Online Marketing: Key to Global Ambitions for Muslim World based Corporations

It used to be that attracting audiences regionally or globally was always a major investment adventure – ad-hoc trade show trips, local partnerships, local talent recruitment, distribution arrangements, physical offices, and local marketing agencies – the list goes on.

Today, the internet – considered the great equalizer – is providing an extremely cost effective option to businesses, giving them access to over a billion people world wide just a few clicks away! (global internet users in 2007 estimated at 1.1 billion, according to InternetWorldStats, of which 100 million+ are from OIC member countries).

However, marketers have quickly learned that simply having a website does not draw, engage and convert this global audience into customers. Increasingly, savvy marketers are finding success by utilizing a variety of measurable and creative online marketing tools – from banner advertising, search engine listings and email marketing, to more creative viral, mobile, affiliate marketing tools and more recently leveraging the web 2.0 phenomenon (social networks, blogs, Wiki’s etc.) to reach their audiences.

Case in point – Google’s advertising services. A company that just started eight years ago now has over $10 billion in annual revenues (45% internationally). Most of this revenue is from businesses – both small and large which place keyword search advertisements on the Google search engine and network websites to attract targeted audiences to their own websites. For marketers, they get targeted audiences and only pay for visitors that Google sends to their websites – hence they only pay-for-performance.

So how about marketers from OIC economies with major online presences – the GCC, Turkey , Indonesia , Malaysia , Iran , Pakistan and others? Are they leveraging this great competitive equalizer to their advantage?

eMarketer, a global digital media research company, estimates the total advertising spend in 2006 across the GCC countries to be a mere $10 million where the online population is estimated to be 5.5 million. Madar Research, an e-business market research firm covering the GCC-Levant countries, stated that online advertising spending accounted for less than 0.43% of total ad spend in 2005. This trend is fairly representative of other major OIC online marketing practices. The good news, according to Madar Research, is that growth in online ad spending in the GCC was 51% in 2005 which was twice the global growth rate.

AlClick, a Dubai based firm, is the most prominent online advertising agency serving the MENA (Middle East and North Africa ) region through its publisher network of over 100+ websites. CEO Mr. Naveed Anwar says, ” We’ve witnessed positive developments in the region and we foresee an increase of 60% in online advertising spending in the next 24 months. The biggest growth has been in SMS and Email Marketing but this is still a developing industry and there is a very real need for education to build greater awareness in the full potential of going online.”

As with Mr. Anwar, many others in the region feel that a basic lack of awareness about online marketing strategies and potential is why marketers have not wholeheartedly embraced this media. Given this need, the following analysis presents a basic overview of the benefits of online marketing, major OIC country based online audiences, the global online markets and a basket of creative online marketing tools and techniques.

(e-marketing, online marketing, web marketing, internet marketing all refer to marketing tools and techniques)

Benefits of Online Marketing Strategy

In today’s competitive business world, businesses both large and small, consumer based or business-to-business, manufacturing or services based are using online marketing to build brands, acquire new customers, foster loyal, long term relationships, cut costs and expand globally.

Already, according to media research and consultancy ZenithOptimedia, global Internet advertising revenue will near US$20bill in 2007 which will surpass global outdoor advertising spend. It will also be growing at a rate of 28.2% in 2007, while advertising spend in other media will grow by only 3.9%.

The reason for this growth is the number of advantages online marketing has over traditional radio, television, print, direct-marketing, PR, and trade show marketing avenues. Some of these advantages are:

• Increased cost effectiveness and flexibility over offline advertising (due to pay-for-performance capabilities and immediate response tracking)
• 24×7 presence
• Deeper customer engagement (two way communication with live help, chats, feedback mechanisms, customer inputs)
• Global reach to create and manage one voice and dispel myths/rumors
• Less expensive market research
• Opportunity for creative and innovative marketing tools and techniques to help standout amidst an advertising barrage of competitive offerings
• Free access to global audiences (for small to mid-sized businesses various zero or shoe-string budget tactics to reach audience – see Tools & Techniques section below)

The above advantages are indeed enormous, yet the best marketing programs still involve a mix of both traditional and online mediums as well as identifying which media your target audience uses.

Major OIC Country Online Markets

In order to entertain an online marketing strategy, the first question to address is if your target audience is online. This not only includes determining the online user base, but the demographics (age groups, income levels, male/female etc.) as well as the maturity of that audience to do business research or conduct purchases/transactions online.

The largest online userbase from OIC countries in 2007, according to InternetWorldStats, are Indonesia (18 mill), Turkey (16 mill), Malaysia (13 mill), and Pakistan (12 mill). Meanwhile, the highest concentration of the online population is in Malaysia (47%), UAE (35%), Brunei (33%) and Qatar (26%). Usually a high penetration of internet users as a percentage of the population signals higher maturity in e-business readiness as well as a variety in demographics. In another report, eMarketer rates the UAE as the highest ranked OIC member country in its global list of leading E-Business ready countries, followed by Malaysia, Turkey and then Saudi Arabia.