So you finally decided to pursue a career in digital marketing in Nigeria of all places, but there are some uncertainties you currently nurse. Let's be frank for once, you are not sure about the Nigerian digital landscape, you are in doubt about the demand for digital marketing services or skills in the Nigerian market, and you are not even sure how competitive the digital marketing industry in Nigeria is.

I have been there myself, and I can say for a fact that your concerns are valid.

Sometimes, navigating through digital marketing in Nigeria can be tantamount to walking through a maze blindfolded, and with the rapidly evolving digital marketing industry, everything seems to be constantly shifting, and shifting so rapidly. You know what?... While you are still busy ruminating over all of these things, you could be missing out on the very specific skills and the right information you need to do amazingly well in the Nigerian digital marketing realm.

In this blog post, I will answer the very question you have how lucrative is digital marketing in Nigeria? I will bring my years of experience both as an individual digital marketer as well as a freelancer to bear. I will help you understand digital marketing in the Nigerian context as well as make you a list of the skills you should develop. Apart from this, I will outline some of the currently hot 2024 jobs you should aim for as a Nigerian digital marketer to stay financially fine.

Sounds like I just tickled you?.... Well, let's hop into the heart of this content to find out.

How Lucrative Is Digital Marketing In Nigeria As At 2024?

In Nigeria, factors like skill level, experience & job function serve as the determining factors when deciding the salary of a digital marketer. From personal experience as a digital marketing professional, the current average salary ranges from ₦100,000 to ₦455,000 per month depending on the hiring organization.

If you run a digital marketing agency in Nigeria {Which is an area I highly recommend that you also consider}, you can make as much as ₦500,000 per month helping clients handle their businesses.

Before this time, digital marketers in Nigeria ranked as one of the lowest in the world, but the case seems different now. There are several reasons Nigerian digital marketers currently earn above-average salaries today.

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1. The current high cost of living in Nigeria has necessitated the increase in salaries of most Nigerian workers, and by extension, digital marketers are not exempted.
   
   
2. The increase in the level of foreign salary awareness coupled with the high level of Nigerians willing to relocate abroad in search of greener pastures. In fact, In a recent study by Philips Consulting, it was discovered that Over 58% of Nigerian professionals, primarily millennials, intend to leave their current jobs for opportunities abroad, and in this number, we have a good number of them who are tech.

In the subsequent paragraphs, I will outline the key skills you should acquire as an individual digital marketer in Nigeria to increase your earning potential.

Additionally, I will the various types of jobs you should aim to land as a digital marketer in Nigeria. Lastly, I will direct the prospects of digital marketing in Nigeria.

11 Skills You Should Acquire As a Digital Marketer In Nigeria To Improve Your Earning Potential.

Trust me, these are the currently highly sought-after skills not just in the Nigerian digital marketing space, but also in the world.

1. Search Engine Optimization.

You may never succeed as an individual digital marketer in Nigeria if you are not familiar with how search engines (Especially Google and Bing) work. This has been covered in-depth here.

Every business needs a digital marketing strategy that allows them to lower the cost of acquiring a customer. This is why they will choose a strategy like SEO.

SEO as a digital marketing skill is one of the hottest skills in demand today, in fact, in research by Research and Market, the current global worth of SEO sits at US$68.1 Billion and is projected to grow by 8.4% amounting to US$129.6 Billion by 2030.

These are no small numbers. If you are serious about earning in digital marketing in Nigeria, acquiring an SEO skill is an area you do not want to take lightly.

No organization in Nigeria looking forward to expanding its reach online will entrust its online marketing activities to a digital marketer who is not familiar with the search terrain.

Sub-Areas of SEO You Should Hone Your Skill.

1. On-Page SEO

This is an area of search engine optimization where you get to optimize (Put in proper shape) the internal section/area of a client's website.

Sometimes, clients do not want you to handle every section of SEO, they may simply want you to ensure their inner website areas are in perfect shape.

