Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Digital Marketing for Women: Customer Segments Vs ICP
Transcript
- 0:01Hello and welcome to the show. It's available on YouTube, Apple
- 0:04podcast and Spotify. I'm your host, Tavishima Aidi.
- 0:08This is going to be a noisy episode because I'm not in the
- 0:10audio booth, so expect to hear some interruptions.
- 0:13Then if you'd love to connect with me and explore
- 0:15opportunities, then call me on 08064662140 or WhatsApp me on
- 0:22the same number. The country code is +234 for
- 0:24those of you who are not Nigerian.
- 0:26Then for social media, you can connect with me on LinkedIn.
- 0:31Now, today, unfortunately, I'm not done with the session that I
- 0:36had on digital marketing for women that I did with Avon
- 0:42Innovation Hub over here in Abuja.
- 0:44And that's because, you know, we want to talk about something
- 0:49that's as broad as digital marketing.
- 0:51Marketing, there's a limit to how much you can cover in three
- 0:54days. So it turns out that the ladies
- 0:57would have loved to learn some more about digital marketing.
- 1:02And I promised to do something with them on demo day, but I
- 1:05didn't get to that. So I think I'll just make a
- 1:07podcast episode on that tomorrow.
- 1:09And that will sort of be like their homework or some extra
- 1:12resources. But then after reviewing some of
- 1:16the PDFs that were sent in, sorry, not PDFs, what are they
- 1:21called? PowerPoints.
- 1:22PowerPoints that were sent in on Demo Day, because the assignment
- 1:25that we're given for demo day that I gave them on the
- 1:27demonstration day to, to be able to assess that they understood
- 1:32the concepts was I tried to get a sense of how many of them can
- 1:37identify their ideal customer, the ideal customer profile, the
- 1:41ideal customer avatar. You know those audiences that
- 1:44you would like to go after Because the key thing when it
- 1:47comes to digital marketing, you know, online this online that
- 1:52the key thing that we need to get sorted, not just even in
- 1:56digital stuff, even for real world stuff like in sales.
- 1:59The first thing we need to figure out is who is it that
- 2:01we're chasing after in the 1st place?
- 2:03Because if you don't have a clear idea of who it is that
- 2:05you're supposed to be chasing after, you're going to waste
- 2:08time running after all sorts of people.
- 2:10You're going to waste money running after all sorts of
- 2:13people. And you're going to be wasting
- 2:14your valuable attention running after people that you didn't
- 2:17need to talk to in the first place.
- 2:20So the first part of our enterprise is trying to figure
- 2:22out who's the ICP, what is the ideal customer profile?
- 2:25Who is the customer avatar? Who is the, you know, who is,
- 2:29who are the people that we should be running after?
- 2:30Basically that's the first question that we have to answer.
- 2:33So I wanted to be sure that the ladies who attended that session
- 2:36on digital marketing for women would be able to clearly come up
- 2:41with an idea about who they should be chasing after with
- 2:44their digital, their digital marketing.
- 2:46And then come up with strategies for how they're going to use
- 2:50social media to target those groups.
- 2:52So that's what Demo Day was about.
- 2:55But now looking at some of the PowerPoint presentations or PDFs
- 2:59or whatever it is that was submitted, it occurred to me
- 3:02that there's one part of the training that we could have
- 3:05handled a whole lot better. And that is when it comes to the
- 3:08difference between segments and the difference between Icps.
- 3:14So what is a customer segment? And then what is an ideal
- 3:18customer? How are they different?
- 3:20What is the relationship between the two?
- 3:23And what should we be doing in the business?
- 3:26Should we be coming up with customer segments and start
- 3:28chasing down customer segments? Or should we have an ideal
- 3:31customer profile? Is there any difference?
- 3:33So that's what we're going to tackle today.
- 3:35But before I get into that, I would like to shout out Somto
- 3:39who reached out to me on WhatsApp, discovered the podcast
- 3:42on Spotify. He's currently the Head of sales
- 3:45for Tropic Dreams based out in Lagos.
