Digital Marketing Adoption and Customer Patronage of Electricity Payment Retail Companies in Nigeria’s Retail Sector: An Examination of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company
The accelerating diffusion of digital marketing tools within Nigeria’s electricity payment retail sector represents an important but under-examined phenomenon. This paper investigates how digital marketing adoption influences customer patronage among electricity payment retail companies operating within the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) franchise area, spanning an eleven-year transaction window from 2015 to 2025. Drawing on fintech transaction datasets sourced from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and individual payment service providers—including Interswitch, Flutterwave, Remita, and PayAttitude—the study employs a mixed-method case study design anchored in Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory. Quantitative analysis covers over 187 million discrete electricity payment transactions valued at approximately NGN 3.74 trillion across the study period. Five periodisation phases capture structural shifts in volume, revenue impact, channel efficiency, and digital access penetration. Findings reveal that digital marketing adoption is a statistically significant predictor of customer patronage (β = 0.63, p < 0.001) and that channel-specific strategies—social media engagement, USSD push campaigns, agent banking outreach, and data-driven loyalty programmes—produced measurable increases in repeat patronage rates. The paper contributes a replicable periodisation framework for distribution company (DisCo) analytics, proposes a Digital Patronage Intensity Index (DPII), and offers operational guidelines for electricity retail marketers seeking sustainable competitive positioning in deregulating African power markets.
Keywords: digital marketing, electricity distribution, fintech, IBEDC, customer patronage, Nigeria, TAM, DisCo, payment retail, technology adoption
