Liberty Case

For a country like Nigeria (where over 80 million live below $1 a day), most entrepreneurs won’t want to hear “forget about the profit and focus on addressing needs”. The truth is, most of them become “entrepreneurs” in the first place because of the profit and nothing more. And that’s why the majority don’t stand the test of time.

An entrepreneur who wants to stay relevant for long MUST seek to solve problems!

Sorry to burst your bubble; Entrepreneurship is not a poverty alleviation scheme!

Entrepreneur.com described an entrepreneur as “an initiator, a challenger and a driver. Someone that creates something new, either an initiative, a business or a company”.

Note that the above definition didn’t call an entrepreneur someone looking for a way out of poverty.

Of course, money is necessary too. But it shouldn’t be the main driving force – that should be problem-solving.

There is an urgent need to have entrepreneurship redefined and mindset re-engineering for entrepreneurs, especially in this part of the world.

Renowned English business tycoon and the founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson, said he always encourage entrepreneurs to “focus on how their business ideas will help others. If your business genuinely improves people’s lives, success will follow.”

There you have it – solve a problem first, and success will follow. 

And as long as people have problems, they will continue to be on the lookout (consciously and subconsciously) for solutions. Imagine their happiness and how they’d’ embrace whoever comes with the solution.

Convenience is the new cool

To most people who grew up a few decades ago, technology is teaching this generation laziness and instant gratification. Are you hungry? Place an order from your phone. Do you need to see a movie? Netflix and chill. Need to go out? Call Uber (or Bolt).

To them, it might be laziness; but to this generation, it is making lives more comfortable and better. It is solving age-long human problems. And the good news for new entrepreneurs is, there are still more of such problems to be solved, leveraging on technology.

Tips to Help Entrepreneurs identify Problems and create Solutions

Sometimes, identifying the seemingly apparent problems in the society can be challenging. What’s even more challenging is creating a solution to the problem.

Here are few insights to help with these

a. Focus on must-have, not nice-to-have

People are exposed to way too many options and information these days that it takes standing out to be noticed. If it’s not a solution or a must-have, people will forget about your business even before they see it.

They see nice-to-have products every day, so nothing you do will move them. Plus if it’s nice-to-have, then it’s most likely not solving a problem that has not been solved before.

But give them a must-have, something they will soon come to realize they “can’t do without.” 

b. Solve real, everyday Problems

Please take a moment and imagine our world without Amazon, Google, Netflix, Uber and the likes. Unlivable right?

Well, some 20-30 years ago, we lived the same world without them. But finding answers to questions was a problem for which Google provided a solution; online shopping was impossible, and Amazon came through for the world; there was no on-demand streaming service, so it wasn’t easy to see all your favourite shows and movies in one place until Netflix came through.

What problems is the world your society facing, and what are you doing to solve them as an entrepreneur?

c. Make sure you’re Passionate about this problem you want to solve

Then there is passion – the only thing that would keep you going when it becomes challenging. Successful entrepreneurs build solutions in areas where they have passion.

The co-founder of Dropbox, Drew Houston said: “The happiest and most successful people I know don’t just love what they do, they’re obsessed with solving an important problem, something that matters to them”. It couldn’t have been better said.

You don’t start a business and expect to take off the next day. Most of the successful businesses you know today went through weeks, months and even years of struggle before they finally became successful. The Shoe Dog, for instance, tells the story of Phil Knight’s struggle in building Nike to the household name it is today.

But, amid the challenges and struggles, what helps entrepreneurs to keep going is their passion for what they do.

Some Entrepreneurs who became successful after solving problems

1. Irene Agbontaen (TTYA)

5’11 tall, Irene is the brand behind the London-based Taller Than Your Average. The fashion brand specializes in styling women that are 5’9 and above tall, a demographic that had been underserved.

Irene herself had found it difficult to find clothes that fit her due to her height. For her and other tall women like her, they either don’t get what they want or have to add extensions to the clothes they buy. It was a struggle.

The frustration from her own experience pushed Irene to establish to TTYA in 2013 for tall, fashionable women. Tall women lives matter!

She has made it to the cover of Vogue Magazine (the dream of many in the fashion industry). She is an inspiration to many women around the globe.

