Marketing practitioners have expressed their views on the challenges facing digital marketing practices in Nigeria.
The experts, Dr. Tayo Oyedeji, CEO, Publicis Groupe Nigeria, and Okeroghene Egbi, Head of marketing, Renmoney, expressed their views during a webinar organised by the Association of Digital Marketing Professionals (ADMARP), recently.
According to them, to be branded as a digital marketing specialist/professional requires diverse skill sets such as setting goals and analysing the performance of all digital marketing channels; designing, implementing, and monitoring SEO campaigns; analysing and optimising PPC campaigns; supervising content marketing campaigns; and utilising social media networks for awareness, driving sales, and creating awareness amongst others.
One of the challenges highlighted among others is the absence of regulations that require people to obtain a certificate, licence, or registration to use the reserved title of “digital marketing professional”, or obtain the exclusive right to practise the occupation.
They reiterated that the lack of laws backing the profession has resulted in the dilution of the ethics, skills, and must-have qualifications which have made “people who have a certain number of following on Instagram or Twitter consider themselves to be to be digital marketing experts”.
Speaking on the topic, “Professionalising the digital marketing in Nigeria”, keynote speaker and CEO, Publicis Groupe Nigeria, Oyedeji shared that there is still a need to market the industry itself to brands as a specialist offering.
He said, “As full professionals in the digital marketing space, the biggest problem you have is that nobody believes that it is a truly professional industry.
“As a digital marketing professional, the quality of the work we do, defines our industry. The quality of the work we do, defines the people that are part of the industry. More importantly, the quality of the work we do, defines who we are as people.”
Highlighting some of the challenges of hiring an efficient digital marketing professional in Nigeria, Okeroghene Egbi, Head of Marketing, Renmoney explained that the actual definition of who a digital marketing professional should be remains the biggest challenge.
She said, “When I talk to people, most times, what I tend to see is people who have expertise in just one area, or people who have preference for one area, but you really won’t know until you start digging in or start having a conversation with them. So you would see someone who has defined their niche as a paid marketing expert, but when you first start probing, they tag themselves as digital marketing professionals.”
Egbi continued, “We have lots of candidates entering into the funnel, but finding someone who has the exact balance of the skill set you need for that particular job, so you end up combing through, asking questions, doing different competence tests to find the exact mix that you need. I think these are happening because the certifications or the way people get trained right now is to teach you a little bit of everything and leave you to find the path you are very strong at. But then, how do we make it clear that there are different streams and specialities required to do this job?”