15 Ways to Do Online Advertising in Nigeria

How to do online advertising in Nigeria is a challenge to all business owners. Your aim for advertising your product or service is to reach potential buyers at the least cost.

We know that traditional advertising is costly and ineffective in selling. To reverse this unsatisfactory trend, every business owner today should learn how to do online advertising in Nigeria to keep old customers and sell to new ones.

This article shall focus on why you should do online advertisement and different methods of doing it.

After reading this piece, you will understand various ways to advertise, some types of advertisements you can do, how to launch advertisement campaigns within your budget and how to take advantage of free advertisement opportunities to get brand loyalty and better publicity for your business.

Read: 10 Steps to Grow Your Business with Digital Marketing

Why Should You Advertise?

You should ask yourself this question. Why should you advertise? Is it for brand awareness, to help you sell more or expand your business?

Your answers to this question will enable you to choose the best advertising channel and message that will persuade likely customers to buy from you.

Today, advertising is moving from the traditional into the internet and digital devices have become effective tools for advertising all over the world.

Digital online advertising involve the use of smart phones and tablets, websites and blogs, video marketing on the internet, use of search engines, email marketing, social media marketing and marketing using bulk short message system.

Choosing the Best Platform to Do Online Advertising 

The cost of carrying out a marketing campaign is a deciding factor for many business owners who opt for online advertising than the traditional channels.

Online advertising is affordable and online platforms make it easy to launch. Another good reason for choosing to do online advertising against the former methods is the ease of monitoring results of a marketing campaign online.

Furthermore, Telecommunication and the Internet Market in Nigeria is one of the fastest growing in the world.

In Nigeria, youths in love with technology, social media and the internet make up a greater percentage of the population. In addition, millions of young active internet users surf the internet with their mobile phones.

As a business owner, if you are not marketing these youths with over 20 million active Facebook and other social media channels users, you will be advertising to a nonexistent audience.

Wisdom should tell you to go where the market is, and that is why you must embrace online advertising whole-heartedly.

Finally, launching successful advertising campaigns with little budget and targeting specific sections of internet users for good sales has become the norm all over the world.

What Are The Effective Ways To Do Online Advertising In Nigeria?

As we study how to do online advertising in Nigeria, please note that there are many ways to reach your customers. Let us see some of the ways to advertise with little money.

1) Search Engine and AdWords

As you learn how to do online advertising in Nigeria, you can begin by putting your ads in Google search engine.

How do you go about it?

When you search for information on the Internet using Google search engine, if you type “holidays” into the browser, Google instant will display search terms similar to the words you typed into the browser.

Google gives you search results that are relevant to your need, collect data of all users searching for solutions to their problems, and compiles the statistics of keywords for sale to advertisers.

Advertisers rely on these facts to bid on Google AdWords platform for specific keywords on pay-per-click or other metrics they choose.

For example, if you bid for “holidays“ every time someone does a search for “holidays”, your advertisement links will show up in the sponsored links section of Google search. If you select pay-per-click ad option, you only pay Google when a searcher clicks on the advertisement.

2) Use YouTube

As people search for “how to do one thing or another” online, people prefer You Tube to Google because videos are easier to understand than ordinary text or pictures. As they say, a video is worth a billion words.

Go ahead and make valuable videos of “how to do things” for people. First, create a connection and become close by helping them. Once they accept you, make better videos that address peculiar needs you have identified by relating with them, and sell solutions to them.

3) Video Advertising

Video advertising is a very popular way to sell to customers. Moreover, you can track the number of people who start and complete a transaction through video advertising. Finally, in video advertising, you can target any audience you want by producing good videos.

How does this work?

Business owners or advertisers can take advantage of video adverts through these ways.

1. a) You can stream videos on rich media banners to reach the market you are targeting. This medium allows the user to watch the advertisement or turn it off anytime they wish. This gives the viewer more freedom whether to see the video or not.
2. b) In Pre-roll, the viewer has less freedom. For example, the viewer who wants to watch an interview of a personal finance expert must first watch a 15 or 20 seconds video advertisement of how to manage their personal finance.
3. c) In You Tube, “True View” allows the viewer to skip after watching an online video advertisement for 5 seconds. The viewer has some freedom to skip or watch to the end.

