Digital Marketing for Women: Customer Segments Vs ICP

Hello and welcome to the show. It's available on YouTube, Apple podcast and Spotify. I'm your host, Tavishima Aidi. This is going to be a noisy episode because I'm not in the audio booth, so expect to hear some interruptions. Then if you'd love to connect with me and explore opportunities, then call me on 08064662140 or WhatsApp me on the same number. The country code is +234 for those of you who are not Nigerian. Then for social media, you can connect with me on LinkedIn.

Now, today, unfortunately, I'm not done with the session that I had on digital marketing for women that I did with Avon Innovation Hub over here in Abuja. And that's because, you know, we want to talk about something that's as broad as digital marketing. Marketing, there's a limit to how much you can cover in three days. So it turns out that the ladies would have loved to learn some more about digital marketing. And I promised to do something with them on demo day, but I

didn't get to that. So I think I'll just make a podcast episode on that tomorrow. And that will sort of be like their homework or some extra resources. But then after reviewing some of the PDFs that were sent in, sorry, not PDFs, what are they called? PowerPoints. PowerPoints that were sent in on Demo Day, because the assignment that we're given for demo day that I gave them on the demonstration day to, to be able to assess that they understood the concepts was I tried to get a sense of how many of them can identify their ideal customer,

the ideal customer profile, the ideal customer avatar. You know those audiences that you would like to go after Because the key thing when it comes to digital marketing, you know, online this online that the key thing that we need to get sorted, not just even in digital stuff, even for real world stuff like in sales. The first thing we need to figure out is who is it that we're chasing after in the 1st place? Because if you don't have a clear idea of who it is that you're supposed to be chasing after, you're going to waste time running after all sorts of people.

You're going to waste money running after all sorts of people. And you're going to be wasting your valuable attention running after people that you didn't need to talk to in the first place. So the first part of our enterprise is trying to figure out who's the ICP, what is the ideal customer profile? Who is the customer avatar? Who is the, you know, who is, who are the people that we should be running after? Basically that's the first question that we have to answer.

So I wanted to be sure that the ladies who attended that session on digital marketing for women would be able to clearly come up with an idea about who they should be chasing after with their digital, their digital marketing. And then come up with strategies for how they're going to use social media to target those groups. So that's what Demo Day was about. But now looking at some of the PowerPoint presentations or PDFs or whatever it is that was submitted, it occurred to me that there's one part of the training that we could have handled a whole lot better.

And that is when it comes to the difference between segments and the difference between Icps. So what is a customer segment? And then what is an ideal customer? How are they different? What is the relationship between the two? And what should we be doing in the business? Should we be coming up with customer segments and start chasing down customer segments? Or should we have an ideal customer profile? Is there any difference?

So that's what we're going to tackle today. But before I get into that, I would like to shout out Somto who reached out to me on WhatsApp, discovered the podcast on Spotify. He's currently the Head of sales for Tropic Dreams based out in Lagos. And then the business of digital transformation. So they've currently partnered with Zoho. Zoho is a company that makes all kinds of apps for business solutions. So they have an enterprise resource planning tool, They have ACRM that's a customer relationship management tool.

They have inventory management relation to sorry, inventory management tools. Yes, sorry, I'm just used to saying relationship management all the time. So inventory management tools and a whole host of other things. And so Santo as head of sales for Tropic Dreams in partnership or should I say they're resellers or licensees of Zoho over here in Nigeria. And Zoho is trying to take over the Nigerian market or rather trying to introduce themselves into the Nigerian market.

Now, the reason why I wanted to have the conversation with Zoho that sorry, not with Zoho with Somto, sorry, one moment looks like somebody's at the door. Let me go sort that out and I'll be back. OK, I'm back. That's a good thing. I told you guys that there were going to be some interruptions. Oh, by the way, when I was having a conversation with Somto as after chatting back and forth and then we're on the phone call.

I apologise for the poor audio, some of the some of the episodes. And you know, he laughed at off he said it wasn't that bad. So I'm hoping that you guys don't think some of these things are that bad. Well, it's not like you have much of A choice anyway because it's the only way that I can stay on top of these episodes. So where was I? So Somtu works with Tropic Dreams and they are distributors or resellers of Zoho and Zoho has lots of business apps that are supposed to make your businesses run better.

