Forward-thinking businesses worldwide, particularly in highly digitalized economies like the UAE, are subscribing to retention-led growth. It’s a digital-first approach that emphasizes retaining customers with the same determination as acquiring new ones by harnessing data, deriving insights, personalizing customer engagement, driving repeat purchases, and fostering loyalty. The recently concluded EngageMint Dubai saw CXOs, CMOs, marketers, and executives of leading organizations discuss customer retention and bring varied, nuanced, sector-specific perspectives. 

Mohamed Sayed Abd Elsalam, Group Head of CRM, Loyalty, Partnerships and Customer Analytics at MAGRABi, an eyewear retail chain, said: “MAGRABi streamlines retail operations by syncing in-store profiles with online signups, thus achieving a seamless visibility of offline purchases online.” Elsalam belongs to a growing base of executives who are devising experience-oriented omnichannel retail strategies with marketing technologies (MarTech) as the centrepiece. 

WebEngage, a leading marketing automation company and the host of EngageMint, said that brands integrating offline and online channels are geared toward optimizing their marketing efforts and tailoring them to the unique expectations of each customer. Several studies have established that such personalized engagement often translates to a good customer experience, which, in turn, helps achieve higher retention. In light of growing acquisition costs globally and dwindling revenues, retention is being viewed as a sustainable route to profitability. Under the overarching theme ‘Unlock New Horizons in Retention’, WebEngage provided a platform for retention-first thinkers to share their thoughts. 

Acquisition Vs retention

“Acquisition can be easy, but retention is quite complex. As often as not, certain audiences engage with your brand for, say, a year and then make lifestyle changes. If the brand cannot align with the customer’s evolved expectations, it creates room for churn,” said Omar Al Ashi, Founder and CEO of Urent, a peer-to-peer vehicle-sharing platform. Shyam Sunder, VP - Marketing & Executive Committee Member, TBO.com, a travel distribution platform, noted that acquisition and retention cannot be in silos, underscoring the need for an integrated approach with both online and offline capabilities.

The integrated approach to retention marketing, characterized by the use of AI analytics, journey designers, and campaign orchestration tools, is a speciality of WebEngage. Its Retention Operating System offers all those capabilities in a single stack, providing businesses with a convenient and cost-effective means to harness data, analyze it, derive insights, orchestrate automated campaigns, and measure outcomes. Marketing automation, WebEngage said, is an essential tool for companies hoping to orchestrate personalized campaigns at scale. Executives of organizations that cater to a multitude of customers agree. 

Marketing automation is synonymous with efficiency

Ahmed Atta, Head of Ecommerce at StoreUs, an online retailer, said that automation should be prioritized over manual operations. “Enhance your marketing strategy by leveraging a pricing tool rather than comparing with rival brands daily/monthly. Address fulfilment issues like out-of-stock items with consignment modules, positively impacting customer retention,” Ahmed added. “I’d try to understand customer personas from a marketing POV, using analytics to learn the right way to approach each persona. And then automate the marketing campaigns,” opined Mohamed Sayed Abd Elsalam of MAGRABi.  

Sayed also revealed that repeat customers drive more revenue, making it vital to understand the reasons why customers return and apply the findings to other segments. Ahmed Atta added that retention, not just acquisition, should be the brands’ focus from day one. Such affirming views on retention by leading customer-facing brands reflect the general direction that the regional business ecosystem is taking. As retention essentially requires brands to become customer-centric and experience-led, its uptake in the UAE is a welcome development — one that complements the government’s vision of a knowledge-based economy.

By providing such key takeaways and bringing unique perspectives from brands harnessing marketing technologies for growth, EngageMint ended its final edition of 2023 on a high note. Encouraged by the overwhelming response, WebEngage is set to reprise the edition in Dubai next year, when the government’s continued business-friendly initiatives are expected to create more favourable conditions for brands to unlock greater value and engage customers meaningfully. 

-Ends-

About WebEngage

Ranked #1 consistently across all review platforms on ease of use and comprehensiveness of the platform, WebEngage is used by 800+ brands across India, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe and South East Asia markets. WebEngage is on a unique mission to ensure that no business should ever have to work hard to retain its customers. WebEngage helps them scale through a robust customer data and analytics platform - unifying data across silos, the best-in-class journey builder enabling automated triggers and campaign orchestration across channels. The third piece of the stack is the personalization engine that includes all the data in the system and AI/ML-driven product recommendations that boost the conversion for all channels including the web and mobile apps. This puts immense power in the hands of marketers as they try to live up to the consumer expectation of a personalized user experience, a habit formed by the Amazon and Netflix of the world. The company is working across several industries like E-Commerce, Edtech, Fintech, Foodtech, Media & Publications, Gaming, BFSI, Healthcare, Online Retail. The key clientele includes marquee brands like IKEA, eXtra Stores, HNAK, Vezeeta, Tabiyat, Unilever, L'Oréal, Bajaj Auto, Unacademy, Myntra, Pluralsight, Pepperfry, Junglee Games, HT Media, FirstCry, GoIbibo and many more. ​​​​​​


To learn more about the WebEngage, please click: https://webengage.com/

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