Advertisers are now taking Television commercials and using them as pre-roll.

As you think of how to do online advertising in Nigeria, try these methods. Add some creativity to engage the viewer for longer than five seconds, and give more information to help them decide whether to buy from you or not.

4) Free Online Advertising

You can advertise through classified advertisements free online. How can you use this method?

Some classified advertisement websites need you to register before you post your free advertisement while some do not.

To make their offer more useful for business owners, some of these free online-classified advert providers, introduced premium plans. This allows advertisers to display their adverts on their home pages.

The big industry service providers who offer cheap advert solutions are OLX, and Jiji. You can advertise in classified advertisement websites like OLX and Jiji to get more visitors to your sales page.

5) Retargeting Display Ads

Technology and digital devices allow business owners to take advantage of opportunities presented by retargeting display ads, to improve service delivery and connect to more users of their products.

How does retargeting work?

Let us assume you visited an e-commerce site and clicked on an Apple iPad advertisement, the next time you use the internet you will see a display of that iPad advert. Each time you use the web, you will see this advertisement with enticing offers.

The more you see it, the more likely it is you will buy it. From this simple application of technology, it is clear that how to do online advertising in Nigeria is easier than before. Go on and try it.

6) Sponsorship by an Advertiser

If you use a digital method to advertise online, you can tap into multichannel outlets to display your ads and reach more people.

Let us consider a business owner advertising through a Television network. Nowadays, Television networks own websites and could stream videos on the internet. In addition, they have social media accounts and apps that users can download for tablets and smart phones.

A business owner could pay for a program where people discuss the use of its products in a sponsored show. The TV station will air it on Television; stream it on their website and blog, play it on their TV app and all their social media pages.

Imagine the number of people who this sponsored program will reach.

As you ponder over how to do online advertising in Nigeria, why not sponsor a TV program, and reach many prospective customers. A trial will convince you.

7) Branded Apps

If you download and use an app, it will make you loyal to the brand. Stop! Check your smart phone and tablet now. It has loads of apps. Who are the owners of those branded apps? Well! Your guess is as good as mine is.

It is no longer a secret. You can develop and brand an app for users to download and when they use the app, they touch your brand.

For example, customers use bank apps to check their balances, do funds transfer, buy recharge cards, and pay utility bills. The app solves a problem for a customer but increases sales for the brand.

If you are seeking for how to do online advertising in Nigeria, using branded app is a cheap way to do it. You can hire freelancers from Fiverr.com to make the app for you with less than US$10.

8) Advertising in Websites, Blogs and Online Newspapers

How to do online advertising in Nigeria becomes easier by the day as you discover more channels for advertising.

Now, you are free to advertise on top blogs, websites, and online newspapers to target customers, increase sales and make your brand more visible.

Most of these websites advertisement rates are affordable. Before you pay for any advertisement, check for the number of visitors daily and quality of posts in the websites. Also, find out how their blogs connects with visitors.

If what you discover is satisfactory, contact the owner(s) to place your adverts.

9) Advertise in Forums

There are popular Nigerian forums you can post your adverts and get real click-through to your website. In addition, the conversion rates of visitors are high.

A popular forum you can check out is Nairaland forum. Search for more as you think of ways to do online advertising in Nigeria to enlarge your business.

10)  Advertise in Local Search Engine Directories

VConnet is a local business directory fast growing into an online market place with a database listing over one million indigenous businesses and connecting buyers to sellers.

You can advertise your business and list it free of charge in the local advertisement directory if it has a true business address. It also allows users to sell products on their platform. To make your business more visible get their premium plan.

11) Using Search to Connect other Advertising Activities

You can do banner, mobile, offline plus social media advertisement to cause people to search for your brand name.

When they find your brand, potential customers will move from awareness to interest in your products and confirm through search, whether your products meet their requirements before they buy.

We are affirming that if you are looking for how to do online advertising in Nigeria connecting other advertising activities with search is effective.