Now, the reason why I wanted to have the conversation with Somtu obviously was because I've been talking about using Zoho CRM over here on the app. Now, the reason why I've been talking about using Zoho CRM is not because Zoho is the best, but because it's free. And I think that we should start off with free options whenever we possibly can. But of course, the free plan on Zoho is limited. I think currently I think it's limited to maybe like two or three people within the business, I think.

And then there are paid options. And of course, it's not just Zoho I've been talking about. I've also spoken about Odo. I think that's O double DO. But Zoho is foreign. Odo. OK, well, Odo is also foreign, but you know, the African brothers and sisters, I can't remember if they're South African or whichever company it is anyway. So Odo, one of us, Zoho foreign. OK, well, they're both foreign. I don't know of any Nigerian CRM

companies, but either way, getting into that CRM mindset is something that is really, really important for us to improve our businesses because we can't run everything from memory. We can't remember all the people we're supposed to talk to. You can't remember all the people you're supposed to send proposals to today. You can't remember all the customers that you're supposed to go and visit. You can't remember all the suppliers that you have to talk to so that you can restock and then all these things.

So you need some sort of tool to keep you up to date. And that's the reason why I keep making podcast episodes about using your phone as ACRM. But if you want to get a bit more sophisticated using Excel sheet as ACRM or just biting the bullet and then, you know, using auto or using Zoho or using something that is dedicated to that. So yeah. So that's it. Shout out to Somtu. Thank you very much for listening to the show.

And I'm glad that sales professionals are beginning to discover the show. Please, for those of you who are sales professionals like Somtu, head of sales for Tropic Dreams, keep on sharing the podcast. Let your brothers and sisters out there in the field know that we now have valuable resources such as this that can help us up our sales game when we're talking to customers. So with the shout out done, let's head straight to business.

OK, so like I said, having a chat with the ladies at Avon Innovation Hub, because digital marketing for women, and I told them all about the ICP, the ideal customer profile and why that is important. But I forgot to make a distinction between customer segments and between the ideal customer profile. And that is because a lot of the presentations were made at the end of the day. People would talk about ideal customers in very broad categories.

For instance, there's someone who runs an online store and who took part in this ICP exercise. And then for her, she started talking about how her ideal customer profile, her ideal audiences were families, young professionals, hotels, and then corporate organizations. So let me repeat, she said that her ideal customer, her ideal audiences are families, that is broad, young professionals, that is broad, hotels, that is broad,

corporate organizations, that is also very broad. Now, typically what I would do, what I did during that session was to try and tell them how, well, yes, of course, these are classes of people, categories of people that we should be running after. But for the purposes of a marketing campaign or for the purposes of trying to figure out how you're going to use your Instagram best or your e-mail marketing best or your LinkedIn strategy best or something, it would help if for each exercise we had a specific narrow profile of someone that we're chasing after.

So instead of saying that families are your audiences because that's very broad, and then young professionals, what I'll try to get them to do is to pick one. If you're going to focus on young professionals, then let's focus on young professionals and let it be specific. Young professionals between the ages of 25 to 35 who live in big cities like Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and who are involved in banking and financial services.

So now you can see that if that is the profile that you're working with, you're going to be able to tailor the contents that you would write on social media because you can be writing the content and you can ask yourself this thing that I'm writing or this video that I'm recording, does it look or does it sound like it's something that a young professional age between 20 and 35 living in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano and who is in the banking space and the financial sector, does it sound like something that they're going to be interested in?

So when you have a specific picture like this, it's going to be able to guide the content that you're going to create is going to be able to guide the advertising that you are going to do. Because when you hit up the advertising, sorry, not advertising console, what's it called? The advertising manager. When you hit up advertising manager in Facebook or in Instagram, I'm not sure what the the advertising dashboard looks like, looks like in Google.

So let me not reference that You're going to be able to put in all these demographics and psychographics. You're going to be able to take that. Look, Facebook, Zuckerberg, this advert that I'm putting here right now, only show it to people who are based in Nigeria. Don't just show this advert to people who are based in Nigeria only limited to these cities, Abuja, Port, Arcot, Kano, Lagos. And then of the people that are showing this to in these cities,

only show it to people who are between the ages of 20 and 35. And for all the Nigerians who meet their criteria who are between the ages of 20 and 35, only show it to those who work in banks or who work in financial institutions. So that way, Zuckerberg would now know that OK, this advert that this guy has created and put on the platform, let us only show it to people who meet all these criterias and who only work in Zenith Bank, Access Bank, GTB, what else?

