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Mobile Marketing for Nigerian SMEs

Published

6 years ago

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By Godslove Adagbonyin, Communications Manager at Kirusa

Mobile is now a key part of the marketing strategy for Nigerian businesses. But it doesn’t have to be limited solely to large companies.

Today, a world of mobile opportunity awaits for smart SMEs who are willing and able to get behind the mobile revolution and put a strategy in place. And it doesn’t have to require a huge commitment in terms of time or budget.

Here are four tried-and-tested mobile marketing quick wins that you can start implementing today.

The Flash call

Companies of all sizes traditionally devote much of their efforts to outbound marketing activities – pushing out messages and offers to prospects and customers through a variety of channels, including mobile of course.

However, mobile has a critical role to play in so-called inbound marketing – the art of creating pull from customers and prospects to build relationships and generate leads.

Just one example is the simple flash call – where a prospect is given a specific mobile number to use to express interest in a product; or pledge to a particular cause; enter a contest; vote for something they love or provide feedback on a company.

The consumer’s call is not answered so no calling charge is incurred. Instead your company grabs the caller’s number so that they can be either called back or provided with more information via text.

Getting a flash call campaign up-and-running couldn’t be easier. You simply buy a batch of mobile phone numbers (either long or short) and advertise them on printed materials such as billboards, posters, brochures, flyers, and even invoices.

Best of all, the success of a flash call campaign can be easily measured by simply tracing the calls made to the mobile numbers you’ve purchased.

  1. Outbound Dialling
    You don’t need expensive call center agents to reach out to customers via mobile technology. It’s now very easy for companies to send customised voice messages to large groups of customers and prospects.

These messages can be used to provide information about new products and special deals; or to check on customer orders and activity.

3. SMS Tagging

Many of us are bombarded with promotional text messages from multiple (and sometimes unknown) sources. As a result, we activate DND lists, and get used to ignoring these messages.

So how can you ensure that your promotional SMS gets opened and viewed by the recipient? One solution is SMS Tagging, a unique service that sends your message as part of a transactional SMS from the prospect’s operator.

Because this message comes from a trusted source (the operator) it is far more likely to be viewed – and acted upon.

In the past, SMS Tagging could be difficult to deploy because operators didn’t make it easy. However, this has now changed with the advent of CPaaS, which leads me neatly onto my next tip…

  1. CPaaS

This acronym stands for Communications Platform as a Service. It’s a cloud-based platform that provides companies with an easy and cost-effective way to communicate with customers and prospects via SMS, voice, email and chat.

Most importantly, it does all this without the need to build expensive and time-consuming backend infrastructure and interfaces.

In fact all the examples outlined above – Flash Calling, SMS Tagging and outbound dialling – are extremely easy to conduct using a CPaaS system. The infrastructure is established and ready to use, along with the necessary relationships – for example with all the Nigerian and West Africa’s operators. It’s a genuine plug-and-play solution.

Taking the first steps to success…

There has never been a better time for Nigerian SMEs to benefit from mobile marketing technology. Campaigns are now very easy to deploy, manage, monitor and measure.

As the industry evolves, companies like Kirusa are now enabling smaller organisations to conduct successful mobile marketing campaigns using the CPaaS and so avoiding the need for a huge capital investment.

Kirusa has been active in Nigeria and West Africa for 6+ years and is known for the high-quality voice over data services that it provides for Mobile Network Operators. The company has used its R&D team and existing expertise to develop Kirusa Konnect – a family of voice and message-based tools that organisations of all sizes can use to create unique and meaningful mobile communications campaigns for their target audiences.

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Finance

AISA Has Refunded The Fees Paid By Yahaya Bello To EFCC

Published

4 days ago

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April 27, 2024

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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says the American International School Abuja (AISA) has refunded the fees paid by the immediate past governor of Kogi state, Yahaya Bello, for his children attending the school.

In response to a letter addressed to the Lagos zonal commander of the EFCC, the school said $845,852 was paid in tuition “since the 7th of September 2021 to date”.

AISA said the sum to be refunded is $760,910 because it had deducted educational services already rendered.

“Please forward to us an official written request, with the authentic banking details of the EFCC, for the refund of the above-mentioned funds as previously indicated as part of your investigation into the alleged money laundering activities by the Bello family.

Since the 7th September 2021 to date, $845,852.84 (Eight Hundred and Forty-Five Thousand, Eight Hundred and Fifty Two US Dollars and eighty four cents) in tuition and other fees has been deposited into our Bank account.

We have calculated the net amount to be transferred and refunded to the State, after deducting the educational services rendered as $760,910.84. (Seven Hundred and Sixty Thousand, Nine Hundred and Ten US Dollars and Eighty Four cents).

No further additional fees are expected in respect of tuition as the students’ fees have now been settled until they graduate from ASIA.”

In a chat with The Cable, the spokesperson of the EFCC, Dele Oyewale, confirmed that the school has refunded the money.

