Boost Your Sales With The Right Digital Marketing Strategy – Oluwamayowa Oshidero

Ten years ago, talking about marketing would have been limited to companies employing people to walk round the whole city to get customers or maybe billboards and other traditional methods. Today we find that many businesses are now setting up online stores and getting customers on the internet. Digital marketing is now a major way of pushing products out for consumer to see and purchase.

In a rich exclusive chat with a brand consultant, Oluwamayowa Oshidero   Mauvelli learnt that marketing your fashion brand online is more than just gathering likes and posting pictures.

The conversation started with our guest giving us more insight into what he does but definitely led into learning so much more on digital marketing.

Let’s start the chat with your full name and what you do

My name is Oluwamayowa Oshidero. I’m the founder of a digital marketing company called TinklingD, a software development company called BoldExponent and a social enterprise company called Equilibrium Zone. I only hold a managing partner role in those companies as they all do have managers who run their day to day operations.

Day to day, I consult for companies and brand in areas of brand strategy, business development, branding, digital marketing, business efficiency and digital transformation.

I also deliver trainings around these areas for corporate brands and also major brands like Facebook, Google, Social Media Week, Lagos

Basically, what inspired you to start TinklingD? What problems did you notice in the corporate world?

With TinklingD, I wanted to bring the power of the  evolving online marketing landscape to every business out there, through innovative strategies and flawless implementation. We noticed African businesses aren’t leveraging the full potential of digital marketing for brand growth.

However, TinklingD has evolved over the years and we have pivoted to a company connecting competent digital marketing talent to  companies and SMEs who have fully understood that digital communication and online marketing is now a necessity and not a luxury.

So we train young graduate through our Academy and then when they graduate we employ them to work with us remotely to manage brands and customers we have signed on

How many graduates do you train in, say a year and how many businesses have you worked with, on an average?

In the past, we trained between 30 – 40 graduates yearly, we have been running the academy for 3 years now. However, we are looking to scale this up to at least 200 graduates this year.

We have managed well over 20 brands I’m not sure of the exact number right now. We have been privilege to run digital brand strategy for companies like BBC, UK, and also managed campaigns for companies like Emirates Holidays Nigeria. Our works have also been featured by Google Africa

Have you worked with any fashion brands ?

Yes, TinklingD has managed accounts for fashion brands and I have personally offered consulting service for some fashion brands as well.

In your opinion, which fashion brands, asides the ones you’ve worked with, have the best digital marketing strategy in Nigeria ?

This is a very tricky question, but I’ll say Hingees does it for me. It is a youthful millennial-focused fashion brand that is indigenous to Nigeria.
Some key things every fashion brand out there need to understand are;

• Understand who you are choosing as a target audience.
• Communicate with them till you can get their emotional commitment to your brand.
• Understand the mico moments of your customers. These are the boxes this brand ticked for me.

Do you think that digital marketing relies on good brand image for the best results?
First, digital marketing is usually always taken as a dichotomy to other marketing activities. What each company should have (particularly fashion brands) is a brand strategy.
By definition, brand strategy is a long-term plan for the development of a successful brand in order to achieve specific goals. A well-defined and executed brand strategy affects all aspects of a business and is directly connected to consumer needs, emotions, and competitive environments.

It’s in a brand strategy that a marketing plan is designed, and in a marketing plan is a digital marketing plan.
At TinklingD, we have had to force some brands to do a brand strategy before we could offer a digital marketing service to them.
Why is this important? Marketing (and in extension digital marketing) is, in essence, a vehicle to what the company is in themselves. For example, if a digital marketing post tells you we are a customers oriented company, and 5 people quoted your tweet that you have the most awful customer service, then what seems to be your digital marketing strategy (that’s the customer-oriented culture) you are hinging on is already failed.

If you think deeply, you will find that some of the best brands you have patronized and loved gave you an amazing experience right from your social media engagement with them till you get their product in your hands.
What I am saying, Digital marketing relies on a good brand strategy and a good brand strategy well followed gives a good brand image.
A good brand image, makes your digital marketing produce more result, because it won’t then be about what you are saying, but will also be about what your fans and customers are saying as well.
It is also important to note that, no matter what stage a business is, whether good or bad, big or small Or even if the brand has been negatively affected due to the things they didn’t do right before; The first step is to get a brand strategy consultant to critically look into the brand and then craft a plan to grow for the brand.
The consultant will then look into the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats amidst innovatively looking for ways to get back to the fans and customers heart. The brand strategist should tell you if you need to rebrand your business or make adjustments as simple as crafting a customers service policy or giving guidelines on how complaints should be addressed and a whole lot more.

It is important to know that Great brands don’t happen by chance, it first starts with a great brand strategy, and an intentional effort of following that through.

A good fashion brand I will use as an example here is Zappos. They simply reoriented their brand strategy to be customer-first, they increased their goods return time, Increased their customer care team and even instructed the team to solve customers PERSONAL issues first before talking about the issues they have with their puchase.
News has it that, some Zappos customer care team has helped customers order pizza because that’s what they needed most urgently first, before then talking about the Shoe that didn’t fit well.

When it then comes to digital marketing, the way they use social media, email marketing, even their ads, will carry the DNA and signature of what their brands represent (or in essence will carry all the element and signature of what they had planned to be while putting together their brand strategy).

Another brand right here is Lively Bras , a lingerie brand who is sure of who their brand is for and have put together a brand strategy that is customer-oriented and community-driven.
It is important to know that these are the underlying things that power those great digital marketing strategy and content for the best of brands.

Finally, what are the top 3 strategies or tips you can share with fashion brand owners reading this that can significantly increase their brand in terms of productivity, growth and sales ?

My top three strategies are;
1. First, be sure of what stands your brand out. It all starts from there. In other words, find your USP. There are many fashion business out there what, what should we choose you?
a simple way to do this is to ask your most active client why they prefer you, of course, you do that in a calm chat.
2. Be sure of your customer segment i.e Which set of people need your service the exact way you offer it. A simple way to do that is to look at the majority of your customer base and find what characterizes them.
3. Do some little findings of which marketing strategies work for top brands with similar USP and market segment as yours, then creatively adopt those marketing and growth strategies to your business.
Ultimately, be a smart business owner, do not reinvent the wheel, but creatively and innovatively apply proven and winning strategies to your business.

Oluwamayowa definitely took Mauvelli on a long enlightening ride through the digital marketing world. We were able to see that getting a boost in sales and building a brand is no small work. Digital marketing is beyond publicity, it is about publicity with the right message and proper strategy, every brand needs it.