One of the most important events to market around throughout the year is the month of Ramadan. During this time, people who practice Islam spend the money practicing kindness, being charitable, and fasting. This holy month is significant to many who practice Islam and can present marketers with plenty of opportunities to promote their apps. If you want to drive more app downloads and purchases throughout this particular holiday, here we’ll go over some ideas to help you develop your next Ramadan marketing campaign.
The Importance of Ramadan in Mobile Marketing
Ramadan takes place during the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. It can last for 29 or 30 days based on the visibility of the new crescent moon. It’s one of the five “pillars of Islam” and serves as a period of spiritual growth and fasting for Muslims. The other four pillars include daily prayer, the declaration of faith, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and almsgiving. Specifically, observers of Ramadan abstain from drinking, eating, and sexual relations every day of the month from dawn to dusk. They may also perform prayers, particularly in the evenings. Additionally, some may attempt to recite the entirety of the Qur’an.
Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad had the Qur’an first revealed to him within the last 10 nights of Ramadan. While the name “Ramadan” references the heat of the summer, the period for Ramadan changes each year. In 2022, Ramadan began on the evening of April 2, and it will end on May 2.
When it comes to mobile marketing, Ramadan is a valuable holiday to target with such a wide audience of observers. Like other major holidays celebrated all over the world, it’s often worth it to align your marketing efforts with a Ramadan marketing strategy. It’s also extremely busy among potential users, with InMobi finding that 32% of consumers use eCommerce apps specifically throughout the month of Ramadan to buy everything from clothing to groceries for when they can feast in the evening. Additionally, InMobi determined that user traffic grows by 230%, while conversions increase by 30%.
Another report from Forbes showed that shopping app downloads saw a 40% increase in the week before Ramadan, with in-app purchases increasing by 35% in the same period.
Ultimately, these and other stats highlight the value of incorporating Ramadan into your marketing efforts, regardless of your industry. The key is knowing how to approach your app marketing during Ramadan to get the best possible results.
What to Consider Before Developing Your Ramadan Marketing Campaign
Prior to putting your Ramadan marketing campaign together, there are some elements to consider that will help inform your efforts. You need to understand what types of behaviors and trends your audience will be receptive to throughout the holy month. The following are a few critical considerations to keep in mind as you develop your Ramadan marketing campaign.
Buyer Intent
As the previous stats show, users engage with mobile apps more leading up to and throughout Ramadan. People want to spend more on various consumer items and in-app purchases, making purchase intent a crucial consideration. Try to determine what people specifically want based on popular purchases and other market intelligence, which you can use to hone your targeting.
Marketing Formats
In your marketing, you should use a variety of formats to attract prospective users and effectively convert them. Some potential formats include virtual reality, videos, and QR codes that lead people to your app. In all of your marketing materials, make sure your content reflects the themes of Ramadan, including family, community, hope, and introspection, all of which will go a long way in getting great results from your Ramadan marketing campaign.
Timing
If you want your campaigns to establish a strong relationship with audiences during Ramadan, you need to properly time your efforts. Failure to understand your audience and the behaviors they’re engaged in throughout the month will hurt your Ramadan marketing campaign if you’re not careful.
Keep in mind that Ramadan comprises three main periods: pre-Ramadan, Ramadan, and post-Ramadan. You’ll find that each has a different set of behaviors and dynamics behind it that can inform your marketing efforts.
8 Ideas to Drive Your Ramadan Marketing Campaign
For some helpful ideas, consider the following steps as you develop your Ramadan marketing campaign.
1. Plan Your Campaigns Early
Generally, people begin researching and purchasing products around a month before Ramadan begins or even earlier. This makes it important for businesses to prepare and launch their marketing campaigns early on to boost brand awareness and increase sales. If you launch your Ramadan marketing campaign early enough, you’ll have a better chance of positioning your brand to stay above competitors as people begin buying and engaging with apps during the month of Ramadan.
It’s also important to market the right way throughout the month once Ramadan begins. For example, conversions tend to decrease during the week of Eid, which is when observers spend more time celebrating with family. You can drive more conversions by marketing throughout the first few weeks of Ramadan and follow up with marketing once the fasting period has ended.
2. Target the Regions That Celebrate Ramadan Most
While people celebrate Ramadan all over the world, certain geographical locations are worth targeting more than others throughout the month. Consider the fact that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region saw ad spend reach $2.39 billion in 2020, with most targeting the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the union of Arab states that borders the Gulf.
Additionally, Dubai has seen an increase in programmatic advertising because of the growing demand in the city, which is the pan-Arab region’s hub. Because of this city’s central location, many digital brands have directed their advertising budgets to audiences in Dubai to boost their ROI.
