COVID-19: Lilvera Advocates 80% Budget for Digital Marketing

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

Corporate organisations and individuals have been advised to review their marketing plans and budgets as a result of the change in the Nigerian marketing environment caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the opinion of a London Business School alumnus and the Managing Director/CEO of Lilvera Group, Mr Buchi Johnson, in a chat with newsmen in Lagos recently.

Speaking at his Lekki office, the marketing expert said technology has made life easier and that a lot can be achieved in selling a product or brand.

“Going forward, a serious minded organisation that wants to achieve great success for its brand and products must adopt an 80 per cent to 20 per cent budget planning for its marketing activities.

“This is as a result of the COVID-19 impact on bottom line as well as government regulations,” Mr Johnson said during the chat.

According to him, brands must make a conscious effort to understand their consumers’ online needs because this “will help any brand align with their needs.”

To achieve this, brands must ensure their teams are social media savvy to meet consumers’ needs,” the Lilvera boss said.

“Their understanding of tech tools will help manage sales channels and consumer conversations. They will also be able to understand what influences consumer decisions in the present situation as well as what influence new business and partnership,” he said.

Mr Johnson advised that it is important businesses begin to take crisis communication and management seriously as pandemic continues to bite harder.

“It is also important that businesses should have a crisis management plan on hand, the pandemic is a huge crisis that a lot of businesses did not envisage and could not manage.

“This caused a lot of businesses to shut down or lay off workers. It is important now more than ever to have a crisis management plan,” Mr Johnson stated.

As a marketing communications expert with over 12 years’ experience, he said “I have come to understand that change is permanent and to stay relevant, one most understand the trends and stay steps ahead of uncertainty.”

Speaking on the impact of pandemic on retail marketing space, the CEO of Lilvera Group said, “the retail sphere would be impacted no doubt but brands that adopt digital marketing would conquer this space and make greater success out of it despite the effect of the pandemic.”

“I am an early adopter of technology and an advocate of it as well, I think up ways to use technology to build my business and it has been the best strategy so far during the COVID-19 issue.

“We literally kept working during the lockdown, found new ways of doing things and offering our clients new ideas, which saw us grow through the lockdown to this present time.”