Nigeria’s business landscape is embracing the digital revolution, with industry experts and thought leaders gathering at the Digital Growth Summit to discuss the future of digital marketing in the country.
The summit, held in collaboration with Intense Group and Leadway Group, highlighted the importance of digital transformation, data-driven decision-making, and customer-centric strategies in driving business growth across various sectors.
Leye Makanjuola, CEO of Intense Group, emphasized the need for businesses to be data-focused.
“The biggest mistake is not being data-focused… You need to know how much you’re putting into it and how much you expect digital to bring out of that experiment or out of that campaign.”
Makanjuola also stressed the importance of partnership between businesses and agencies to achieve revenue generation goals.
“You can’t do it alone, especially when it comes to revenue generation. It has to be a partnership where you have the marketing team or the data team on the client side partnering with the agency side to achieve these goals.”
Femi Adebayo, Executive Director of Leadway Pensions, highlighted the importance of digital transformation in the financial services industry.
“The digital side of the digital transformation today is an area that is very critical to our own aspirations… We need to take advantage of digital platforms to capture people’s attention and turn it into purchase decisions.”
Adebayo added that digital transformation is essential for reaching a larger audience and acquiring new customers.
“Our aspiration is to, first, manage the customers that we have, grow capacity, grow in terms of penetration, and also be able to acquire a lot more customers. And the biggest reach is digital.”
Diana Mulili, Head of Digital Business at Leadway Holdings Group, discussed the company’s digital roadmap.
“We believe technology will play a big role in driving the future in terms of engagement with customers… We’re aligning with the likes of Intense on a digital roadmap, such that we can fully integrate into a process where people can assess product service lines via digital platform ease of doing business, ease of access.”
Mulili emphasized the importance of leveraging brand equity to drive awareness and conversion across subsidiaries.
“The strategic shift will be looking at leveraging the brand equity Leadway Assurance has… How can we help the other leverage on that brand so that they can also drive their own awareness in the market and eventually acquire more customers for their products and services.”
Ikeh Chidi, Creative Director at Intense, emphasized the importance of building trust through storytelling and engagement.
“We must be able to view that trust in the mind of the target audience and the best way to do it is to be present to the audience in real-time, where culture is being shaped.” Chidi added that signals and data maturity are critical for driving business growth.
“Signals are everywhere… How can we now begin to consolidate this data, especially as we go into 2026, to ensure that we can begin to build on those signal points?”
Timilehin Oyedeji, Senior Client Partner at Aleph, highlighted the growing digital opportunity in Nigeria.
“The honest truth is Nigeria has over 220 million people with internet penetration of over 50%… That is a huge opportunity for any brand playing in the financial service space to do two things: Create awareness and acquire customers and also build relationships and drive retention.”
Oyedeji also shared common mistakes businesses make when trying to drive digital growth.
“Develop a good product, understand your target market, leverage touch points where your target audience spends time, and make conversion points seamless… Serious-minded brands don’t make those mistakes.”
When asked about the most effective way to grab attention, Mulili said, “From our experience, we’ve seen that when you create relatable content that has stories people can relate to, that’s when we grab people’s attention… We’ve shortened the distance between us and our customers with that.”
Oyedeji also emphasized the importance of personalization in customer engagement.
“You need to understand your target audience and profile your target market segments based on your offerings… Make conversion points seamless.”
The summit concluded that the future of digital marketing in Nigeria’s financial sector lies in leveraging data analytics, customer-centric design, and automation to drive business growth and revenue. With the right strategies and investments, Nigerian businesses can unlock new opportunities and drive growth in the digital age.
Makanjuola emphasised the importance of digital adoption for business growth.
“We feel like there’s a lot of market opportunity. It just takes a lot of hard work and persistence, and obviously a lot of strategic movements and smart thinking… We are going to double down on investment in data, technology, and media.”
Adebayo also noted that technology is a front burner in the direction of the company.
“Technology for Leadway is very essential… We believe technology will play a big role in driving the future in terms of engagement with customers alike.”
The Digital Growth Summit highlighted the need for Nigerian businesses to adopt digital strategies to drive growth and revenue. With the right investments and partnerships, Nigerian businesses can unlock new opportunities and drive growth in the digital age.
