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29 March 2024

The bottom line: below the line still clicks

Entrepreneurs are leveraging traditional marketing and advertising tools such as brochures, Yellow Pages listings, flyers and signs, banners and posters, and newspaper advertisements, showed a survey. (SUPPLIED)

Published
By Dima Hamadeh

Below-the-line print materials are in a neck and neck race with online marketing as businesses tend to be more aggressive on point of sale communication, say experts in the UAE.

Compared to a very recent survey conducted by Fedex Office in the US, the local market does not provide enough scientific information, but many factors contribute to the growth of BTL advertising, while online marketing sees a nascent boost driven by increased awareness and increasing online population in the region.

The local market has been abuzz with digital discussions, but brands and businesses are also facing the challenge of capturing consumers and shoppers right at "the moment of truth", or in other terms turn some eyeballs and affect a last-minute decision.

The Fedex Office survey showed that businesses were not giving up on marketing, but rather pledging to continue to turn marketing to help them turn businesses. For 2010, 42 per cent of small businesses are considering increasing spending on marketing and advertising initiatives, and 30 per cent say they may increase spending on sales initiatives – both actions specifically aimed at boosting customer traffic and revenues.

Meanwhile, an overwhelming majority of 87 per cent of respondents report that printed marketing and advertising tools are somewhat very effective at driving customers to businesses, and 61 per cent believe traditional marketing and advertising methods are more effective than web-based counterparts at bringing in customers.

To that end, 44 per cent of small business owners plan to increase market share in 2010 by increasing communication with existing and potential customers via printed materials like newsletters and direct mailings.

These entrepreneurs are also actively leveraging other traditional marketing and advertising tools such as brochures (43 per cent), Yellow Pages listings (39 per cent), flyers and signs, banners and posters (37 per cent each) and newspaper advertisements (32 per cent).

A local marketing research conducted recently by Integer Mena on shoppers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt showed that shoppers were more respondent to point-of-sale print communication, demanding information about brands from newspaper inserts (46 per cent), messages over shelves (40 per cent), offers by mail (38 per cent), leaflet available in store (36 per cent) and leaflet delivered to home (32 per cent), among others.

The Mena survey also showed that less people were respondent to brand web-sites because those sites are currently underdeveloped.

Experts in the UAE explained that while digital was the new talk of the town, printed marketing tools will not be discarded, for several reasons.

Sivadas Menon, Director of Printwell printing press, confirmed that printing jobs have been on the increase in 2010, compared to 2009, and especially in March and April compared to the first two months of the year.

Menon said that while many clients are apprehensive of print because of the increase in prices in the range of 30 to 40 per cent during the past month-and-a-half, "businesses are still hanging on to print".

"It is difficult to tell where the market is heading, with many clients preferring less-costly online methods to reach out to their consumers, but the past two months have seen a good growth and a rise in sales by around 20 per cent," said Menon.

Rahul Nagpal, Head of Partnership Advertising, agreed, pointing out that spend on BTL print materials has grown from 15 to 20 per cent. "Brands are currently a bit more aggressive on in-store print materials. Considering the landscape of businesses facing the global crisis, there has been an aggressive push on both BTL print and digital marketing, in addition to radio. It is about trying to capture shoppers at the very moment when they are about to pronounce their decision in terms of buying a certain brand rather than another."

In the meantime, communications experts continue to champion the booming online marketing industry as a less costly tool for the brands that seek to remain in the market but are restrained by tight budgets. Sawsan Ghanem, Managing Director, Active PR and Marketing, said: "Deciding which tool to use to market a brand really depends on the campaign, the nature of the business and the target audience."

She said: "There is a slight shift to online, because the value in online marketing is more visible and the audience is large yet targeted. This, however, does not mean that print will lose out. Marketing is about creating a whole experience that involves a variety of tools to reach out to different categories of audience."

Sanjeev Setia, General Manager, Marketing Services, VLCC, said: "I am more in favour of online, specifically in the UAE market. This does not mean that print is not effective, but for our approach online marketing is more viable, shows better results, there is less wastage of resources and clearer return on investment. "Online marketing, is important to reach directly to people who would cash the brand to revenue."

Setia said that online marketing secured six per cent to seven per cent response rate. However, he acknowledged that a distinguished high rate of response is also a result of offline marketing, and the "right combination of online and offline".

He also said that while in-store marketing might work for different products, VLCC only counts on it in cross-selling and up-selling tactics.

Similarly, for the US businesses, web is regarded as an indispensable tool, according to the Fedex Office survey. It shows that 46 per cent of small and medium companies have plans to grow business in 2010 by improving their company's online presence, while another 36 per cent plan to utilise social media and networking websites to build business.