Pulse hits 2 million followers on TikTok across Africa; Pulse Nigeria channel alone reaches 1 million followers

Lagos, Nigeria – Pulse, Africa’s leading innovative media company, has reached the milestone of 2 million TikTok followers across its TikTok channels in Africa. This coincides with the achievement of 1 million TikTok followers on its ‘Pulse Nigeria’-channel alone. This achievement puts Pulse in a unique position, as the first media company to reach 2 million followers in Sub-Saharan Africa. It underscores the company’s leadership in the digital media industry, and its strong mass media content strategy, appealing to users across platforms.

In 2020, with the arrival of the Coronavirus pandemic, the Pulse team noticed a steady uptick in the number of new TikTok users across the continent, leading to the launch of dedicated Pulse TikTok channels in all the operating countries. In the intervening time, Pulse has steadily and rapidly grown digital communities on the platform, confirming that a large (and growing) group of young people in Africa now congregate on TikTok to get entertained, informed and engaged. Pulse’s TikTok strategy also won the WAN IFRA Award for Best in Audience Engagement in 2021, based on the execution of its TikTok content and rapid growth, especially in Nigeria.

With this achievement, Pulse is also announcing the monetization of its TikTok channels, providing an opportunity for brands to leverage this relatively new digital platform to connect with an engaged audience that is made up of young digital-savvy Africans. Pulse already serves the largest cumulative digital audience of young people in Africa on its web and social channels. This new milestone further solidifies its position as the leading digital publisher on the continent.

Speaking on the achievement, Kanyinsola Aroyewun, Pulse’s Head of Marketing and Content Growth said “Once again, we’re seeing the results of our content strategy across the continent which is hyper-focused on delivering content to the young African audience – which has to be in the right format, relevant to them and published on the platforms where they congregate. Our mission to inform and engage Africa’s young people is advancing at full speed.”

Pulse’s monetization of its TikTok channels provides a valuable opportunity for collaboration with brands, who can benefit from Pulse’s scale and reach to achieve awareness and engagement for their brands. Brands can get in touch with Pulse to distribute content on its TikTok channels by sending a mail to [email protected] or through the Pulse corporate website.

Pulse TikTok Côte d’Ivoire

Pulse

Pulse is Africa’s leading innovative media company.

It informs and engages Africa’s young audience – and provides expansive media reach and creative marketing solutions to its partners. It is present with platforms & offices in Nigeria & Ghana in Anglophone West Africa; Senegal & Côte d’Ivoire in Francophone West Africa and Kenya & Uganda in East Africa.

Pulse’s mass media platforms and social media channels reach millions of users monthly. Pulse TV is its innovative video producer, creating formats across all channels. The Pulse Network brings together top media assets & creators. Pulse Studio is its creative brand & content studio, supporting clients to express their own media vision. Pulse Marketing is its 360-degree digital marketing partner, providing comprehensive marketing solutions. Pulse Products is an offering to Pulse’s users that is enabled by its media brand, content and distribution.

Links:

Pulse – Pulse.africa

You can follow Pulse’s corporate channels on:

How to pick from the many SEO agencies in Nigeria

What is SEO

How do you get more potential customers to find out about you and your business? One good way is SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization. In today’s digital world, as a business owner, one of the most important ways that the right audience finds out about your business is via a simple mobile search. And by search, we mean the service offered by search engines like Google or Bing. If I wanted to buy new glasses, for instance, I would do a quick search on my phone to see where I can find new fashionable frames around me. Typically, Google would then display a number of links on its search results page. I would inevitably click on the one I think is the right solution to my search query. If that first link works, and I find something I really like, I’ll buy it.

This simple example explains how search engines help businesses get found by local potential customers who are looking for the services the businesses offer.

But how does the search engine know which links to display when people search for things? That’s where SEO comes in. Search engine optimization describes the processes involved in helping a search engine (such as Google) to understand what your company website is about and what products or services you offer. When you execute good SEO for your business, the search engines index the content on your website and begin to display links to your website when people search for terms related to your niche.

This is an oversimplified description but it will do for the purpose of this article.

Why does your company need it?

You’ve probably figured out by now why SEO is important for your business. SEO, when done right, attracts many more potential customers (with a strong intention to buy) to you. This means more business for you and more money for the business.

How do you choose the right agency for it?

For most organizations, organizing a decent SEO effort might require too much work or expertise or time from them, and since the resources and expertise to properly do this may not be available, the next best thing to do is to outsource the SEO work to an entity called the SEO agency. An SEO agency is a specialized consultant agency that is able to provide search engine optimization services for a company over time, helping them to be more searchable on the internet, and positioning them as the solution to the problem that searchers are trying to solve.

There are a number of SEO agencies in Nigeria that provide this specialized service. But choosing the right agency requires a basic understanding of what to expect in terms of deliverables.

In this post, we will highlight an important checklist that helps you hire the right partner for SEO:

Get familiar with SEO

To hire the right team among the many SEO agencies in Nigeria, you need to understand the basics of SEO at least. This makes the process of selecting and meeting agencies easier. When you are familiar with SEO, you are able to ask the right questions and are able to independently measure the activities of the agency you work with, to determine that the value they say they are providing is actually value, and aligns with your SEO objectives for the period. This leads to the next point.

What are your SEO goals?

What are your SEO goals? Search engine optimization can do many things for your inbound marketing and your website’s efficiency as a marketing tool. It’s up to you to streamline the activity of your chosen agency and decide which metric is more important to achieve. When you understand your SEO goals, you can pick an agency with a strong capability in that specific area. SEO agencies in Nigeria (and everywhere else) will assure you of their ability to deliver on whatever SEO goal you put forward. But by understanding how SEO works, it’s easy to pick the right goal(s) in relation to your business and communicate those goals with the agency.

SEO consultant or SEO agency?

What do you really need, with SEO? Ascertaining your needs helps guide whether you need a whole external SEO team or a single professional. The question of whether you need a consultant or an agency is a question of your company size, and how much SEO work is required. Usually, if you have at least a working knowledge of SEO, and have established your goals, you’ll be able to know whether you require an SEO consultant or an agency.

Look at their team

SEO agencies in Nigeria are not all diverse, full-service SEO agencies. This is why it is important to pay attention to their team. Ask to see the team, either physically, virtually or via their website. Executing SEO requires a number of professionals for each of the steps. You need skills in content writing, technical SEO, link building, web development, etc.

Ask for a process definition document.

Consider this a roadmap for your engagement with the SEO agency. It tells you about how they operate, and how to work with them. You can also spot parts of their process that may be in violation of search engine rules. You can then call their attention to have it removed from your engagement or decide to work with a different agency altogether.