- 3:48And then the business of digital transformation.
- 3:51So they've currently partnered with Zoho.
- 3:54Zoho is a company that makes all kinds of apps for business
- 4:00solutions. So they have an enterprise
- 4:02resource planning tool, They have ACRM that's a customer
- 4:05relationship management tool. They have inventory management
- 4:07relation to sorry, inventory management tools.
- 4:11Yes, sorry, I'm just used to saying relationship management
- 4:14all the time. So inventory management tools
- 4:17and a whole host of other things.
- 4:19And so Santo as head of sales for Tropic Dreams in partnership
- 4:24or should I say they're resellers or licensees of Zoho
- 4:26over here in Nigeria. And Zoho is trying to take over
- 4:30the Nigerian market or rather trying to introduce themselves
- 4:33into the Nigerian market. Now, the reason why I wanted to
- 4:38have the conversation with Zoho that sorry, not with Zoho with
- 4:42Somto, sorry, one moment looks like somebody's at the door.
- 4:45Let me go sort that out and I'll be back.
- 4:50OK, I'm back. That's a good thing.
- 4:51I told you guys that there were going to be some interruptions.
- 4:54Oh, by the way, when I was having a conversation with Somto
- 4:57as after chatting back and forth and then we're on the phone
- 4:59call. I apologise for the poor audio,
- 5:01some of the some of the episodes.
- 5:03And you know, he laughed at off he said it wasn't that bad.
- 5:06So I'm hoping that you guys don't think some of these things
- 5:08are that bad. Well, it's not like you have
- 5:11much of A choice anyway because it's the only way that I can
- 5:13stay on top of these episodes. So where was I?
- 5:18So Somtu works with Tropic Dreams and they are distributors
- 5:22or resellers of Zoho and Zoho has lots of business apps that
- 5:27are supposed to make your businesses run better.
- 5:30Now, the reason why I wanted to have the conversation with Somtu
- 5:33obviously was because I've been talking about using Zoho CRM
- 5:37over here on the app. Now, the reason why I've been
- 5:39talking about using Zoho CRM is not because Zoho is the best,
- 5:43but because it's free. And I think that we should start
- 5:47off with free options whenever we possibly can.
- 5:50But of course, the free plan on Zoho is limited.
- 5:52I think currently I think it's limited to maybe like two or
- 5:55three people within the business, I think.
- 5:57And then there are paid options. And of course, it's not just
- 5:59Zoho I've been talking about. I've also spoken about Odo.
- 6:02I think that's O double DO. But Zoho is foreign.
- 6:07Odo. OK, well, Odo is also foreign,
- 6:09but you know, the African brothers and sisters, I can't
- 6:12remember if they're South African or whichever company it
- 6:14is anyway. So Odo, one of us, Zoho foreign.
- 6:21OK, well, they're both foreign. I don't know of any Nigerian CRM
- 6:23companies, but either way, getting into that CRM mindset is
- 6:28something that is really, really important for us to improve our
- 6:31businesses because we can't run everything from memory.
- 6:34We can't remember all the people we're supposed to talk to.
- 6:36You can't remember all the people you're supposed to send
- 6:38proposals to today. You can't remember all the
- 6:40customers that you're supposed to go and visit.
- 6:42You can't remember all the suppliers that you have to talk
- 6:45to so that you can restock and then all these things.
- 6:47So you need some sort of tool to keep you up to date.
- 6:50And that's the reason why I keep making podcast episodes about
- 6:52using your phone as ACRM. But if you want to get a bit
- 6:55more sophisticated using Excel sheet as ACRM or just biting the
- 7:00bullet and then, you know, using auto or using Zoho or using
- 7:04something that is dedicated to that.
- 7:06So yeah. So that's it.
- 7:09Shout out to Somtu. Thank you very much for
- 7:11listening to the show. And I'm glad that sales
- 7:13professionals are beginning to discover the show.
