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Media Effectiveness: How CMOs Can Get CFOs to See Marketing as a Value Driver

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Media Effectiveness

By Lorraine Landon

Marketing is far more than just creative ads or social media buzz—it’s a measurable driver of business growth. Yet many Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) still face an uphill battle when trying to convince their Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) that marketing is not merely a cost centre, but a strategic revenue generator. In regions like sub-Saharan Africa, this disconnect is even more pronounced. With 40 percent of all advertising spending in Nigeria expected to shift to digital channels by 2029, the pressure is on for marketing leaders to demonstrate clear, quantifiable business value.

In my journey working with diverse marketing teams, I’ve found that a handful of targeted, actionable steps can improve communication between CMOs and CFOs. Here are practical tips and tools that have proven effective in enhancing marketing strategies and demonstrating true business value—turning initiatives into measurable drivers without claiming to have all the answers.

1. Rethinking Measurement: From Clicks to Conversions

For many, the success of a marketing campaign has traditionally been measured in impressions, click-throughs, or video views. While these metrics offer insight into reach and engagement,the action of a video view may not necessarily lead to revenue for the business. Modern marketing demands a measurement framework that goes beyond surface-level data. This is where a combination of incrementality, attribution, and marketing mix modelling (MMM) comes into play.

Incrementality is the process of determining how much a particular marketing effort boosts sales that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Think of it this way: if you invest in a billboard or an online ad, incrementality testing (using tools like Campaign Experiments, Conversion Lift, or Search Lift) can reveal whether that campaign genuinely contributed to increased purchases or merely captured sales that would have occurred regardless.

Attribution works like detective work. It tracks the steps a customer takes along their journey—from seeing an ad to making a purchase—and assigns credit to each interaction. Modern attribution models, such as data-driven attribution in Google Ads, help pinpoint which specific ad or interaction influenced the final decision. This insight is crucial because it allows you to understand which channels or touchpoints are most effective in driving results.

Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) involves analysing a range of data sources to understand how different marketing activities collectively contribute to business goals. Google’s very own MMM solution, set to be available soon to marketers, promises to simplify this process by offering deeper insights into the overall impact of your marketing mix.

When you combine these three elements—incrementality, attribution, and MMM—you create a robust framework that not only measures performance more accurately but also builds a compelling case for marketing as a key business driver.

2. Speaking the Language of Value

Once you’ve set up a modern measurement framework, the next step is communication. Too often, the dialogue between CMOs and CFOs is hampered by jargon or a focus on vanity metrics that don’t directly link to business outcomes. To bridge this gap, marketing leaders must “speak the language of value.”

  1. Align Marketing with Business Goals:
    Start every campaign with a clear business objective—whether it’s boosting sales, enhancing brand loyalty. Ensure that every marketing activity, from the platforms you choose to the messaging you craft, directly supports that objective.

  2. Clarify ROI at Every Stage:
    Recognise that different stages of the marketing funnel deliver different types of value. For example, while brand awareness campaigns might not yield immediate sales, they lay the groundwork for future revenue by building trust and favourability. Setting clear ROI expectations at each stage helps CFOs understand how early investments translate into long-term gains.

  3. Map the Consumer Journey:
    Document the customer’s path from awareness to purchase. This mapping justifies your media choices and budget allocations by clearly linking each marketing action to a step in the consumer journey.

  4. Monitor and Report Continuously:
    Keep your CFO in the loop with regular updates that tie marketing activities back to your business objectives. Establish benchmarks from the outset so that performance can be tracked and strategies adjusted as needed.

3. Reframing Your Marketing Strategy for Greater Impact

Despite the best efforts of CMOs, many marketing teams struggle to demonstrate the full impact of their campaigns. Only 41% of marketing leaders believe their companies are mature in performance measurement, highlighting a significant gap in strategy.

To overcome this, it’s time to reframe your marketing approach from the ground up. Start with your company’s overarching business objective and then translate that into measurable key performance indicators (KPIs). This top-down approach ensures that every campaign, whether it’s on Search, YouTube, social media, or other digital channels, is designed with the end goal in mind.