Understanding how SEO works can help you to establish your immediate and long-term goals, define success metrics and partner with the right consultant or agency out of the many SEO agencies in Nigeria. Pulse, a pan-Africa innovative media company offers SEO services across Africa. Having worked with some of the largest brands on the continent in SEO, social media management, video production and marketing, the agency consistently delivers above-average results. If you’re interested in SEO in Africa, Pulse is a good place to start.

Here’s why your company needs Pulse as your advertising partner

The many advertising agencies in Nigeria cumulatively boast of some of the best advertising talents in Africa and even the world. This industry has taken campaign briefs and transformed them into epic, culture-shaping pieces of media. It has converted thousands of regular audience members into raving, loyal brand ambassadors. It has helped brands find their unique voice. (I could go on). But which one should your company partner with, and (more importantly), what differentiates this one from the rest?

In this article, we’ll show you (not tell you) why Pulse is your preferred advertising agency in Nigeria.

A pan-African outlook

Pulse started in Africa from Nigeria in 2011. Our mission was to inform and engage Africa’s youth. We saw an opportunity in the burgeoning youth demographic. Over the years, we have launched in some of the continent’s most important markets, in Eastern Africa, Western Africa, Anglophone Africa and in Francophone Africa. Today, we are in 6 markets with skilled marketing, video and social teams in each of those markets, helping our partners to send the right messages and connect with the audiences. This pan-African outlook is especially beneficial for brands that are doing business all over Africa. Pulse is uniquely positioned to coordinate continent-wide campaigns that move the needle and surpass expectations.

A deep connection to local culture

In each of our markets, our owned social media channels help us to insert ourselves into the relevant conversations of the day, earning the audience’s trust and engagement over time. Our social teams are constantly editing and fine-tuning our content strategy and formats to be able to deliver relatable, shareable and engaging content to the audience. This deep connection to the culture serves our corporate partners uniquely. We are able to ideate, create and execute campaigns from an understanding of the audience that most other agencies are not able to access. And it is easy to see the impact of this in our creative collaborations with clients. Other advertising agencies in Nigeria can offer great service and a great story, but over and over again, the brand stories that the Pulse video and social teams tell for clients are not just fancy, they actually get the target audience activated, and involved.

A strong, engaged and rapidly growing owned audience in 6 countries

Not many advertising agencies in Nigeria have access to a digital community of more than 6 million active members (across all platforms) and a highly engaging website with millions of monthly visitors. By staying in the news and at the centre of public conversations and topics, we are building a unique advertising advantage at Pulse, the capability to deploy marketing material to an already waiting and engaged audience.

Experienced, expert and talented teams across

As a full-service agency, Pulse sports teams in its sub-brands (Pulse Marketing, Pulse Studio, Pulse TV, Pulse Network, Pulse Products) that are able to deploy their experience and expertise in delivering client work on time.

A focus on storytelling

Stories and storytelling have been proven over the ages to capture human attention and interest. In our advertising campaigns, we heavily rely on and deploy storytelling. Storytelling does not just help to get the message across clearly; it also helps our target audiences remember the message far longer than they would if we didn’t frame it in a compelling story. Our storytelling strategy and our talented storytellers and writers help to take a client’s message and bring it to life.

An influencer network

Advertising is evolving, and advertising agencies must evolve along. Pulse is building an expansive network of influencers across social media platforms and across the continent. These talented creators work with Pulse and Pulse’s corporate partners to distribute the main idea of a campaign to their own audiences. The Pulse Influencer Network matches the right influencer to the right campaign and this helps brands to scale word-of-mouth marketing and keep their message top-of-mind for the niche communities that our influencers serve. It’s a genius way to distribute an idea deliberately and encourage a much higher percentage of conversions.

Pulse is not just another one of the advertising agencies in Nigeria. Its deep roots and unique capabilities help to produce advertising campaigns that actually make a difference; for the brand, for the audience and for the culture.

Here’s how a marketing agency can help your brand

What are marketing agencies?

Marketing agencies are service providers for businesses and brands that are interested in outsourcing their marketing efforts. They provide support for every part of the marketing mix: from communication to product to price and to sales.

Marketing agencies in Nigeria have shown strong relevance in being able to raise the bottom line for businesses through their activities. In this post, we will look at marketing agencies themselves, and how their services can help your business achieve its goals this year.

How are marketing agencies different from advertising agencies?

How can marketing agencies in Nigeria help your business?

Consultancy

Direct marketing

Digital marketing and/or social media management

Marketing communications

When do you need a media company?

If you run a business anywhere you must already know that traditional and digital media are important prongs in your marketing strategy, because you can leverage them to distribute important company, sales and marketing information about your business, helping you to achieve business goals. This is why you need a media company.

A media company is involved in creating content with professional editors and writers and periodically publishing its content bundles to the general public. A traditional media company would publish physical newspapers or magazines and distribute them through a network of stores or vendors around a geographic area, while a digital media company would publish digital content (like blog posts) usually to a website, where users can consume the information.

The media industry also contains other forms of media content like video, audio, graphic, art, etc.

The context of this article will focus on the digital media company whose activities benefit businesses looking to connect with its audience.

Media companies in Nigeria, as with everywhere else, have been integral to the establishment and success of businesses of all sizes. They help to distribute announcements and advertisements through traditional means, but also to create and distribute digital content, video advertisements, press releases, etc. Smaller businesses need media companies to help them attract new customers, and as they grow to become larger corporations, they need media companies to build and reiterate the brand image and what they want to be known for, which ultimately drives more customers to the corporation.

At every point in a business, it is important to maintain a working relationship with the media, usually through media companies.

In this post, we will highlight various instances where media company capabilities meet the needs of businesses:

Content creation

Businesses can pay media companies to create and publish content that highlights the businesses or puts them in great light. This could be adding the business to a recommended list article, or publishing a press release about the business. The best way to make the most out of paid content is to do it with a media company whose audience matches your target audience.

If your business is focused on fashion, then paying for content creation in a media company that is focused on sports for instance will mean that the content is not as relevant for the audience and therefore will likely not return the maximum value.

Social media distribution

Traditional media companies still have statutory and legacy roles to play in the media space. However, the majority of media companies in Nigeria today are digital, and for good reason. Technology has changed the way people consume information. In Africa, more people have access to a smartphone than do not. The target audience for your business is more likely to consume information on their smartphone and on social media.

Businesses can improve their social media distribution, outsource their social media management or even get help with curating the right brand image on social media by working with digital media companies. Usually, these media companies have a large digital presence such that information shared on their channels travels faster, reaches more people and is accepted as accurate.

Film, TVC or video production

Media companies in Nigeria are not all digital publishers. Some media companies specialize in the production of video content for businesses, with the same objective of driving more awareness, loyalty and distribution for the brand. As video content gets more engagement and organic shares, businesses look to professional video producers to develop video content that tells an accurate story about the business. These videos could be in the form of short films, television commercials or brand videos made specifically for social media.