- 7:15Please, for those of you who are sales professionals like Somtu,
- 7:18head of sales for Tropic Dreams, keep on sharing the podcast.
- 7:20Let your brothers and sisters out there in the field know that
- 7:24we now have valuable resources such as this that can help us up
- 7:28our sales game when we're talking to customers.
- 7:31So with the shout out done, let's head straight to business.
- 7:35OK, so like I said, having a chat with the ladies at Avon
- 7:39Innovation Hub, because digital marketing for women, and I told
- 7:43them all about the ICP, the ideal customer profile and why
- 7:46that is important. But I forgot to make a
- 7:49distinction between customer segments and between the ideal
- 7:52customer profile. And that is because a lot of the
- 7:56presentations were made at the end of the day.
- 7:59People would talk about ideal customers in very broad
- 8:02categories. For instance, there's someone
- 8:05who runs an online store and who took part in this ICP exercise.
- 8:09And then for her, she started talking about how her ideal
- 8:13customer profile, her ideal audiences were families, young
- 8:18professionals, hotels, and then corporate organizations.
- 8:22So let me repeat, she said that her ideal customer, her ideal
- 8:26audiences are families, that is broad, young professionals, that
- 8:31is broad, hotels, that is broad, corporate organizations, that is
- 8:37also very broad. Now, typically what I would do,
- 8:40what I did during that session was to try and tell them how,
- 8:43well, yes, of course, these are classes of people, categories of
- 8:45people that we should be running after.
- 8:47But for the purposes of a marketing campaign or for the
- 8:50purposes of trying to figure out how you're going to use your
- 8:52Instagram best or your e-mail marketing best or your LinkedIn
- 8:56strategy best or something, it would help if for each exercise
- 8:59we had a specific narrow profile of someone that we're chasing
- 9:04after. So instead of saying that
- 9:08families are your audiences because that's very broad, and
- 9:13then young professionals, what I'll try to get them to do is to
- 9:16pick one. If you're going to focus on
- 9:19young professionals, then let's focus on young professionals and
- 9:22let it be specific. Young professionals between the
- 9:24ages of 25 to 35 who live in big cities like Abuja, Lagos, Port
- 9:29Harcourt and who are involved in banking and financial services.
- 9:35So now you can see that if that is the profile that you're
- 9:39working with, you're going to be able to tailor the contents that
- 9:43you would write on social media because you can be writing the
- 9:46content and you can ask yourself this thing that I'm writing or
- 9:50this video that I'm recording, does it look or does it sound
- 9:53like it's something that a young professional age between 20 and
- 9:5735 living in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano and who is in the
- 10:02banking space and the financial sector, does it sound like
- 10:05something that they're going to be interested in?
- 10:07So when you have a specific picture like this, it's going to
- 10:09be able to guide the content that you're going to create is
- 10:13going to be able to guide the advertising that you are going
- 10:15to do. Because when you hit up the
- 10:19advertising, sorry, not advertising console, what's it
- 10:22called? The advertising manager.
- 10:25When you hit up advertising manager in Facebook or in
- 10:27Instagram, I'm not sure what the the advertising dashboard looks
- 10:33like, looks like in Google. So let me not reference that
- 10:35You're going to be able to put in all these demographics and
- 10:38psychographics. You're going to be able to take
- 10:40that. Look, Facebook, Zuckerberg, this
- 10:43advert that I'm putting here right now, only show it to
- 10:46people who are based in Nigeria. Don't just show this advert to
- 10:50people who are based in Nigeria only limited to these cities,
- 10:53Abuja, Port, Arcot, Kano, Lagos. And then of the people that are
- 10:58showing this to in these cities, only show it to people who are
- 11:01between the ages of 20 and 35. And for all the Nigerians who
- 11:06meet their criteria who are between the ages of 20 and 35,
- 11:08only show it to those who work in banks or who work in
- 11:12financial institutions. So that way, Zuckerberg would
- 11:15now know that OK, this advert that this guy has created and
- 11:18put on the platform, let us only show it to people who meet all
- 11:21these criterias and who only work in Zenith Bank, Access
- 11:25Bank, GTB, what else? Lead Way, Assurance, Stanbic,
- 11:31IPT, pension managers, you know those sorts of things.
