9 Ways To Make Marketing In The Middle East More Effective

I've been in this region a few years and find that critical gaps still exist. Yes, not all brands and not all categories. But these are common themes that need to be addressed.

1. Brand building is treated as a "someday, in the long term, we will get to it". Well, in the long run, we are all dead. And so are brands that do not create a meaningful connection with consumers.

2. Over-reliance on promos is an outcome of that. Promos have an important role to play in marketing but only if they provide value. If there are promos every week, they stop having value. Promos are not a substitute for brand loyalty.

3. Constant focus on acquisition and not enough on retention. I have always said that acquisition is the sexier sibling but retention is the smarter one. Why is growth focused on acquisition but not on getting existing customers to stay loyal?

4. Building a Single Customer View is a 5 year plan. 2 years to review, 2 years to implement, 1 year for training. I am exaggerating. But too much time is spent on decision making, and too little on training to use the tools effectively. Tool features are underused and revenue wasted.

5. Data should inform decisions rather than starting with a fixed hypothesis and expecting data to prove or disprove it. This can only happen when it’s an always-on exercise and there is enough historical trend as well as a high level of matched customer IDs to be able to do effective analysis.

6. Social Media is not the answer to everything. Yes, this is a region where social media has high consumption and influencers have value. However, building your relationship with customers only on social media and ignoring the rest of the funnel is short-sighted and loses revenue. Building your audience on “rented” channels but not building an audience on a channel that you own is risky.

7. Creativity seems reserved for videos. There’s more focus on creativity for videos that run on TV, YouTube or OTTs rather than an over-arching idea that uses each channel effectively. This is missing in many cases. BAU communication is just plain boring. Tools cannot substitute for creativity. Creativity is at the core of building brands.

8. Ecommerce is treated as a transactional channel. You might be thinking, it is about transactions! Well no, it’s about building a relationship with the customer in order for them to continually purchase. “Build it and they will come” is flawed thinking. It requires nurturing customers through the journey. In the case of offline & online brands, it requires a well integrated team. Separate teams and P&Ls for offline and online results in a fractured brand experience and teams that do not talk to each other.

9. The Middle East has populations with locals and expats of many nationalities. However, marketing approaches are largely for communication in Arabic and English. But there are other nationalities that form a critical customer base for whom communication should be localised to their habits and languages. In India, this would be akin to communication in English and Hindi only. It leaves out customers from other regions and is a long forgotten practice.

Do comment with your views!