Media companies in Nigeria provide a number of different deliverables for businesses that help the businesses to reach more people and connect more deeply with their already familiar audience. Most of these deliverables can be grouped into the already discussed capabilities above, and are undertaken by specific media companies specialized for each capability. However, there are some media companies that have built a strong track record across the different media capabilities and offer these services to businesses as an all-in-one solution to the business’ needs.

One of them is Pulse. Pulse helps businesses in 6 different African countries to connect to their desired audience and reach new customers through content creation, social media distribution and video production. It has done this consistently for years and has built experienced teams who are able to interpret audience sentiment and align their content appropriately, helping to achieve maximum value for money. Media companies like Pulse may be able to provide more impactful service to businesses and brands because of their multidisciplinary experience and audience knowledge. They are often a better choice over time.

How to get an influencer marketing campaign going in Nigeria

Influencers and influencer marketing are an important part of the marketing mix in Nigeria, and influencer marketing in Nigeria has come a long way. Influencer marketing helps brands to reach new people and ‘influence’ them positively for the brand. But what is influencer marketing? It simply refers to the marketing activities that leverage an individual’s influence over their digital community, to create positive relationships between the brand and that individual’s community. An influencer is an individual who has grown a digital community by engaging them and sharing valuable content usually about a very specific niche.

We’ll take a look at setting up an influencer marketing campaign in Nigeria, and examine a few key steps:

1. What’s the objective, and why does influencer marketing work best?

Before we dive in, we need to check that the objective of the campaign is aligned with influencer marketing as the right tool. Influencer marketing works when a brand is focused on gaining quality leads. The expected result from an influencer marketing campaign (especially one that employs micro-influencers) is action. If the campaign objective is to improve brand awareness, an influencer marketing campaign will help to support that, but it really shines when you want to access new communities and pick up new leads.

2. What’s the niche?

The next step is to determine what niche the campaign will target. This will help you to choose which influencers serving your general target audience are a good fit.

3. Micro or Macro

The next decision you have to make on your influencer marketing campaign is whether you’d like to go micro or macro. Using macro influencers for your campaign means partnering with influencers who have a large following. On Instagram for instance, some influencers have more than 50 thousand followers on their accounts, and some have as many as 4 million followers. These are macro-influencers.

Micro-influencers however, have a much smaller community of followers, usually between 5k and 15k followers. Usually, micro-influencers have a higher engagement rate, which is a measure of how engaged the community is with the content that they post. The engagement rate is a measure of how much people are interacting with what the influencer is posting, and reflectively, a measure of how much influence the influencer actually has.

Your campaign has to take into account these differences, and choose which group of influencers is best suited for the campaign.

4. Influencer research (tell them to talk to Pulse about this)

Leading right off from the previous point, influencer research is important because it helps you to identify influencers within your market who match your niche, size and engagement needs. This can be done by your marketing team manually, or by an agency with strong influencer relationships, like Pulse, which has launched an Influencer Network to give brands and companies access to not just the best influencers, but also the right influencers for each brief.

5. Launch the campaign

When the campaign’s objective aligns with influencer marketing as a strategy, and the campaign has determined the niche and type of influencers to engage, the next step is to launch the campaign.

6. Measure, make adjustments

After the influencer campaign is live, it is time to test all your previous assumptions. As analytics begin to come in, you should check the numbers against what you assumed would be the case. Chances are you will find a few inconsistencies in your initial assumptions. For example, not every micro-influencer you partner with may have the engagement index you thought they’d have, and some other influencers would probably be doing a better job of getting people to take action for your product. You might also find that even though your campaign is targeted at a certain group, people from a previously overlooked group seem to be engaging more with the content. That’s your cue to adjust your influencer count to include that group (if you think they serve your product in any way, either as paying customers or unpaid ambassadors).

After a while, you should take the data you have and make adjustments to the particulars of the campaign, to maximize your time and budget spend.

Conclusion

When it comes to influencer marketing in Nigeria, it would be beneficial to engage an agency that has experience and expertise in working with influencers on different campaigns in different niches. Pulse does not only have a strong relationship with hundreds of influencers in different niches, but it has also developed a platform called the Pulse Influencer Network that serves as a great meeting point for brands looking for influencers and influencers looking for brands. The Pulse Influencer Network helps to match brands to the right influencers for their campaigns, and match influencers to the right brands for their audiences, resulting in great collaborations and great results all around.

Interested in launching an influencer marketing campaign? Talk to Pulse today. Send us an email at [email protected].

How media agencies in Nigeria help businesses connect with their audience

Media agencies in Nigeria have been the often unseen catalyst for some of the social, civic and even political change moments in the history of Nigeria. Whether traditional media or more recently, digital media, the media agency has impacted business success through the application of marketing principles to position brands, build strong connections and establish brand loyalty. A media agency is involved in some way, shape or form in amplifying relevant content to a large audience through appropriate channels upon which the audience depends for this information. As technology has grown, media agencies have migrated in tow from the old platforms of TV and radio, to now also incorporate new channels such as social media platforms, websites and apps. Regardless of what channel, they use, here are some of the ways that media agencies provide value to brands and businesses through their platforms:

Strengthen conversations between the audience and brands

In advertising, media agencies in Nigeria have created a space for interaction between customers and their favourite brands through creative content creation, video production and other strategies aimed at the engendering of public conversations around a brand. Through television, radio and social media ads, these media agencies drive attention and affection, resulting in product improvements, top-of-mind awareness and ultimately, conversions.

Refine brand communication and advertising

Media agencies, as part of their capabilities, help to mould and shape the brand’s reputation and design and execute campaigns that align with the brand’s characteristics and also help to shore up its reputation, making it popular among the audience. This is important because brand reputation is a metric that can either win over new customers or lose business for the brand.

Put brands out into the world

For brands that offer their products or services directly to customers, being known by the audience they wish to serve is usually a good first step after launch. The scale of this brand awareness depends on the brand’s budget, but this is another way that a media agency can help. Media agencies usually have strong networks and content distribution capabilities, helping to get the word out about a brand whether it is through TV, radio, websites, events, social media posts or influencer marketing. Marketing is an important part of a brand’s life, and because marketing is required almost constantly, collaborations and partnerships with media agencies are not only needed but vital.

Media agencies in Nigeria have a wide range of capabilities, some of which are designed specifically to help brands find and connect with their audiences, grow relationships and sell more. As a full-service agency offering many services, Pulse is one of the outstanding media agencies in Nigeria that has helped many local and international brands find a pathway to connect deeply with their audiences and attach their brands to the prevalent culture across 6 African countries. If you’re looking for a media partner for your brand, talk to Pulse. Send an email to [email protected].

A definitive social media management checklist for brands

Whether you’re just starting out with your brand on social media or you’ve been on social media for a while or you have engaged one of the social media management agencies in Nigeria to help run your social platforms, it is important to have a working knowledge of what your social media management and marketing efforts are meant to achieve. In this post, we’ll dive into the most important details of a social media management strategy. When these questions are properly and appropriately answered, they provide a solid foundation and direction for your social media management efforts.

