Marketers to balance sales strategy for growth – EXMAN

The Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria has predicted marketing communications strategies in 2025 will pursue a strategy balancing compassion and profit-seeking.

In a telephone interview, EXMAN President, Tolulope Medebem told The PUNCH that marketers have to balance not being too pushy with their campaigns but also remain careful not to make losses.

She stated, “One of the things that we’re finding out with marketing communications is it’s not everybody that is pushing volume; ‘sell, sell, sell, sell,’ down your throat now, the bigger picture is for people to showcase some level of empathy with the seeming consumers because it’s the consumers that make whatever the brand is regardless.

“With the new year (2025), a lot of people will keep on at best showing a caring, compassionate face or outlook, but again it is within whatever the macroeconomic outlooks are. You cannot show a caring and emotional face, and then you are losing (money). It’s going to have to be a win-win and (there needs to be) some kind of balancing act between the company keeping to strategy and also trying to operate within the current macroeconomic realities of the country.”

Medebem explained that most marketing communication professionals are likely to tweak their core strategy along the macroeconomic realities of 2025.

“There has to be a change of strategy,” she said. “I mean, for everyone (to have) survived 2024, there was a change of strategy, but then the change doesn’t mean that any company is going to deviate from what the company stands for, whether or not we like it.

“Each company has whatever marketing or communication strategies that are its bedrock; what then happens is you meander; you don’t completely change your strategy because there’s a problem; it is how you fit or how you align with the country and wherever your consumers are coming from, so it’s not like you’re completely making a U-turn or a 360-degree change.

It is pretty much changing to align with existing or current realities.

“If people changed strategy in 2024, it was to realign with the existing macroeconomic realities.”

Consumers’ purchasing power affects how marketers draw up their sales growth strategies, particularly in keeping with the swing of the Purchasing Manager Index.

Earlier, The PUNCH reported the Stanbic IBTC Bank Nigeria PMI revealed “A second successive increase in new orders and renewed expansions in output, employment, and purchasing.

“In December, the headline PMI moved back above the 50.0 no-change mark for the first time in six months. At 52.7, the index was up from 49.6 in November and signalled a solid improvement in the health of the private sector, which was the most pronounced since January 2024.

Usually, PMI readings above 50.0 signal an improvement in business conditions in the previous month, while readings below 50.0 show a deterioration.”

The bank’s PMI was compiled from responses to questionnaires sent to purchasing managers in a panel of around 400 private sector companies.

The data gathered help determine the strength of the pockets of buyers, and for Medebem, the PMI improvement in the Yuletide season is exciting but usually fades out in the year.

However, she predicted 2025 may offer slightly different market conditions from the previous year, noting, “Yes, PMI has increased over 50, above normal. If you have noticed, for every end of the year, there’s always that increase, whether or not we like it. If you’ve checked the trajectory, it would always increase, and then in the new year, there’s a level of unsustainability. Should I use that word because everything kind of dries up and goes down?

“However, I believe that there’s kind of been an upward surge generally for Nigerian marketing communications, and as much as it might dip in the earlier part of the year, I have a firm belief that we will probably see an increase because I think we’re all getting a better feel of Nigeria (this is) in terms of (how) Last year was kind of bad; there were all the money issues at the beginning of the year and all the fuel uncertainty.

“But in this year, I think that we have taken a turn on all of that; we’re a bit more stable in terms of forex, in terms of oil markets, and all of that, so I think that also would translate into the marketing communications sector.”

The EXMAN president concluded her forecast of business in the marketing sector, adding, “There might be some level of increase, and I imagine that we will probably experience a better 2025, a more interesting 2025 within the marketing communications ecosystem.”

Meanwhile, the President of the Nigerian Marketing Research Association, Seyi Adeoye, shared a similar sentiment with the EXMAN president but gave more room for delayed impact visibility in his forecast.

Adeoye remarked, “For the outlook, there have been mixed signals from the economists and the analysts but largely positive. Gross Domestic Product is expected to grow by 3.6 per cent. The IMF and World Bank all agree there will be growth, even though it is still going to be behind the Eastern African region, like Kenya, for example; it is expected to grow faster than us, but it is still good news.”

He gave a more conservative submission of how inflation reduction will play out in 2025, adding, expect inflation to begin to temper down this year. It’s projected to get to maybe 27 per cent. Although the government talks about single digits, honestly, I don’t think that will happen.

“You don’t go from all high (to) down. We’ve seen other economies like Ghana, which at the beginning of 2023 were hitting 60 or 70 per cent. We can see what happened even when it began to moderate. It was still like 30 to 40 per cent.”

The market research analyst projected inflation reduction may only begin to be visible in the real sector by the second or third quarter of 2025.

“Inflation will come down, which is good news. But what does that mean for the average Nigerian? he queried. “It means that we may not see immediate benefit. It may be more like during Q2 to Q3 before we begin to see some semblance of impact on Nigerian households.”

Adeoye reeled out factors that pointed to his forecast, including developments in the energy sector and finance, stating, “Petrol is now technically a free market. We recently read in the news about the partnership between Dangote Refinery and MRS Oil, and it was set up at N900 plus. We believe others will also begin to take a cue from that, and then petrol will also moderate down in terms of price.

“The good news, then, is that the government also seems to be serious about defending the naira, in a way. We’ve seen an influx of dollars, albeit through loans to the government. So, again, exchange rates definitely won’t go below N1,000, but maybe N1,500 thereabouts.

“Again, and then maybe the dollar might be stable for a while so organisations and businesses can plan. In sum, I do believe that we’ll begin to see some good news. Maybe not too early, maybe Q2 to Q3.

“But it will begin to see some good news in the economy as a whole as it translates to a better quality of life for the average Nigerian. Not going back to the situation we had four or five years ago. It’s not like that, but at least it’s better than last year. And then the macros begin to ease up and look a little bit more like it.”

Further, he reckoned that sectors like agriculture and oil and gas are expected to do better as the latter “remains our largest earner of forex.”

He added, “Financial services by default play a facilitating role in the whole ecosystem and then food and beverage. Things will just begin to ease up a little bit.

“So overall, my outlook is that, yes, good news will come in 2025, at least better. I mean, using 2024 as a benchmark. Things will begin to look better on the macroeconomic end, Q2 to Q3. And then the impact it will have on Nigeria (will be) much later, not immediately.”