By: Kehinde Amusan
The premier hall of residence, Kenneth Mellanby Hall situated within the walls of the University of Ibadan, held a didactic session of business master class. The intensive master class officially sponsored by Facebook occurred on Saturday, 13th of October, 2018 at the Hall OSR, where customer insight, brand essentials and online marketing were brought within the reach of intending entrepreneurs and business mogul.
In the course of the intensive session, Mr. John Victor, the guest tutor, while addressing the theme “Brand essentials” noted that, “to really make a mark in any business venture, business owners must communicate their brand Solution and uniqueness.” According to him, “people buy brand and not product.” “This is because ultimately, consumers embrace and spend money on brands, not just products or commodities.”, he added. He further clarified that a brand is an individual or producer’s promise to their customers.
Speaking further on the essentials of branding, he noted that, “Declining in sales, slow growth of companies, changing buying patterns, changing customers’ wants, increasing competition, to differentiate, and to build customer loyalty and repeat patronage” are factors that necessitate branding.” He added that to rebrand is about changing the outlook of a business or product by extracting a new brand out of the existing brand.
In his discourse on customer insight and segmentation, Mr. John Victor affirmed that an individual should understand the nature of their customers. According to him, “treat customers as kings and queens as they are.” He further defined customer segmentation as ” the process of dividing the market into groups of customers who have common characteristics.” “Who are we creating value for? Whose pain are we curring?”, he probed. In addition, he noted that “irrespective of what you sell, everybody cannot be your customers.” According to him, everybody in the market is suspects for a product, but among these suspects are prospects, of whom are also hot leads, who have the ability to pay for the product. “The hot leads are your actual customers.“, he added.
Speaking of online marketing, Mr. John Victor described marketing as brand awareness. He added that, ” Using the internet to aid the awareness of a brand is online marketing.” While debunking the intertwined nature of online marketing and advert, he also noted that “advert is using a pay medium to create awarenesse of your brand.” He further stated the types of marketing as organic marketing and paid marketing. According to him, unlike organic marketing, paid marketing involves using a paid medium to create awareness of a brand.