For Irene, her personal experience pointed her to the problem, and she went to create a product that seeks to solve it. And there is no questioning her passion.

2. Barclay Paul (Impact Africa Industries)

Every May 28 is a day set aside to create menstrual hygiene awareness and to draw attention to challenges women and young girls face during menstruation.

One of such challenges is the fact that women in some underdeveloped countries do not have access to sanitary pads, so they end up using unsafe and unhygienic alternatives.

Paul in Kitale, Kenya, saw this trend and the danger it poses so he decided to start manufacturing reusable and affordable sanitary pads as a way of addressing the challenge.

Today, his company supplies these sanitary pads to other countries like South Sudan and Uganda with its current annual revenue standing at $300k.

But it all began with providing access to sanitary pads to women who couldn’t afford it.

3. Victoria Alonsoperez (IEETech)

Victoria Alonsoperez is an Uruguayan entrepreneur who founded the social enterprise, IEETech. She developed the Chipsafer, which is a platform for monitoring cattle health risks autonomously and remotely.

The device uses sensors to collect data about the health of livestock which can be converted into actionable information to help farmers prevent an outbreak and provide better care to their livestock.

This groundbreaking technology helps in preventing the death of cattle and generate more revenue.

Also, Chipsafer helps farmers to remotely monitor their livestock to know where they are and what they are doing when there is no one with them.

Farmers will not forget Victoria in a hurry.

4. Andrew Foote (Sanivation)

This is another social enterprise project that is making a huge impact. Sanivation is committed to improving the entire health, dignity and environment of urbanizing communities located in East Africa using safe, clean and efficient sanitation services.

Sanitation remains a significant problem in most parts of the world, including Africa. With more people migrating from rural to urban areas, mismanagement, poor regional planning, conflict etc. cities have become stretched to their limits forcing people to live in unhygienic conditions.

Sanivation, therefore, addresses this problem by installing container-based toilets in homes for a small monthly service fee. The wastes from such toilets are then processed into environment-friendly fuel which people can still use instead of coal.

The model has been adopted in refugee camps, and Andrew hopes to serve 1 million people by the end of 2020.

Shit business, as they say, is serious business (provided it’s addressing a need).

5. Aisha R. Pandor (SweepSouth)

Aisha is a successful South African and co-founder of SweepSouth. SweepSouth is a venture-backed renowned online tech startup for booking and managing home cleaning services.

Most people don’t have the time to clean their homes or offices daily. And for most people, they would rather someone come in to do the job on-demand rather than have a full in-house cleaner. SweepsSouth was created for people like this.

Launched in 2014, SweepSouth links buyers and sellers of domestic cleaning services. As a result, the product helped those who needed cleaners find one at an affordable rate and create jobs for unemployed and underemployed youths.

” SweepSouth won the SiMODiSA Startup SA pitching prize and later became the first South African startup to be accepted into the prestigious 500 Startups accelerator based in Silicon Valley in San Francisco”, says the World Economic Forum.

They all have something in common – they identified problems, created products that sought to solve them, and then profits followed. Now, that’s the right order.

Conclusion

Those are just 5 of the uncountable entrepreneurs out there hitting success by simply finding a solution to a problem.

Problems will never finish. Most times, the solution to one problem often creates another. So, there will be problems yearning for a solution around us.

The Covid19 pandemic is one that we all can relate to. While the world was hit by one of the biggest pandemic ever forcing us all to stay at home, smart entrepreneurs saw needs that needed to be met. Some had to start creating face masks, hand sanitizers and the other things that could help prevent the spread of the virus.

The pandemic meant some of us had to work from home—a difficult but necessary decision for most companies.

Entrepreneurs who had remote work tools created massive awareness for their products to make working from home more comfortable.

Shops were closed. Offices shut down. Banks and other financial institutions went on an indefinite break. Movement was prohibited. Social gathering was a taboo. The world became a complete shadow of itself. Yet, in the midst of it, entrepreneurs who sought to solve problems were unstoppable.