Building an engaged audience around your brand requires you to speak the language of the community you want to attract, transcend the formal boundaries and humanize your brand. By actively engaging honestly with people on social media, you build trust, which leads to a deeper connection with your target audience. By offering valuable content and being human, the brand’s social media activity becomes a success because the community is willing to trust you.

Here are 3 foundations of a great social media marketing strategy for your brand:

(As a brand looking to attract a digital community around your social media activity, here’s a checklist you can use to properly appropriate your social media platforms to get the most value out of it)

(social media management agencies are a dime a dozen these days. You should look out for certain things when hiring a social media management agency)

Define your audience

If the objective of your social media activity involves reaching out to people with whom you want to build relationships and hopefully convert, then you must know who those people are. In fact, defining your audience is the first essential step toward business success. In this first step, you need to understand your product or service and determine who would be the ideal fit for it. Through a series of exercises, your ideal audience will emerge. Armed with this knowledge, you can start thinking about how to get their attention.

Create shareable content

Creating shareable content means knowing what your audience would consider shareable. Often this could be in the form of engaging content, entertaining content or informative content. Brands and agencies often have no way of knowing how many shares a piece of content will get, but by keeping the content fresh, interesting and engaging, they often score high share numbers. It also helps to once in a while just encourage or persuade people to share and make it very easy for them to do so.

Pay attention to platforms-specific nuance

Content is nuanced across different social media platforms. And to be a human brand looks different too. On Twitter, for example, a great way to be cheeky and funny is to employ memes and gifs in your tweets. On Instagram however, people might be more attracted to a great looking photo, a clean clear video or an interesting, well-designed carousel. These nuances help your brand to connect more with the communities that gather on these platforms. Posting and communicating like the audience you’re trying to reach is a great way to gain acceptance, increase awareness, brand love and brand trust.

Conclusion

Launching a social media platform and/or maintaining an already established channel is not as easy as just finding something to post every day. It is critical to understand who you’re serving with your posts and create a narrative that attracts them and earns their trust. You might require the services of a social media management agency. Pulse stands out as one of the leading social media management agencies in Nigeria with experience and expertise in social media management, having managed the social platforms of some of the biggest brands in Africa, and having the unique advantage of huge owned social platforms with millions of followers.

Send an email to [email protected] to get a conversation started about social media management and other collaborations for your brand.

Best video production agencies in Nigeria

As social media evolves (and especially with the rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels), video content has not only risen to the top content format spot, it has also become a major part of the marketer’s arsenal, commanding larger and larger budget allocations in all industries worldwide.

It has also helped that social technology has improved enough to afford HD video streaming just about anywhere in the world. The relevance, impact and power of video cannot be overstated.

So whether you are a small business, a growing brand or an international behemoth, video is the language with which you communicate with your audience now and in the future.

In this article, we’ll look at some of the top teams whose names stand out in video production in Nigeria.

Pulse Studio

Pulse Studio is a commercial video production team, working as a sub brand of Pulse with teams in 5 African markets. The Pulse Studio team comprises talented writers, cinematographers, directors and editors with decades of cumulative experience between them. Pulse has worked on some of the most culture-defining and iconic video productions in Nigeria in the time that it has been operative, for international brands (Nike, Jameson) and leading Nigerian brands across the industry spectrum.

Pulse Studio is able to create culturally relevant story ideas, resulting in visual experiences for the end audience that are very relatable and shareable.

X3M

X3M Ideas has built a reputation as a full service digital agency, with strong capabilities in video production for music, television and brand purposes.

Insight Publicis

Like the other video production units in this list, Insight Publicis is a digital agency with a great video team. The Insight video team has executed commercial videos and films that are much loved by the target audience, showing a good understanding of culture.

Noah’s Ark

This is another video production house whose works have been beamed to millions of people, telling exciting, funny, touching brand stories that the audience can relate to, for numerous high-profile brands. Noah’s Ark has grown to become an important member of the creative community in Lagos and Nigeria at large.

Ultima Studios

Ultima describes itself as a full service media and entertainment company. The team has demonstrated strong capabilities in television production particularly, having put their signature on some of the most important entertainment content on Nigerian television for the past decade. Although Ultima has been around for a while, and has perfect expertise in more traditional media capabilities, the company has remained relevant in delivering digital experiences in recent times.

Summary

Video has become prominent across the world. Even though we’re seeing more video creation from mobile cameras and amateur creators, there is still an opportunity for brands looking to connect deeply with their audience at scale to weave great stories and influence culture through great films. These brands can benefit from the experience and expertise of some of these video production agencies.

Best Digital Agencies in Nigeria

The role of a digital agency in kindling creativity and driving product and brand awareness, popularity and acceptance can not be overemphasized. The agencies who lead the pack have to go one step further, and create truly inspiring campaigns whose aim is not just to amplify brand voices, but to step into modern culture and install a brand, product or service. The campaigns that achieve this are usually long-term and are focused on having an honest conversation with the audience rather than just driving sales numbers.

Digital agencies in Nigeria over time have put out some remarkable and award winning campaigns for clients and causes. If you’re looking for digital agencies to work with in Nigeria, here’s a list of the top 10 creative houses today:

Pulse Nigeria

Pulse Nigeria has led creative campaign development and digital journalism in Nigeria since its launch in 2012.

Pulse has worked with some of the biggest brands in Nigeria, and frequently collaborates with other agencies to help them along in their campaigns. This is because it has built a strong, active and engaged digital community through its social platforms with up to 9.8 million followers across all social platforms, and can leverage this community to amplify campaigns. Pulse is present in 5 African markets, leading the creative industries and the evolution of digital culture, making it one of the few pan African agencies with relevant domain experience and expertise across Africa.

Pulse also has a strong video production sub-brands, Pulse TV for social and viral videos, and Pulse Studio for client video production. The agency also provides web development and SEO services.

Anakle

This agency has established a strong reputation for digital marketing work in Nigeria. OTher services it offers are Social Media, Digital Strategy, Web/Mobile App Development & UX Design.

Cregital

Cregital has established itself in web design for corporates in Lagos, Nigeria. It has built and maintained corporate websites for big players in the banking and finance industries. It also specializes in building digital experiences for end users that are reliable and delightful.

Ellae Creative

This creative house has specialized in working with businesses in Nigeria to develop brand identity systems. The work that Ellae has consistently put out shows the agency’s emphasis on strong graphic and brand design. Ellae has also published high-quality case studies detailing their work in app design, development and launch.

Wild Fusion

Wild Fusion offers a wide array of digital services including Brand Strategy, Media Services, Content Production, Social Media Marketing, PPC Advertising and Digital Marketing Strategy. Wild Fusion has built a reputation within industry circles and also across the client spectrum.

