In 2019, the quest for enhancing consumer experience drove brands across the MENA region to fully dedicate themselves to their consumers, building and maintaining their trust. Businesses continued to place their customers at the heart of everything they do. Brands that invested in serving relevant and personalized communications, products, and services emerged victorious, with higher brand awareness, higher customer retention, and even higher customer satisfaction rates.
As we enter 2020, we expect trends like messaging, ever-evolving technologies like AR and VR, and personalization to further shape the consumer experience. In order to go the extra mile to meet people where they are and provide them with most favorable experiences, businesses in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region can prepare by adopting new strategies and marketing tools to capture attention, improve customer support and drive business results.
Connect with Customers via Chat
Messaging is how people communicate with their friends and family, and now, people expect that same ease and speed of communication with businesses. From scheduling an appointment to inquiring about store hours or getting personalized shopping advice, people turn to chat to make connecting with a business seamless. And as this convenience factor becomes increasingly important to today’s consumers, businesses have an opportunity to enhance customer service and turn interested shoppers and buyers.
In order to build an effective messaging experience for your business, try to anticipate what people will want to talk to you about and consider how you can express your brand’s personality throughout the conversation. It’s important to respond to customer messages as soon as possible, ideally within a few hours. And to help keep up with conversations at scale, consider using automated tools like Instant Replies or Saved Replies on Messenger to answer commonly asked questions and requests in just one tap. You can also explore building a more advanced messaging experience for your customers through a messaging bot.
Experiment with Immersive Experiences
Face filters and animated stories have made AR a part of everyday communication and VR is on the rise. But these new technologies aren’t just for consumers, they also provide opportunities for businesses to create more immersive shopping experiences for customers. So as you’re planning for 2020, consider how AR and VR can help you engage shoppers and reach your business goals.
AR and VR can combine the convenience of shopping online with the confidence that comes from trying products in stores. This can help move people through the shopping journey by enabling them to visualize and experience products before making a purchase. For example, beauty brands can create AR experiences to let people try on makeup and see how it looks before checking out. And travel businesses can experiment with VR to create more immersive experiences that let people check out a destination and get inspired to book their next trip.
So, to keep up with consumers, experiment with how your business can use AR and VR to capture attention and drive customers from consideration to purchase.
Focus on Personalization
Today’s consumers, especially Gen Z and Millennials, have come to expect highly personalized experiences online. And as the expectation for relevant content rises, it includes content from businesses as well. To deliver content that resonates with your target audience, start by focusing on the format that works best for them.
Consider what you know about your audience, like their age, gender or a common hobby and leverage that information to make your ads feel more relevant to them.
And as always, remember to test and measure the results of different ad versions and brand experiences to see what resonates with your audience and works best for your business.
The new year will be the year of opportunities and unparalleled experiences for consumers in the MENA region and across the globe. For businesses to achieve their goals and to engage with their audiences more effectively, it is absolutely mandatory for them to enable meaningful social interaction in 2020. Leveraging emerging and continuously evolving technologies like AR and VR as well as utilizing all the data you have about your own customers personalizing their journey will boost the success of your business and satisfy your audiences like never before.
Whether you are a brand, developer or content creator in the MENA region, the ability to adapt to rapidly-evolving technologies while developing new marketing strategies is paramount to appeal to consumers in the region; capturing their attention, personalizing their journey and creatingmemorable experiences
for them
