Last updated on August 6th, 2020 at 10:47 pm

Digital Marketing In Nigeria – All you need to know.

As consumers in Nigeria spend more time using the internet and less time with several other channels – advertisers are left with no choice than to follow this trend. The ads have to be exactly where the eyeballs are to be efficient. Unfortunately, digital marketing in Nigeria is not as simple and straightforward as traditional marketing. This is the obvious reason that digital marketers in Nigeria are sought after right now and the demand will only be on auto-pilot in the nearest future. This is the same trend over the globe.

If you have a marketing background and want to learn digital marketing in Nigeria; you may be wondering which is the best way to go about it. Truth be told – there are several courses on digital marketing which are being offered as workshops, online courses and one-on-one coaching programs.

There are even MBA programs with a specialization in digital marketing such as this one: NYU Stern MBA Digital Marketing.  There are certification exams such as  Google Adwords certification and several other digital marketing agencies in Nigeria offering several digital marketing training in Nigeria.

The truth about digital marketing training in Nigeria

Here is the golden question: Does paying huge to attend all these courses and getting all the certificates to make you an expert in digital marketing in Nigeria? The answer for me?  A big NO. It may help you learn the fundamentals and even some advanced concepts in digital marketing but it does not make you career-ready for a position like Digital Marketing Manager or starting your own digital marketing agency in Nigeria. Digital marketing expertise only comes with digital marketing experience.

How to become a digital marketing expert in Nigeria

The best way to become an expert in digital marketing in Nigeria is to start practising digital marketing, and the best time? today! The fascinating thing about digital marketing is that you can start doing it at a very small scale. All you need to get started is a computer, an internet connection and a small amount of money to play around with. You can learn digital marketing by applying some digital marketing concepts to your own small business or projects here and there. Here are the things you can do right away:

Applying Digital Marketing on a Small Scale

• Choose a topic you are passionate about and start a blog about it. Cost: Approx $75  for a domain name and 3 years hosting. Amazing right?
• Learn a little about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and write SEO optimized articles in your blog.
• Install Google Analytics tracking code and see if you are getting some traffic to your blog. Explore Google Analytics. You just have to roll with the big boys – Google.
• Open an Adwords account and do some keyword research to see what your target audience is searching for in Google to find more detailed information on the topic you are blogging about.
• Then write problem-solving articles and publish on your blog.
• Open a Facebook page dedicated to your blog (apart from your personal page) and share the articles on your Facebook page.
• Promote your page with Facebook advertising. A budget for promotion can be as low as $10, or even less.
• Embed Facebook like box in your blog.
• Embed social sharing buttons in your blog articles. This can be easily done using WordPress plugins and it is free.
• Sign up for an email marketing service such as MailChimp, it is free. Guess what they just launch their autoresponder on the free plan. Well, if you have some money, then consider Aweber.
• Embed email signup forms in your blog and get subscribers. Email subscribers whenever you publish something on your blog.
• Promote your Facebook page through email marketing and in turn also get more email subscribers from your Facebook page.
• Invest in your blog over time by promoting your blog via Adwords. Get started with very low CPC bids. Unfortunately Nigeria my country does not get a free $100 upon signup.
• Sign up for Google Adsense and deploy advertising codes in your blog, if you wish, I really do not believe in Google Adsense.
• Convert your blog into a mobile-friendly blog and create mobile ads in Adwords.

Signup for my free blog mastery course – 15 videos in-depth tutorial on how to set-up your own blog and start practising digital marketing in Nigeria. You can learn all I mentioned above in this free course, plus I’ll be updating the course soon.

All the above steps can be done in 30 days by investing one hour per day. After you do all the steps above you would have gained a bit of hands-on experience in the following areas which pretty much sums up to the following major components of Digital Marketing:

Components of Digital Marketing

• Content marketing
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Paid Search (PPC)
• Email marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Digital Display Marketing (Ad Ops)
• Web Analytics and Reporting
• Mobile Marketing

30 hours of experience does not definitely make you an expert in Digital Marketing but you will be a much better qualified digital marketing professional than most of the people out there in the market. After this, you can continue scaling up your mini-project and add even more things to it. For example, Google webmaster tools integration is something I have not mentioned in the above list but it is important for digital marketing. Your expertise will increase to the level you are ready to scale up your project.

I should let out this secret – Being certified a digital marketer doesn’t make anyone a digital marketing expert. Certificates are good, don’t get me all wrong. All I’m saying is that it is not enough! It is not the basics!! If I’ll hire today, I’ll put experience far above a mere certification. Digital marketing in Nigeria is already getting bigger than certification, people want results.

You can also read: Becoming Google Adwords Certified, Is it worth it? 

Digital Marketing in Nigeria – Being Self-made

I became a digital marketing expert on my own. My first project dapsdiary.com started a little creepy. I never knew anything about digital marketing. I did not even know setting up a blog is a piece of cake. Instead, I paid a web designer hugely to design one for me. Until I had to look into it myself and started learning the ropes. Right now I do not only have ample knowledge about digital marketing, but I also set up this blog to keep learning and practising digital marketing with the steps mentioned above. I am determined to make everyone see that the steps mentioned above work. That is why there was a shift from dapsdiary to dapsdigital. You probably are reading this piece because I began implementing the steps above.

Having A Digital Marketing Agency?

Practical hands-on experience of applying digital marketing principles added with some qualifications and certifications makes you an ideal profile fit to run a digital marketing agency.

If you can successfully practice steps above and you begin to pull traction, you will catch the attention of people or businesses. some would want you to teach them, another would want to hire you, either by offering a job as a digital marketer or as a third-party agency. You will be required to execute specific digital marketing actions. Digital marketing is most effective when all the components of digital marketing are used in such a way that they complement each other. This is also called Integrated Digital Marketing.

You can also read: Integrated Digital Marketing Using Content Marketing

Digital marketing is highly lucrative! That is the new form of advertising, that is why most customers can be found. You can also be a digital marketer, you can start today.