Summary

As a brand or a business owner, you must look out for expertise, experience and client commitment before either outsourcing your marketing or adopting a digital agency. The agencies listed here are constantly pushing the envelope in the creative field. Pan African experience comes in handy for international brands looking to set roots in Africa, but also, for small businesses and organizations based only in Nigeria, a key advantage to consider is an agency whose native platforms already provide your campaign with an amplification machine and an engaged, young audience.

The video production process

Video production in Africa is changing fast. Leaps in video equipment and software technology have made the field more accessible to more people. High-quality video cameras are being built into mobile phones and excellent microphones are much more accessible at lower price points. Internet penetration statistics around the continent also indicate that more parts of Africa, whole regions, are coming online and the demand for video-specific content to these regions and demographics is surging.

In this article, we’ll explain the value of video for your business and highlight the complete video production process. Armed with this information, you will be better equipped to make decisions about whether or not to invest in video content, and what to expect when working with a video production company.

The 3-stage video production process

Pre-production

The pre-production phase of a video production process involves all the groundwork and planning necessary for the actual shoot. This could include research, scripting, casting, scouting the best location for the shoot, etc. It could also include

Production

In production, the details of the video(s) are clear to everyone on the team, and it is also clear how to go about capturing the needed footage. In this phase, the main operation is shooting, but not before the technical setup, which involves lighting, background, green screens where necessary. Production involves the actual shoots, and then B-rolls, or filler video content.

Post-Production

Many video teams regard the post-production part of the process as the most important part because in video production, a great pre-production and production phase can be marred by poor post-production. The video producer and director go to work, reviewing all the captured footage and making the critical decisions for which parts are fit to be part of the final video. The skills of the director and producer really come to light in this editing process. At the end of it, the team delivers the final product to the client and the video production is complete.

Who needs video production services?

In today’s world video is an integral part of any business. Streaming video over the internet is not the hefty task it once was, and so because of this, users will engage much more with video content than they will with long-form text or static images. As a brand, investing in a video pipeline that sheds light on your work has become essential.

Pulse has created and developed teams in each market specifically for video production. The Pulse Studio video teams are experienced professionals bringing together their wealth of industry expertise to each project. We have earned authority status in video production in Africa and our large portfolio of high-quality, relatable and sometimes viral videos proves our market leadership.

Video production in Africa has grown by leaps and bounds, and as the continent’s top brands take advantage of video to ingrain their brand messages into the audience’s subconscious, you should consider a strong video strategy that helps you connect with more customers both in the short and long terms.

If you would like our team to help you with your video production, send us an email here.

Nigeria – [email protected]

Ghana – [email protected]

Kenya – [email protected]

Senegal – [email protected]

A guide to choosing a social media management agency in Africa

As a brand or a business, you cannot afford not to be active on at least one social media platform in 2021. These days, social media is how brands stay connected with their customers, keeping tabs on what their newest fascinations are and finding ways to enter their world and share in their conversations. Whether you manage your corporate social media accounts in-house or you engage a social media management agency, you need to understand what you’re paying for or what KPIs to measure, if you’re handling social media internally. In this post, we look at the scope of a social media management agency, and what should come with the package.

What is social media management?

Social media management involves creating, scheduling, publishing and analyzing content on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and/or more as well as engaging users on those platforms, generally with an objective to build a community around the brand or join the community of your target audience, win their trust and influence their purchasing decisions. A social media management contract usually starts with an articulated, tailored social media strategy, a document stating the target audience, agreed objectives, and initiatives to be implemented during the engagement.

What should a social media management agency do for your business?

An experienced social media management agency should be able to take on these roles regarding your social accounts:

Creating or auditing your social media strategy
Researching your target audience
Choosing which social media platforms to major on, based on the two previous points.
Designing a visual style for your social media
Creating ad material
Building a social media content calendar
Responding to comments, messages and other engagements from the community
Expanding your social media reach/community
Monitoring social media performance

At first glance, social media management seems like a walk in the park. However, to see real results from your social media activity, you have to have a strategy-based approach, a strong visual style, the ability to quickly jump on trends and also to constantly engage your audience on all the relevant platforms. Pulse is a leading social media management agency in Africa because of our unique capabilities in this regard. We have an experienced, creative team of designers, strategists and managers that take social media management from a few colourful posts to a strong tool in your marketing arsenal that achieves the specific objectives you have set, whether it be brand awareness, engagement or conversion.

If you would like our team to help you with your marketing, send us an email here.

Nigeria – [email protected]

Ghana – [email protected]

Kenya – [email protected]

Senegal – [email protected]

What an SEO agency does for your brand

If you’re a young company looking to improve your online visibility, you must have had the term SEO thrown at you more than once, and often by a prospective media or marketing agency that does SEO. But you may also be coming away from those meetings not fully clear on what the SEO agency will do or how exactly SEO fits into your long-term marketing plan. It is easy to get confused. In this article, we’ll take a dive into SEO or Search Engine Optimization and take a look at how SEO agencies in Africa are helping businesses get found more easily by their desired demographic and more importantly, convert curious searchers to paying customers.

What is SEO?

Let’s start with a basic definition of the term. SEO or search engine optimization, is simply the process of making changes, additions and updates to your website design and content for the purpose of making it more attractive to search engines. When search engines find your site content and layout to be what searchers are looking for, your website will organically rise higher in search results when people search some specific terms that are closely related to your niche or the services you provide.

The better optimized your website is for ranking on search engines, the higher the chance that your website will be able to rank on the first page of search for your chosen search terms or keywords. The higher up on that first page of search your website is, the better for clicks from searchers directly to the information they need.

A big benefit of engaging one of the leading SEO agencies in Africa (like Pulse) is that they bring expertise and experience in reorganizing or realigning your website with the relevant keywords in your niche. An SEO agency brings its experience to bear in auditing the website, developing a bespoke SEO strategy and implementing the changes that will help the business reach its online visibility goals. As part of the audit, the agency will restructure the content on the website to make them SEO friendly, searchable and sprinkled with targeted keywords. An SEO strategy will also guide the direction of the agency’s SEO efforts and document them for a possible future handover. The implementation of these strategies is also the responsibility of the SEO agency. They are also often expected to provide regular updates and reports of the work done.

Conclusion

Search engine optimization is a big part of marketing, as it exposes brands to large chunks of their target audience, and also often brings in quality leads with strong buyer intent. Pulse is one of the most sought after S.E.O agencies in Africa. We have experienced specialists that can build an SEO plan, select the right keywords and rank brands highly for the keywords with the most searches, achieving greater online visibility in a relatively short period.

If you would like our team to help you with your marketing, send us an email here.