There are also different areas of on-page SEO you want to take mastery of:

a. Pages Optimization

Optimizing every page inside a website is a large part of on-page SEO. As an SEO, you should learn how to ensure every page on the website is well-optimized to appear in the search. Pages like the services pages, the about us, the home page, the Case study page and others.

Some checklists to ensure every page ranks include:

1. Ensuring you have your focus keyword appear on the title section of the page
2. Ensuring the focus keyword is found in the page's URL
3. You must ensure the content on the page gives so much value
4. You will also be in charge of ensuring the page houses the focus keyword evenly to avoid keyword stuffing... and several other checklists.

b. Blogging (Blog Content Writing)

You must have heard someone mention blogging before. This is a very important area of on-page SEO that I highly recommend that you learn. Blog Content writers are highly in demand, and they are highly paid.

Blog content writers in Nigeria earn as much as NGN200,000 to NGN 250,000 depending on the organization that hires you.

b. Off-Page SEO

This is another area of SEO you need to learn to be considered a balanced Search engine optimizer. Off-page SEO is the direct opposite of on-page SEO in that it covers all of the activities you do outside of your client's website to help increase the website's reputation.

The end goal of an off-page SEO effort is to drive meaningful/quality traffic to a website through mentions, and these mentions are captured through Backlinks. Some activities you may learn to have these mentions include:

1. Writing Guest posts. Guest posts are articles you publish on a third-party website (Usually free - as a guest writer).
   
2. Press releases.
3. Podcast
4. Engaging influencers
5. Leveraging social media to publicize every content you create.

Local SEO

Most business owners with physical locations/Offices will engage the service of an SEO specialist with local SEO knowledge.

Local SEO allows you to optimize your client's business for local search terms. When a searcher inputs a search term with a known location, that's a local search.

Local search engine optimization specialists are also currently in high demand as local searches continue to gain massive and wide popularity in Nigeria.

Technical SEO

This is an area of SEO I highly recommend that you learn too. Very many organizations have technical SEO issues on their websites that require urgent fixing. Some of these issues include:

1. Slow website requiring speeding up.
2. Various errors like 404 require the conducting of 301 permanent redirecting.
3. Poorly structured website.

Most technical SEO jobs will require that you have website design as well as keyword research knowledge

International SEO

Well, you should not be surprised when your client/employer asks about your experience with optimizing a page for international searches. This is an area of SEO most Nigerians do not know since they do not target international audiences with their products or services.

The importance of International SEO can not be overemphasized, as it increases a business's conversion potential outside of the immediate business environment. With international SEO, you will help your clients reach more potential clients in their native languages.

Here are a few things you should know before doing international SEO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHrW3AQVcMk

1. Decide you want to reach clients on the international level.
   
2. Get natives of these countries to write your webpage in their languages. You may want to hire freelancers for this purpose.
   
3. Avoid using translation tools, they are usually inaccurate.
   
4. Initiate a hreflang HTML code for each page/language for easy indexing by Google.
   
5. Initiate a ccTLD (country code top-level domain)

2. Conversion rate optimization.

You need to get familiar with CRO. The reason you wanna get employed as a digital marketer is to help convert all digital marketing efforts into sales.

A conversion rate optimization is the measurement of the hypothesis of various website elements, which are sure to trigger actions on the part of a site visitor.

Such site elements include Live chat buttons, forms (Pop or embedded), an About Us page, a return policy page (For the sake of e-commerce sites), Push Notifications, etc.

Apart from knowing conversion elements plus how to optimize them for conversion on a website, you should also know about Heatmaps. Heatmaps allow you to place a piece of code at the dashboard of your site, thereby recording (In video format) every movement a visitor makes on your site.

This is particularly important because it gives the site owner an idea about the particular location a visitor is clicking on more, what particular text the visitor finds more amusing (Judging by the number of hours the visitor spends at that particular spot), and several other conversion signals

3. Video Editing and Marketing

Video marketing is a growing strategy in digital marketing plus is a high-in-demand skill you should have.

