How to Run Successful Business Online in Nigeria: Practical Tips for 2023
Online businesses in Nigeria put up with lots of challenges daily. From power supply issues, and poor internet, to unrealistic government policies. While these issues are beyond control and contribute to the lesser success of an online business, if you want to get the best results and maximise your revenue, then you need to put in place some effective strategies. These tips will help you get started and stay consistently winning.
Ten (10) Practical Tips to Run a Successful Online Business in Nigerian come 2023
- Join online business communities
Online communities are a gateway to connect with other business owners in Nigeria, share your struggles, learn and offer a platform to advertise your business.
How?
Online communities serve as a platform for people with different interests to converse online. Most of these communities will focus on topics revolving around solutions which your business can benefit from. They also provide resources that could interest your target audience making it a hotspot to engage with them. You can join these communities, provide value and interact with members to build connections.
The driving force of online sales is Trust. As an active member of an online community, other members will trust you, and by extension, you will get sales, referrals and free publicity. You can start by searching on Facebook for online communities that share your values. Another way is to follow experts in your niche, often having inner circle online communities.
- Invest Heavily in Online prospecting
Prospecting is the act of going out online to look for customers. It’s used mainly by service providers. However, product-based businesses can benefit from the strategy too. To achieve success with prospecting, you must understand your target audience’s pain points and online resources they depend on for solutions. The next step is to build relationships with prospects and get them to make a purchase, sign up for your newsletter, or save your contact. An excellent tactic is providing value that helps them solve a problem fast. Subsequently, they will be open to conversations with you and patronize your business.
- Pay attention to the offline marketing strategy
One mistake online business owners in Nigeria make is neglecting offline marketing. Research shows that 60% of customers buy online after engaging with word-of-mouth advertising offline. Also, Nigeria internet users account for 51% of the population leaving about 48% offline. That’s a high figure and untapped potential for marketing for businesses. Investing in digital ads, content, and other digital marketing approaches is great, but neglecting traditional marketing is a huge mistake. Some effective offline marketing channels include
- Sharing print materials like Flyers, banners etc.
- Attending Live events like conferences, seminars, trade fairs etc.
- One-on-one marketing.
Don’t sleep on the money offline. Secure the bag.
- Understand Government Business Policies
Recently, there have been changes to promotional content policies, Façebook ads having to pay tax, APCON plans to regulate digital media advertising in Nigeria, and more in Nigeria. Most of these policies seriously affect running a successful online business in Nigeria.
If you don’t keep track of these policies, you might wake up one morning to find out your business is violating one or more policies, putting your business at legal risk. Or limiting your access to grants and other government provisions, even beyond. The news must be your friend. Watch out for policies and take action to protect your business.
- Register your business with CAC
Times are changing, and you cannot afford to run a successful business without getting the necessary government certificate. For example, with the level of scams online, having an official business account helps increase your trust ratings and sales. However, CBN directive specifies CAC certificate as a compulsory document for setting up an official business account. Also, businesses registered with the CAC have better chances of securing loans and government grants as it’s a vital requirement in most cases. There’s a list of other benefits registering your business provides and you cannot afford to miss out on them. Visit the CAC Website to register your business. Follow this article to learn how to register your online business in Nigeria with CAC
- Automate your online business process
The online business process gets complicated quickly. Between managing customers’ requests, accounts, and marketing, there’s a lot to do. And it can get overwhelming fast. Thankfully, technology has made things easy. You can easily automate repeat business processes with online tools or some computer software or mobile phone apps (android/Apple). Some are free, while others require a fee.
For example, Kippa is an accounting and invoice management tool with a feature to manage your online business’s day-to-day transactions without paying for a full suite of enterprise accounting software. It is accessible on mobile and flexible for online business owners. Automating repeat business processes will boost your productivity and efficiency.
You can get started with these 14 tools to run a successful online business in Nigeria.
- Adopt effective social media marketing strategies
Many business owners have hailed social media marketing as a vital asset to their growth. Recent research reveals that about 96% of small business owners acknowledge social media as critical marketing tool for their business. Also, marketers say it’s an essential part of their Digital Marketing Strategy. At the same time, about 90% of small business owners see social media as an effective strategy for building brand awareness and communication with the target audience. Research also revealed that 76% of users use social media for market research. Also, customers are likely to spend 20% – 40% more money when you interact with them on social media.
Looking at the facts and numbers above, it’s safe to say that social media shows effective results and should be part of your business marketing strategy in 2023 and years beyond.
- Adopt Video Marketing to your online/social media activities
Customers make purchases based on emotions. Video marketing is a great vehicle to resonate your business services with your audience emotionally. This is effective because people retain visual information more than text. Also, 88 percent of consumers claim that watching a brand’s video persuaded them to purchase a good or service.
By creating high-quality videos that are relevant to your target audience, you can capture the attention of potential customers and keep them engaged with your brand.
However, to be most effective, your content should be high quality, relevant to your target audience, and easy to access and watch.
- Use WhatsApp as marketing channel
Whatsapp is the most preferred communication channel for many, now with approximately 2 billion users. The messaging platform users (which include you) send over 2 billion messages every month. And with WhatsApp Status feature which now has over 500 million daily active users (more than Facebook Stories’ 300 million and Snapchat’s 186 million daily active users), WhatsApp would be just the right place to also divert your marketing efforts.
- Outsource business processes that require expertise
As a solopreneur, you can manage to handle all business activities. However, as your business scales, it will require expertise to get the best results. For example, if you are struggling with Facebook ads, social media, or search engine marketing, you must hire an expert digital marketing agency to get better sales results.
Outsourcing cuts time wasted on repeat activities so you can focus on your core business operations. You can also outsource delivery, accounting, and other activities that require expert touch so you can focus on running the business.
Educational resources to help you run a successful online business in Nigeria
- Read about 14 tools you need to run an online business successfully.
- Download this PDF guide on how to use WhatsApp for communication, marketing and automation.
- Learn how you can automate your business process with WhatsApp.
- Learn how to implement effective Video Marketing for your business online.
- Learn how to create effective social media marketing for online business in Nigeria.
- Learn how to register your online business with CAC.
- Learn how to use Google my Business to get customers.
- Learn how to set up a free Google website for your business. Also, read how to set up a successful website.
- Check out the business blog section to get practical strategies to run a successful online business in Nigeria.
Conclusion on running an online business in 2023
Starting an online business in Nigeria or putting your business online is easy, as you can be off and running with just social media accounts. However, the difficult part is running the online business successfully; the part which requires consistent depths of knowledge, marketing consistency/expertise executions, soft tools, and more.
These tips will help you run your online business successfully in Nigeria in 2023.