- 11:35So that's how it works and that's what I'll try to get the
- 11:38ladies to do to narrow it down. But unfortunately, what I failed
- 11:42to do was to let the ladies at Avon know that what they were
- 11:46doing technically speaking was not wrong, but they were just
- 11:48thinking about customer segments.
- 11:51Now, customer segment is a broad group of people that have
- 11:56similar needs or have similar characteristics.
- 11:59So if we're doing exercises about ICP and you start talking
- 12:02in large terms, saying families, young professionals, hotels and
- 12:05corporate organizations, technically speaking, what
- 12:07you've done is not wrong. All you have done is you've
- 12:10started discussing customer segments, the ideal customer
- 12:16profile, the ICP, the customer avatar, the people you should be
- 12:19chasing after are those people who you think are most likely to
- 12:23benefit from a product or service or people who you enjoy
- 12:26working with. Well, for me, I like to extend
- 12:27the people that you enjoy working with because I really,
- 12:29really believe that. Well, far.
- 12:33It's not just a matter of belief.
- 12:34Hanging out with other people who are SMEs.
- 12:36I know that it's one thing to run out of some people who pay
- 12:40you, but every time they pay you the price, you'd agree or not,
- 12:44and they end up being idiots. So technically speaking, the
- 12:48money's in your bank account, but every single time you're
- 12:50angry and you're just pissed off with the whole world.
- 12:53But then there's some other people who you work with and
- 12:56when they price you, they don't price you too bad.
- 12:58And when they pay you, they pay you well.
- 12:59And apart from that, they're decent people.
- 13:02So I think that sometimes we should also put that in this
- 13:05whole matrix. So it's not just a matter of who
- 13:07can benefit most from my product or my service, but also of the
- 13:10people who might benefit from my product or my service, who are
- 13:12those that I actually enjoy working with Self.
- 13:15Because it really sucks. And I gave an example about how
- 13:18early on I took a documentary job.
- 13:21The amount I was supposed to enter my pocket was 300K.
- 13:24But then six months later, we were still on this documentary
- 13:28after collecting 600 key. That's one, I'm sorry, 300 key
- 13:31that's in my pocket. I mean, like, are you not just
- 13:35better off going and getting a job than collecting 300 key for
- 13:38someone? And people are still quarreling
- 13:40after six months. So these are some of the
- 13:43questions you'll be asking yourself when you want to select
- 13:46your ideal customer profile. So for those of you who are
- 13:49thinking in broad terms, you are correct.
- 13:52It's not wrong, but you're thinking in terms of customer
- 13:54segments. So for the ICP now we have to
- 13:57tweak it and narrow down small so that we know who we are
- 14:00chasing after. I've given an example using
- 14:03young professionals because you say young professionals in
- 14:05Nigeria. That can mean anything.
- 14:09It can mean somebody who is 22, I think UN conventions or
- 14:13something, you know, UN documents, I think they wouldn't
- 14:16say for young people. Someone told me that if you say
- 14:2042, you're still young. And for me, I think that's a
- 14:23little bit off. I think 42, you can say, well,
- 14:27OK, 42, yeah, OK, you're still a young guy, still a young girl.
- 14:30But anyway, what's up for debate?
- 14:33But see, these are the reasons why we should even become
- 14:35really, really narrow when it comes to these sorts of things.
- 14:37Because if I say a young person, if Malaga says go and target
- 14:40young people, but in my mind, young people is 18 to 25.
- 14:45But for Malaga, Malaga thinks young people is 30 to 45.
