Many brands wait until a product is ready before thinking about marketing or engaging a digital marketing agency in Nigeria. They usually picture a grand launch event, after which people would become aware of their products or services and start buying. But in reality, it’s not so.
Marketing should be an ongoing process that grows alongside your business. The focus and intensity shift as you move from idea to launch to scale, but the need never goes away.
This guide shows how Nigerian brands can approach digital marketing at every stage of growth — from the development & pre-seed to maturing & scale.
The Different Stages of Business and Digital Marketing Implementation (Summary)
| Stage | Pressing Need | Digital Marketing Focus | Risks of Ignoring Marketing |
| Development and Pre-Seed | Validate the idea, build an early audience. | Audience building, content marketing, market research. | Competitors capture attention first, and a tougher market entry. |
| Launch and Growth | Acquire customers, gain traction. | Paid ads, SEO, conversion optimization. | Slower traction, rivals gain loyalty. |
| Maturing and Scaling | Defend market share, maximize profit. | Email automation, community building, and authority content. | Brand relevance fades, customer churn rises. |
Stage 1: Development & Pre-Seed
The development and pre-seed phase of any business is when an idea starts to take shape. At this stage, funding may be very limited or even unavailable. However, it’s important to lay the groundwork for your marketing strategy at this stage.
Below, we highlight the business goal, the pressing/most important need, the digital marketing focus, and the risk if digital marketing is skipped for a brand in Nigeria.
Business Goal: Validate the idea and build an initial audience to receive your product or service.
Pressing Needs
- Understand the target market and pain points
- Test interest in your solution
- Collect early sign-ups or followers who can become first customers
Digital Marketing Focus
- Audience building: A core digital marketing focus for a business in the pre-seed and early development phases. Digital marketing at this stage should focus heavily on driving awareness and building the brand’s audience; followers on social media, subscribers to an email list, etc. A simple landing page with a leadgen form is enough at this stage; there’s no need for elaborate websites. The focus should be on getting eyeballs on the landing page and building out the audience.
- Content Development: Content development is necessary for audience building. At these early stages, brands should invest in high-quality content creation on topics related to the business. This could range from problems the brand is out to solve, founders’ stories, team stories, building in public-focused content, etc. Content building, when done correctly, will build brand loyalty among the target audience, create anticipation, and position the brand as the go-to option. Content could include videos, blogs, podcasts, and social media posts. Brands at this stage should adopt the “create once, distribute everywhere and forever” workflow.
While content marketing can be very beneficial, it should be approached carefully. A significant investment should be made to produce quality content, not AI-generated slop that can deter future customers or, worse, create resentment toward the brand.
- Market research: Market research should be another core digital marketing focus at the growth phase. Your business should do more listening than “talking” at this stage. Set up focus groups, use social polls, surveys, and join relevant subreddits and social forums to hear directly from your target audience. This would guide product and service development, pricing, and related decisions.
Risks of Waiting
If a brand in Nigeria doesn’t implement marketing at the pre-seed phase and waits until launch, competitors can capture your market attention and market share, making breaking into the market more difficult. Another risk is launching a product or service that completely misses the mark on what the market needs.
Stage 2: Launch & Growth
The launch and growth phase is when a brand’s service or product is live, functional and operational. The focus at this phase is on driving consideration, user acquisition, and purchases or subscriptions.
Business Goal: Acquire paying customers and build market traction.
Pressing Needs
- Generate qualified leads and sales.
- Create credibility and social proof.
- Strengthen brand awareness.
Digital Marketing Focus
- Performance marketing: a form of advertising in which the purchaser pays only when measurable results are achieved. Pricing models include: CPM (cost-per-mille, or cost-per-thousand), CPC (cost-per-click), Cost per lead (CPL) & Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). Since acquiring customers is the primary focus at this stage, a significant chunk of the marketing budget should be allocated to performance marketing on core platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): While performance marketing is great and brings in almost instant results, its cost can also be steep, especially for brands in Nigeria; hence, in the growth phase, focus should also be given to organic search “everywhere” optimization. Search everywhere—because with the advent of LLMs, people no longer search only on search engines; they now also search on AI platforms. Therefore, SEO should be a priority so your site can be found anywhere your users search online.
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): Getting traffic to your brand’s landing page isn’t the end goal; the goal is to convert that traffic into users, customers, or clients. To ensure the website is converting as effectively as possible, extensive, ongoing conversion rate optimization should be implemented. Study website/app visitors’ behaviour — where they click, where they drop off— and tweak your pages to turn these visitors into customers.
Risks of Waiting
Sometimes, delaying means your rivals can win your target audience’s loyalty — making it an herculean task to secure market share. Your cost per acquisition climbs, and it takes longer to hit profitability.
Stage 3: Maturity & Scale
At the maturity & scale phase, the brand is well-known, has found product-market fit, has established a clientele, and may be profitable. At this stage, the company is seeking to defend its market share and break into new markets and regions.
Business Goal: Maximise profitability and protect market share.
Pressing Needs
- Keep existing customers engaged
- Improve the efficiency of marketing spend
- Expand into new audiences or regions
Digital Marketing Focus
- Email automation: Email is an effective way to nurture relationships and drive loyalty. Via platforms like Mailchimp, Mailerlite, etc., brands in the maturity and scale phase should create nurturing sequences, upsell campaigns, and loyalty programs.
- Community management: To further build loyalty, brands should make customers feel their voices matter and that they have a say. Community building is a great way to achieve this. Brands in this phase should have dedicated forums, WhatsApp groups, or lively social channels that encourage customer participation – Brands could also consider onboarding a social media marketing agency for effective community management.
- Authority content: A mature business should also be an authority in its field; this way it’s able to differentiate itself from contenders and startups. Whitepapers, webinars, and detailed case studies are excellent content choices that position the brand as an industry leader.
Risks of Waiting
Failing to evolve your brand’s marketing strategy here creates room for younger, hungrier competitors to steal market share. Every day, new businesses are springing up, competing for market share, customers, etc. The battle for attention is fierce; hence, established businesses cannot afford to ease up. A good example is Coke still spending billions on marketing after over 100years in the market.
Also Read: Top 10 Benefits of Digital Marketing For Brands in Nigeria
Conclusion
The Best Time to Start Marketing Was Yesterday. The Next Best Time Is Now!
The question any business in Nigeria should be asking isn’t if you should invest in digital marketing— It’s, “which kind of marketing strategy fits my business’s current stage?”
Delaying at any point makes growth more expensive and gives your competitors lots of room to take advantage of your intended market share.
At Krestel Digital, we work with Nigerian brands right from the development phase to maturity. We tailor our digital marketing strategies to the realities of each stage
Book a consultation and let’s map a plan that fits your current business needs.