For instance, if your company’s objective is to increase market share, your marketing strategy should include targeted campaigns that focus on both broad brand awareness and specific conversion metrics. Each channel should have tailored messaging and clearly defined ROI metrics that can be easily explained to your finance team. In practice, this means understanding the unique characteristics of each platform. For example, the audience on YouTube might respond to engaging, visual storytelling, while users on Search might be more responsive to direct calls-to-action.

By framing your marketing strategy around clear business goals and measurable outcomes, you transform marketing from a cost centre into a proven revenue driver. This shift not only helps in gaining the trust of CFOs but also sets the stage for more strategic decision-making across the organisation.

4. Leveraging the Right Tools for Performance Tracking

No modern measurement framework is complete without the right set of performance tracking tools. Having accurate and timely data is paramount to demonstrating marketing effectiveness.

Tools to improve your conversion tracking right now:

  • Add offline conversion tracking to include the data from conversion events that can be harder to track otherwise, for example in-store purchases, interactions with call centres, or events on the way to a conversion such as moving through the sale process for car insurance.

Why measurement is a necessity for marketers in sub-Saharan Africa in 2025

The industry’s current climate feels like shifting tectonic plates: marketing budgets are shrinking, customer interactions across marketing channels are increasing and changing, and consumer behaviour is ever-evolving.

CMOs in sub-Saharan Africa have an opportunity to rebrand themselves as business critical in the eyes of the C-suite with a renewed ability to prove that marketing is aligned with business goals. By embracing this transformation, you’ll not only earn your CFO’s confidence but also establish a future where every marketing decision is grounded in data, insights, and clear business value.

Lorraine Landon is the Head of Advertising Products and Solutions at Google for Sub-Saharan Africa

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PR Nightmares: Why Your Client Should Never Find Negative News Before You Do

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PR Nightmares Why Your Client Should Never Find Negative News Before You Do

Who will save PR professionals from the negative news nightmare? Before I get into this, let us set the scene. Imagine this: You are a PR professional, swamped with idea conceptualization, media engagements, stakeholder engagement, press releases, client approvals, and a never-ending to-do list. Suddenly, a message pops up from your client:

“Hey, did you see this negative news about us?”

Your heart skips a beat. Your face? A mix of confusion and dread. You check your media monitoring alerts—nothing. You scramble through Google—there it is. And then it hits you: your client found this before you did. The unspoken words in that message?

“Aren’t you supposed to be on top of this?”

Now, before you hang me for stating the obvious, let me explain.

I have spent over a decade working with multiple media monitoring tools—some great, some just there, and some that make you question life choices. And let me tell you, no tool is built to single-handedly protect PR professionals from one of their worst nightmares: missing negative news before the boss or client finds it first. Don’t get me wrong—automated media monitoring tools do what they were designed to do. They churn out reports, track keyword mentions, and alert you when your brand name pops up somewhere. But they don’t think. They don’t prioritize what truly matters in near real-time. And if you work in PR, you know that one missed crisis can undo months—even years—of hard work.

Here is where human-curated media monitoring comes in. This isn’t about throwing away your monitoring tool—it is about adding brains to the machine. Human analysts sit behind these tools, filtering through the noise, spotting what really matters, and making sure the most critical updates land on your desk before your client or boss finds them. It is not just about negative news. Human-curated services catch things automated tools often miss—like a journalist misspelling your CEO’s name, your logo being used incorrectly, or a miscaptioned photo that could cause PR damage. An algorithm won’t flag these nuances, but a trained analyst will. And that is the difference between knowing about a problem and managing it before it spirals into a full-blown crisis.

One of the worst situations I have seen? A client forwarding negative news to their PR agency before the agency had even caught wind of it. Now, we all know the unspoken words that follow when that happens:

“This doesn’t look good for you.”

It is enough to make you break out in a cold sweat! The real issue here isn’t just the tool you are using; it is about how that tool is supported by human intelligence. No media monitoring tool currently on the market filters out just the negative news and plants it right in front of your face. They all do the same thing: send you alerts about your brand stories, whether positive, negative, neutral, or balanced. The tools, after all, were programmed to work this way, and it is not their fault. The pain point arises when PR pros have to sift through all that noise to get to what really matters.