There have been several recent statistics showing how hot video marketing skills have become over the years.

With the advent and growth of platforms like YouTube, the number of minutes viewers spend on their screen viewing video content is huge, and this becomes a big opportunity for businesses to reach a wider viewing audience.

As a digital marketer seeking to know how lucrative digital marketing is in Nigeria, you should acquire a skill around video editing and marketing in order to increase your earning potential.

Here are some video editing tools I highly recommend

1. Active presenter. This video editing tool is free to use (Perpetually), but a few of the nice features are made available to premium account holders only. The active presenter doubles as a video recording tool as well as an editing tool.
   
2. Capcut. I have been using capcut for over 3 years, and it has proven to be handy. I have enjoyed every bit of the videos I edited with it.

4. Social Media Management.

I have lost different interviews in the past simply because I did not have experience managing social media. This was even worse because I had little or no experience designing creatives for social media. Apart from wanting to know how lucrative is digital marketing in Nigeria, you may wish to get some training in social media management as well as how to use image designing tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw as well and Canva which are pretty simple to use. Talk to us about it.

As an aspiring digital marketer in Nigeria, you should familiarise yourself with how to use various social media platforms to generate sales for different businesses...

Here are some of the social media platforms you should learn to use:

1. Tiktok. This is the very first social media platform currently with an estimated 1 billion active users. This is coming first because of its shown potential. In just a few years of launch, TikTok has gained a billion users. It took other social media platforms to build this number.
   
2. TikTok is followed by Facebook with an estimated user of 3 billion.
   
3. LinkedIn is the third platform that I highly recommend simply because the platform allows you to reach professionals in any field. This platform might be a great fit for your clients if they are looking forward to selling products or services that appeal to co-operates.
   
4. Instagram. Owned by the same parent company as Facebook, Meta, Instagram also promises to be a nice social media platform to learn.

5. Read From The Google Webmaster Blog.

You don't want to be backward when it comes to updates from Google right?

The best way to stay up to date is constantly reading from Google webmaster blogs. The Google webmaster presents so much information ranging from normal blogs and how-tos to various algorithm updates.

From experience going through over 40 content on the Google Search Central blog and learning new ideas every time I visited, I highly recommend that you visit the platform also to learn new things.

6. Know Google Search Console.

As a digital marketer, one of the best things you can do for yourself is familiarize yourself with the GSC tool. Most employees will demand that you know how to use this tool.

With the GSC tool, you can help your employer make key and informed business decisions. Additionally, The GSC helps you to gain helpful insight into the queries that visitors discover your site with.

Some key features inside the Google search console include:

1. The Clicks. This compiles all of the organic clicks you have gained inside your website, and these clicks emanate from the impressions.
   
2. Impressions. The impression is the total number of times your content has been viewed on the Google SERP.
   
3. CTR (Click through rate). The CTR is the percentage number of impressions that resulted in actual clicks on your website.
   
4. Average Position. The is the total position your entire content sits at, divided by two.

7. Learn Google Analytics.

Before you begin to research how lucrative is digital marketing in Nigeria, you will need to familiarize yourself with the workings of Google Analytics. This is another incredible tool from the archives of Google.

This tool works similarly to the Google search console mentioned above, the only difference is that while Google Analytics measures every data (organic, paid, referral, and direct), the search console measures only the organic data from a linked website.

8. SEO Copywriting Skill.

SEO Copywriting has recently gained a boom in popularity, and the reason is not far-fetched.

As businesses just want to remain relevant in the internet space amidst the growing noise, it has become really important that brands develop a unique voice and style to stand out from this crowd.

