When you open your newspaper every morning, watch your favourite movie on TV or even listen to the radio, you will be overwhelmed by ads and commercials. There are two things that you ought to know: firstly, these ads are just part of the marketing industry, which is huge, and, secondly, it's about to change. With the number of people using the Internet every day in Egypt is growing fast, with 12.5 million Egyptians using it regularly from their homes or offices, a new window is being opened for the marketing industry in Egypt. "I'm receiving more and more advertising on my email. It can be quite annoying, but it's also very intimate when someone has tailored an ad especially for me," Hanaa Eleiwa, a 27-year-old accountant, says excitedly. Direct or interactive marketing isn't widespread yet, but it seems to be going that way. That's why the prominent marketing management expert and speaker Michael Leander conducted his second seminar in Cairo last week, entitled ‘Digital marketing and the new age of business'. Having worked in the field of marketing for over 20 years, Leander, the Chairman of the Interactive Marketing Council (FIMAC) in the Federation of European Direct and Interactive Marketing (FEDMA), isn't just a marketing management expert and speaker, but a scary judge of talent as well. Giving lectures and training courses in the areas of customer lifecycle, marketing management, marketing automation, marketing strategy, permission (email) marketing and direct/interactive marketing, he has toured the world stopping in Egypt, the most populous Arab country, twice. "Egyptians seem very open minded," Leander told the Egyptian Mail in an interview. "Talking to marketers here for the second time, I noticed that they are really flexible and willing to develop. Furthermore, they don't fear criticising the boss' orders and can speak this out boldly." Besides accuracy and creativity, this very characteristic (openness) is a crucial one for a successful marketer, because it's the main way to assess your campaign over and over again. "If I were to pick a team, from anywhere in the world, to work with, I'd choose an Egyptian team," Leander said passionately. "Because for me it's very important to work with a team that opens its eyes to the world and is ready to change and amend its performance." As well, Leander believes that women are more successful marketers than men, because they "care more about what they say and to whom they speak". Being mainly concerned with digital marketing, Leander sees numerous wasted opportunities for e-marketing in Egypt. For one thing, the number of Egyptian and Arabic websites is small compared to the number of users, while marketers still rely more on mass advertising than digital advertising. "The latest technology provides us with new features that don't only help users and media channels but mainly make it easier for advertisers and marketers to track their records and keep in touch with their customers," he explained. Online, for instance, you can find out the exact number of viewers of each of the website's pages or articles, how they found the content and what they think of it. In this way advertisers can have concrete data when choosing their channels and establish, further on, the impact of their ads. "Marketing is about understanding your target group very well and identifying their needs. In this way, direct or interactive marketing is absolutely better than mass marketing," Leander stressed. For this father of two, creating a sustainable relationship with people is the core of marketing and this will take a long time to understand, and even longer to master. With his belief that the Internet has opened a new window for communications and marketing as one branch, Leander totally rejects the notion that Internet can replace the other traditional tools like printed newspapers, radio and TV. "I've heard people say that the Internet will replace other tools, especially printed newspapers, but I completely disagree," he stressed. "People deal with each tool in a different way, according to their different characteristics. "I don't think that any tool will replace the other, at least not in the short run. Actually, the more probable scenario is that another tool will replace them both or gather the characteristics of each of them." The marketing industry in Egypt, unlike that in the developed countries, is mass media driven with very limited concerns for direct marketing. There are many reasons for this, the lack of infrastructure being the most important. "Education seems to be another obstacle to development in this sector," Leander added, "because it's teaching young generations some quite old marketing techniques. This isn't an Egyptian problem but an international problem as well." For this industry to flourish, Leander believes we need ethics, not just creativity. "What I dream of in the future is that marketers will pay more attention to people's privacy and respect and try to understand them more," he concluded.
