Marketing to Muslims is not the enigma it used to be. Many business owners and marketers understand the basics and the dos and don’ts on a high level. The problem is execution, it’s not always what it should be. The result is a half-baked cookie that crumbles as soon as it’s out of the oven.
Start by Understanding the Muslim Consumer You are Targeting
It would be condescending of me to ask if you think every Muslim consumer dances to the same beat. You already know that one of the things that makes targeting Muslim consumers so difficult is their diversity.
Identify the Muslim Buyer Persona You are Targeting
Religious, cultural, national, generational, diversity means the message you send out as a brand needs to be tailored to the exact Muslim buyer persona you have in mind.
In a previous blog post, I touched on the subject of how to create a buyer persona. Below is a quick recap:
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers
Hubspot
Start with a basic persona based on the interaction you have had with your Muslim customer base. Then create a survey that will help you validate your perception of your customers. This survey will help you fine-tune the buyer persona.
When your buyer persona is ready, you can zoom in to his or her pain points and create messaging that is relevant to him throughout the buyer journey.
Understand the Muslim Consumer Online Purchase Intention
Purchase intention ensues when a consumer buys a specific product resulting from his or her need for that particular product, which is the result of one’s perception and attitude towards that product.
Amity Journal of Marketing
There are three components that make up the Muslim consumer purchase intention. Get to know them and tailor your digital marketing campaign to fit into each component.
1 Internal Influences
Perception and attitude of the Muslim consumer is conditioned by social norms, culture, lifestyle, but most importantly their belief and religious laws.
Understanding these perceptions and attitudes is a prerequisite of creating accurate advertising strategies and targeting that work. Making your digital marketing campaigns superior to those of competitors.
2 External Influences
External factors range from color, layout, social perspectives, and user experience. This is the part that you can control the most so make sure you have done your research before sending out branded messaging and ads to your Muslim audience.
3 Online Shopping Experience
As the internet becomes more accessible in Muslim homes, Muslim consumers do less in-store shopping and more online shopping. This familiarizes the user with the advantages of buying online and in turn influences the purchase intention.
Read the complete research article: The One Reason Every Brand is Failing to Capitalize on the Muslim Consumer Market Effectively
Be Useful to Your Muslim Target Audience
Once you know your buyer persona and the target audience that comprises of your buyer persona don’t just bombard them with ads. That’s a sure-fire way of getting ignored by them.
Create Useful Content
Instead, be useful by creating content that is useful in helping them solve the issues they are facing.
In our previous blog, How to Write Content That Your Audience Cannot Ignore we included a step-by-step guide for creating a foolproof plan for creating and sending out useful content that will resonate with your target audiences.
One of the most important tools you need to have to do so is a content calendar that tackles the pain points of the Muslim buyer persona you created.
The way your content calendar will end up looking like is heavily dependent on the editorial mission (also discussed in the same blog post).
An editorial calendar answers the following questions:
• What are we about as a brand and as content creators?
• Who are we trying to reach?
• How are we going to reach them?
• What do we want to achieve when we do?
Creating useful content for your campaign during the point in the buyer journey at which the buyer persona is still researching the problem is a fantastic way of gaining quality organic traffic.
Take This Advice When Launching Display Ads
You cannot just depend on organic traffic if you are looking to sell your products or services. Sooner or later you are going to need to advertise which costs quite a bit of investment before results come in if not done properly.
Display Ads That Will Work for You
If you are going to spend money on display ads it would be wise of you to consider the following components that were discussed on, 3 Quick Tips for Effectively Designing Banner Ads that Spark Engagement:
Display Ad Sizes
The best performing sizes according to Google are :
- Medium Rectangle (300x250px)
- Large Rectangle (336x280px)
- Leaderboard (728x90px)
- Large Skyscraper (300x600px)
- Large Mobile Banner (320x100px)
What Makes a Display Ad
The three must-haves on a display ad are:
- Your value proposition with promise words like ‘find’,’grow’, ‘save’, etc.
- A call to action that includes words like, ‘Buy’, ‘Go’, ‘View’, etc.
- Well-arranged information expressed in as few sentences as possible.
Grab Attention Through Images and Colors
Most likely your ad will be viewed for less than a second so it has to stand out. Your background, image, and color scheme must demand attention instantaneously. It has the job of distracting people from scrolling for long enough to serve them your messaging.
- Use a solid background as you don’t want to distract your audience with too much detail in the background.
- Use images of people with relevant product messaging. Just make sure you keep the text to a minimum.
- Consistency is key for your brand to be recognized. Your range of ads should have a maximum of 2 typefaces and the same color scheme and visuals across every ad.
Also read, How to Not Mess Up Your Ad Placements
The Final Station of Your Digital Marketing Campaign: The Landing Page
All of that awesome advertising will mean absolutely nothing if the destination of those ads – the landing page – is not optimized for conversion. So let’s look at the components of a landing page optimized for conversion of your Muslim audience.
