Globally, marketers whose responsibility is the promotion and positioning of products of companies they represent are facing daunting challenges amid weak economies exacerbated by Covid-19 pandemic. This has led to reshuffling of markets as consumers’ spending habits are fundamentally altered.
In Nigeria with poor economy at 2.7% growth rate, the challenges facing marketers are not different as they also face the upheaval task of engaging consumers to promote spending on brand’s products and developing effective business strategy in the midst of government Covid-19 interventions and recent protests.
Surviving this challenging period which is hitting governments, businesses and households therefore should be more critical to marketers than the concern and possible concentration on market leadership, Lolu Akinwunmi, Group CEO of Prima Garnet Africa told marketers recently at the National Institute of Marketers of Nigeria, NIMN 2020 fellowship award forum held online.
Akinwunmi who recounted that Nigeria is in a recession “made worse by an economy that had performed poorly in the last 24 months, and then weakened by Covid-19 in the last three quarters of 2020” said in every recession, marketers find themselves in poorly charted waters.
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Guiding marketers on survival strategies in period like this, Akinwunmi, past chairman of Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, APCON cited examples of marketing successes of companies that navigated recessions through some marketing strategies.
Since marketing principles are generally applicable across markets, Akinwunmi who has marketed successful brands, said market leaders like Wal-mart and Amazon have been able to survive and maintain their dominance through focus on implementing a single strategy more effectively than their competitors, and exceed customers’ expectations.
He listed four key successful factors that successful brands have employed to survive stressing that the key issues concern the speed at which organizations facing turbulent time must be able to respond and act.
The success factors, he said are strategic pricing; superior quality products; strong human capital policy and relevant customer relations strategy.
On strategic pricing, Akinwunmi said companies that succeed through this, offer quality products with guaranteed low prices, convenient services, or both. “They target those customers who are concerned with finding the lowest prices”.
Companies which employ strategic pricing approach have some things in common which include minimising costs by managing and optimizing their supply chains and fundamental services, their operations are mechanistic, involving standardized, centrally planned, and tightly controlled operations and they develop an organizational culture that rewards efficiency and detests waste.
To succeed with superior products, companies challenge themselves to develop highly desirable goods or services that are sometimes untested in the marketplace; this talks of product innovation, the speaker said. “While the customer profile is changing, there remains a constant: the customer doesn’t want to pay much, but he/she is still interested in quality products. The marketer is therefore challenged to keep pushing this and innovating”
The third key factor for success, he said revolves around the company’s human capital. To properly create a culture of innovation, organizations must hire and retain appropriate employees that will foster creativity. The forth is relevant customer relations. Customer is the king.’
He also warned that the marketer must continue to research the customer; review current relationships with some strategic partners and thirdly, be careful about cutting the marketing spend; support trade partners, stress core values and adjust pricing tactics.
Speaking at the virtual event, the President of NIMN, Tony Agenmonmen said the lecture and the fellowship award were organised online to avoid any chance of Covid-19 contamination. He congratulated the awardees.
Agenmonmen said within the very challenging environment, the institute has continued and will continue to drive its plans and programmes as best as possible. He recollected that the institute organised its elections online in a transparent manner and equally held its annual meeting recently virtually.” We have also continued to run our training programmes online”.
