We are now in the last month of 2023. We cannot stop thanking God who saw us hale and healthy so far and will, hopefully, lead us into 2024 in robust health. We have already lined up our actions for 2024. To consolidate our vision and our plan, the editorial board met in the last week of November. The meeting was ably chaired by the editor and assisted by the publisher.
Present were: the Publisher, Chief Sir Emeka Asinugo; the Editor, Miss Gift Okoro; the Marketing Executive for the South East States, Miss Faith Dike and the Marketing Officer at the Ghana Office, Evangelist Okechukwu Enyosi. The Marketing Executive for the Northern States, Mrs. Jacintha Ayuba was unavoidably absent as that was the first anniversary of her wedding and she spent the entire day with her husband, celebrating.
During the meeting, the editor quickly recounted the debut of ROLU magazine in 2014 as Imo State Business Link Magazine. She summarized how far the magazine had come in these nine years of its existence. She explained that the meeting became necessary because ROLU was facing financial challenges from its clients. She reported that part of the problem was that a good number of the clients were no more aware that their adverts were still on ROLU website due to lack of communication between ROLU and them. This implied that team members would have to chase network members up daily, chat with them about their businesses and create the awareness that would attract them to duly pay their annual subscriptions.
Many were not using the magazine’s social media forums to advertise their products and services as expected. They needed to be reminded to use the forums more frequently so that people can notice their online presence and engage them in business transactions.
Some of the clients did not even have smart phones and would, therefore, be unable to join our network of digitized business associates. The editor said the board should determine what to do with this category of clients.
Some clients whose businesses have been advertised on ROLU website have never been approached even for once and informed of their financial obligations. Some of them who were told, agreed to pay and even asked for the company’s bank details but did not pay even a kobo afterwards.
The editor narrated some of the difficult ordeals she passed though to get just a few clients to pay up and explained that these factors had hampered the resources of the company. And when the publisher confided his concern to her, she suggested the company inaugurates an editorial board to tackle these problems head-on. And that is why the board members met.
The editor informed board members that despite of these problems, the Board of Directors of ROLU magazine in a recent meeting directed that the advert rates should not be tampered with and they remain N12, 000 per annum for small scale businesses and N100,000 bi-annually for established businesses.
In his contribution, the publisher said some clients claimed that they had not got even a single person coming from ROLU to do business with them. He said that this was impossible and perhaps a blatant lie. If the platform of a client on the website had been visited by 500 people, for example, the chances were that at least 10 of them must have done business with the client. He said some of ROLU business associates were simply greedy and did not care that expenses were involved in maintaining a website of this stature.
He hinted that if the financial fortune of the company did not drastically change for better in 2024, he would either sell the company or demand for interested members of the public to come forward and buy up shares. He also said he was contemplating the idea of enlisting only companies that were duly registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission on ROLU website. He requested Editorial Board members to think about this and take a decision on it during subsequent board meetings.
The Marketing Executive for the Southeast states suggested that board members approach clients one by one and discuss the fact that they might be delisted from ROLU website and the magazine’s social media forums if they failed to pay this year as against 2024 and board members agreed completely with her. She then suggested that it might also be useful to secure a jingle that might create a greater awareness of ROLU presence in the digital market. But the editor was of the opinion that since ROLU is an international magazine, creating local awareness would not take the magazine any distance. Members agreed with the editor and the idea of floating a jingle was instantly dropped.
The Marketing Officer in charge of the Ghana Office noted that he had approached many people residing in different parts of Ghana and they had registered online but nothing happened from the headquarters. He said he had spoken to the publisher on that, and he asked him to collect information on the name and address of the company or business, the nature of the business and the contact name and phone number and email to him or to the editor for processing. The officer assured board members he was going to do just that and that before long we would be getting results from Ghana. He also supported the opinion of the Southeast Marketing Executive that clients who refused to pay should be delisted and added that a fine to be determined by the editorial board be imposed on anyone that wanted to come back after being delisted. The Ghana boss insisted that it was better to have 300 paying network members than 3,000 non-paying ones. Members unanimously supported the idea.
With these policies laid down for 2024, we are more than set now to plunge into serious advertising business. The days of baby-nursing our clients are over. It is either you are in, and you are paying for the services we render and are ready to render to you at national and international levels or you are out. There will be no two ways about this. So, you can simply Google ROLU website at https://rolultd.com. Click on ABOUT US and you will find Reach-Out & Link-Up Ltd bank details. Pay your dues there or you won’t be needed on our website and social media forums from 2024. God bless your business and please be careful as we enter the period of festivities. Do not be carried away by the vagrancies of the festive mood. And especially parents must not leave their young children out of their sight. We all know that these are not the best of times. We must put our hope and trust in God as I wish all of us a merry Christmas and a most prosperous New Year.
