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How to Promote A Travel Agency In Nigeria Without Spending Much

By
Adedapo Olatunde
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3

The travel agency industry in Nigeria is overcrowded, so it is difficult to get customers constantly. To sustain their business, the big players in the industry spend a lot of money on advertisements — most especially on traditional advertisements.

For the small players, they have to use fliers and word-of-mouth marketing, which aren’t bad but limited in terms of the number of prospective customers that can be reached.

If you own a travel agency in Nigeria, whether big or small, and you want to reduce your marketing and advertising cost but increase your revenue, this post is for you. This post will show you how you promote your agency without spending much money.

Heads-up: the easy way to market your travel offers without spending much is through digital marketing. So, this post is about digital marketing strategies that you can use to promote your travel agency in Nigeria.

How to Promote Your Travel Agency in Nigeria

  • Get a responsive website

A website serves as a 24-hour online office that people can visit to find out information about a business. Thus, it is the first place to start the promotion. And you want to ensure that the website is responsive to all devices – computers, tablets, phablets and phones.

Aside from that, the website should have detailed contents of your agency and travel packages. Most importantly, the website must carry breathtaking images – and videos – from the travel destinations you are trying to sell.

  • Investment in SEO

Having a website for your travel agency in Nigeria is not enough. If you want to promote your business without spending much, you need to invest in the search engine optimization (SEO) of the website. SEO helps drive customers to your website for free.

We have the local SEO and the organic SEO, and it is important you do the two. For organic SEO, you would need to research the keyword that intending travellers are using to find travel agencies in Nigeria. You would then make sure your website is on the first page of Google, by providing quality contents on the website and ensuring reputable websites link to your website.

As for the local SEO, you would need to verify your agency with Google My Business and get listed on local directories in Nigeria. SEO can be very technical; so you might want to contact an expert to help you out.

  • Blog regularly

Blogging and SEO go hand-in-hand. So aside from trying to optimize your travel agency website, you should also open a blog on the website. Through the blog, you can write on a range of topics related to travel and use them to attract more traffic to your website.

Blogging helps position your business as a thought leader in the industry.

  • Invest in online campaigns

SEO and blogging are longtime strategies. They can take as long as one year before you start getting a return on investment. Besides, Google isn’t the only platform visited by people looking for a travel agency in Nigeria. Therefore,  you need to invest in paid online campaigns.

Through the campaign, your offers can reach people on social media, travel blogs,  YouTube, among others. By investing in paid ads, you can make quick sales, as they will increase the awareness of your agency. Popular online advertising platforms that you can use include Google Ad, Facebook Ad Manager, and Twitter Ad Manager.

  • Build an email list

As it is all over the world, business owners in Nigeria prefer to buy an email list than to build one. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to see an email list seller that have your target audience. Thus, the surest way to promote your travel agency in Nigeria through email marketing is to build your own list.

On your website’s main pages and blog, try and integrate leads collection form. Through the forms, you can collect countless leads, and after getting the leads make sure you send them regular newsletters. The challenge of building – and growing – an email list is that subscribers are like to unsubscribe. To reduce the rate at which unsubscription happens, make sure you only send relevant and helpful contents to your subscribers.

Most of the time, you would want the contents of your email newsletters to be on travel tips, travel ideas, as well as your travel offers.

  • Be active on social media

Social media provide you with the opportunity of promoting your agency without spending anything.  As the owner of a travel agency in Nigeria, there are a number of things you can share. As in the email newsletters, you can share travel tips and ideas, as well as industry news and your travel packages. To ensure you get high engages, make sure the images you post on social media are stunning.

You can use social media to share testimonies from your clients; you should as well get images and videos taken by your clients while in travel destinations and post them on your agency’s pages.

  • Explore forums and groups

Though Google and social media serve as the main sources of information for many Nigerians, a few people still get their information on forums and online groups. Nairaland, Quora, and travel groups on WhatsApp, Telegram, and Facebook are places you can systematically use to market your travel agency in Nigeria.

