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digital marketing trends

TOP DIGITAL MARKETING TRENDS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

January 2020, Digital Marketing

If you are into social media, you may have noticed that digital marketing trends in the Middle East are different than other parts of the world. People in this part of the world are very wary of technology and would instead rely on traditional means like newspapers, books, and radio to convey information. It’s also because of its religious culture and the fact that it is highly populated. Unlike other countries in the world, where marketers focus on formulating and accomplishing campaigns, plugging in core factors such as discounts, sales, coupons, vouchers, etc., the Middle East market has a diverse marketing dynamic that revolves around consumer journeys and experiences.

 

Moreover, with the Middle East being an important participator in discovery and technological upgrades, the Middle East is expanding at a much faster rate. It is one of the regions with the largest booming e-commerce and digital marketing has slowly caught up as well. With a prevailing market of $600 million dollars and growing, this sector is generating more job opportunities. Rolling over, when focusing on digital marketing trends, you will witness a major shift in Social Media, content marketing and PPC (Google Ads, Display Ads, etc.). Continuing by the facts, 39 % population from the Middle East prefers buying goods and services online. So how are things forming up in the digital marketing lines in the Middle East? What are the latest trends? Finally what could be ignored in 2020? We do have a few solutions to your problems. Read along and examine. Every company is looking forward to connecting with the millennial plethora of the growing digital marketing world.

 

By 2020, many retailers and brands will be seeing a lot of digital marketing trends in the form of animated promotions, instant reviews, and relevant e-commerce features. So, what are some of the digital marketing trends that you could expect from your brand in 2020?

Popular Marketing Trends

December 2019 | Digital Marketers Worldwide

Marketing and AI Survey.
Source: BrightEdge
digital marketing trends image

HERE ARE TOP DIGITAL MARKETING TRENDS IN MIDDLE EAST THAT WILL CENTER-STAGE AND DOMINATE THE MARKET IN 2020:

SNACK ADS

Snack ads are video ads that are shorter than 10 seconds. With the large quantity of video content available, we have generated a much shorter attention span, which is why 60-second videos will miss their importance and effectiveness. As a solution, snack ads (video ads) will be frequently used in 2020 to cater to the audience’s needs. Even when your video demands to be longer, make sure that the key information is delivered within the first 10 seconds.

Snack ads
chatbot

CHATBOT

Chatbots are Software Programs that serve as a virtual “concierge,” interacting with users and supporting them in achieving their goals. AI-powered chatbots dwelling inside a website or a mobile app at all hours of the day is almost the new norm, where a virtual customer service representative is operating 24/7, instant sharing, personalized and focused solutions to every customer inquiry.

VOICE INTERACTION

Thanks to Siri, Google, Alexa, and an army of other smart devices, verbal communication with devices is continuing to rise. The actual takeaway is that talking is naturally a preferred way of communicating, as compared to typing. And now technology is modifying to the way people want to search, shop and explore new things. Begin thinking about voice search now, because if you wait till this time next year, you may discover that you have a steep hill to climb if you want to rank with the other marketers who acknowledged this emerging trend.

voice integration
live video

LIVE VIDEOS

Video is still at the pinnacle of content marketing. The only thing blooming is live video. Live Videos are exceptionally big for digital marketing when blended with influencer marketing. Whether it’s the new span of social media influencers or traditional references, such as celebrities, athletes and artists, having a live stream with an influencer who is communicating directly with comments is a huge draw for an audience. The tendency and interactivity of live streaming can unquestionably be a big draw when done right, with a well-chosen personality.

MICRO AND LOCAL INFLUENCER MARKETING

While influencer marketing is not a new topic, the focus on local and micro-influencers is. While it’s “cool” for a well-known influencer or personality to endorse your product or service to their millions of social followers, it can be short-lived. Micro and local Influencers, on the other hand, can contribute to long-term brand cooperation and partnership, which creates a more productive reach and impact. Digital is here and it’s here to abide. Technology will continue to produce rapid changes in the way that we breathe and serve. The only way to stay forward of the game is to continuously develop and adapt.

local influencer
artificial intelligence

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

With everybody speaking about AI, AI will take over the world. But for sure it may have a significant impact on your market sooner or later. Mechanisms will be helpful in examining your consumers’ behavior and their exploration patterns. Making the most out of it, utilizing data from social media platforms and blog posts, you’ll be able to track the consumer journey and learn how your users and are looking for desired products and services. All this may lead straight to a better understanding of your customers (by 30 percent) and the more effective performance of your content (15 percent).

PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING

Going shopping is always interesting, particularly when somebody else is paying. But on every other moment, your cost should be fairly calculated, and each saving will be highly valued. Therefore, act like a pro with programmatic advertising, which will make your drives more cost-effective. Automated bidding on the advertising list in real-time is an excellent opportunity to show an ad to a specific buyer and in the desired context. Nowadays 84 percent of brands and marketing firms buy display advertisements in such a way and almost two-thirds do the same for their mobile campaigns. With decreased budgets and impressions wastage decreased by 30 percent, it ensures operational effectiveness as well, both from buyers’ and sellers’ views.

Programmatic Advertising
virtual reality

AUGMENTED REALITY & VIRTUAL REALITY

With 3 available technologies: AR (Augmented Reality, improving physical things with digital content), VR (Virtual Reality – simulated virtual 3D environment) and MR (Mixed Reality – joining the two by creating VR environment in which physically existing objects take part) are expected to grow into a $95 billion business by 2025. The most effective demand for technology comes from creative economy enterprises: gaming, live events, video entertainment and retail, but broader applications in healthcare, education, the military and real estate are foretold over time. So-called Vcommerce (Virtual Commerce) will add meaning as supportive technology, representing true omnichannel experience. Looks like this solution is going to make the trust gap of potential online shoppers – enabling almost to touch and feel stocks and subsequently build trust with the retailer.

PODCASTS

Podcasts are currently encountering an all-time demand especially together with digital marketing. Their success is linked to the aforementioned rise of mobile and deterioration of reading. However, it is the amazing benefits of the setup that have made it the growing star it is today. Podcasts need minimal investment and are a very easy and quick way to create fresh relevant content. Furthermore, the podcast is a very cost-effective way to reach your audiences and they allow you to reach larger audiences. Just like any content marketing strategy, it is important to be unique, provide relevant insights and information. Also, be compatible with content and timing, combine the podcast with other mediums.

podcast
content marketing

CONTENT MARKETING

In order to this, all marketers should have a deep knowledge of their business and target market in order to provide worthy, steady and relevant content. In the most relevant format -whether it be written article, Social Media, video, digital or traditional advertising, etc. New and original content that engages to your consumer base is key to developing your brand and its connections with its consumer base. In a society, where we are bombarded by content and consumers are well aware of the nature of advertising, having a reliable content strategy will help you reach out to the competition.

ANIMATION

The animation is something that many marketers have been experiencing lately, and it’s going to continue to become more common. When these animations make an impact with your consumers, it will help you build loyalty from people who are already interested in what you do and also make them want to know more about you. Animated reviews can be eye-catching, information, and also fun to watch. When you have a report in the form of an animated promotional video that looks realistic, people who see it will feel like they’re reading a review about you, which increases the chance that they’ll read it and potentially make a purchase. The key is to make sure that you use good animation and that the look and sound effects are all appropriate for the product you’re promoting.

animation
conversion rate

CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION

Use the best conversion rate optimization tools like Hello Bar or Hotjar. Important to increase the conversion rate between your site’s visitors, using a Conversion Rate Optimization or CRO tools that, through a deep recognition of your target group allow you to allow them what they need or want at the right moment and place. To learn CRO you need to understand three key concepts: 

  1. What attracts visitors to your website
  2. What stops visitors to convert or leave your website
  3. Hooks or what will convince your prospects to convert. 

CRO tools will enable you to increase the number of your website’s visitors that eventually convert: whether it is becoming a consumer, subscriber, signing up, or any other particular goal set up by your company.

CONVERSION FUNNELS OPTIMIZATION

An optimized conversion funnel is a key to your digital marketing – and company success, as it turns simple visitors into converters. A conversion funnel is a method to visualize the flow and conversion path of potential consumers into paying consumers. These visitors can be generated through several marketing tools and methods such as SEO, content marketing, Social Media, paid ads, etc.
When outlining your conversion funnel you should regularly keep in mind what your company objectives and overall strategy are and optimize the funnel respectively.

conversion sales
shoppable

SHOPPABLE POST

Shoppable posts on a social media platform have been proposed over two years from now. However, 2020 will observe an explosion of these blinking dots, fundamentally because of easier, out of the box implementation with third-party apps and e-commerce marketing technology.

As the number of Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest audience are expanding and purchasing impulses are triggered through feeds and stories, e-commerce enterprises are realizing the influence social media can have on their e-commerce sales with measurable amounts and increased traffic. According to Instagram, the amount of active worldwide audiences is 1 billion and 90% of them are following shopping names.

Furthermore, interactive ads would reduce the bounce rate and decrease the sales funnel as consumers are provided with seamless online shopping activity.

SEO MARKUP DATA

As per Jumpshot (a marketing analytics firm), 49% of Google searches produced in no clicks in the first portion of 2019 which means that nearly half of these searches are lost, missing the opportunity of gaining traffic. Another meaningful change is that the number of guests that companies are getting from organic efforts and SEO is suspected to decline.

