Online marketing is clearly the future in Saudi Arabia. High GDP per capita coupled with low tax rate makes the Saudi Arabian people extremely spendthrift and impulsive shoppers. Hence the trend of e-commerce is steadily growing, offering huge potential for businesses in the region.
Rise of internet connectivity in Saudi Arabia: –
A country characterized with a high population of youth there is huge potential of e-commerce in Saudi Arabia. The people of Saudi Arabia like to spend on technological gadgets and devices. They like to stay upbeat and trendy. Internet connectivity has risen greatly over the years in the country as a result. More than 30 million people use the internet which is a huge figure. Marketers find this market as a very lucrative one. Tech savvy and spendthrift youth form as a very attractive market segment. Hence the rising trend of online marketing in Saudi Arabia is quite evident.
Increase in use of smartphones: –
Of the internet using population, slightly more than half uses the internet from their smartphones. This has also paved way for a rising trend of online marketing in Saudi Arabia. The number is growing at a steady rate. Hence we can see a shift from bricks and mortar stores to online stores in this part of the world as well. Although the shift is slow and at infant stage, but it is a considerable one. As a result, marketers are more focused on developing mobile friendly content. There has been an ever increasing trend of developing mobile apps to facilitate customers. Be it the retail industry, banking industry or any other, mobile apps are essential if you are to remain competitive in the market.
Increase in social media marketing: –
Saudi Arabian people are among the top users of social media around the world. They are frequent users of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms. More than 13 million people use Snapchat in a month on average. This means companies can actively engage with consumers via Snapchat or Instagram. Many companies also use Twitter to increase brand equity. There are examples of many successful marketing campaigns whereby Twitter was used. The aim is to have the brand as top trend in Twitter. Marketers also form Facebook page where they allow consumers to give their feedback. Not just that, they encourage consumer engagement by holding contests and lucky draws. Viral campaigns also work well in digital marketing. The benefit of using social media for marketing is that you do not need to have very high budgets to use that. They work well for any size of business. So even if you are a startup business you can benefit from social media marketing.
Rising trend of online audience optimization: –
Due to the rising trend of online marketing in Saudi Arabia, marketers are becoming increasingly interested in online audience optimization. The purpose of this is to target the actual and potential customers through superior quality content such as blogs, informative articles and posts. This is a more focused form of SEO technique which is even more customized and tailor made according to the target market. This leads to a higher level of brand engagement with the customers leading to higher brand equity.
Increase in Arabic content: –
In a country that takes a lot of pride in its rich cultural and social values, the best way to tap local audience is to communicate with them in a language they understand best. A rising trend of using Arabic content in websites has been observed in Saudi Arabia. This helps in improving the brand’s image and makes the company’s like-ability increase in the minds of the locals. This becomes especially more important in B2B market. Important content such as blog posts, guest posts, product reviews and press releases all are written in Arabic. It has been observed that such websites generate higher traffic leading to higher sales.
Hence the rising trend of online marketing in Saudi Arabia will lead to greater opportunity for marketers to effectively promote their brands and create a more lasting positive impact on their target market.