We sold over 1000 cables in our first year through social selling. Here’s how we did it:
Picharge launched a few months before the Pandemic started, with the world on full lockdown and sales dropping worldwide drastically we had a rocky first few months.
The first time anyone would purchase a Picharge cable was a friend to one of our cofounders, ever since then we have sold thousands of cables to Nigerians weekly through our direct sales channels, third party retailers and ambassadors.
Hacking growth and marketing means startups have to devise new methods of selling which may naturally break the usual norms of using offline and online marketing channels.
When we started we tried out various means especially at a time when the world spent more time on the internet, we knew it was an opportunity but how do we increase sales with a slim budget without influencers or amplifiers as the case may be.
We devised a simple method, social selling. The basic definition of social selling is to use a brand’s social media to create personal relationships with its audience which ultimately leads to sales.
We turned our brand to friendly voice that speaks like a typical Nigerian, strongly throws bants and highlights the struggles of the average Nigerian while building an online presence, preferring solutions and marketing ourselves. We built picharge to be funny, interactive and cocky. Yes! The best charging cable in Nigeria and other cables are fake.
Our team sold the brand like a Personal brand, everyone works in marketing be it Developer or strategist so it was easy to break down simple marketing strategies to everyone.
The task was simple, your persona is picharge and your brand should resonate around it. Using popular chatting app WhatsApp, we created and shared content daily with our family and friends to convince them to not only purchase our products but also become direct or indirect social selling ambassadors for the brand.
The result? A daily increase in sales, a growing fandom of customers that are not just proud users of our products but also a long line of brand ambassadors who see the brand as theirs and help to grow our marketing channels daily.