Let me share a personal experience. During my first competitive pitch as the founder of P+ Measurement Services , we were invited to pitch to a well-known tobacco company. Now, there were three other agencies competing—one local and two international media monitoring agencies. Yes, we won that pitch, and the feedback was humbling. The client said,

“We are looking for an agency that will be humanly responsible to keep an eye on our brand in the media as our media watchdog and provide us with local media intelligence to drive our communications and PR engagement.”

Fast forward seven years, and we are still providing that service to the same client and more. What was the differentiator? We used tools, yes, but it was the human support behind the tools that provided invaluable media monitoring, intelligence, and analytics.

Beyond just detecting negative news, these human analysts can identify subtle nuances that automated tools often miss—like spelling errors in a brand’s name, the incorrect use of a CEO’s image, a miscaptioned photo, or even the wrong logo used in a major publication. Imagine the embarrassment when your boss flags a wrong spelling of the company name, and you, the PR professional, missed it. The automated tools are not designed to catch these kinds of errors, and it is unfair to blame them when they don’t. But human-curated services? They go above and beyond to ensure these mistakes are flagged and addressed before they turn into PR disasters.

So, the next time you are reviewing your PR budget to include media monitoring, ask yourself:

  • Who will make my job easier—just a media monitoring tool or a media intelligence partner that ensures I sleep better at night?
  • Who will I hold accountable if a negative story slips through the cracks while I am in function or having my lunch or a dinner with my spouse?
  • Will a tool catch that tiny but costly brand name error before my boss does?
  • When a crisis brews, do I want automated alerts—or real intelligence that helps me act fast?

The choice is clear. While AI and automation are great, human intelligence is what truly saves PR professionals from their worst nightmares.

And trust me, in this industry, peace of mind is priceless.

Philip Odiakose is a leader and advocate of public relations monitoring, measurement, evaluation and intelligence in Africa. He is also the Chief Media Analyst at P+ Measurement Services, a member of AMECNIPR, AMCRON, ACIOM and Founding Member of AMEC Lab Initiative

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Strategies for Launching Your Real Estate Tech Startup Successfully

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Dalip Jaggi

By Dalip Jaggi

Launching a real estate tech startup requires a lot of focus. But at its core, the primary goal is to eliminate pain points commonly seen in the industry.

Unfortunately, the process of buying, selling, and managing a property is rarely straightforward in real estate deals. For one, there tends to be endless paperwork to complete, regular back and forth between agents and clients, and long drawn-out closing periods.

If you can create a real estate company that actively eliminates these challenges, it can be transformative for both agents and clients alike. However, getting to this stage takes a lot of work in terms of strategy and vision.

This guide will outline key strategies you can implement to help you launch your real estate tech startup.

Address a Specific Industry Need

The foundation of a successful real estate company rests on its ability to solve a specific, ongoing problem. Overly general solutions usually don’t resonate in the market, but a focused approach can build a loyal customer base over time.

To begin, you need to carefully analyze the market, looking for consistent challenges. This is more than just a surface-level skimming of the market. It means finding overlooked areas or specific pain points that significantly impact a particular group of users.

Try to focus on problems that might be solvable with new technology or unique market approaches. This ensures that your startup’s efforts are directed toward creating solutions that people genuinely want and are willing to use.

Clearly Articulate Your Brand Value

After finding a relevant market need, you need to clearly define what makes your new company different from existing competitors. This is your unique value proposition.

A strong value proposition requires more than just listing your product or service’s features. It should also explain the real, tangible benefits users can expect to experience. Articulate precisely how your offering solves the problems in your target market, and highlight the specific ways it stands out from other options available.

Create a Proof of Concept

Most startup companies that develop software will start with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). An MVP has the fundamental features that software will have, but won’t include more sophisticated components that the customer may expect in a complete product. This keeps costs down while trying to develop a full-functioning platform or service.

