Covid-19 Holiday, A Phase To Restrategise.

A third of the global population if not more is on coronavirus lockdown. As of today, there are approximately 872,792 cases and 43,271 deaths across our ecosphere. This abrupt, unfriendly and awful pandemic that the nature inflicted is such an unfortunate and disheartening experience for all except those who are insensitive and cold-hearted. It has refused to spare the rich, poor, educated, illiterate, low or high; and while we maintain social distancing and trusting God to help salvage this abysmal occurrence, we can’t also afford to stay idle and leave our career, business and economy to fate. This holiday is the best opportunity to grow.

One of my core passions is to see startups and businesses thriving. I believe in Africapitalism, an economic philosophy by Tony Elumelu that the African private sector and Entrepreneurs have the power to transform the continent by creating economic prosperity and social wealth. So my question to you is: As we end the Covid-19 war soon, what growth and development strategy have you put in place for your business or startup?

Here are 3 things you may need to consider:

1.    Rebranding: Many people don’t know that a business is tantamount to a human being. The way a serious-minded individual will never want to associate with a tattered looking man is the same outcome with a poorly branded company. Your brand logo, vision, colour, voice, feel and personality must communicate professionalism and uniqueness. People should be able to fall in love with your brand even before seeing your products. You must ensure that your look and voice is compelling to your audience. Always remember that your brand equity speaks ahead of your products.

This is the time to take a look at your brand again and consider if you need to recreate your brand image and guide. A brand guide keeps your company in focus, scope, unity and direction.

2.    Research your Market: One of the reasons people get discouraged when advertising online is because it is not yielding results. A friend lamented to me about an Advert he published online sometimes ago which had lots of impressions/views but with no significant conversion/sales. Although, this kind of situation is common and can be very frustrating and discouraging to advertisers, however, one of the factors responsible for it is targeting the wrong audience. A wrong audience is not just limited to those who are not interested in your products but could also be those who are not ready to buy at the moment. That is why an understanding of your advert goal/objective is very important. You must be able to ask yourself the reason behind the advert. Is it to create awareness or generate sales? You must have a goal at mind before you kick off any advert.

There are lots of audience insights tools that you can use online to research your target audience for your business such as the Google keyword planner, Facebook & Instagram Audience Insight tools and others. Consider a Chinese restaurant running a Google Advert targeting a local audience who has never tasted Chinese food to another Chinese restaurant targeting an audience who loves eating Chinese food, obviously, the latter will get more Ad engagement, more conversions and lower Ad rates per click. The principle of advertising is that the lesser your target audience is interested in your product or Advert, the higher the amount you spend to show more people in that Audience group and the lower your engagement and conversion rates. Since I mastered the art of advertising online, I have been getting incredibly cheaper rates. One of my recent campaigns on Facebook yielded a 0.001$ rate per post engagement. That’s incredible. So, in a nutshell, the more you understand your audience and where they are located, the higher the probability of increasing sales, revenue and cutting campaign costs. Friend, this is the right time to research new markets.

3.    Create an effective Sales Funnel: Let’s take for example, a professional copywriter; her first goal is to write a captivating subject topic that will compel the audience to open the mail. Her second goal will be to write an introductory paragraph that will provoke the audience to want to read the second paragraph, the third and up to the concluding sentence. This Copywriter’s approach perfectly describes an effective sales funnel. It is one that enables an attractive and easily navigable pathway for your audience to make the decisions you ultimately desire.

To create an effective buying process for your business, you must identify the various touchpoints potential clients use to get in contact with your business and consciously position eye-grabbing promotional materials, freebies, discounts and friendly & professional customer service that will get them to the bottom of the funnel and make the purchase you have ever desired. An effective Sales funnel is irresistible, replicable and produces scalable growth; create one now.

Stay tuned for more.