#ConversionChronicles: Unveiling the magic behind e-commerce success

Shahid Ali – Principal, Consumer Industries and Retail Practice – Kearney took to stage at the Internet Commerce Summit (ICS) MENA 2024 to stir a conversation around marketing, customer acquisition tools, data, new-age marketing technology and much more with Rami Zahran, Group Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Saudi German Health; Miche Whitehouse, Head of Brand and Digital, LUSH Cosmetics; Nisham Chhabra, Vice President – Middle East & Africa, Netcore Cloud; and Wasim Ben Khadra, Executive Director, Regional Head of Communications, Africa and Middle East, Standard Chartered Bank.

The main point that Ali highlighted to lead the conversation is the evolving customer mentality and how across channels the idea of customer-centricity is altering as well. He mentioned whether it is a traditional brand with significant online presence or the one with widespread omnichannel base or a digital-first native, the concept of customer is evolving and marketing for customers across touchpoints is also getting revived with time.

So, how does one stay platform-ready with their approach today?

This is when Zahran mentioned that whether e-commerce or not, today all customer journeys begin online. It is a common notion to pick up the phone to check and search something. He elaborated that even though e-commerce isn’t a strength for Saudi German, the company takes online very seriously and allows customers to transact and interact with them through their online channels.

Whether a brand or company has a strong e-commerce presence or not, the idea of riding the online wave is prominent and must be worked on from a grassroot level to reach the right set of audience. Moreover, the challenge is to constantly stay platform agonistic and build strategies that are right for the platform.

Khadra commented that with a presence globally and with so much competition within the banking ecosystem, the idea of reaching the customer cannot be uniform across all touchpoints. Rather, they have to streamline and make every market strategy adept to the customer needs of that specific market.

To venture into a new market or even relook the market strategies for an existing market, one needs to become more oriented with data, customer understanding and become ready to tread the marketing pathway by choosing to work with tools and techniques that are future ready.

Chhabra pointed out that choosing the right partner is key to growth and helps with building the right marketing approach. The teams of the brands and retailers in this case need to choose right and take a holistic approach from the ground level to the top, rather than doing it the other way round to get the best results. It is all about reorienting and calibrating the methods to make way for the right marketing strategies to shine bright.

However, Whitehouse pointed out a very important aspect and highlighted the concept of data to mention that when brands continue to analyse customer behaviour across multiple channels and adapt to multiple digital tools to tap customers online, the potential of data accumulation becomes an excess and too much of data flow needs to be tackled without disrupting the privacy. This is where LUSH stays away from new-age digital platforms and restricts these data movements. The brand plans all its customer interactions through traditional marketing approaches without tapping into massive data pool.