The main goal of an MVP is user testing. They help capture a user’s first impressions of how the software performs in real-life scenarios. To gather meaningful feedback from your MVP users, you’ll want to ensure that only the most essential functions are present. Over time, feedback from MVP users helps you to prioritize relevant product additions.

In the iterative process leading to a fully launched marketable product, ensure that you try to incorporate any mission-critical improvements before launch. This will help to avoid major setbacks post-launch that might impact brand perception.

Gain Enough Financial Support

To move from a simple prototype to running an actual real estate technology company, you will need the right level of funding. There are different ways to obtain this capital, each having its own benefits.

At the outset, self-funding can help you continue to maintain control of the venture, although you may be a bit more limited in terms of initial growth opportunities. Working with a private investor, on the other hand, can lead to a sizeable cash injection in the business along with experienced mentorship to help you through the initial growth stages of your business. Unfortunately, though, this will likely come at the expense of giving away equity in the company.

Build a High-Performing Team

A successful real estate company needs a strong team. It’s important to try to source new individuals with a wide range of professional experiences. Among other skills, you should be looking for employees with strong real estate knowledge, a technical background, and a good understanding of sales and marketing principles.

Aim to source candidates who not only master these skills but are also passionate about the company’s goals. This helps build a sense of ownership and responsibility with all your team members, keeping everyone focused on ensuring the startup’s success.

Consider Integrating Helpful Renovation Tools

Homeowners and property managers are always looking for ways to increase a property’s value by completing various types of home renovation projects. By integrating helpful renovation tools into your software, you can help your new real estate technology quickly stand out in a crowded market.

Adding helpful features that let users estimate the costs of their renovation, plan different elements of a bathroom remodel, or track the statuses of their home projects can add significantly more value to your solution.

Put Together a Digital Marketing Strategy

Having a solid digital marketing presence is critical for new businesses to attract clients and expand their user base. This includes the use of SEO, paid advertising, and content marketing to increase brand visibility and create more touchpoints between businesses and potential clients.

Social media is equally important for helping to raise brand awareness. This helps you connect with clients directly and network with other industry professionals. By partnering with other real estate organizations, agencies, and commercial businesses, you’ll further help your brand’s visibility and credibility as you start launching new services.

Focus on Customer Engagement

Building lasting relationships with customers all rests on being able to provide excellent support. Earning their trust requires consistent dedication. This means responding quickly to questions and concerns that come up and keeping your focus on ensuring their satisfaction.

Actively soliciting user feedback, through surveys and reviews, allows you to take the necessary steps to improve their experience. It’s also important to keep users informed with regular updates and offer additional support to show them that they are a top priority. All of these initiatives add a personal touch to your brand, helping you stand out from others.

Give Your Startup the Best Chance for Success

Starting a successful business in real estate comes with its own set of challenges that need to be tackled. However, by following the strategies discussed, you’ll be sure to stand out in the industry better while introducing high-value solutions to your user base.

Dalip Jaggi is an entrepreneur, technologist, and passionate business leader sum up the core of Dalip Jaggi, co-founder of Revive Real Estate, a PropTech company to democratize house flipping. Since its 2020 inception, Revive has become the smartest solution for homeowners to maximize their home’s sales value across the nation.

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Sunusi Bature: Time to Take the Podium

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Sunusi Bature

By Ahmad Dambazau

The National Assembly is a constitutional locomotive for any purposeful democratic government, it provides checks to the government of the day and a legal basis for the system in general .This basically accounts for the high respect usually accorded and, of course, the attendant high expectation placed on it. The legislative arm of government like any other is saddled with the responsibility enshrined in the constitution and among such major functions includes representation, oversight and law making in addition to many other numerous functions.

Be that as it may, it has been a genuine cause for worry for Nigerians that, despite our series of experimentation with democracy, our legislators have performed below expectation. Their handling of national issues has especially remained without constitutional decorum and political experience required of people of their exalted status. Part 2, Section 4 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, vests the legislative powers of the federation on the National Assembly which comprises the Senate and House of Representatives.

