The Stylist, Fashion Designer, Distributor, And the Decorator.

Madam Chizoba

Madam Chizoba is a 40 years old creative director of an event decoration and management company domiciled in the southeastern part of Nigeria.

What events are you planning for?

White/traditional wedding event, or maybe a burial ceremony? What about a church function, or perhaps, a get-together or birthday party that requires a beautiful touch of colorful and creative indoor or outdoor event decoration and management?

Madam Chizoba is surely going to wow you beyond your wildest expectations.

The only problem for Madam Chizoba was that she only begins to get a few new jobs towards the ‘ember months’ within the end of the year, courtesy of word of mouth advert by previously satisfied customers and other ad campaigns like radio jingles and distributed fliers.

This is of course not without an attendant cost which she frowns at and constantly shies away from.

What happens to people in need of her kind of services every other month?

They end up with another service provider, obviously!

Tayo

Tayo is a fashion designer extraordinaire. For a young man of 31 years, he is exceptionally good at what he does when it comes to making outfits that bring out the best of your appearance.

His shop is located in the streets of one of those developing areas of the Lagos mainland along Badagry expressway.

It could be said that if he had located his shop in choice area of Lekki or Victoria Island, he would have been a household name in the fashion industry and a big brand to reckon with by now.

In order to keep the business afloat, Tayo has no other option than to remain perpetually involved in continued price hassles with his local customers who want quality designs for cheap.

And when there are no readily available customers for business, he sits idly, waiting and praying for someone to come by.

Miss Blessing

Miss Blessing is a young lady of 24, who believes in her ability to ‘hustle’ and be independent. She feels strongly about working for herself and dreams of running a lucrative business empire in the future to come.

One thing here about Blessing is that she has the spirit of an entrepreneur.

She is a very good hairstylist as her work tells her story more accurately.

In the past and as a young student of a university in Anambra state, she has tried her hands on businesses like the production and sales of pink lip balms, coconut oil serums, braid wigs, etc.

After graduation, she took the decision to come down to Lagos to start her very own beauty and makeup salon business in one of the remote areas in Lagos.

However, she was quick to realize that it was harder than she envisaged, to get at least a customer for the day as months went by.

In her desperation, she started out on an obvious self-marketing campaign through some social media channels but as the case may be, her effort was cheaply rewarded.

For lack of money to renew her rent, she closed shop and decided yet again to venture into another business – poultry farming!

Mr. Kingsley

Mr. Kingsley is the sole distributor of wonderful paint products from Turkey here in Nigeria. He imports these products into Nigeria at standard quality and unadulterated.

This is not the case for importers who seek to reduce quality standards for the Nigerian market so as to selfishly rake in excessive profits.

Mr. Kingsley is currently 53 years of age and planning retirement in the next 10 to 15 years time.

Indeed, he’s been pushing hard in the sales and marketing of his products for over 10 years now to see that he can hand over a thriving business to his young sons.

Like Tayo, Mr. Kingsley has also faced location problems as well as price of product issues.

Due to the continued rise in dollar rate, Freight, and importation costs, possible local customers become quick to complain about the cost of products as they opt for cheaper options out there in the market, even though they are always 100% wowed by the quality of his products.

What is he to do?

Mr. Kingsley still believes, however, that his products simply need to be in front of the right people who can afford the cost and truly understands the product’s power and value.

He needs targeted advertising and marketing but at an affordable cost.

It is quite obvious that the main problem with the examples above is not simply the lack of customers per se, but the lack of sufficient amount of the right kind of customers and qualified leads that will contribute to business sales profit and growth.

The cost of getting these customers is another thing to worry about too. How affordable is it in monetary terms? How stressful and tedious does it have to be to follow through with the process of acquiring them? etc.

Without these right kinds of customers, there won’t be enough sales to keep the business afloat.

We all agree that business people are some of the most important people in our society and without them making sales, our entire society would come to a grinding halt.

The only creators of wealth in our society are businesses.

Businesses produce all products and services as well as create all profits and wealth. Businesses pay all salaries and benefits.

The health of the business community in any city, state, or nation is the key determinant of the quality of life and standard of living of the people in that geographical area.

One of the main secrets to a successful business is to understand the customer’s problems, provide solutions that are profitable to them and make them feel good about the transaction.

Business owners need to know how to provide these good feelings and solutions.

This can only mean, understanding more about the feelings customers have and how they go about making a decision to buy.

A key takeaway here for you today is this, the more diverse the ways that your product or service can satisfy your prospects' needs to know, the easier it is for them to buy. People often buy something that is better known and popular because of its price.

So how do you popularize your product, service, and business so that it will be widely known, talked about, and accepted?

A way around this is for you to best position yourself as a business entrepreneur to take advantage of the digital marketing opportunities as mentioned in our blog post titled, ''The Potential of The Internet Economy for Your Small Business,'' Please click to read.

A quick and careful look at Mr. Kingsley, Madam Chizoba, Tayo, and Blessing’s digital marketing campaign strategies will shed more light on all that has been said so far.

One can’t help but notice almost immediately their poorly handled social media management profile.

There are no professionally built websites for their business and no professional social media business pages for their business promotions.

There are no rich and engaging content, as well as graphics designs that speak more of the personal nature of their business, etc.

What you get to see is just some personal profile page on Facebook or Instagram with occasional posts of pictures of past jobs that really do not attract the number of views that will in turn generate the ample amount of likes, comments, and shares that could have been more beneficial to the overall promotion and profitability of their business in the long run.

Do you honestly feel that these marketing efforts of Mr. Kingsley, Madam Chizoba, Tayo, and Blessing, are great ways to popularize their products, services, and businesses so that they will be widely known, and talked about, and accepted?

You may want to ask, is social media marketing really necessary for your business?

Click to find out in our blog post titled, Social Media Marketing Done the Right Way! and while you are at it, you can also take a quick read through on why websites are also of benefit to your business by checking out another blog post titled, ''Evergreen Features Of A Dynamic Website For Your Online Campaigns''

Over the years, Loupe Network has been able to develop a series of ideas, strategies, and techniques that help small business owners market their brands faster and more easily with digital marketing aids and tools.

This is what we are about!