- 14:49I mean, you see how the quarrel will start, how your guy will be
- 14:51saying that, look, how can you go and be using this age, grade
- 14:55and blah, blah, blah. You guys are shouting back and
- 14:57forth, but actually it's because you and your boss, you and your
- 15:00guy, you and your teammates, you and your business partner or you
- 15:03and your spouse if both of you run the business together.
- 15:06You guys are now in agreement about a couple of things.
- 15:08So we have to be really, really clear.
- 15:10So now just say young professionals.
- 15:12That's a customer segment, so that's good.
- 15:15It's nice that we've limited it down to a segment, but let's
- 15:18still do small work and then cut it down a bit.
- 15:22So we're going to say young professionals, which kind of
- 15:24young professionals because people who work in the judiciary
- 15:27are also professionals. People who are engineers are
- 15:30also professionals. So of course, you know,
- 15:32depending on what it is that you sell or the service you provide,
- 15:35you know, that will determine what we have to ask ourselves
- 15:37these questions. When you say hotels, that is
- 15:41also a broad category. So technically speaking, these
- 15:46short time places is, is also hotel now.
- 15:49But are those the kind of people that you want to do business
- 15:52with? Or are you thinking about places
- 15:54like the Hilton Abbey Hilton, is it 4 star Abbey three star or
- 15:59are you thinking, you know, three and four-star
- 16:00establishments in Lagos and Abuja?
- 16:02But we have to be clear about these sorts of things because
- 16:05you can also go to Okochukwa and Sons Hotel, which is technically
- 16:11speaking as a hotel, but really everybody knows it's short time,
- 16:14so you need to know what's up. Same thing with corporate
- 16:17organizations. What kind of corporate
- 16:19organization are you trying to target?
- 16:22So when it comes to doing these sorts of things, you know, yes,
- 16:25we should list out as many customer segments as possible
- 16:28because it's also part of the, I put it the strategic process.
- 16:33The, it's part of the strategic process trying to figure out who
- 16:38it is that we're chasing after. So yes, list out all your
- 16:40segments. Families, that's a customer
- 16:43segment, young professionals, that's a customer segments,
- 16:46hotels, that's a customer segment.
- 16:48Corporate organizations, that's a customer segment.
- 16:51But then we don't have to figure out for this particular campaign
- 16:55that we're trying to do this radio advertisements that we
- 16:57want to run, this Facebook advertisement that we want to
- 17:00place or this marketing that we want to do.
- 17:04You know, in this part of the world, Nigeria, when we say
- 17:05marketing, that means people are going out into the streets and
- 17:07talking to strangers. So this marketing that we want
- 17:10to do now, who are we going to be talking to?
- 17:13If you say we're going to be talking to families, young
- 17:15professionals, hotels and corporate organizations is too
- 17:18broad. You send your sales team out
- 17:20there with this kind of target and you know, they're confused,
- 17:23don't know what's up. If you're targeting and then in
- 17:26your advertisements, in your, the targeting criteria in
- 17:31Instagram, you put it there that target families, young
- 17:33professionals, hotels and corporate organizations.
- 17:35That is too broad. But if you send your sales
- 17:38professional and say look guy, this thing that we're going to
- 17:41sell, go out there and only talk to families.
- 17:44Apart from that, we are only talking to families who live in
- 17:48Abuja, in the central part of Abuja and who have on average
- 17:52three to five children. You can see that that now is
- 17:55very specific so that somebody goes and starts talking to
- 17:57somebody and figures out the person lives in Waggola and the
- 18:00person has five wives and 11 children.
- 18:02You don't know that. OK, This is not the person I
- 18:05should be spending my time with. By the way, I'm not saying that
- 18:09people who have 5 wives and 11 children are bad.
