Marketing is important for every business because it
helps in making your business grow or more simply, in
making sales. Marketing helps business people or
entrepreneurs identify and anticipate needs/problems of
their target market or customers and provide solutions to
their needs/problems, profitably.
Now, one major problem small business people have in
Nigeria is that they have problems identifying and
anticipating their customers needs and then provide
solutions to those needs. One way to do that is by
conducting a marketing research or simply put, ask them
questions relating to the business you want to start. The
answers you get would assist you in providing solutions
to their problems. Most Nigerian small business owners
venture into businesses they have no skills in and all
because they heard that the business concerned makes
huge returns. When competition comes and their
customers stop coming around these businesses fold up.
For small businesses to survive the onslaught of new
competitors, there are two unique ways to win your
customers and make them continue doing business with
you. This two marketing techniques are cause-related
marketing and civic marketing.
Cause-related marketing is a type of marketing technique
were a business or company joins forces with a charity
or non-governmental organization to support a cause.
The cause might be one that supports sickle cell anemia,
breast cancer, kidney failure, orphans, homeless people,
the blind etc. You see that these causes have to do with
issues that affect people. It could be on health issues or
societal problems but they help in providing money or
funds to help tackle or provide solutions to the problem.
The company uses a product that sells well in the market
to pursue this cause. They take a small percentage of
their profit to support the cause. Let’s take Bobo milk
drink or indomie noodles for example. Both are cherished
by children, and they can support a cause that is related
to children like, supporting children that are out of school,
open heart surgery for children etc. Beauty products for
women can also support causes related to problems
women have, like violence against women or breast
cancer. I have not seen this happen in Nigeria. Most
Nigerians would buy a product because they need it to
meet a particular need. I’m yet to see a nigerian that
would buy a product to support a cause, unless it is
sophisticated nigerian consumers.
Civic marketing is one that would work well for small
business owners especially when they want to launch
their business. This type of marketing idea can make
your target market customers like you immediately
because they would view you and your business or
company as one that isn’t just concerned with their
money, but one that is interested in their well being and
welfare. This is always community based. You can find a
major problem that affects the people living in your
community and provide solutions to that problem. Take
for example, pot holes on your roads. You can use your
money to fill that pot hole. You can donate bore holes to
your community to assist them in tackling water
problems. Is it the issue of unemployment or poverty?
You can teach the youths and women in your community
how you started your small business and how they can
start theirs too. Are you a doctor who has a small health
center or clinic? You can have a small seminar event
were you teach people about how to take care of their
health and offer free services like free HBP test, blood
sugar test etc. Do you have a small law firm, you can
have a law seminar were you inform your attendees
about their rights and attend to their legal problems. The
important thing is to create a platform were you would
interact with your target market customers and get to
introduce yourself and the products and services you
offer to them. It would also assist you in knowing one or
two things about your customers. You also need to
record the event and take down their contact details. This
is the information age and you need such data or
information in sending messages everyday by bulk text
messages, emails and so on to them.
Now that you know the major difference between cause-
related and civic marketing, it is time you create a simple
plan for your business. If you can’t do so, find an
affordable marketing consultant who would assist you in
doing so. I can assist you in doing so for an affordable
fee.
Happy marketing of your products and services. See you at the top.