‘’The money has been paid into public account,” Dele Oyewale was quoted as saying

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Finance

Godwin Emefiele Disobeyed Direction Of Law With Intent To Harm The Public, He Printed ₦684.5M Using ₦18.9B Says EFCC in fresh charge

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1 week ago

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April 23, 2024

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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has filed a fresh charge at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory against the embattled former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.

EFCC in the charge accused Emefiele of approving the printing of N684,590,000 at the rate of N18.96 billion.

EFCC also alleged that Emefiele broke the law with intent to harm the public during his implementation of the naira swap policy of the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

The anti-graft agency also accused Emefiele of unlawfully approving the withdrawal of N124.8 billion from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.

EFCC’s top prosecutor, Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN revealed that Emefiele will be arraigned on a new four-count charge before Justice Hamza Muazu

Counts one to four of the charge, read,

“STATEMENT OF OFFENCE: Public Servant disobeying direction of law with intent to cause injury to the public contrary to and punishable under Section 123 of the Penal Code Law, Cap. 89 Laws of the Federation, 1990.

“PARTICULARS OF THE OFFENCE: That you GODWIN IFEANYI EMEFIELE between the 19th day of October 2022 and 5th March 2023 in Abuja, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 19 of the CBN Act, 2007, by approving the printing of N375,520,000.00 pieces of colour swapped N1, 000, at the total cost of N11,052, 068,062 without the recommendation of the Board of Central Bank and the strict approval of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.”

This and three other charges were stated against him. They read;

“COUNT 2: “That you, GODWIN IFEANYI EMEFIELE, between the 19th of October 2022 and 5th March 2023 in Abuja, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 19 of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act, 2007, by approving the printing of 172,000,000 pieces of colour swapped N500 (Five Hundred Naira) Notes, at the total cost of N4, 471,066,040 without the recommendation of the Board of Central Bank and the strict approval of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.

“COUNT 3: “That you GODWIN IFEANYI EMEFIELE between the 19th day of October 2022 and 5th March 2023 in Abuja, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 19 of the CBN Act, 2007, by approving the printing of 137,070,000 pieces of colour swapped N200 (Two Hundred Naira) Note, at the total cost of N3, 441, 005, 280 without the recommendation of the Board of Central Bank and the strict approval of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.”

“COUNT 4: “That you, GODWIN IFEANYI EMEFIELE, on or about the 7th day of October 2020, in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 80 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (As Amended), by approving the withdrawal of the total sum of N124, 860, 227, 865.16 from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation in a manner not prescribed by the National Assembly, which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.”

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Transport

Federal Government To Launch Out 2700 CNG Buses, Tricycles Ahead Of First anniversary Of Tinubu’s Administration

Published

1 week ago

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April 22, 2024

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The Presidency on Sunday said it was ready to launch about 2,700 CNG-powered buses and tricycles before May 29 when President Bola Tinubu turns one year in office.

“All is now ready for delivery of the first set of critical assets for deployment and launch of the CNG initiative ahead of the first anniversary of the Tinubu administration on May 29.”

It said the Federal Government is set to deliver 100 conversion workshops and 60 refuelling sites spread across 18 states before the end of 2024.

The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, revealed this in a statement he signed Sunday titled ‘Presidential CNG initiative set for rollout.’

“From the end of May, Nigeria will take some baby steps to join such nations that already have large fleets of CNG vehicles.

The CNG tricycle
The CNG buses

“All is now ready for delivery of the first set of critical assets for deployment and launch of the CNG initiative ahead of the first anniversary of the Tinubu administration on May 29.

“About 2,500 of the tricycles will be ready before May 29, 2024…working towards delivering 200 units before the first anniversary of the Tinubu administration,” said the Presidency.

He also said that over 600 buses are targeted for production in the first phase which will be accomplished in 2024.

In October 2023, about five months after the removal of the petrol subsidy, President Tinubu launched the Presidential CNG Initiative to deliver cheaper, safer and more climate-friendly energy.

The CNG Initiative was designed to deliver compressed natural gas, especially for mass transit.

The Federal Government earmarked N100bn (part of the N500bn palliative budget) to purchase 5500 CNG vehicles (buses and tricycles), 100 Electric buses and over 20,000 CNG conversion kits, with plans to develop CNG refilling stations and electric charging stations nationwide.

The FG had said the initiative would ease the burden of the increased pump price on the masses.More information added that the creation of a new plant on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway that will assemble the tricycles while Brilliant EV will assemble electric vehicles when it receives the Semi Knocked Down components.

The Presidency explained further, “The SKD parts manufactured by the Chinese company LUOJIA in partnership with its local partner to support the consortium of local suppliers of CNG tricycles are set for shipment to Nigeria and expected to arrive early in May.

It is expected that before 2027, There’ll be a considerable wave of these buses and tricycles in use.

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