12) Social Media Marketing

In the social media platform, you have free and paid social media advertising. Let us see how to do online advertising in Nigeria using paid and free social media advertisement in Facebook and Twitter.

A) Facebook

Use free tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinetrest, Instagram, etc. to create a large brand presence in the market and become notable in the topic you are promoting. If people see you as an expert, they will buy any product or service you recommend to them.

If you create ads, in Facebook and pay for it that is paid social media advertising. These ads can be structured or an unstructured. In structured advertisement you could target people by gender, country, state, age, etc but in unstructured, you target people in general terms.

Types of Paid Ads in Facebook

Let us discuss two ways you pay to advertise in Facebook.

i) Market Place Ads

Market place ads run on the right hand side of your page in Facebook and it usually shows you things you may want. Market place ads are unstructured ad units. The cost is little when you compare it to the spotlight and buyers it could bring for your business.

ii) Sponsored Stories

Sponsored stories are another way to target people in Facebook. They are subtle and built into Facebook systems. In this ad, advertisers will use places you like and visit to send advertisements to your friends through their news feeds. This is a structured ad unit.

The basis for creating this ad-unit is the belief that people rely on word of mouth to make decisions whether to buy or not, and that friends influence one another and family to buy.

For example, the ad concept assumes that if your friends see that you visited Mr. Biggs (a local fast food restaurant) in their news feed, they will likely head to Mr. Biggs to get the same experience you had there.

This is a novel way of how to do online advertising in Nigeria. You can use this method to target people to buy from you. Go ahead, create sponsored stories, and sell to friends and family in Facebook.

B) Advertising in Twitter

Twitter allows people of like interest to follow and connect one another because they share an interest. Promoted Accounts is a popular twitter ad unit.

i) Promoted accounts

In Twitter, promoted accounts advertisements are subtle, you may think they are not adverts.

Promoted accounts, usually appears on the left hand side of your Twitter Feed, and suggests to you other twitter accounts you may like to visit, and those you would like to follow.

To create this advertisement, Twitter looks at your profile to check the things you like and sell it to Advertisers, who buy this information and targets you.

One advantage of promoted accounts is that you can re-tweet for more people to see them. While a disadvantage is that, they cost more than Facebook adverts.

This is a creative way of how to do online advertising in Nigeria. Therefore, join other advertisers to find people who share similar interests as you, develop a relationship, and then sell something valuable that could solve a problem for them.

13) Telephone Marketing

Online advertising can also include sending bulk short messages (SMS) to millions of GSM telephone subscribers. Meet GSM service providers or people reselling bulk SMS, strike a bargain, and buy a plan and start promoting your business.

Bulk SMS advertising will make you wonder whether how to do online advertising is that cheap and easy to start. The price for bulk SMS services plans range from N1 for hundreds – N3 for millions.

14) Blackberry Messaging System

You can advertise in Blackberry messaging system to reach potential customers who use that platform. To create advertisements with high conversion rate is not hard but costly to do.

The following are the types of ads you can put on Black Berry Messenger. They are “featured placements”, “sponsored invites” and sponsored posts. The charge is on cost per thousand impressions (CPM) i.e. US $7 per 1,000 impressions. To place ads contact Habari Media on http:habarimedia.com/contact-us

As you search for more ways of how to do online advertising in Nigeria, try this method if your advertising budget is up to US$2,000 and you will not regret it.

15) Email Marketing

Email is another marketing tool you can use to engage those that subscribe to your email list until they are ready to buy from you.

Through email marketing, business owners can process the response to emails by subscribers. You can look at user activities to find out what content they prefer. You can also rely on user-generated feedback to create precise advertisements for prospective customers.

If you are looking for a sure bet on how to do online advertising in Nigeria, email marketing is it.

Conclusion

How to do online advertising in Nigeria is a vital skill every business owner who desires to sell their product or services to specific potential customers must have.

In this article, we have shown you many ways to start advertising with little budget and free ways to advertise in Nigeria. Take action now, start that marketing campaign and enjoy the massive patronage you want, provided your products or services are helpful to potential buyers.

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