Google has been putting effort into rich ‘visual search’ snippets beyond all their platforms and devices, which permit visitors to get all the data they are looking a lot quicker and help them settle on the best website to click through, right from the top results. Based on a study accompanied by Path Interactive, amongst people aged between 13 and 18, 40% of them are maintaining to get what they need through rich snippets. This attempt by Google will drive more learned click-through and will reduce bounce rates dramatically. The implementation of these rich snippets is a huge part of what is called structured data and “Schema Markup” which is presumed to become the top focused of SEO talks in 2020.

schema markup
social media mobiles

SOCIAL MEDIA STORIES

There are numerous benefits to using social media stories including:

  • Enhanced brand awareness
  • Consistent engagement with supporters
  • Cost-effective ad solution
  • Enhanced traffic to your web page
  • Chance to reach younger audiences

A simple way to engage the audience is to combine Polls to your Stories. Customers often use Stories to search for local markets. Additionally, the application of hashtags for areas or events has a similar outcome of driving audience traffic to that destination to learn more. This is an excellent way to help your brand get recognized locally.

  • Egypt has the maximum number of Facebook active users (35M), followed by Saudi Arabia (11M), and then UAE (8.5M).
  • Saudi Arabia has the highest number of Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat active users (12M, 11M, and 14M, respectively).
  • Most of the Social Media platforms are being dominated by male whereas Saudi Arabia is dominated by female in the Snapchat platform (6.5M versus 5.5M)
  • There are more than 53K active followers who engage with Fintech businesses’ social accounts on social media. With a total of 30.98% engagement rate.
  • Saudi Arabia has the largest Fintech buzz on social media estimated at 25.67%, higher than the USA (14.26%).
  • Twitter is the most used stage in the Fintech industry with a rate of 79.68%.
  • The majority of followers in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia used Arabic to publish their content and tweets regarding Fintech services. Meanwhile, 81% of activities in the UAE were published in English.
  • There are almost 509K of active followers in the Middle East who are engaged with e-commerce corporations social accounts on social media with a total of 24.35% engagement rate.
  • Business accounts hold the maximum number of e-commerce content across all middle east countries. The highest participation is in UAE (67%), Egypt (55%) and Saudi Arabia (54%).
  • Arabic dominated the content of all realms, except UAE which had 59% of its e-commerce content published in English.
  • Instagram is the most utilized social media platform by the e-commerce industry in the Middle East with a rate of 77%.

USE OF PRIVATE MESSAGING APPS TO CONNECT DIRECTLY

As 2020 advances, many corporations will start changing their focus on how to thoroughly use private messaging apps. Smartphone apps like WhatsApp, Viber and WeChat have now gained extensive popularity. Rather than using emails, cutting edge corporations are adopting the use of private apps as well as private messaging groups.

Influential brands are now undergoing experiments in monetizing messaging apps and soon enough, consumers will be able to pay for goods directly through messaging apps. Sending and receiving funds will be much easier. Some mobile applications like WeChat Pay have already made notable progress in making it more comfortable to pay online; WeChat, Venmo, and PayPal customers are already getting into the practice of using these types of apps to transfer money to their peers.

messenger
marketing automation

MARKETING AUTOMATION

One of the most significant improvements in the market over the past few years has been the development of marketing automation. Marketing automation is a platform for the complete process of strategic planning and execution of marketing strategies in an online or offline marketing environment. It gives information, tools, and reports that make better use of creative intelligence to deliver marketing results that are more likely to gain the desired marketing ROI. Marketing automation aids in the development of plans and the implementation of actual marketing activities to meet your business goals.

To get the most out of marketing automation, your marketing activities need to meet specific criteria and goals so that you can reach your marketing goals. It would be best if you first decided which marketing automation needs to implement before you start planning how to do it. It would help if you then decided how you want to use this technology to help achieve your marketing goals. Once you know what marketing automation is for, the next step is to figure out how you will use it.

When you concentrate on the scene behind digital marketing in the Middle East, you will notice that if you adopt or keep trail of the latest trends based on technologies some of which still in its infancy, you will earn an edge over your competitors and surely boost your audience and as a result your conversion rate.

There are possibilities that if you believe in the advantage that technology gives you, you will be driving one or more of these trends and realizing its benefits soon. However, with rising trends in the pattern of purchasing and the way we function, it is time we improve our conversational methods. Be it new startups or the elite establishment, owners need to settle on the right time of digital marketing to gain the highest momentum out from the market. Want to implement the trends to increase your business and generate more revenue? Here’s how we can help you through our services.

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