Welcome to another issue of MENA Review, the weekly newsletter that brings you the latest insights and trends in marketing in the Middle East and North Africa region. In this issue, we will explore how to use personalization in marketing to create and nurture a loyal and engaged community of customers, fans, and advocates for your brand, product, or service.
But before we dive into the topic, let’s start with a riddle to test your marketing knowledge. Can you guess the term that we will be discussing today?
Riddle of the day:
I am a strategy that uses data and technology to target and retarget leads with a brand message that speaks directly to specific customers’ interests, demographics, and buying behavior. With me, your customers should feel like the brand message was made just for them. I can help you increase customer engagement, loyalty, conversions, and revenue. What am I?
Think you know the answer? Keep reading to find out!
What is Personalization?
Personalization in marketing is a strategy that uses data and technology to target and retarget leads with a brand message that speaks directly to specific customers’ interests, demographics, and buying behavior. With a personalized marketing strategy, your customers should feel like the brand message was made just for them. So personalized marketing may sometimes be called one-to-one or individual marketing.
Personalization in marketing has many benefits for both the customers and the brands. Here are some of the main advantages of personalization:
- It increases customer engagement and loyalty. Personalization makes customers feel valued and understood, which leads to higher satisfaction and retention rates. According to a study by Adobe, 71% of consumers said they expect companies to deliver personalized interactions. And 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.
- It boosts conversions and revenue. Personalization helps brands deliver the right message to the right person at the right time, which increases the likelihood of customers taking action. According to a report by McKinsey, personalization can reduce customer acquisition costs by as much as 50%, lift revenues by 5 to 15%, and increase marketing ROI by 10 to 30%.
- It enhances brand reputation and differentiation. Personalization helps brands stand out from the crowd and create a positive impression on their customers. It also shows that brands care about their customers and respect their preferences and privacy.
Personalization in marketing is constantly evolving as technology and customer expectations change. Here are some of the current and future trends in personalization that you should be aware of:
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning. These technologies enable brands to collect, analyse, and act on large amounts of customer data in real time. They also help brands create dynamic and adaptive content that responds to customer behavior and feedback.
- Omnichannel and cross-device personalization. Customers interact with brands through multiple channels and devices, such as web, mobile, email, social media, and voice. Brands need to deliver consistent and seamless personalized experiences across all touchpoints and platforms.
- Hyper-personalization and individualization. Customers want more than just generic segmentation and targeting. They want brands to know them as individuals and offer them unique and relevant content and offers. Brands need to leverage data and technology to create hyper-personalized experiences that cater to each customer’s needs, preferences, and context.
Many brands are already using personalization in their marketing campaigns to deliver better customer experiences and outcomes. Here are some examples of personalization in action from the MENA region:
Arab Bank
Arab Bank is one of the largest financial institutions in the MENA region, with a network of over 600 branches across 28 countries. The bank launched Reflect, the first neobank in 2021 (Jordan), to offer an innovative banking platform designed for the millennials.
Reflect uses a form of artificial intelligence providing customers with customized financial advice based on their spending habits and goals. It also offers a gamified user experience, where customers can earn rewards and badges for achieving their financial objectives.
Nuqul Group
Nuqul Group is a conglomerate of 30 regional and global companies operating in nine countries with over 5,000 employees. The group is the owner of FINE, one of the leading hygienic paper brands in the MENA region. FINE used personalization to increase loyalty and retention by creating a mobile app allowing customers to order and pay online, and get them delivered to their doorstep. The app also provides customers with personalized offers, discounts, and coupons, based on their purchase history and preferences.
ARAMEX
Aramex is a leading global provider of comprehensive logistics and transportation solutions, with a presence in 65 countries and over 15,000 employees. It used personalization to improve customer satisfaction and retention by creating a web/mobile portal for customers to track and manage their shipments from anywhere. The portal also provides customers with personalized notifications, reminders, and updates, based on their shipment status and preferences. They also utilized personalization to create a loyalty program that rewards customers with points, vouchers, and discounts, based on their shipping frequency and value.
These are some of the examples of how personalization in marketing can help you create and nurture a loyal and engaged community of customers, fans, and advocates for your brand. Personalization can help you achieve various objectives, such as increasing customer engagement, loyalty, conversions, and revenue, as well as enhancing your brand reputation and differentiation.
However, personalization in marketing is not easy, as it requires a lot of data, technology, and creativity. You also need to define your goals and metrics, test and optimize your personalized content, and use the tools and platforms that can help you scale personalization effectively.
If you need help with personalization in marketing, you can use some of the tools and platforms that are available in the market, such as Adobe Experience Cloud, McKinsey Personalization at Scale, Instapage, and Emarsys. These tools and platforms can help you collect, analyse, act on customer data, create adaptive content and deliver omnichannel personalization.
Reveal Answer for the riddle:
The answer to the riddle is personalization in marketing. Congratulations if you got it right!
We hope you enjoyed this issue of MENA Review and learned something new about personalization in marketing. For more insights and trends in marketing , don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter. You can also contact us at info@mena-review.com if you have any questions, comments, or feedback.
Stay tuned for the next issue of MENA Review, where we will discuss another exciting and relevant marketing topic. Until then, happy marketing!