Nigeria – [email protected]

Ghana – [email protected]

Kenya – [email protected]

Senegal – [email protected]

Why your campaign needs native advertising

Native advertising is making its mark on the advertising world, as the new way to connect with audiences without being too sales-y. The unique advantage of native advertising is that it matches the form, feel and style of the media format in which they appear. If native advertising is done right, it presents to the audience as a subtle suggestion, presenting the brand as superior to other competitors, and sharing some information that proves this in some way. In this post, we’ll see how native advertising can be a great addition to your campaigns.

What is native advertising?

Native advertising doesn’t really look like advertising. As we’ve already learned, it is designed to fit in perfectly with other content on the particular medium. For example, you could create an advertisement for an Instagram page that looks just like the other posts on the account. The audience consumes this as part of the feed and leaves with a small impression about the brand you are advertising. This impression could mean the deciding factor when the audience is making a purchasing decision. Native advertising is great for many reasons. It does not feel like a rude intrusion for the user, it sends its message subtly and is generally better received than big loud disruptive ads, a win for the user, the advertiser and the client.

But how effective is an ad form like this one, and why should you consider including it in your campaigns?

Why should you consider native advertising?

Here are some stats from Outbrain: Consumers look at native ads 53% more than display ads. Native ads create an 18% increase in purchase intent, and the visual engagement with native ads is the same, and even slightly higher than the original editorial content.

Apart from how effective native advertising is, it is also advantageous for a few more reasons. Native advertising fights ad fatigue, which is what happens when an audience is served too many ads and they subconsciously screen out any new ads, leading to very low ad engagement. Also, because native advertising is served in the same style and form of the medium in which it is displayed, it does not irk the consumer. Studies have shown that when consumers can tell a native ad from the regular content, they still engage with it the same as regular content.

Conclusion

If you have been convinced of the value and ROI of native advertising and you would like to add this to your future campaigns, it is a great place to mention that most agencies that provide native advertising have to work with owners of platforms and pay for these specialized types of ads, and this ultimately increases the budget for such deployments.

Pulse is among a very small group of advertising agencies in Africa who not only produce sterling work as an advertising agency but also are able to tap into their owned platforms and 3rd party networks to provide native advertising for clients, matching the form and function of the content to the platforms in which it appears and more importantly, removing the need and budget for a middleman agency. In most cases, the result is that the audience cannot tell advertising and content apart, allowing them to respond fully to such native advertising rather than just mentally blocking it. This is one of Pulse’s strongest unique advantages as an experienced native advertising agency.

If you would like our team to help you with your marketing, send us an email here.

Nigeria – [email protected]

Ghana – [email protected]

Kenya – [email protected]

Senegal – [email protected]

What’s your influencer marketing strategy?

As the online marketing space for businesses, brands and companies evolves and gets more nuanced, marketers must develop strategies that de-emphasize loud branding and sales comms. The global audience is now desensitized to branded content. Put simply, people are more interested in conversations with people, and not with logos. Brands must then humanize themselves and their messages, to be able to sustain the connection to their target and keep them engaged more organically.

Marketers need to lean in on initiatives that are more human. People don’t like to be sold to. Instead of leading with brand-heavy media and promoting it to the target audience, brands need to be less direct, but more relatable. They can do this through influencers.

What is influencer marketing?

Simply put, influencer marketing is a process where individuals who have built a strong and engaged community on a social media platform recommend a brand to that hyper niche community. The common result is that the members of that community then engage with that brand and possibly purchase the brand’s products based on the referral of the individual. That individual is called an influencer. It is a form of word of mouth marketing, but with many more people being referred at once.

What’s the ROI?

A survey by MediaMix revealed that 89% of marketers voted that the ROI on influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing forms. This shows how valuable influencer marketing is to brands and why an influencer marketing strategy is indispensable.

Building an influencer marketing strategy

Like any strategy, you need to be clear, deliberate and intentional to be able to achieve the desired results.

– Do your research to choose a platform and an influencer marketing agency

Almost every marketing initiative needs to start with research to enable you to fully understand what is actually involved and the best way to go about it. You will need to go deep into the platform you have determined that your target audience is on, and find the influencers on that platform who create content that aligns with your niche. If you’re an investment or fintech company, for instance, your niche influencers would be people with very engaged communities who make content around personal finance, money management, global finance news breakdowns, and so forth. Decide if you will work with macro-influencers (influencers who have really huge communities) or micro-influencers (who have smaller but generally much more engaged communities). Identify as many of these as possible and draw up a list.

– Set a budget

Next, set a budget based on the allowances of your marketing spend. It is important to set this figure and a specific number of influencers you want to work with ahead of contacting them so that you can determine how much income is budgeted for each person ahead of the actual negotiations.

– Decide on goals and message

Every business wants growth, whether that be growth in the awareness it enjoys or growth in its conversions. But it helps your strategy if you distill what your business needs very specifically, rather than just aiming for more followers. When you set a specific goal (such as to reach out to a younger demographic with one of your products designed specifically for them), your decisions regarding which and what kind of influencers you work with will get much more specific. A very specific goal also means that you are able to clearly measure how much your campaign has moved the needle.

In terms of brand messaging, your work is not done just because you have contacted and engage the best influencers for your campaign. While you do not want to stifle their creativity and how they announce you to their audiences, you also want to work with them to carve a broad message that they can create within, so that they do not put out confusing or unclear messages about your brand. Your messaging will flow out of your goals.

– Influencer outreach: contacting influencers

For micro-influencers, you can send them a private message on the platform where they are most active, and ideally where you also want to collaborate with them. Larger influencers usually have a listing of contact information in their bio, which may include a phone number and an email address.

– Review & refine your strategy

Before a campaign starts (and also in the middle of an active campaign), check your target goals against how the campaign is doing, to be able to adapt and make changes and correct the direction toward the main goal. You need to do this regularly to be able to also determine whether the campaign is hitting the goal or is totally off course.

You should also regularly review the list of influencers you are working with and cross-check that with your goal and the demographic target you have. This review will help you to either identify new influencers to be added to your list and remove old influencers who are no longer relevant.

Conclusion

As marketers, regardless of the industry or niche, a good influencer marketing strategy is an investment that is valuable immediately and in the long run. Take the time and do the upfront work of setting up a strong strategy for this, or work with influencer marketing agencies and networks whose expertise you can draw on.

Over time, Pulse has built a strong and vast influencer marketing network in Africa through extensive collaborations on projects and our interest in engaging and strengthening the media landscape in our operative countries. This network has further increased our online marketing capabilities, allowing us to reach even more niche audiences for our partners, while almost exponentially increasing the strength of the Pulse amplification pipeline.

If you would like our team to help you with your influencer marketing, send us an email here.

Nigeria – [email protected]

Ghana – [email protected]

Kenya – [email protected]

Senegal – [email protected]

Should you hire a digital agency or a creative agency?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a solo entrepreneur, an eCommerce brand or an established corporation. At some point, you will consider the option of hiring an agency to manage some of your marketing and/or sales efforts. After choosing to hire an agency, the next question is what kind of agency suits my needs? Should I hire a digital agency or a creative agency? What’s the actual difference between them?

