How Personalized Customer Engagement is a Game-Changer for Middle East Retailers during Ramadan 2021

Posted on April 28, 2021 by Aditi Aggarwal

Echoing the spirit of togetherness, the holy month of Ramadan is a time well-spent with family and friends. If the last year saw people stocking up during this month as a result of panic-buying, this year, people are equipped to observe the holy month amidst the pandemic. Given the vaccination roll out has kick-started in some countries but the ongoing pandemic-related restrictions continue, the festivities are somewhat affected in the Middle Eastern region. While this time always pose a great opportunity for businesses to see a significant jump in their revenue, marketers have now found their new retail normal.

Last year, Ramadan gave rise to customer trends that shifted marketer’s focus to a new customer engagement platform that could enhance the experience of a brand’s customers. Let’s take a look at these trends and see how personalized customer engagement strategies are now the quintessential ingredient for every marketer in the Middle East during Ramadan 2021.

1. Go Digital

Togetherness – the spirit of Ramadan led people to stay connected despite the pandemic restrictions imposed all across. In 2020, world’s largest gathering to break open the fast was organized online. This online event secured a place at the Guinness Book of World Records and gave rise to a new digital audience. Brands accordingly designed their new Ramadan marketing campaign strategy. Here are some numbers that further enabled marketers to tweak the demographics of their audience. In their recent report – ‘Ramadan: This is the Joy of Discovery’ Facebook shared some interesting insights on media consumption habits of people in the Middle East.

Almost 44% people in UAE and 42% in Saudi Arabia spend time on their mobile device during the holy month of Ramadan.
An equally interesting highlight is that Whatsapp is the preferred choice over other social media channels with 39% people in Saudi Arabia and 42% in UAE opting for it.
This trend clearly emphasize on why marketers need to relook at their Ramadan marketing campaigns.

2. Online Shopping

While it’s debatable and still a far calling whether physical store visit could completely replace the online shopping model but this Ramadan, digital audience undoubtedly gave rise to online shopping. A Survey by checkout.com (leading global payment solutions provider) tells us that 95% of Saudi Arabia and UAE residents are preferring online shopping. This is expected to grow further during Ramadan 2021. The report also indicated that this isn’t a short-term strategy but a long-term customer behavioral pattern that has resulted from the trends post Covid-19 pandemic. Now, let’s look at the expected purchases that consumers are likely to make during Ramadan 2021:

3. Personalized Customer Engagement is the key

With digital avenues opened up and online shopping becoming a rage, retailers in the Middle East are focusing on building smarter and personalized marketing campaigns for Ramadan without disrupting their brand value while catering to consumer’s shifting behavior pattern at the same time. A startling fact that emerged here was 68% Saudi viewers watch more advertisements of their favorite brands that focused on relevant messaging. Consumers are more responsive to brands that exhibit personalized shopping experience.

Choosing appropriate content to build Ramadan marketing campaigns is as important as selecting the medium used to deliver it. In an age where mobile is the device and direct messaging, WhatsApp communication is taking the plunge, brands are opting for personalized customization across all channels to build more engaged audience. With emerging automated marketing tools offering features like time personalization, brands can send out relevant communication, at appropriate times during Ramadan and share relevant communication with people. A personalized customer engagement tool can deliver desired outcome from a brand’s Ramadan marketing campaign.

4. Building Customer Advocacy

During the month of Ramadan, consumers would like to see brands who held themselves accountable for the marketing campaigns themed around being sensitive to the world outside and consistently care for their customers. A reason why marketers would like to engage better with their loyal customers by curating unique experiences. This is a great time to build customer loyalty and exhibit your brand value in a new light. Given the trends tipping towards digitization, a detailed mobile loyalty program could be one of the many strategies that a brand can eventually build with their audience to establish customer advocacy with the brand.

Ramadan 2021 offers this year…

Brands far and wide are staying connected with their consumers during Ramadan by building interesting marketing promotions like Instant gifting for high-spending customers, Gamification, free deliveries with no-cost exchanges, allowing customers to donate their loyalty points for charity, etc. Capillary Technologies powers 100+ such marketing promotions including the likes of RedTag, Bata, Malabar Gold & Diamonds among others enabling brands to deliver compelling customer experience. Take for instance, Red Tag who announced Ramadan Bonanza Raffle using gamification strategy and offering 600 Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G smartphones emphasizing on delighting their customers. Malabar Gold & Diamonds is strengthening its CSR campaign this festive season by offering over 500K iftar meals as part of this festive season.