For instance, Eric Yuan, the founder of the video-conferencing platform, Zoom saw his worth grew by over $2.5 billion during the pandemic. Steve Balmer, Microsoft CEO became $15.7 billion richer, and Jeff Bezos added $48 billion to his net worth, all during the pandemic.

So, the pandemic is no excuse. It’s an opportunity as it is changing the world from how we used to know it and creating a new norm.

And with technology at our disposal in this dispensation, we are unstoppable.

In the end, look well and hard around and seek to help make lives easier leveraging on readily available technological resources, and watch success come chasing you.

So, don’t just start another business. Instead, solve a real problem in the society. 

Email marketing is a form of marketing that uses one of the oldest social media – email. It is believed to be the most cost-effective and efficient form of marketing, but the big question is, are you taking advantage of it to grow your business?

You should know at least one of them – Ope from Cowrywise, Uche from Bolt, Kiki from Sterling, Aisha from Carbon. These are examples of big businesses that understand email marketing and have used it to grow their business. And you can too.

Justin Rondeau of Digital Marketer has this to say about Email Marketing:

That is the gospel truth. Perhaps you need more convincing; the stats below should help.

10 Interesting Email Marketing Stats

These are exciting stats about email marketing that you need to check out. Some of them will resonate with you immediately, and others will only make more sense when you start harnessing the power of email marketing. Take a look.

• There are 3.9 billion daily email users, and the number is projected to reach 4.3 billion by 2023
• For every $1 spent on email marketing, it generates about $38 profit. That’s about 3,800% return on investment (ROI)
• 35% of business professionals check their emails on mobile devices
• 46% of all emails opened are on mobile devices
• 80% of business owners believe that email marketing boosts customer retention
• Marketers who segment their campaigns note about 760% increase in revenue.
• 78% of marketers have witnessed an increase in email engagement in the last 12 months
• 16% of all emails sent don’t make it into the inbox
• 59% of email respondents say marketing emails affect their choice of purchase
• The US spent more than $350 million on email advertising in 2019

These stats should give you an idea of the power of email marketing and how it can help your business grow.

Are you ready to join the 80% of business owners currently boosting their customer retention with email marketing? Below is the comprehensive guide you came for.

Grow your Business With Email Marketing: The Complete Guide

Let’s take a look at the complete guide on how you can grow your small business with email marketing, one step at a time

1. Set Your Email Campaign Goal

The success of any digital marketing campaign begins with setting a goal. As that’s the only way you can assess your effort at the end of the day.

Think of it as a journey. You know before you set out on a trip, you must first determine your destination. No one begins a journey first before deciding a destination.

So, what do you want to achieve with email marketing? Sure, you want to grow your business. But how do you intend to assess performance at the end of your campaign?

Who are your targets for the campaign, what do they do and what action do you want them to take after opening the mail? All of these and more you need to know before you set out.

Email marketing is goal-driven, so you must set your goals to get the best of it.

2. Choose Your Email Marketing Service Provider

The success of your email marketing campaign may depend on your email marketing service provider. Why you need to spend time to research on the right one to use for your business.

The most popular service provider in the industry at the moment is MailChimp. But popularity does not necessarily mean it’s the best for you.

Also, if you are entirely new to email marketing, you may have some difficulties navigating through some of those email marketing. Why you must do proper research and choose the one that works for you.

Other email marketing service providers are Zoho campaigns, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse and so on.

3. Create an Effective Optin

To send mails to your customers, you need their emails. And this is arguably the most challenging part of email marketing.

It would help if you devised an attractive way to get your customers to sign up to your email campaigns. How many times have you been on a website and just before you leave a message pops up asking to sign up to their newsletters? You must have seen that often.

Now, that’s one of the ways also to get your customers to sign up join your email list. But it’s not enough to just tell people to sign up to “receiving regular subtle adverts” from you. They won’t. So, you will have to make it as attractive as possible.

That brings us to the concept of lead magnet. What do your customers or target audience need and probably won’t mind paying for? How about you offer to give them free? This could be in the form of an ebook, a free course or an irresistible discount.

So, you provide this offer on your website or landing page (which your email service providers will give you) and tell your customers to enter their emails to have it delivered to them. And that’s it, free emails of your customers at your disposal.

