Top 8 Marketing Tactics for Your Halal Brand in 2023

Looking ahead to 2023, it is time to talk about what your halal brand needs to focus on to gain a strategic advantage over competitors.

1- Inflation Marketing

Given the times we are in and the events across the globe, we have to talk about adapting the marketing of your halal business to consumer behavioral changes caused by inflation. Muslim consumers will increasingly rely on price as the primary factor in their purchasing decisions, which means that comparison shopping for the best deal will become more important.

With super discounts not being an option for you as a brand in these difficult times, the best thing to do would be to show value without the need for lowering prices and offering discounts.

Here is how to do it:

Depend heavily on your differentiation and unique selling points. Spend on advertising your USP while competitors pull back. Brands that are willing to invest during periods of high inflation may be able to steal market share from their competitors.
Consider buy-now-pay-later options (without interest of course) as customers are prioritizing money in hand.
Work with recession-proof nano and micro-influencers. They have grown significantly in the last year and have proven their ability to generate real sales.
Pin-point the actual reason for the decline in sales. Don’t just assume it is due to inflation. Or find out how much of it is really caused by inflation and act accordingly.

We also recommend you read “What Your Halal Brand Needs to Do for Success in 2023” where we discuss attention metrics, top Martech trends for 2023, and recession-proof influencers further.

2- Inclusive Media Planning

The process of identifying and selecting media outlets – primarily newspapers, magazines, websites, TV and radio stations, and outdoor placement – in which to place paid advertisements is known as media planning.

Your halal brand should conduct an audit of its media strategy in 2023. Examine whether the channel and publisher mix reaches the intended audience’s breadth, and look for potential biases in keyword and topic exclusions. Consider how affirmative action can be used to truly support underrepresented voices and communities within the Muslim audience.

3- Purpose-driven Advertising

We can’t talk enough about how purpose can make or break your halal brand. As a Muslim brand, you must be at the forefront of purpose-driven business strategies and with extension purpose-driven advertising.

If you do not have a defined purpose, please avoid “purpose-washing” when aligning advertising with a purpose. Return to the drawing board and develop an authentic, long-term purpose for your brand that is supported by actions beyond words.

4- Data Privacy

A bad privacy experience is one of the most damaging issues that your brand can be associated with. Today, many brands do not meet the consumer’s basic expectations, which has made them wary of giving brands their data.

According to Google’s article, “People take their privacy more seriously than you’d expect — brands should too”, consumers consider poor privacy experiences to be nearly as harmful as data theft. It is enough to persuade 43% of them to switch brands.

5- Micro Video Ads

In our 2021 end-of-year article, The #1 Video Advertising Trend for Epic Muslim Consumer Engagement in 2022 we discussed Micro video ads. We mentioned that 25% of adults close a video after just 10 seconds. Micro video ads tease users just enough to pique their interest. Now, you have kindled an interest that will lead the viewer to your website or landing page.

According to Mediaocean’s 2022 Marketing Report and 2023 Outlook, 63% of advertisers believe TikTok and short-form videos will be the biggest ad trend. In connection with this, Google is testing a new machine-learning technology that reformats landscape video ads into square or vertical formats, which is the format in which short videos appear.

6- Super Apps

Super apps are multi-functional mobile applications that combine a variety of features, such as marketplaces, messaging, and payment services. Super apps consume less device storage than multiple separate ones, and users are not required to switch between apps.

A super app is like a Swiss army knife — with a range of component tools (mini-apps) that the user can use and remove as needed.
Source: Gartner

Pendo O’Donohoe of Google explains that brands should consider creating comprehensive, customer-focused apps that consolidate features and entice users to integrate them into their daily lives.

7- Retail Media

In 2021 we asked the question, “Should Muslim Brands Advertise on Retail Media Networks”? Here is a conclusive quote from that article:

Although still relatively new, retail media has already become a powerful form of advertising with experts claiming that it could become core in future online shopping experiences.

Insider Intelligence forecasts that retail media spending will approach $60 billion by 2024 and as many have done before, they call retail media the third wave of digital advertising.

…more than half of companies (55%) believe retail media networks will deliver higher conversion rates because advertisements appear when customers are actively shopping and willing to spend.
Source: Acxiom Forecasts Top Five Customer Experience Trends for 2023

Retail media is advantageous to big brands and one of the main advantages is access to first-party data. First-party data will become ever more crucial in a cookie-less world. For small to medium-size businesses it can be a difficult task as retail media needs a proper budget, traffic, and infrastructure to pull it off.

8- Employees as Influencers

Employees have always been the unsung heroes of brands. Well, not anymore. Your Muslim business should take note that many companies today encourage their employees to become influencers on social media as an easy and authentic way to promote products but also the values of their brand.

In a recent article by eDigital, “How to Make an Employee Influencer Program in 2023”, you can follow their step-by-step guide on how to do it properly. They define an employee influencer program as “an initiative usually led by marketing or corporate public relations to turn workers/employees into small-scale influencers using software and apps that make it simple for employees to post and be rewarded (in some cases)”.

We also recommend you read the following articles to know more about the upcoming trends in Muslim marketing and advertising:

General Advice

The Muslim consumer market is extremely profitable yet extremely complex. The trends that we mention in this article are the tip of the iceberg. Muslim Ad Network can help you navigate through the complexities of the Muslim consumer market through targeted advertising while maintaining Islamic Advertising Principles.

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Muslim Advertising, Muslim Marketing, Trends