Dawakin Tofa ,Tofa and Rimin Gado Federal constituency  is  one of the few constituencies in Nigeria represented by the same legislator for 18 years(2007-2005) despite poor representation .

As the federal constituency searches for the best man  to represent them for this serious legislative task. One name keeping ringing bell is Hon Sunusi Bature Dawakin Tofa ,Media and Communication Expert and Director General  of Media and Publicity to Kano State Governor.Sunusi  has earlier served as the Chief Press Seceretary to the Governor in the early days of the administration .

Mallam Sunusi is a seasoned PR guru, development communication and stakeholder engagement expert with 21 years working experience in both international development, private sector and the Media in Nigeria.

He is a winner of the Cambridge education award on investigative journalism in 2008, Bature has worked at different capacities in various national, International and Bilateral organizations such as the British Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), the United State Agency for Internal Development (USAID), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Save the Children International, Discovery Learning Alliance and the Rockefeller Foundation.

He held several positions which include General Manager Corporate Services at Dantata Foods and Allied Products Limited (DFAP), Director Stakeholder Engagement at YieldWise Project, Country Program Manager at Girl Rising (ENGAGE) Project funded by the US Government, State Project Coordinator for MNCH Campaign Project of the BMGF, Deputy Director Operations at Discovery Learning Alliance, State Program Officer, Policy Advocacy and Media Development, Communication and Knowledge Management Specialist among other positions.

Graduated with a Bachelor’s degree (B.A. Hons.) in Mass Communication from University of Maiduguri, Sanusi holds a National Diploma in Mass communication from Kaduna Polytechnic, a Higher National Diploma (HND) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health Education and Promotion.He also bagged MSc. in Social Work with specialization in Community Development from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, (LAUTECH) Ogbomosho, Oyo State and another master’s degree in Public Relations (MPR) from the prestigious Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. He participated in the MSc program on Project Management at Robert Kennedy College, Zurich, Switzerland.Until his appointment, Sunusi Bature served as the Vice President, Nigeria operations for a UK based firm, Kingston Organic PLC.

Hon Dawakin Tofa has opened yet another vista of debate among electorates on the value of quality representation with vigour,expertise and experience of having a wider constituency responsibility and coverage .He has vindicated his mettle among his constituents that even as an appointee of the Governor  his eloquent consistent and fearless voice always seeking the improvement of lives of his constituents accountability  among representatives of the people.

He is truly a representative of the people though unelected going by the amount of work he was able to do for the overall benefit of his people. In fact, it is worth elucidating   that this PR guru was able to touch the lives of the people in his stewardship in the private and public sectors. So far he has proved to be one of the few politicians that attracts government presence to his community. No matter what anyone would say, the amount of dividends of democracy that this community leader was able to bring to the door step of the people is unmatched.

Sunusi Bature’s development credentials and landmarks speaks volumes. The highlights of which were stellar achievements of re-positioning the educational sector in the more definitive ,radically ,progressive and futuristic manner , not to mention the  capacity building, empowerment and educational scholarship for his people  ,all shone  brightly for both his admirers and  detractors to access.

The Director General of Media and Publicity to the Governor of Kano State, Sunusi Bature Dawakin Tofa, has been honoured with the prestigious Most Outstanding Spokesperson Award by the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Information. Dawakin Tofa was selected for this esteemed award in recognition of his instrumental role in promoting not only the positive image of the Kano State Governor and his giant strides also for effectively showcasing the only NNPP ruling state in Nigeria.

In the award citation, Mallam  Sunusi was hailed as an unwavering proponent of non-violent communication, renowned for his extensive network and adept delivery of practices with clarity in objectives, and strategic framing of engagements with his audience.His profound impact and effectiveness in perception and reputation management are highly commendable.

In whatever one indulges in there are always people to observe and give their verdict .It is a well- known fact that there is nothing stronger than the people’s verdict.it shows a collective desire which inevitably is the voice of reason. The momentum of Hon Sunusi Bature Dawakin Tofa legislative bid is gathering amongst all strata of the constituency is enough testimony that experienced count in the race for the parliamentary seat.

Dambazau wrote in from Kano

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