The thing is that to use forums and groups to get customers, you would have to share useful contents – instead of overly marketing your travel offers. You can get banned by the admins or moderators of forums and groups if they feel you are spamming members.

The above-discussed points are the many ways you can promote your agency without spending much. Depending on your marketing budget, you may not be able to do everything. However, I strongly advise your agency has a website, invest in SEO, and maintain an active social media presence. The three aren’t that resource-intensive, and they get you the intended results.

You Should See The Potential and Not The Competition When Helping Individuals

By
Uchechukwu Ajuzieogu
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0

Nobody wants to give, everybody wanna take. That’s the popular practice by humans. Giving help is now seen as a competitive strategy that might backfire. What has led to the decrease in genuine help over the past decades? This article explains that and more!

Life is a one-way traffic. It gets creepy and keeps playing us hard anywhere it wants us to feel the pain. But in the reality life is not a competition. Life is about helping and inspiring others, so we can all reach our potential. Everyone has goals, and we need each other to actualize these goals. It may sound funny, but humans are close-knitted animals. We tend to need the support and care of each other.

A Couple Having a Healthy Relationship, Image Courtesy of The Today Show

Take for example, in a relationship. There is flow of communication. There is a close built circle of love and foundations to making sure the relationship survives its early years. In the family circle, we see the same thing too, you fight with your siblings, they eat your cake and fries, they piss you off, and in the end you still love them just the way you are. So why do we get all close knitted and still find it difficult to support and build fellow individuals up?

What Makes Helping People So Challenging?

According to Science of People, it was examined that there are 4 types of people who are difficult to help. They include:

Difficult Person, Depiction Courtesy of Nourish Books

  • Downers are also known as Negative Nancy’s or Debbie Downers. They always have something bad to say. They complain, critique and judge. They are almost impossible to please.
  • Better Than’s also are known as Know It All’s, One Uppers or Show-Offs. They like to try impressing you, name-dropping and comparing.
  • Passives also are known as Push-Overs, Yes Men and Weaklings. They don’t contribute much to conversations or people around them and let others do the hard work.
  • Tanks also are known as being explosive, a handful, or bossy. They want their way and will do anything to get it.

Other reasons for finding it hard to helping others include:

1. Not Willing to Deal with Past Hurt.

Whatever unhealed pain we have from the past will eventually spill out onto the people in our lives today. Most of our irritation in relationship today has nothing to do with the person in mind, but an unresolved issue with someone in the past.

When Mark De Jesus was in pastoral work, there were numbers of people that would come into the church with a hostile position towards me. “I had really just met them, but they had this critical attitude towards me already. I knew instantly that there was hurt form a previous pastor that has not been healed and addressed”. When we are mad our spouse, it usually goes back to a pain issues with the opposite sex in our history, usually leading back to mom and dad.

Quite often, we take our hurt and we make it very black and white. We have a great journey that ended with some rough relationship departures, and we end up saying the whole experience was terrible. We end a marriage of 20 years than went sour and we see the whole marriage as being a complete failure. We look at old friendships that moved into new directions and see them as completely bad friends.

Black a white thinking is a sign of an unhealed perspective in relationships. If you look back at people as being 100% against you all the time or 100% evil in every step they took, there is probably some unhealed pain that needs to be addressed. I am careful to label anyone as a enemy, because that solidifies a hurt that cannot be healed effectively.

2. Too Many Don’t want Honest Conversation.

A startling realization occurs when you don’t have a honest relationship with someone. Many times its because the person cannot handle the truth and honest interactions. This is difficult, because a lot of times we do not know how to have honest conversations without accusing. People think they are being helpful by being honest, but they are just blasting people with accusation. Honesty needs to be handled with care.

Honest conversations bring an invitation to connect at a deeper place of trust, who show one another to be trustworthy in handling each other’s heart. When helping someone, its important to establish trust and love, so safety can be present. But even when doing that, you can still have struggles in being able to have honest conversations with people.