4. Email Segmentation

Now, this is very important in the success of your email campaign. Email is a very personal means of communication, and you may not be able to personalize your message if you don’t break them into appropriate segments.

For instance, you run an online store that sells men, women and children clothes. You do realize that the contents that will appeal to men may not move women.

Another example is, say you run an international brand that sells to customers in different parts of the world. You want to break your audience into segments for several reasons.

One, customers in Africa don’t use the same time zone as those in America. So you want to ensure that each customer receives at the best time appropriate for such in their countries.

Also, the choice of words or lingua and specific needs come into play when writing for people from different parts of the world.

The long and short of this is that email marketing is data-driven. It begins and ends with data, so pay close attention to data and let influence your decisions.

Don’t let the word ‘data’ scare you. Basically, get all necessary information about your audience (age, location, gender etc.) and let it all influence how you sort them into categories so your mails can be personalized to your audience.

Don’t forget – “Marketers who segment their campaigns note about 760% increase in revenue”.

5. Writing Your Mail

You remember the examples we gave at the beginning? – Ope from Cowrywise, Uche from Bolt and the rest. You know you don’t see them coming to your mails every time to sell to you. Most times, they come like a friend trying to advise you.

In the same manner, don’t come to your audience advertising every time. They will get tired of your mails and stop opening them. 

Instead, come with tips, advice, information and other things that will help them. You can do this and still subtly promote your business, and they will gladly click that link.

Here are a few tips to help you write a good mail that will keep your readers opening your emails and taking the actions you want them to take

• Make sure your headline is irresistible

Your customer receives tons of emails every day, and you can bet they won’t open them all (do you open all your mails?) Statistics show that an average user only opens about 17.8% of their correspondences. And your mail can make it to that small percentage if you can pay close attention to your headline.

You can make it informative, thought-provoking, answer-seeking, engaging or simply combine all. Don’t forget to keep it short too so the whole text can appear on your readers’ screens (usually mobile devices).

• Make it Personal

How does it feel seeing a brand mentioning your name in the emails they sent to you. Cool right? Now, go and do likewise.

Call your customers by their names and not the generic tag ‘customer’. 

“But what if I have over 1,000 customers, how am I supposed to type their names one by one?” Even if you have two customers, you don’t need to type your customer’s name when you’re sending mails provided you have their names in the email list you’re using. There is a simple tag you will insert in the mail that will automatically the customer’s name in the mail they receive. Yeah, power of technology.

• Keep your goal in mind

Remember it all begins with a goal? Make sure you keep that goal in mind as you write. Don’t deviate from it.

For instance, if you want your customers to click a link after opening the mail, you have to ensure you add such link in your mail with a clear call to action.

• Don’t send yet, run a test

Before hitting the send button to all your subscribers, you need to run a test first and measure reception.

Most of the times, you will have more than one idea for your campaign, especially for the headline. So, run what is called A/B testing of the two ideas and assess how your audience responds to them. The result would then determine what you would use for the actual campaign.

6. Measure your Campaign

This is where you examine how well your campaign has performed. And how you assess the campaign will depend on your set goals. 

Here are the significant metrics with which you can measure your email marketing campaign

• Open Rate

The percentage of your subscribers that opened the mail.

• Click-through rate

The percentage of subscribers that clicked a link in your mail.

• Conversion rate

The percentage of subscribers that completed the required action after clicking the link in your mail.

• Bounce rate

The percentage of subscribers that, for some reasons, did not receive your mail.

• Opt-out

The number of customers who chose to unsubscribe from your email list after your last mail.

• Email sharing or forwarding rate

The percentage of customers who shared your mail on social media or forwarded it other mails.

• Overall ROI

The percentage of profit made from an email campaign as against the amount spent on the campaign.

• Mobile Open rate

The percentage of subscribers who open your mail on their mobile devices

Conclusion

Remember, every email campaign is not an opportunity to sell. Resist the urge to sell all the times. Like Justin Rondeau said, email remains “one of the best ways to move a lead to a prospect, a prospect to a buyer and a buyer to a consistent customer”. 

So, don’t rush the process. Gradually take your prospects journey with you from their current state (prospect) to the destination (consistent customer).

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