Set Your Brand Value High With Empathetic Customer Engagement

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Gitanjali Mittal

The world expected a better 2021 with vaccination and a hope for a brighter tomorrow! And here we are, yet again standing still amidst chaos in the second quarter of the year. There are fresh guidelines being issued everyday on travel, lockdown, opening of schools, malls with the second wave of COVID hitting Asian and South American countries hard. In these times of emotional distress, what could be the motivating factor that can influence customers to shop? What could brands do to provide an unmissable customer engagement? How can brands achieve growth when people are increasingly scared of stepping out of their homes once again? In the marketing world, one must set the bar high with meaningful connections.

The switch to digital was inevitable even in 2020 to survive the crisis, however, marketers will have to try harder to get a customer’s mindshare in the ever cluttered world. The value focused shopper these days connects with the brands who appeal to their cognitive senses. Brands who can best use the digital shopping behavior of customers and blend it with empathy by understanding expectations are the ones who can thrive in this pandemic hit world.

Capillary’s recent enhancements in line with the change in customer behavior can help brands to engage them effectively and foster loyalty.

Social Media Campaigns

There is a growing number of social media platforms and a growth in the number of social media users every second. Would you believe that on average, more than 1.3 million new users joined social media every day during 2020, equating to roughly 15½ new users every single second? Like no size fits all, there is no specific social media platform which is preferred by all the users. Customers have varying preferences which poses a challenge for marketers to keep in touch with their customers on different channels using one solution to provide an effective and seamless experience.

Marketers can now build that personal connection with the option of directly setting up Instagram and Facebook partner network campaigns from Capillary Engage+. CRM Managers can now leverage ad channels to engage with users and improve the conversion rates. Facebook and Instagram are two of the most loved channels and with stricter regulations for SMS leading to reduced conversion rate through SMS campaigns, this enhancement is of paramount importance to marketers.

Loyalty Programs

A well-designed loyalty program along with a positive emotional engagement strengthens the brand-customer relationship helping develop trust and loyalty. Marketers make the effort to keep their customers happy while ensuring that the benefits provided are well utilized. To help marketers create the best program while controlling the budget of their loyalty programs and preventing any suspicious increase in redemptions, our Loyalty+ enhancements can enable them to limit the points earned or redeemed upon a successful purchase.

Points earning: Marketers can now define maximum points or bill amount a customer could earn for a single purchase or across the purchase cycle for a defined period.

Use cases:

A rule can be set to issue points on purchases for a maximum amount of USD 50 in a week or USD 1000 in a month
A rule can be set issue points on a specific bill amount of USD 100 at a specific line of products

Points redemption: Marketers can set-up rules to define the rules on the number of points that could be redeemed for a day, week, or a month.

Automated Target Tracking

The pandemic has been hard for everyone, more so for store employees with many retail stores shut for months at a stretch. With stores reopening now, it’s the right time to strengthen the incentives program within all organizations and compensate the frontline workers well for their service. An efficient system of rewarding employees can motivate them and eventually contribute to the overall increase in sales. With Capillary’s Insights+, marketers can now automate the process of setting up KPIs for a defined period of time and track the performance by store, zone, country, etc. A country manager can have an overall view of all the stores while a store manager can view the performance of his/her store employees. This automated reporting brings in transparency for all employees reducing the chances of errors in assessing their incentives.

Conclusion

Technology has rescued marketers in turbulent times and helped them navigate the strong storms of Covid while teaching the lesson of understanding the importance of human life and developing a sense of community. Both these factors combined together is the perfect recipe for marketing success and accelerating growth.

Rising Kingdom of Ecommerce: Post-Covid Online Retail Trends in Saudi Arabia

Posted on April 7, 2021 by Keerthana Tiwari

The megatrend of ecommerce proliferation is visible across the world, and over the past year it has been booming in Middle East.

A 2016 study by Gartner suggests that only 15% of Middle Eastern businesses had an online presence. Online commerce contributes to only 2% of the total retail sales in the region. 10% of these online transactions are from the Gulf region and the rest are purchases that require international shipping. This can be attributed to a sense of reluctance and the inability to trust online transactions.