One way by which this can be achieved is through marketing copywriting. Copywriting is the art of weaving words together in a way that is not only easy to read and understand by the potential clients but also puts into consideration the various elements that seduce, encourage or compel readers to take a certain desired action like filling a form, signing up to the newsletter mailing list, purchasing an item, and a host of other conversion possibilities.

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No matter how nicely any copy has been written, if it does not have a means by which it can be distributed/shared with the ideal persona, it becomes useless and a complete waste of time.

This is why it is important to add search engine optimization, as a means by which every copy can get to reach the screens of potential readers - potential clients on Google, Organically.

Copywriting is a skill I highly recommend that you also pursue if you are actively searching to know how lucrative digital marketing is in Nigeria.

There are various types of copywriting:

1. Blog copywriting. This is where you write those beautifully crafted marketing copies inside of the organization's website, plus add all of the necessary conversion elements as mentioned already above to encourage a ready-to-take conversion action.
   
   
2. Landing Page Copywriting. You must have seen some long and carefully crafted landing pages and you wonder how the authors can come up with these length and choice of words. That is the power of copywriting.
   
   
3. Email Copy. Every one of us subscribes to newsletters at one point or the other. After subscribing, messages start dropping inside our email addresses. The truth is that these copies sometimes tempt us to buy what the seller is talking about. This is one good example of copywriting.
   
   
4. Social Media and Ad copies. These are great examples of copywriting too. Some ad copies on Facebook will almost make us want to buy what the advertiser is offering because of how nicely put together the copies are.

9. Master WordPress Web Design.

While so many think WordPress websites are the easiest to design, it may not be as easy as it seems. To become a digital marketing pro in Nigeria, you should master how to buy and host a domain name, how to install WordPress on the hosting account, and how to build a complete and responsive site from the beginning to the end...

In building a WordPress site, you must factor in the following:

1. The website must be responsive. It should be aesthetically pleasant to the eye upon visit.
   
2. Your WordPress website must be mobile-friendly. As the number of mobile device users increases, it has become very important to ensure every website you build with WordPress is optimized for this category of mobile users.
   
3. The site must load fast. (This has been covered above - Under the technical SEO)

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10. Master PPC Campaign

PPC is pay-per-click advertising. This is yet another skill you must add to your skill bank because it is currently highly lucrative.

While most companies may want to lower the cost of acquiring a customer by going in the direction of organic optimization (SEO), some other organizations will want to achieve immediate traction which explains why PPC campaigns still thriving.

PPC campign gets you result immediately and can be termed a short-term digital marketing strategy, while SEO carefully set your business up a long-term conversion

11. AI Usage Skill

The use of artificial intelligence in digital marketing seems to be one of the industry news currently in vogue. According to Exploding Topics Research, ChatGpt currently has about 180.5 million users, and a total of 1.6 Billion unique visits as of January 2024.

This is a clear indication that acquiring a skill that allows you to exploit the AI for the sole reason to gain more online visibility and to gain trust too, is not only important, but it is highly recommended.

There are areas of AI you can gain mastery at, to prove you are an all-round digital marketing professional;

1. Using AI to simply gain insight into any content you are working on.
2. Using already-made prompts, you can write copies that are not just fine to the ears but to the eye as well.

Is digital marketing in demand?

Yes. According to a 2023 report from Statista, Nigerian businesses spent $111.2 billion on social media advertising alone, and in 2024, this figure is expected to reach USD 118.6. This goes to show how valuable digital marketing is in Nigeria.

Businesses employ every digital marketing asset to reach their target audiences and market their goods or services.  They employ social media, Search engines, Email marketing, and others to achieve their online marketing goals.

As the competition for attention grows, businesses will need more expert digital marketers to help deliver tailored ads and also help generate loads of leads.

This is why the “Digital Marketing Specialist” role is among the top 10 most in-demand jobs in a recent 2022 report.

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Additionally, as the need for digital marketing services continues to grow, the influx of new entrants into the field continues to rise as well. Businesses understand that digital marketing lets them reach a wider audience, scale their business further, and generate more sales, and they will do everything to ensure the industry is sustained.