3. They Want You to Rescue Them.

Beware when someone puts a superman cape on you, where they want you to rescue them from their dilemmas, without them taking responsibility for change. Helping someone is useless if they do not want to do the work. You can find our rather quickly if the person is willing to do whatever it takes to grow, or if they are putting the pressure on you for their growth.

Accepting the superman cape is a very delicate position. Why? You might just become a minion! In this case, a very foolish minion. While, accepting certain responsibilities towards someone is a great step to redemption, it doesn’t guarantee genuine restoration of values on them!

How to See Beyond and Still Help!

Image Quote by Quotefancy

According to the Author of Jason Steed, Edelweiss Pirates, Archie Wilson, occasional journalist and Radio Host?—?Mark A. Cooper, he says you always have to look beyond what you can see. Life has no remote, so you have to get up and change it yourself.

In a world where it’s very rare to get the needed help from your family, friends, relatives, acquaintances, and even strangers, the lyrics by ID Cabasa in the intro of this article will quite resonate with you. However, if you have given up hope in humanity, take a look at what you can do to get back on track and become someone’s superhero!

1. Set Great Boundaries.

The most loving and healthy people often have the most clear boundaries in their life. They don’t do it in anger or coldness. These boundaries flow naturally. Boundaries are not emotional walls, but healthy setups so that the relationship can flourish effectively.

Boundary setting is actually a powerful expression of love. But most people do not see it that way. This is because so many were not disciplined properly as children, so when someone sets boundaries, they consider it an unloving act. When it reality, those boundaries allow for love to flourish very effectively. You will have the best relationships with those who responded well to boundaries.

2. Sharing Knowledge

One of the easiest ways to help others is to simply share your knowledge. You don’t have to be in front of a classroom to teach. Every day there is an opportunity to educate someone about your area of expertise. The key is to keep educating yourself so you can stay ahead of the curve.

3. Finding out what’s valuable to them

The number one rule of helping people should be to find out what’s actually valuable to someone. You may spend time and effort helping someone with something that they didn’t even want help with. Make an effort to ask them where they need help, and keep that in mind when you see an opportunity.

4. Making them aware of an opportunity

It’s important to keep an eye out for opportunities. It could be good press, a potential partner, or a general business opportunity. Once you see an opportunity, think about who could benefit from knowing about it. One of the ways I like to help my employees is to help their friends, relatives or significant others if they’re looking for a job. A lot of times I can use my business connections to find a potential good fit.

5. Volunteering your time

Time is valuable and most people understand that. When you take time out of your day to help a friend, they remember it. I try and do a guest webinar every couple of weeks for contacts so they know I’m willing to take time out of my day to share my experience with the community. Even if it’s not something as public as a webinar or podcast, set aside some time to help a contact. It could be as simple as helping them move to a new home.

Now lets face the hard fact that helping others isn’t always easy as it’s been talked about. It can sometimes derail your schedule and cost you time, money and other resources. It can even be interpreted the wrong way. However, don’t give up on helping people!

credit: top image, Helping an Individual, Image Courtesy of Mark DeJesus

The Solution to Ending Corruption in Nigeria

By
Chinedu Junior Ihekwoaba
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0

If we stay united, we can end corruption.  

I sat down and thought about the level of corruption in this country. Although it is not only in Nigeria, we have in other countries as well. People no longer see any wrong in corruption. I learned that in the olden days, it’s impossible to take what doesn’t belong to you. But now, as the world is changing, so is the level of corruption on the rise.

Corruption started from when we were kids. At home, we see favouritism displayed by our parents. In school, we see different types of examination malpractices. People want to pass without reading likewise, they want to get rich without working hard. They forgot that wealth without sweat is like a house without a foundation.

We all know that corruption is common amongst our politicians. But not only amongst them, but it is also very rampant in every sector or organization.