Even though the Middle Eastern trend highlights ample scope for growth in ecommerce retail, Saudi Arabia was known to have the second highest levels of internet, smartphone and social media penetration after UAE in the region. So Saudi was still ahead in the game. But much like all other global trends, the Saudi Arabian retail landscape changed in 2020. News reports from July 2020 suggested that ecommerce in the Kingdom posted a record growth of 74% during March and April 2020.

Changing Consumer Behaviour in Saudi Arabia

The stark change was not only how ecommerce sales shot up but also what was being bought. Saudi Arabians, who were using online platforms to buy fashion, beauty, and electronic products, took to the internet to buy groceries and home goods.

With the hesitancy towards online payment, Saudi Arabians were stuck with the cash on delivery option until 2020 came. Due to Covid-19 and the social distancing norms, consumers were forced to finally end the decade-long streak of cash on delivery usage and choose a cashless payment option. This shows a new-born confidence in the medium as many Saudi Arabians shopped online more than ever before.

The Kingdom has also seen the most digital Ramadan celebrations of all time. Ramadan 2020 caused more use of gadgets for both festive shopping and connecting with family, leading to a big leap in online sales in May 2020.This jump in online shopping is expected to stay. In a recent survey by the global consultancy firm Kearney Middle East, 69% of the respondents from Saudi Arabia confirmed that they would maintain their current shopping behaviour after the pandemic. On the other hand only 48% of UAE respondents answered yes to the same question. Could that mean that one day Saudi Arabia might surpass UAE in the ecommerce growth?

Opportunities: What Retailers Should Keep in Mind

Retailers must not miss out at a time when the consumer optimism is growing. The huge potential of ecommerce was already unlocked in 2019, when the Saudi government introduced a new ecommerce law that aimed to boost ecommerce activities and transactions. While we have understood the growth prospects of the region, let’s take a look at some areas of focus for ecommerce players – what should they keep in mind before starting up in Saudi’s online shopping world?

Improving online transactions: Saudi Arabians are still warming up to the various payment methods available online. So retailers need to create an approachable space through phone call or Whatsapp support. Ability to track orders, a generous return policy and free return shipping will reduce anxiety and boost customer loyalty.
Longer purchase duration: Istizada claims that 44% online shoppers in Saudi Arabia took more than a day to make a decision on their purchase. So with this in mind, brands need to have a remarketing strategy in place so that consumers do not bounce off to another seller. Online players can also focus on displaying popular products on their websites to help customers find what they are looking for.
Localized websites: Even though English is prevalent in Saudi Arabia, a majority of the users prefer writing and reading Arabic on the internet. Arabic is also the 4^th most used language in the world. So it is important to have an Arabic version which is well-translated. Poor translation could lead to a higher bounce rate.
Social media promotion: Retailers can utilize the incredible opportunity of promoting their online stores on popular social media. Brands can run clever marketing campaigns directly where the target audience spend their time – Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Apart from this, brands can also include social media commerce in their selling strategy, where the entire shopping experience happens without the customer leaving the social media site.
‘Giving Back’ during Ramadan: Generosity is one of the principles in the month of Ramadan, and ecommerce consumers are curious about how the brand will follow this value of giving back to the community. A survey by the US Saudi Business Council shows that 57% of the respondents were more interested in a brand after finding out about its donation campaign. The right kind of campaigning during Ramadan could help player gain more repeat customers.
Omnichannel loyalty: Retailers can opt for omnichannel loyalty to drive purchases in their online platforms. A suitable loyalty program can address challenges such as high bounce rate and cart abandonment, and brands can also introduce interesting schemes like gamification and free delivery for members.

Kingdom of Ecommerce: A Promising Future

Saudi Arabia is the most attractive market in the Middle East to for an ecommerce retailer to venture. Thanks to the young population that is eager to their gadgets for mobile shopping. The previous challenges of reluctance towards online payments has now dissolved due to the covid-19 situation, pushing many consumers to permanently use ecommerce platforms. With the ecommerce revenue projected to $8,697m by 2025, don’t miss this treasure hunt in the flourishing Kingdom of Saudi Arabia!