Lead Way, Assurance, Stanbic, IPT, pension managers, you know those sorts of things. So that's how it works and that's what I'll try to get the ladies to do to narrow it down. But unfortunately, what I failed to do was to let the ladies at Avon know that what they were doing technically speaking was not wrong, but they were just thinking about customer segments. Now, customer segment is a broad group of people that have similar needs or have similar characteristics.

So if we're doing exercises about ICP and you start talking in large terms, saying families, young professionals, hotels and corporate organizations, technically speaking, what you've done is not wrong. All you have done is you've started discussing customer segments, the ideal customer profile, the ICP, the customer avatar, the people you should be chasing after are those people who you think are most likely to benefit from a product or service or people who you enjoy working with.

Well, for me, I like to extend the people that you enjoy working with because I really, really believe that. Well, far. It's not just a matter of belief. Hanging out with other people who are SMEs. I know that it's one thing to run out of some people who pay you, but every time they pay you the price, you'd agree or not, and they end up being idiots. So technically speaking, the money's in your bank account, but every single time you're angry and you're just pissed off with the whole world.

But then there's some other people who you work with and when they price you, they don't price you too bad. And when they pay you, they pay you well. And apart from that, they're decent people. So I think that sometimes we should also put that in this whole matrix. So it's not just a matter of who can benefit most from my product or my service, but also of the people who might benefit from my product or my service, who are those that I actually enjoy working with Self.

Because it really sucks. And I gave an example about how early on I took a documentary job. The amount I was supposed to enter my pocket was 300K. But then six months later, we were still on this documentary after collecting 600 key. That's one, I'm sorry, 300 key that's in my pocket. I mean, like, are you not just better off going and getting a job than collecting 300 key for someone? And people are still quarreling after six months.

So these are some of the questions you'll be asking yourself when you want to select your ideal customer profile. So for those of you who are thinking in broad terms, you are correct. It's not wrong, but you're thinking in terms of customer segments. So for the ICP now we have to tweak it and narrow down small so that we know who we are chasing after. I've given an example using young professionals because you say young professionals in Nigeria.

That can mean anything. It can mean somebody who is 22, I think UN conventions or something, you know, UN documents, I think they wouldn't say for young people. Someone told me that if you say 42, you're still young. And for me, I think that's a little bit off. I think 42, you can say, well, OK, 42, yeah, OK, you're still a young guy, still a young girl. But anyway, what's up for debate? But see, these are the reasons why we should even become really, really narrow when it comes to these sorts of things.

Because if I say a young person, if Malaga says go and target young people, but in my mind, young people is 18 to 25. But for Malaga, Malaga thinks young people is 30 to 45. I mean, you see how the quarrel will start, how your guy will be saying that, look, how can you go and be using this age, grade and blah, blah, blah. You guys are shouting back and forth, but actually it's because you and your boss, you and your guy, you and your teammates, you and your business partner or you and your spouse if both of you run the business together.

You guys are now in agreement about a couple of things. So we have to be really, really clear. So now just say young professionals. That's a customer segment, so that's good. It's nice that we've limited it down to a segment, but let's still do small work and then cut it down a bit. So we're going to say young professionals, which kind of young professionals because people who work in the judiciary are also professionals.

People who are engineers are also professionals. So of course, you know, depending on what it is that you sell or the service you provide, you know, that will determine what we have to ask ourselves these questions. When you say hotels, that is also a broad category. So technically speaking, these short time places is, is also hotel now. But are those the kind of people that you want to do business with? Or are you thinking about places like the Hilton Abbey Hilton, is it 4 star Abbey three star or are you thinking, you know,

three and four-star establishments in Lagos and Abuja? But we have to be clear about these sorts of things because you can also go to Okochukwa and Sons Hotel, which is technically speaking as a hotel, but really everybody knows it's short time, so you need to know what's up. Same thing with corporate organizations. What kind of corporate organization are you trying to target? So when it comes to doing these sorts of things, you know, yes,

we should list out as many customer segments as possible because it's also part of the, I put it the strategic process. The, it's part of the strategic process trying to figure out who it is that we're chasing after. So yes, list out all your segments. Families, that's a customer segment, young professionals, that's a customer segments, hotels, that's a customer segment. Corporate organizations, that's a customer segment.