Corruption is a form of dishonesty or an illegal act undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, often to acquire illicit benefit, or, abuse of entrusted power for private gain. Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement of public properties.

Types of corruption

Political corruption: This is very common. Political corruption is the abuse of public power, office, or resources by elected government officials for personal gain, by extortion, soliciting or offering bribes. It can also take the form of office holders maintaining themselves in office by purchasing votes or overriding laws. We all read how Abacha embezzled our money through political means. Also, the minister of petroleum embezzlement of money which is very acerbic. This is the highest level of corruption and it all starts right from our childhood.

Educational corruption: Corruption in education is a worldwide phenomenon. Corruption in gaining admissions to universities is traditionally considered as one of the most corrupt areas in the educational sector. We have lecturers who collect money from students in order to pass them. Sexual Assault on female students is rampant in the university as well. Many female students are facing hell in the hands of these lecturers. I know a sister that left school because of the sexual harassment from a lecturer.

Religion corruption: The world is in a mess because of this particular type of corruption. This level of corruption is not supposed to be found in religious organizations, but it is a shame to see this more often in churches and mosques. Fake pastors and Imams lying and looting the peoples’  hard-earned money. Religious leaders sleeping with their members. What a shame!

Favoritism and nepotism: Favouritism and nepotism is the father of all corruption. It exists in all the types of corruption listed above. Especially in a work environment, employees being deprived of promotion. We see many bias and prejudice in the recruitment processes. CEO/Recruiters hiring or promoting a family member or staff member to a role not qualified/suitable for, all because they belong  to the same political party. It is rampant amongst the political leaders.

When I looked at all these forms of corruption, I doubt if corruption can ever be eradicated in our beloved country, Nigeria.

Although, nothing is impossible. It can be eradicated if we put our minds together and come as one and stand against it.

We need to unite to end corruption.

Unity conquers all no matter the circumstances. Our president cannot do it alone. He needs our support.

A better Nigeria starts with me.

The Brunei’s Petroleum Industry Redesign

By
Nnamdi Odumody
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2

The Sultanate of Negara Brunei Darussalam located north east of Borneo is an oil and gas rich state which is fast running out of its reserves. Its daily production averages about 180,000 barrels per day and is the ninth largest producer of LNG in the world.

Brunei Shell Petroleum, a joint venture between the Bruneian government and Dutch energy giant Shell, dominates in the production and refining of crude oil, producing 10,000 barrels per day which is enough for domestic consumption. The state owned Petroleum Brunei regulates, as well as deploys investments and operates JV agreements with partners aimed at the growth and development of its oil and gas industry.

Considering the dwindling reserves of Brunei’s hydrocarbon assets, Petroleum Brunei should take a cue from Saudi Arabia whose national oil company Saudi Aramco is redesigning its crude oil refining chain by investing billions of dollars in strategic consumer markets such as India, which is the world’s fastest growing economy and third largest consumer of crude oil in the world after the United States and China with more than 4 million barrels per day, by purchasing a 20 percent equity in Reliance Industries refining division which values the business at $75 billion. Reliance Industries Jamnagar refinery is the biggest in the world, producing 1,240,000 barrels per day and earns over $50 billion in annual revenues. Since India’s energy policy restricts crude oil imports, this collaboration with Saudi Aramco will protect its domestic consumption.

In Nigeria, its largest conglomerate, Dangote Group, is currently developing the world’s largest single train refinery, estimated at $12 billion, and expected to soon come on stream, and hit full capacity by mid-2020 to refine 650,000 barrels per day, petrochemical plant to produce 780 KTPA of polypropylene and 500 KTPA of polyethylene as well as 3.0 million tonnes of urea from its fertilizer plant. As Africa’s largest market with 200 million citizens and current local consumption fed by imports, investment by Petroleum Brunei in Dangote Petroleum Refinery will position it as a stakeholder in a key crude oil consumption market.