5 In-Demand Digital Marketing Jobs In Nigeria Plus industry-standard salary hint.

In this paragraph, I will quickly outline the 5 Digital Marketing jobs in Nigeria, their requirements as well as their pay.

1. Technical SEO Specialist.

The technical SEO specialist role is a growing role in the Nigerian digital marketing space. A lot of businesses now seem to be getting the importance of not just building a website, but also ensuring the website functions properly.

One way by which a website can function properly (Including doing well in search and bringing in all the conversions), is by ensuring that all the technical errors on the site are fixed. To do this properly, the services of a technical SEO specialist must be sought.

Part of what you will be expected to do as a technical SEO specialist is to conduct a deep SEO Audit to figure out what may be actively or potentially wrong with the website. This duty simply demands that you possess an SEO Audit skill.

In the audit, you will check for the following:

1. Check for the website speed using either the Google Page Speed Insight or the GTMetrix speed test tool.
   
2. Check for the mobile responsiveness of the website, and fix it if it is not mobile-friendly. Tools like the SmallSEOtools can help with this.
   
3. Check for errors (404, 403, 501 etc.)
   
4. Perform deep Keyword research.

These are just a few of the technical SEO assignments you will be expected to carry out.

From personal experience working as a Technical SEO specialist, the starting salary ranges from NGN 200,000 to NGN 300,000 per month. This is also determined by the level of technical SEO Exposure you've got and the hiring organization

2. SEO Specialist.

Sometimes, companies just want to hire an SEO Specialist directly with the belief that he or she is capable of handling every area of Search engine optimization (Including Technical SEO).

This role may not be as difficult as it sounds, you only need to familiarize yourself with SEO best practices as well as have some experience working on different aspects of SEO like the on-page, off-page, and local SEO.

The Starting Salary of an SEO Specialist in Nigeria may vary from one organization to another, but from personal experience, I started as an SEO specialist with NGN185,000. The highest I got working as an SEO Specialist was NGN270,000 per month After I had stayed for one year.

3. Digital Marketing Manager

This is another very lucrative job you can get in Nigeria if you have honed your Skills. A digital marketing manager is expected to understand strategy, have a vast knowledge of different aspects of digital marketing, know how to run a successful PPC campaign across platforms, manage SEO, Manage social media, send emails, and even possess the ability to manage teams.

All of these responsibilities and more come with a fat pay for this role. As mentioned earlier, on average, a digital marketing manager in Nigeria earns as much as NGN455,000. This is based on several factors including experience level, other possessed skills, and the hiring organization.

4. Social Media Manager/Community Manager

Social media managers manage the social media platforms of organizations, develop content that resonates well with users as well as manage engagements on the platform.

Community managers do something a bit similar to social media managers except that while social media managers use the client's social media platforms to engage with users, community managers use their personally developed/grown platforms to interact with a client's users.

How much social media Managers earn in Nigeria depends on their level of expertise in creating copies & their ability to use various design tools like Adobe Photoshop, canvas, caput and some other tools as may be required by the employer. That being said, Social media managers earn between NGN150,000 to NGN250,000.

Some of the skills you will need to stand out as a social media manager include:

1. Ability to use as many design tools as you possibly can. Tools like Adobe Premier Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Canva Design tool, and a host of other tools will help you stand out.
   
2. Good knowledge of social media copywriting. You should know how to write basic advert or social media post copies that are engaging.
   
3. How to resolve complaints amicably on social media.

5. SEO Copywriting

SEO copywriters understand the use of words to convince and compel potential buyers to part with their cash after going through the written copy. SEO copywriters also know how to engage the search engine to ensure the written copy gets found organically on the SERP.

Find out more about Copywriting above

Prospect Of Digital Marketing In Nigeria

Consider this my take on the subject matter. So you are considering pursuing a career in digital marketing in Nigeria but are not sure there is a prospect for it.