But then we don't have to figure out for this particular campaign that we're trying to do this radio advertisements that we want to run, this Facebook advertisement that we want to place or this marketing that we want to do. You know, in this part of the world, Nigeria, when we say marketing, that means people are going out into the streets and talking to strangers. So this marketing that we want to do now, who are we going to be talking to?

If you say we're going to be talking to families, young professionals, hotels and corporate organizations is too broad. You send your sales team out there with this kind of target and you know, they're confused, don't know what's up. If you're targeting and then in your advertisements, in your, the targeting criteria in Instagram, you put it there that target families, young professionals, hotels and corporate organizations.

That is too broad. But if you send your sales professional and say look guy, this thing that we're going to sell, go out there and only talk to families. Apart from that, we are only talking to families who live in Abuja, in the central part of Abuja and who have on average three to five children. You can see that that now is very specific so that somebody goes and starts talking to somebody and figures out the person lives in Waggola and the person has five wives and 11

children. You don't know that. OK, This is not the person I should be spending my time with. By the way, I'm not saying that people who have 5 wives and 11 children are bad. I'm just trying to say that, you know, this business here, we're trying to collect money here. So we need to have a clear idea of who it is that's going to get value from our product or service and we have to try and figure out how best to spend our time.

So I'm not making any value judgments here, although as a young man, because he's one of those guys who lives in my estate and I don't know how they do it, especially with this economy. Well, actually I should be talking to him so that because clearly he's doing OK, so I should be taking my advice from him actually about how to make money. So I mean, all these young men by running around, you haven't hit 50 already have like 3

wives, children have already entered like 9. Like gay people are strong. I have you guys, where was I? So I'm not making value judgements. Let's just be clear about who it is that we're chasing. So if you're going to get engaged in these sorts of exercises and you're talking big, big, big, broad, broad, broad, families and young professionals, no problem. What you've done is a customer segment. But for the purpose of this campaign, this marketing, this radio advertisement, this TV

advertisement, this even down to things like Flyers, these Flyers that we're trying to produce. Now, who are we targeting these Flyers for? You can see how that is going to affect the design. If you're creating Flyers and you're trying to promote your product, your service or your business, the flyer that you're designing for families is not going to have the same feel as the Flyers that you're designing for corporate organizations.

I hope you guys are feeling me now. So these things are important. Call out the segments. No problem. From the segments, narrow things down. Ask yourself a bunch of questions. You're going to be able to get your ICP. Remember, it's not just people who pay you, It's also people who you enjoy working with. And like I told the ladies, I'm going to tell you guys over here now, it's also not a bad idea to look at your trading history.

Who are the people that have actually done business with you in the past and the people that you enjoyed working with in the past? And so let's take it from there. So that's the difference basically between the customer segment and the ICP, if you can say that there's a difference after all, because in my own opinion, they're both kind of saying the same thing. The difference is just the scale. So when we say customer segments, what we have is a broad group of people who have similar needs or similar characteristics.

It's a broad group. They look alike because, after all families, they look alike. What are they made-up of Mommy daddy and children so they all look alike. What is the difference between mommy daddy and children. If mommy and daddy are both bankers and they only have three children and they live in they live in Wusetu and there's a difference. If mommy and daddy are both farmers who live in building KB and and OK, now let me stop here before I get in trouble.

I don't want people to stop blasting me anyway. You, you, you get the picture. So customer segment broad, ICP much more narrow. We actually need to know both when we're coming up with marketing, advertising and all other stuff that we have to do to promote our businesses. So again, thank you very much to Santo for listening to the show. Please share for the rest of you who also listen to the show. I love you guys, I really do.

I appreciate the support and if we've been chatting and you feel like I owe you a shout out, I haven't shouted you out, just send me a message because you know, sometimes I forget. So that's it. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys tomorrow and remember that if you'd love to connect and explore opportunities with me, the phone number is 08064662140. Can WhatsApp me on the same number. The country code is +234 for those of you who are not Nigerian.

So yeah, that's it. I'll catch you tomorrow.