With the ongoing Ramadan season and few weeks left for the most auspicious day of Eid, Muslim observers across Southeast Asia, MENA and other parts of the world are in a celebration mode. Statista reveals that as per a survey conducted in chosen Middle Eastern economies in February to March last year, approximately 91.9 percent of all surveyed Muslim respondents said that they actively celebrate Ramadan every year. The percentage share was maximum in Saudi Arabia at 97.7 percent. In 2022, during the holy month of Ramadan, around sixty-one percent of respondents from the Middle East said that they prefer to shop digitally for groceries.

According to ArabianBusiness the Ramadan retail sales in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is likely to hit $66 billion in 2023 – a five percent rise from last year – despite the concerns of growing inflation. Muslims worldwide, especially MENA and APAC countries, spend more during Ramadan and Eid than any other part of the year, making it a crucial period for businesses to capitalize on. Businesses can pull customers by offering attractive discounts and promotions on popular products during Ramadan, including food, garments, and gifts. They need to understand the cultural significance of Ramadan and accordingly tailor their promotion mix, driving revenue growth during this critical holiday season.

Ramadan has traditionally been a favorable time to connect with families and acquaintances. Today, observers are extensively using mobile technology to expedite this. In a 2022 Meta-directed "Ramadan Moment Study" conducted by YouGov, thirty-six percent of respondents said that they spend more time using technology to interact with others during Ramadan and Eid. AdColony, GlobalWebIndex survey discovered that fifty percent of respondents in Saudi Arabia spend 1-3 hours on their smartphones every day and during the holy month of Ramadan, the majority i.e. sixty-five percent of Saudi customers use smartphones over other devices to purchase online, sixty-four percent browse through mobile applications and sixty-one percent message family and friends.

As customers start to straddle a set of changes this Ramadan going more mobile, brands must take cognizance of the netizen expectations. Experts emphasize more on digitizing business with mobile technology as the driver! Businesses must consider engaging customers via mobile advertising, creating more mobile video content using advertising platforms like TikTok, moLotus, Instagram, YouTube, InMobi and more. Technologies such as moLotus that enable consumers to experience products immersively simply via mobile phones can be more valuable.

Several new marketing strategies are going to help businesses take full advantage of the soaring consumer activity during the Ramadan-Eid season. By promoting upcoming sales or product launches, businesses can generate enthusiasm among their target customers, building brand awareness and visibility; increasing the likelihood of better customer acquisition during this Ramadan. Here are some of the top ways to promote business during Ramadan and Eid :

1. Switch to Mobile Video Advertising

The present Ramadan Eid season is experiencing a growth in mobile video watching especially in the countries of the Middle East and South-East Asia. With the rapid increase in mobile video content consumption, sixty-eight percent of Saudis and sixty-one percent of Egyptians watched more mobile videos than the year before having more expectations from brands.

With the unprecedented growth of mobile video usage, experts are suggesting advertisers to embrace moLotus mobile video customer interaction platform which is a pioneer in introducing new revenue models for brands and advertisers during the festive season. Businesses can secure high returns on their Eid marketing campaigns with unique 40 seconds mobile videos reaching directly the mobile phones of customers without requiring any application download or data plan.

Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. are some of the most downloaded mobile apps during Ramadan and Eid; assisting in generating mobile ad revenues. Statista reports showcase that more than 50% of customers in the MENA region spent their time online consuming videos on mobile apps like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram reels. The video ads running via these platforms offer good video impressions during this festival season. However, Ramadan and Eid season happens to be a highly competitive time for the YouTube Ad and Facebook Ad auctions resulting in high advertising costs.

2. Promote e-commerce

The end of Ramadan marks the celebration of Eid al-Fitr wherein Muslims exchange gifts. From a marketing standpoint, this tradition of exchanging gifts translates into remarkable marketing opportunities, especially when it comes to e-commerce. In 2022, consumers in the MENA region spent USD 6.2 billion on e-commerce shopping, increasing 40 percent compared to Ramadan 2021, and accounting for 16 percent of total annual sales. The interest for purchasing goods and services via e-commerce platforms ramps up worldwide, including regions like South-East Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and India. Meta interactive reports on Ramadan shopping habits reflect 54 percent of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) use e-commerce platforms to brainstorm ideas for Ramadan and Eid-al-Fitr purchases and a huge 91 percent of Saudi consumers research their Ramadan purchases only online.

Experts say that this is the right time for e-commerce businesses to explore and adopt mobile technologies like moLotus to capture customers’ attention, leading to more visibility and sales. The proportion platform induces customers to place orders through e-commerce sites. Customers can enter into conversations with ecommerce brands via moLotus easy response options like URL Click, SMS, USSD, Call Back, etc. They can sort out their queries before placing an order with the ecommerce brand of their choice. Promotional Campaigns using mobile phone advertising and marketing platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Google Ads, AdColony are also being created by some e-commerce brands to promote the mobile shopping drive but these have limited interaction and are not very cost effective.

3. Go for Giveaway Contests

During Ramadan observers have a focus on community and charitable activities. Research shows that generosity is fast spreading across digital media. Most businesses across the Middle East and SEA region are showcasing their creativity in designing innovative giveaway campaigns highlighting the importance of sharing with others.