- 18:11I'm just trying to say that, you know, this business here, we're
- 18:14trying to collect money here. So we need to have a clear idea
- 18:18of who it is that's going to get value from our product or
- 18:20service and we have to try and figure out how best to spend our
- 18:23time. So I'm not making any value
- 18:25judgments here, although as a young man, because he's one of
- 18:30those guys who lives in my estate and I don't know how they
- 18:33do it, especially with this economy.
- 18:35Well, actually I should be talking to him so that because
- 18:38clearly he's doing OK, so I should be taking my advice from
- 18:41him actually about how to make money.
- 18:42So I mean, all these young men by running around, you haven't
- 18:46hit 50 already have like 3 wives, children have already
- 18:48entered like 9. Like gay people are strong.
- 18:53I have you guys, where was I? So I'm not making value
- 18:58judgements. Let's just be clear about who it
- 19:00is that we're chasing. So if you're going to get
- 19:02engaged in these sorts of exercises and you're talking
- 19:04big, big, big, broad, broad, broad, families and young
- 19:06professionals, no problem. What you've done is a customer
- 19:09segment. But for the purpose of this
- 19:11campaign, this marketing, this radio advertisement, this TV
- 19:15advertisement, this even down to things like Flyers, these Flyers
- 19:18that we're trying to produce. Now, who are we targeting these
- 19:21Flyers for? You can see how that is going to
- 19:23affect the design. If you're creating Flyers and
- 19:25you're trying to promote your product, your service or your
- 19:27business, the flyer that you're designing for families is not
- 19:30going to have the same feel as the Flyers that you're designing
- 19:34for corporate organizations. I hope you guys are feeling me
- 19:36now. So these things are important.
- 19:39Call out the segments. No problem.
- 19:40From the segments, narrow things down.
- 19:42Ask yourself a bunch of questions.
- 19:44You're going to be able to get your ICP.
- 19:45Remember, it's not just people who pay you, It's also people
- 19:49who you enjoy working with. And like I told the ladies, I'm
- 19:53going to tell you guys over here now, it's also not a bad idea to
- 19:56look at your trading history. Who are the people that have
- 19:58actually done business with you in the past and the people that
- 20:00you enjoyed working with in the past?
- 20:01And so let's take it from there. So that's the difference
- 20:04basically between the customer segment and the ICP, if you can
- 20:07say that there's a difference after all, because in my own
- 20:09opinion, they're both kind of saying the same thing.
- 20:12The difference is just the scale.
- 20:14So when we say customer segments, what we have is a
- 20:16broad group of people who have similar needs or similar
- 20:20characteristics. It's a broad group.
- 20:21They look alike because, after all families, they look alike.
- 20:24What are they made-up of Mommy daddy and children so they all
- 20:27look alike. What is the difference between
- 20:30mommy daddy and children. If mommy and daddy are both
- 20:33bankers and they only have three children and they live in they
- 20:42live in Wusetu and there's a difference.
- 20:46If mommy and daddy are both farmers who live in building KB
- 20:53and and OK, now let me stop here before I get in trouble.
- 20:56I don't want people to stop blasting me anyway.
- 20:59You, you, you get the picture. So customer segment broad, ICP
- 21:05much more narrow. We actually need to know both
- 21:08when we're coming up with marketing, advertising and all
- 21:11other stuff that we have to do to promote our businesses.
- 21:13So again, thank you very much to Santo for listening to the show.
- 21:18Please share for the rest of you who also listen to the show.
- 21:22I love you guys, I really do. I appreciate the support and if
- 21:27we've been chatting and you feel like I owe you a shout out, I
- 21:30haven't shouted you out, just send me a message because you
- 21:34know, sometimes I forget. So that's it.
- 21:36Thank you very much for your time and attention.
- 21:38I'll catch you guys tomorrow and remember that if you'd love to
- 21:41connect and explore opportunities with me, the phone
- 21:43number is 08064662140. Can WhatsApp me on the same
- 21:48number. The country code is +234 for
- 21:50those of you who are not Nigerian.
- 21:52So yeah, that's it. I'll catch you tomorrow.