Bruneian upstream petroleum operators should leverage predictive and data driven maintenance for production and cost efficiency which will help to reduce Mean Time To Repair(MTTR) and increase Mean Time Before Failure. Through smart drilling technologies like robotics and deployment of sensors they will gain predictive analytics, guarantee early identification of drilling challenges, hazards to well control problems, develop more enhanced oil recovery techniques, and generate real time data through logging while drilling and measurement while drilling. With artificial intelligence, rock and fluid properties can be identified and new oil and gas fields discovered to boost its reserves.

Petroleum Brunei should utilize blockchain technology in the conduct of its daily operations. As a secured transaction ledger database which is shared by all parties in a distributed network which records and stores every transaction that occurs in the network, Petroleum Brunei should utilize blockchain to store information on its laws, investment guidelines, Joint Ventures like Brunei Methanol Company and track their operations in real time. Brunei Shell Petroleum should acquire drones and implement blockchain for efficient monitoring of daily crude oil production and its refinery which delivers 10,000 barrels per day for domestic consumption. 

Also the renegotiation of its Production Sharing Contracts as well as automation of the sale of crude oil and gas will be transparent with the adoption of Smart Contracts which is an automated contract that will be issued by the corporation to buyers that will execute various terms and based on reaching agreed upon conditions. This will eliminate fraud since no middleman will be involved in the transaction. In the event of a force majeure, the system will autonomously inform the buyer that the terms of contract cannot be delivered at that time due to reasons beyond the seller’s control.

How to Tame Those Bullies

By
Ozioma Okey-Kalu
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0

Bullies are everywhere. We see them at home, school, place of work, market, social media, buses, neighbourhood, and any other place you can think of. People may even call you on the phone just to bully you.

Bullies can be our juniors, our peers or our superiors. They can be male or female. They can be children, teenagers or adults. But, they are always close associates. Yes, bullies are always the people we have contacts with, and that is why they affect us greatly.

I could remember my first experience with bullies. I was still in nursery school. That was many years ago in Katsina. This bully happens to be the son of my father’s close friend and we were in the same class – in Aunty Ramatu Nursery School, Katsina (hope he’s not reading this, lol). This boy was just on my case – he harasses me during lunch, loosens the thread used to make my hair, excludes me from group play in the playground, and so on. I could remember his father spanking him whenever I complain to him, but that only means I receive double the harassment next time.

This is just to show that bullying is not a teenager thing as some people think. We even have worse bullies as adults. In fact the one I encountered in Facebook some years ago taught me a lot about cyberbullying. That experience was where I started my lesson on taming bullies.

I don’t really know why people bully others because I have never been one. But I took time to study some bullies and found out that deep down they are insecure. Some of them have been bullied before and the only way they feel in control is by bullying others. They enjoy seeing people in pain and they derive satisfaction by using intimidation to cover up their incompetency (next time a colleague bullies you in the office, just know that he is incompetent and is threatened by your abilities).

Bulling can affect the victim in so many ways. For instance he will feel unconfident about himself, his emotions could be in turmoil, he will always feel bitter about his condition, he will want to hide from the limelight and, he may end up committing suicide. I don’t know why bullies are so mean to understand what they do to others.

It is possible that some people may not know when they are being bullied. Below are some of the ways people can be bullied.
a. Using harsh words
b. Pointing out embarrassing mistakes
c. Reminding you of your embarrassing past (they just won’t let you forget)
d. Threatening you with violence
e. Gossip
f. Denial of benefits

The way you react to bullying determines if you are going to receive more of it. Below are the wrong ways of doing that:

a. Running and Cowering: This is so not it because you will only end up feeding the ego of the bully. And you know what? He will keep coming after you because he can’t survive without you.

b. Playing Victim: Never assume the role of a victim. He actually wants to see you cry. So, don’t give him that. Be strong and keep your head up.

c. Trolling Back: This isn’t proper either because it will end up making you toxic too.

d. Trading Words: You know, most bullies use unkind words to get on people. Don’t turn around and trade words with them, it will only make you look uncouth. Besides, it can expose you to violence.