Let's consider some stats before drawing some conclusions.

Digital marketing’s compound annual growth rate is expected to be 17.6% between 2021 and 2026.

Engati

This number is huge. It simply portrays how lucrative digital marketing will be by the time we see 2026.

How much does it cost to start a digital marketing agency In Nigeria?

Going by my personal experience establishing a digital marketing agency in Nigeria, you will need approximately ₦700,000 to set up a small-scale digital marketing agency business in Nigeria. This includes payment for a workspace/virtual office, two content developers, a social media manager, and a PPC/SEO specialist.

How Much Do Digital Marketers Earn In Nigeria

From personal experience as a digital marketing professional in Nigeria, the standard salary of an entry-level digital marketer is between ₦50,000 to ₦100,000. Depending on the organization, as the digital marketer's skill level improves, they can earn as much as ₦455,000 per month as a Net salary.

It is important to note that the above-stated salary may not be the same for every organization, it all depends on the size, the goal as well as other factors. In the likely scenario where the above salary is not feasible, most Nigerian digital marketers are now branching into freelancing to augment.

How do digital marketing agencies get clients In Nigeria?: 7 Proven strategies that work like crazy.

Apart from asking how lucrative is digital marketing in Nigeria, you might also need to concern yourself with how you will eventually get clients when you finally set out.

I have outlined 10 proven strategies I have always used, that have worked like crazy for me.

Content Marketing.

This is my first strategy to attract real clients to my website. Content marketing is an effective tool for attracting clients to the website because it answers the exact question these clients are actively researching.

Proper On-Page SEO.

You may never get a client to patronize your organization if you have not gotten your on-page SEO right. When done well, this area of SEO can drive organic traffic back to your website given time.

Guest Posting

Guest posting is a great way to both get industry recognition for your brand and also a good way to get tons of backlinks to your web pages. There are quite a good number of Guest posting sites where you can get do-follow links back to your site, simply check online for them.

Work On Your Social Media Pages.

While I am not a believer in doing a PPC ad on social media as a means of getting clients, I still believe in getting my clients by judiciously managing my various social media accounts. Social media has come to become one of the platforms for ascertaining how trustworthy your brand is, and how serious you are with it.

Use Pinterest.

Most people still think that Pinterest is a social media platform like others. Pinterest is not a regular social media site, rather, it is an image-based social media platform where users and businesses can promote and explore their interests by pinning images and videos on virtual boards.

Use Google Search Ad.

Believe it or Yes, Google's search ad is a customer acquisition area you must never overlook. With a search ad on Google, and having targeted the best keywords that represent your brand well, you are sure to get relevant clients.

Use LinkedIn.

This has been one of my top means of acquiring clients for my digital marketing agency in Nigeria. With LinkedIn, if done well, you are sure to connect to the right decision-makers in various organizations.

Build A Lucrative Digital Marketing Career In Nigeria

I believe so strongly that you have gained insight (No matter how little) into how lucrative digital marketing is in Nigeria.

So while every aspect of digital marketing is lucrative in Nigeria, I strongly advise that you niche down to a certain area at the start and by the time you gain mastery, you can move quickly into another.

Search engine optimization is an aspect of digital marketing in Nigeria that is not currently saturated. The reason is that a lot of digital marketers want to learn something that does not mandate them to study, practise and execute.

SEO is one of the high-paced areas of digital marketing, and only very intelligent digital marketers do well here. The reason for my stance is because, often, Google releases Algorithm updates by which every SEO action takes its form. Only the patient, the wise and the long-term will consider this something very important.

We have put together a very comprehensive SEO Training in Nigeria to help you become an SEO pro, but first, we have designed a system that allows us to know your current SEO knowledge, Our SEO Test Quiz.

When we can ascertain your level of SEO Knowledge, then we are better positioned to provide you with the best SEO training, assistance and materials.

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