Following the growing smartphone usage, experts strongly recommend marketers to embrace mobile-based giveaway contests to engage customers during Ramadan and Eid. The outcome would be an increase in customer delight and lifetime value.

Although Eid giveaways form gainful marketing opportunities for businesses, managing them has proved to be a big challenge. Good News for businesses this Ramadan season is that a technology like moLotus has made it convenient for them to create and manage mobile contests.

moLotus has been assisting brands in launching and managing cheap, fast and hassle-free mobile contests resulting in better customer response. Studies reveal that businesses in the MENA and SEA region are gradually shunning the digital tools like running Facebook, Instagram, Sweepstakes contests, switching over to new platforms like moLotus for increasing campaign ROI.

4. Use Personalized Greetings

Studies show that 65 percent of customers or observers spend more time viewing videos during Eid and Ramadan. 2 in 3 customers enjoyed personalized buying experiences on technologies, and 64 percent have bought from personalized ads. 71 percent of customers also agreed that it was easier to do their Ramadan shopping with personalized product suggestions (Source : Critman).

Businesses should take note of such kind of buying behavior and respond by creating personalized experiences for Ramadan and Eid shoppers. Big brands are already engaging their customers using unique moLotus personalized advertising offering multiple options including greetings, name, call-to-action, reward, for individual customers. For instance, businesses can attach greetings like ‘Eid Mubarak’, ’Ramadan Kareem’, etc. with customer names in campaign messages.

Customers no longer prefer email messaging. Customers have become more sensitive to a brand's presence and also spread word-of-mouth appreciation to their acquaintances. This further leads to an increased customer acquisition and more profits.

5. Offer Coupons Vouchers

Experts suggest that during Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr businesses should reward their loyal customers for the desired purchasing behavior. Surveys have pointed out that Eid observers from SEA, MENA, and the Indian Subcontinent receiving special coupons and vouchers generally shop more.

With the advent of marketing platforms like AdColony, moLotus, HubSpot, etc., businesses can engage and convert customers via digital coupons and vouchers easily and quickly.

moLotus is assisting businesses in designing personalized and automated campaigns offering mobile vouchers and coupons. It is fast replacing printed paper coupons by digital, hyper-personalized, real time, and mobile-based coupons and vouchers. Having high response rates, they are much cheaper and quicker to distribute than printed ones. Also, they are easy to administer with no chance of fraud. moLotus technology has brought-in new levels of control, accuracy, tracking, and analysis for businesses leading to more ROI.

6. Launch New Products Services

Ramadan and Eid season marks a period of exploration for consumers, in general. They are experimenting with trying new brands compared with other times of the year. Findings of an insights survey by Twitter reveals fifty percent of people on Twitter in Saudi, UAE and Kuwait and sixty percent of people in Egypt, spend more money during Ramadan.

For businesses, launching new products and promoting them has always been a challenging task. Ramadan and Eid season gives them a good opportunity to go ahead with new product launches. They should be using marketing channels like moLotus, TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google Ads, and more to promote their new product launches.

Launching and promoting new products or services has further become convenient and cost effective with moLotus. Businesses can easily create explainer product videos using moLotus to explain difficult concepts for their customers in a lucid manner. The product launch videos bring more clicks, impressions and conversions.

7. Focus on Brand Storytelling

Band storytelling is considered to be highly beneficial in Ramadan marketing as it helps in creating cultural relevance, emotional engagement, authenticity, product differentiation, and extended business reach. By using the power of brand storytelling, businesses should connect with their Muslim customers deeply, foster superior brand loyalty, and create memorable Ramadan and Eid promotional campaigns.

The core of great storytelling during Eid and Ramadan lies in knowing consumer behavior and telling the right kind of story via the right marketing platform. The right combination activates and connects with the right audience, making relevant, compelling and light-hearted long-form stories.

Several brands have adopted a new approach to Ramadan storytelling via mobile video advertising platforms like moLotus. moLotus strings images, videos and captions together to create interactive narratives. Other than HQ video up to 40 seconds, the platform offers rich formats including greetings, showcases, brochures, slideshows, etc. Creators get the opportunity to add product videos, pictures, voice-overs and music, creating enticing brand storyboards. Several businesses have been using Instagram’s carousel and video advertising features together with reels for the purpose of visually appealing stories.

8. Measure Effectiveness

It is crucial for businesses to measure the performance of Ramadan Eid marketing campaigns. If they can't improve upon it and they can't prove the campaign ROI. By identifying and setting key performance indicators (KPIs), businesses can optimize all future Ramadan campaigns to generate even greater returns.

Platforms like Google Analytics, moLotus, Facebook Analytics can easily measure and track these KPIs. moLotus goes further in offering real time tracking capabilities - a unique online dashboard showing detailed real time analytics. Businesses can tweak their campaigns in real time for better achievement of the KPIs.

Conclusion

Businesses taking full advantage of the evolving consumer behavior during Ramadan and Eid season hold the key to success. The increased mobile screen-time of Ramadan observers acts as the biggest opportunity. Businesses can better educate, entertain and leave a lasting impact on customers via mobile customer interactions during Ramadan; connecting with them via new age mobile advertising technologies like moLotus. Ramadan Kareem!