e. Letting it Linger: Bullies usually tryout people to see if they can victimise them. If the person gives them room, they will come in and start their work. So, if you notice someone wants to turn you into his ego fanner, please call him to order immediately. Don’t give him that chance to go further.

f. Keeping Away from People: Sometimes victims of bullying try to stay away from people because they believe that is the best way to keep the bullies away. Or maybe it is because their self confidence has been compromised. Don’t let anybody make you feel so low that you have to start avoiding people. Don’t disconnect yourself. Keep your contacts and let the bully burn in his own corner.

g. Complaining: Complaining about being bullied isn’t always the best, unless you are quite sure that the complaint will yield a positive result. But most times it doesn’t because the bully will know that he’s getting to you and will only make it harder for you.

h. Befriending Them: Some people thought that making their bullies their pals will save them. Well, it never does. It only exposes such a person to worse devastation. In fact, don’t even be a friend to someone that bullies others because he will one day want to bully you.

So, how do we handle these bullies? How do we tame them? How do we get them off our backs? How do we shut them up?

Before we go into that, I’ll like to state here that all bullies are cowards. And, they are not smart. If they are brave and smart they wouldn’t spend the time for useful things to look for whose life to make miserable. So, whenever you see a bully, know that he lacks self confidence, smartness and brevity.

Alright, so these are ways you can tame those bullies trolling you:

1. Ignore Them: This is only possible if the person is just a casual passer-by, like someone you met on transit, or a passing comment in a social media post. In a situation like these, you can take a deep breath and waka-pass.

2. Block or Unfriend Them: This is better option in cases of cyberbullying. Outside that, it will be difficult to disassociate with your bullies.

3. Call Them Out: This option works so well. I learnt it from one of my bosses. If you, a subordinate, try to bully him because you have ‘connections’ in the ‘high places’, he will call you out in meetings and tell the whole house what you’ve been doing. This is also effective in cases of peers and in cyber bullying. See, don’t hide these people or they will be tormenting you in secret. Call them out where others will know their intentions and the table will be turned immediately. By the way, when I say call them out, I mean mention their names and say what they said or did.

4. Be Sarcastic: Sarcasm is a tool that can be used to correct vices such as bullying. Learn the wit and always have it with you when your bully comes for you. And be sure to throw the words where people will laugh at his foolery.

5. Secret Meeting: This can scare life out of them. Just target them when they are alone and give them a short intense private meeting. Be cool as you do this and make use of polite words. Never let this situation get out of hand (so you have to practice what you will say within those few minutes). Don’t threaten him, please; just let him know you will not tolerate his actions and vile words again. Trust me, he is not going to recover from this for a long time. This method can also work in cyberbullying, where you send them private messages.

6. Use Them: I once told one of my students this and the response I got was epic. Anyway, you can turn your bullies into your campaigners and advertisers. Remember they don’t have to know what they are doing. Make sure you give them something to talk about and they will spread the news for you. Don’t worry about what they will say, the major thing is that a lot of people will get to learn about you.

7. Argue Intelligently: Sometimes bullies come for us during presentations at meetings or seminars, or when we post something on social media. Don’t cower, argue it out with them but be smart about it. This means you need facts and figures to back up your thesis. Trust me, when a bully sees himself outwitted, he will take some time to recoup before coming for you. By the time he’s recovering from the shock you gave him, ensure that you use any of the tips given above to seal his mouth permanently.

8. Let Off the Steam: You know, sometimes being too ‘nice’, ‘gentle’ and ‘civilised’ to these people could make them feel they have the upper hand. You may decide to choose a hot day to let off the steam. Make it hot and snappy so you can throw him off-balance and give him no room to recover. Make sure you took the position of the offensive and send the right message home. However, be in total control of your emotions so you don’t resolve to physical combat. And, be sure to do it where people are so that they can help to put things under control in case anything goes wrong.

Well, get that bully off your back or get him to work for you.

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