If you find one or all of these questions challenging and you need some guidance on what step to take next, then read on. We’ll break down the difference and show you what might work better for your needs.

What’s a Digital Agency?

A digital agency is a broad term that generally refers to outfits that specialize in digital marketing in different forms. This could include app design, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Management/Marketing, Content Creation, Online Lead Generation, Media Campaigns, Website Development, Email Marketing and more. A generalist digital agency has teams or experienced team members for each of these functions, allowing them to provide a broad range of services to companies and prospective clients, whose aim is to ultimately get more people to discover the client, engage with them online and make a purchase.

What’s a Creative agency?

While a digital agency is this umbrella team with capabilities in digital marketing, a creative agency is more specialized. It is generally considered to be a team whose primary function is the creation of all kinds of media assets and collateral that a client may need. These include logos, colour schemes, banners, newsletter design, videos, TV commercials and so on. A creative agency may specialise in a few of these at a time, but they are mainly focused on creating collateral.

Over time, these definitions have blurred. But what agency you should work with largely depends on what your goals are. If you have very specific goals (like brand identity design, or email newsletter marketing), it might be best to seek out an agency that specializes in this work.

Conclusion

As a full-service digital agency, our role transcends simply amplifying brand messages to the right audience. We are able to also deliver an end-to-end experience, from ideation to creation to execution and analytics for any campaign, regardless of scale. Pulse is an expert mix of creative teams and digital teams who work together to hit client goals.

If you would like our team to help you with your marketing, send us an email here.

Nigeria – [email protected]

Ghana – [email protected]

Kenya – [email protected]

Senegal – [email protected]

The ultimate checklist for hiring a PR agency

As a company grows and increases its user base, it begins to enter into discussions either offline or online. Oftentimes, as part of growth also, the company realizes a need to put itself out there and make direct public statements that serve to inform people of its existence and more primarily, to let the public know the successes and feats it has achieved so far. Whether you’re a young company or an old one, shaping the narrative about your brand in the public eye is a crucial function that cannot be left in the hands of inexperienced people.

What is PR and why is it important to get a great agency?

The whole concept of controlling or shaping the narrative of your brand perception or how people feel about your brand is part of the business of a PR agency. What is PR? The Public Relations Society of America defines PR as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Between managing your clients and internal meetings and building relationships with vendors and marketing activities, it can get hard to make time for brand awareness and media management. This is where a PR agency can help.

Hiring a PR agency however is a task that must be done carefully. The job of PR is to manage your company’s relationship with the public, and for most organizations, this relationship with the public and the perception that people have of the business mostly determines how much people are willing to do business with the company. Because of its sensitive nature, therefore, this relationship with the public needs to be very well managed.

Here are some tips to note when shopping for a PR agency:

What are your goals?

The first thing to do after you have decided to hire a PR agency is to start thinking about your company’s goals. What do you want to achieve by working with a PR agency? How do you think a PR agency can help your company? These questions will lead you to establish an objective for working with a PR firm which you will need to communicate to them and align on.

What is your budget?

Next, your company has to decide what its budget is for the engagement. You might not have this information right away. Take a look at what the general or average engagement cost for a PR agency is, within your area. You might need to speak with other company reps or visit job/agency websites that give an insight into what a PR agency might charge. Armed with this information, you should be able to set a specific budget or a budget range before meeting with PR agencies.

Research research research

Check out PR agencies around you. You can do a simple search for the term “PR agency” or use your network to find out which ones are in your city and even which ones are within the budget you have set. Then screen this list down to a few agencies. Research your top agencies and find out whose work and clientele you think are a good match. After doing this, you will be able to create a shortlist to contact.

Engaging and Onboarding

By setting up meetings with representatives from the agencies you have contacted, and discussing the engagement in detail (including price, expertise level, previous clients and prior successes), you will be able to choose the PR agency that most suits your needs.

The final step is to onboard your chosen agency. Find out who your primary contact will be and agree on how regularly you will have meetings to touch base, how you will track results etc.

It is important to work with an experienced PR agency that has shown a capacity for quick and wide distribution of communications. One of such agencies is Pulse. Pulse owns native social and web platforms (as well as extensive 3rd party and influencer networks) across Africa that ensure that communications can be amplified quickly and achieve a much higher reach than a regular PR agency. We are one of the most sought after PR agencies in Africa because of our network, expertise and experience.

Last words

Hiring a PR agency is critical for any brand as it has the potential to catalyse growth and build brand affinity, but also to destroy the public reputation and cause substantial harm to revenue and the company’s bottom line. It is important to go through the discussed steps carefully and ask the right questions before engaging a PR agency.

If you would like our team to help you with your PR, send us an email here.

Nigeria – [email protected]

Ghana – [email protected]

Kenya – [email protected]

Senegal – [email protected]

Questions to ask before hiring a marketing agency

A marketing agency is a specialized team that offers marketing services to businesses and clients. Companies engage marketing agencies because of their experience and expertise in the market, and their capability to synthesize marketing strategies that are tailored to each client’s business, helping the client to achieve their marketing objectives at the end of the engagement.

Marketing agencies often act as the external marketing department of the companies that hire them, taking on the business’ marketing challenges and offering creative solutions and elaborate strategies. Marketing agencies are generally not a one-size-fits-all entity. Some agencies are more suited to the needs of certain industries, based on the agency’s experience and area of expertise.

As a client, there are a few questions to ask when hiring a marketing agency to help with your operations. These questions will help you pick the right agency whose expertise aligns with your business goals, giving you the best chance of success.

Previous work

During meetings with prospective agencies for your business, it is important to see the work they have done for previous clients as this gives you an insight into how the agency interprets business needs and how they go about meeting those needs. If they have worked with other brands in your industry, you can also assess how well they know the industry and how much impact those specific campaigns have had on the target.

Specialized capabilities

Asking questions about any specialized capabilities the marketing agency may have will show you if they are specifically equipped to solve the marketing problems that you have. This works better when you are clear on what you’re looking for when shopping for an agency.

Terms of engagement & communication

Having gone through some of the agency’s work and determined that their expertise is suited to your needs, it is now time to clarify what kind of engagement you will have and what kind of working communication to expect between you and the contact person at the agency. You can specify how you would like to be carried along in the process or express what works for your company. This is usually a simple conversation and if there are differences in the communication and engagement expectations, a simple compromise can be reached.

KPIs

The most important part of your engagement with a marketing agency is what the key performance indicators will be. The client and the agency have to agree clearly on how the agency’s performance will be measured, and what specific objectives can be expected to be met at agreed times throughout the engagement. This is to be documented in detail to avoid any ambiguity over what is expected from each party.

