma advised SMEs to always build authentic connections with their audience through expression of purpose and values and the creation of content that aligns with the psychographics of their target audience.
Building on the budget required for digital marketing, the founder and CEO of Digital Force, Mr. Abiodun Ogunjobi, jumped into the discourse, encouraging SMEs to keep their dreams alive in digital marketing, whether or not there’s a planned budget.
He specifically submitted that business owners should focus more on being strategic and discoverable before investing in paid ads. He further advised SMEs to obtain a Google Account, where they can freely leverage some of its invaluable products like Google My Business, allowing for easy visibility on the web. “To thrive on the internet’s traffic, businesses should practice ‘Discoverability’ and ‘Positioning’ using free digital tools, as that is the first step to utilising functional digital marketing,” he asserted.
For Precious Adesina-Ola, Head of Growth, Suplias Technologies, it’s more about how any direct message (DM) on any social media platform can be converted into sales, where she directed business owners to follow proper marketing chains by properly registering their businesses, being identifiable on the web, and optimising their websites for target audiences to identify and utilise the given business offerings.
She beckoned to SMEs to look into their target audience and identify the actual demographics they fall into. Stating lack of defined target audience as a cause of unproductive digital campaigns, Precious advised SMEs to try the target audience experiment model designed by herself, where they either post ads, branded messages, graphics, or anything tailored to the core of their brand on different platforms. The category of people with the most reaction in likes, comments, views, and shares, forms up the target audience. This can also help in knowing which of the social media platforms to fully leverage.
Addressing issues on consistent brand messaging and fulfilment of brand campaigns, Mosunmola Onioye, Executive Director of H.H Holdings Group, charged SMEs to have certain must-dos. She highlighted having a clear objective, identifying the target audience, creating content strategies and identifying the platforms to leverage, and understanding the style of the brand’s product or service alongside the social media trend for it as the mandatory thing to establish to achieve desired results from campaigns. For consistency in brand message, she advised that SMEs adopt a brand guideline that covers standard message text formats, colours, and patterns that can be replicated across different platforms for easy identification.
According to Temitope Oriluwa, “On social media, people buy from people, not businesses.” This captures the need for SMEs to use their personal brands to influence their business brands. Temitope urges business owners to always incorporate themselves in their brand campaigns, as their personalities can influence people to patronise.
He also buttressed on content, SEO, and SWOT analysis for SMEs, emphasising that it proffers digital insights, urging business owners to leverage the results from the analysis for cost-effective digital marketing operations, particularly for startups.
Rounding off the session was Moremi Elekwachi, Principal Consultant at Euphoric PR, highlighting common mistakes of SMEs in digital marketing, one of which includes lack of brand definition. She asserted that while some brand owners are aware of the function of their products or services, they are unaware of the industry that they serve and the right storytelling that will propel the right messages to their target audience. “I know SME startups might be unable to afford the services of communication experts, but it’s advisable to self-learn the concept of branding in order to capitalise on the strengths it provides against competitors,” she remarked.
She also advised SMEs to not solely focus on utilising big influencers, as they can stretch their budget for social media influencing across NANO influencers who have not so much online following but active audiences. She considers the adoption of nano influencers a great marketing strategy for SMEs, urging them to try and testify to the results.
Through the interesting insights from seasoned experts, the December edition of the Business Day SME Clinic addresses crucial aspects of digital marketing, emphasising keynotes on cost-effective digital tools, brand building, adaptability, strategic positioning, and intentional storytelling for SMEs. This impactful knowledge was well put together to drive growth for SMEs as they continue to leverage the power of digital marketing; hence, programs like the Business Day SME Clinic remain a vital platform for fostering innovation, collaboration, and success in the SME sector.
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