3. Track Your Campaigns with In-Depth Analytics
You can’t succeed with your Ramadan marketing campaign unless you can measure your success. You need to know whether your campaigns are working or need improvement, making it critical to identify which metrics to measure based on your goals and use the best analytical tools.
Be sure to track the right post-install metrics to measure the engagement and determine how to continually improve your campaigns based on their performance.
You can measure a wide range of metrics based on the goals you have in place. Some of these include:
- Impressions and views for ads
- Conversion rate
- Bounce rate
- Time spent
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Average cart value
During your Ramadan marketing campaign, work to acquire new users with creative strategies at critical moments, and use audience insights to continue connecting with audiences who have high conversion rates.
4. Develop Highly Personalized Ads to Re-Engage Users
After acquiring new users, you need to keep them consistently engaged with your app. During Ramadan, there are many ways to go about re-engaging users. Through the use of personalized ads and messaging, you can connect with audiences over the course of the month to drive engagement and sales.
For example, if you manage a food delivery app, you could:
- Use personalized greetings to connect with users who celebrate Ramadan
- Add a countdown clock and launch ads after dawn
- Give users the ability to order food ahead of the end of the daily fasting period
- Use images of food items to entice users and clearly show what they’ll get with their deliveries, coupled with a strong call-to-action to “order now”
- Use your app’s feed to detail which restaurants are open late and before dawn
Meanwhile, for shopping apps, marketers can give users personalized previews of new Ramadan-related products to encourage users to buy them ahead of Ramadan. Marketers can also launch promotional ads that detail discounts or flash sales when people are more likely to spend. Additionally, you can generate fear of missing out (FOMO) by letting people know they only have a limited amount of time to buy before Ramadan ends.
5. Offer Great Deals
Another way to engage users with your app around Ramadan is to launch Ramadan-themed sales. When advertising these deals, use imagery that people associate with Ramadan, including models wearing Middle Eastern garb, the crescent moon, and stars that symbolize Islam, and lanterns that many Muslims associate with the holiday. This will get more people celebrating Ramadan to install and use your app if these deals appeal to them.
6. Use Sequential Ads
Sequential advertising is also important to build a good relationship with audiences as it allows you to connect at every stage of the funnel. This entails launching different types of ads depending on where people are along the buyer’s journey, from the top to the bottom of the sales funnel. In a way, it’s like constructing a narrative that connects with audiences based on where they stand. People can experience your brand and app in different ways as you appeal to their wants and needs.
When using sequential ads, consider using video as your primary format. This is because people tend to consume video ads more heavily during Ramadan. Video ads are also generally more popular than other ad formats, making them ideal for most digital ad campaigns.
7. Integrate App Stories
One of the best ways to connect with new and existing users is to integrate in-app stories. Storyly makes it easy to develop and incorporate stories that resonate with users.
If you’re unfamiliar with stories, you might be wondering what exactly these are and how you can use them in your Ramadan marketing campaign. In-app stories consist of full-screen personalized and potentially interactive visuals and messaging that encourage users to perform a certain action. These stories can pop up within the app to summarize a user’s experience within the app, such as year-end summaries that detail usage metrics. Additionally, personalized Ramadan-themed stories can recommend products based on users’ order history or interests, with a CTA button included. They can also remind people of items left in their shopping cart, advertise discounts and sales, announce updates, and more.
In addition to app stories, you can use Storyly Web Stories to connect with visitors to your website. Combined with app stories, you can harness the power of these tools to effectively connect with audiences both on and outside of your app.
8. Test Your Campaigns
Before launching your Ramadan marketing campaign, you should always test your marketing materials to make sure they’re geared for success. Specifically, you can conduct A/B split tests that connect with users through two different elements within the same creative. For example, you can run two ads, each with a different visual while keeping the messaging the same. Based on which ad attracts the most engagement, you can determine which visual to use and which to discard or change.
There are many items you can test in your campaigns, including graphics, products, characters, animations, taglines, hashtags, and CTAs. In addition, you can test ad formats, such as static and video ads or different ad placements.
Through sufficient testing, you’ll have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t. This will help you continually improve your Ramadan marketing efforts until you’ve achieved optimal results with them. In turn, you’ll have a better shot at resonating with audiences and maximizing the ROI of your campaigns.
Use the Right Ramadan Marketing Campaign to Connect With Audiences
Regardless of your app’s niche, you’re likely to benefit from targeting your ads and other content around Ramadan. Millions of Muslims celebrate this holiday every year, making it one of the most lucrative for eCommerce apps and others. The chances are that you’ll find this holiday to be worth targeting in the days leading up to Ramadan and into the following month. By aligning your brand and app with this holiday, you’ll appeal to a wide audience of people who observe it.
If you need some help with advertising and connecting with audiences through your app and website around Ramadan, consider implementing Storyly’s app and web stories. These tools will give you the resources you need to build a strong relationship with prospective users and engage existing users.