Expectation Management
Fulfill the expectations you create in the ad that gets users to your landing page. No one is ever coming back to your website when they feel your ad was deceiving, let alone buy your products or services.
Cut to The Chase
Don’t bit around the bush. Make your call to action clear to the user and avoid landing pages that present the call-to-action (CTA) in a manner that is vague. You don’t want to make the user work to find what action needs to be taken. Also, never surround the primary CTA with too many secondary CTAs.
Show the User That They Can Trust You
Most Muslim consumers who will land on your page will be new to you and may not know much about your business. You have just a few seconds to show them that you are a credible source of information, product, or service.
The following trust signals solve this problem:
- Case studies
- Testimonials
- Social proof statistics like the number of customers, subscribers, etc.
- Industry association logos
- Customer logos
- Publications where your company is mentioned
- Ratings from industry review sites
- Real-time social proof notifications
- Social proof
- Partnership and co-branded logos
These are three of the most vital elements of a successful landing page. You can learn about all seven in-depth by reading, 7 Quick Fixes to Your Landing Page for Converting Your Display Ad Campaign
Collaboration for Your Muslim Marketing Campaign
For proper execution of Muslim Marketing campaigns, you also need to have the right resources. In this section, we feature a few examples of those resources. You do not necessarily need to work with the ones mentioned but you may also use this section as a guide
Muslim Graphic Designers
When it comes to Muslim marketing campaigns, getting visuals right is vital. The human being is a very visual creature and what is pleasing to the eye attracts their attention.
Behance is a platform that is overflowing with talented Muslim designers who capture both, the mainstream trends, and the Islamic art style and marry them together.
Manal Khalifa
Manal Khalifa is from Egypt. She has an extraordinary talent for bringing Islamic calligraphy and art alive. From what I have seen she mostly does book covers. These look absolutely amazing. But she also has some flyers and brochures in her portfolio.
Manal Khalifa on Behance
Milfy Almutiari
If your brand is all about eye-candy and pleasant imagery surprise, then you might want to look at Milfy Almutiary. Although a bit unconventional, I believe that in a marketing world that is saturated and Muslim consumers being bombarded daily with all sorts of visuals, this type of artists can make you stand out.
Muslim Video Creators
Videos speak louder than static content. Any Muslim brand that will utilize video in their digital marketing campaigns should be able to easily stand out as this is one marketing feature that is not only underutilized by Muslim brands but also mainstream brands.
Fevziie
You are probably thinking when it comes to video why not just get anyone and have the characters where Islamic outfits. Well, you can do that. Or, you can work with video creators who really know how to capture the Muslim feeling during the day-to-day activities and rituals.
This will resonate better with your audience. Fevziie is an example of those video creators who do this quite well.
Madrobotpanda
Madrobotpanda is a different type of artist. The video below is a great example of what you can expect from Muslim video creators on Shutterstock. Madrobotpanda has some really nice footages with inanimate objects.
Where Fezviie is all about the people and moments, Madrobotpanda thrives with computer graphic imagery (CGI). With many more Muslim video creators on the platform who have different styles, you can choose one that fits your brand.
Muslim Influencers
Influencers not only help with brand awareness; they also help your brand stay connected and relevant to your audience. Despite the fact that today many influencers have become “commercialized” and are represented by agencies, they are still, well, influential to your audience. I would use those up and coming influencers who are still not too “commercialized” as their advice feels more authentic. Especially if you have a low budget.
Smile 2 Jannah
I know, when you look at the video channel you are going to think, he does not look like an influencer. We have been fed this notion that a Muslim influencer is someone wearing a silk hijab and a baked face. Or perhaps a Muslim-clone of Justin Bieber. Nothing is further from the truth. It’s about the reach, and 350K subscribers on YouTube for an up and coming influencer with a following of both young and old is a good mix.
Smile 2 Jannah Youtube Channel
Lauren Booth
Lauren Booth is an English broadcaster, journalist, and activist. She is the holder of a VIP Palestinian Authority passport as well as a British Passport. The sister-in-law to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has a strong following on social media platforms and can be approached via KLEAR, a platform for booking influencers.
Lauren Booth Instagram Profile
Muslim Advertising Agencies
There is no doubt that the core of your promotion will be the actual advertising. Despite all your preparations, no matter how well you have prepared, if your advertising is not well executed you will fail.
Muslim Ad Network
There are two ways the next part of this blog can go. Either I can list a couple of competitors and talk about how much better we are. Or I can focus on Muslim Ad Network.
The problem with the former is that there is no competitor that fits our caliber for us to compare ourselves with. Many companies realizing the enormous potential of the Muslim market sprung up and slowly faded away. Just google and see the number of Muslim entities in our genre that have stopped posting on their websites and social media channels for a year, two years ago or more.
The reason MAN is still here and growing stronger is that MAN’s journey started over a decade ago when no one was talking about the potential of Muslim consumer power as they do today.
Having created over 1 Billion ads and reached more than 250 million Muslims online, we are who you want to work with. We are not bragging – well maybe just a bit – but the aim is to help you understand the landscape of Muslim advertising.