Marketing is critical to the growth of a business. If you find that your business is coming up short in this aspect, consider hiring an experienced marketing agency. Pulse provides digital marketing, video production and brand and web development services to large brands as well as smaller businesses across Africa, leading innovation through expert teams in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Senegal. If you would like to contact Pulse about a marketing engagement, please click here.

If you would like our team to help you with your marketing, send us an email here.

Nigeria – [email protected]

Ghana – [email protected]

Kenya – [email protected]

Senegal – [email protected]

What does a media agency do?

Media agencies are an important part of the media ecosystem, be that the digital media space or the traditional media space. They play an important role in connecting brands to vast audiences. But there might be some ambiguity around what exactly a media agency does, for decision-makers on the client-side, and also for curious minds on the consumer side. Media agencies in Africa help a lot of brands clarify their marketing message, budget and campaigns, allowing them to communicate with the audience in their language, and building awareness and affinity, which are valuable in driving engagement and conversion.

This post will help to explain the functions of a media agency, clarify what a media agency is not, and provide some valuable guidance around engaging media agencies.

What is a media agency?

Media agencies help companies create, produce and run media campaigns, most of which are aimed at helping the company get seen by people who could potentially become its customers and also increase market share. Typically what the media agency offers companies is its wealth of experience and expertise on how to marshall a marketing budget, what platforms should be targeted, what kind of messages to share with the target audience, and how to measure the effectiveness and ROI of the spend per platform.

A media agency can be traditional, digital or integrated. A traditional media agency will focus its efforts on advertising for companies via older, non-digital platforms such as newspapers, television, print, billboards, etc. A digital media agency will try to reach its client’s target audience on digital platforms and spaces.

Traditional media agencies have been around for decades. However, as companies begin to focus more on digital platforms to share their messages, traditional agencies have begun evolving their services to provide digital offerings to their clients. Also, digital agencies have integrated some traditional platforms into their services which are still viable and still bring back strong returns on investment. The merging of traditional and digital media agencies has given birth to a new kind of media agency which we call the integrated media agency, a hybrid of both traditional and digital, offering clients a complete multi-platform reach for their media campaigns.

About Pulse

If you are looking to run media campaigns, it is important to research agencies and find out which ones have shown capabilities that align with your needs. An integrated media agency with strong expertise and experience across Africa is Pulse. We are one of the media agencies in Africa with a strong reputation and track record. We have built the largest digital community of young people in our operating markets. This means that as a media agency, not only are we able to design, ideate and amplify brand messages to the whole target audience, we also have a huge, active and engaged community of users waiting to consume and engage with the messages we amplify.

If you would like our team to help you with your marketing, send us an email here.

Nigeria – [email protected]

Ghana – [email protected]

Kenya – [email protected]

Senegal – [email protected]

Performance Marketing: What you need to know

As digital marketing grows, more frontiers are opened for exploration within the field that was either not feasible or downright impossible in the past. With the growth of technology, we are finding new ways to apply this growth to digital marketing. These conditions are giving rise to new concepts and fields. One of these is performance marketing.

What is performance marketing?

Data transparency now enables marketers to optimize their campaigns in real-time, based on new data coming in, allowing them to perform better. Performance marketing is the term for digital marketing campaigns where the advertisers only pay marketers for specific results achieved.

How is it different?

Unlike traditional marketing, performance marketing is usually focused on driving a specific action or group of actions from the target, and success is usually measured strictly on the number of users who have performed the range of actions agreed upon. This type of marketing finds specific use cases among small organizations that cannot afford a million-dollar budget for branding or more generic awareness campaigns. Smaller advertisers need to focus on the bottom line to remain profitable. The advertiser can determine the action to market for, and pay when that action has been taken a number of times.

How is ROI measured?

Actions (such as clicks or conversions) are agreed and KPIs are pre-determined between the advertiser and the performance marketing agency before the campaign commences. With the launch, activity is measured against these predetermined KPIs, and payment is made based on the results.

Who offers this in Africa?

We offer performance marketing services, where our clients only pay for specific results achieved, such as clicks or conversions. We offer these performance marketing services because of the strong engagement index we have with our native digital communities and networks as well as the experience and expertise of our strategists, allowing us to confidently craft campaigns that guarantee the right response from our audiences.

Conclusion

As technology grows, and marketing leverages technology to optimize some of its activities, marketers can get closer and closer to the end-user, and are able to offer more personalized value both to the end-user and better ROI to advertisers.

To know more about our services and how you can reach us, visit our services page.

If you would like our marketing team to help you with your marketing, send us an email here.

Nigeria – [email protected]

Ghana – [email protected]

Kenya – [email protected]

Senegal – [email protected]

Media company

What is a media company?

These days, the term media company has become much more blurred than it was a few decades ago, based on the huge changes in technology and in the way, information is distributed across the world. A media company used to be solely defined by its ability to aggregate, produce and distribute content.

Now, anyone with a smartphone and internet access can consistently produce, curate and distribute content on the internet for almost free. This gave rise to a new capability for the media company, based largely on its ability to function as a strong content platform and on its reputation for wide content distribution. Media content also involves feedback from readers and the larger community. Published content can now receive feedback from the community almost immediately, in form of comments, shares, likes etc and media companies care about enabling that two-way interaction.

So what does a media company do?

Media companies either distribute their content solely via print, such as newspapers or magazines, or solely on the internet, or digitally (usually via a website and/or social media platforms) or both.

Truth:

People expect media companies to share stories that are relevant and of interest to their target audience. An important part of the work that media companies do is painstakingly going through every piece of content to be published to check the accuracy and veracity of the information.

Media companies are trusted to report information that is true; in cases where a fraudulent story is published, it could have dire implications for the audience, which in some cases could lead to defamation of character, or even death. It is imperative therefore for media companies to check, re-check and double-check the information they distribute whether offline or online.

Timeliness:

Part of a media company’s job is to report information to its audience in a timely manner. Timeliness is crucial to the relevance of a story. News may often break into many different versions, as it spreads from mouth to mouth. The timeliness of a media company is an effective tool in dispelling incorrect information and confirming what is true.

Social Discourse:

The role of media companies in shaping civic society is crucial. Civic conversations that have the potential to transform a society, cause political or other change within a nation or influence popular culture, all take place in the domain of media companies. Because of this solemn role, any media company of repute is required to maintain impartiality in the nature of the content it publishes, and also highlight issues within the niche or domain in which it operates, with a view to driving conversations around it.

Conclusion

While we are in an age of smartphones and blistering internet speed, the role of a media company isn’t to be lightly viewed because of the sensitive nature of information distribution. In Africa, Pulse has grown its digital communities of young people, slowly establishing its authority as the premier news and entertainment source for young Africans, evidenced by the size and growth of its audiences in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and Uganda. With millions of people consuming content from our country’s websites each month, we maintain a clear leadership status in the market, guided by our framework for innovative content creation and community engagement.