Ramadan, a sacred month in the Islamic calendar, presents not only a time of spiritual reflection but also a significant opportunity for businesses to enhance their connections through platforms like business messaging. With over half of Muslim consumers expected to increase spending during this period, leveraging effective communication tools becomes crucial for boosting sales.

Communities, entrepreneurs, and customers witness a notable surge in sales during Ramadan. Food and beverage businesses can offer special promotions, Iftar buffets, and discounts. Fashion and beauty companies can attract customers with modest clothing deals. Charity organizations can initiate targeted campaigns to encourage donations. Understanding consumer behavior during Ramadan is vital for marketers and business owners to capitalise on the sales opportunities.

Numerous potential customers allocate additional time online throughout Ramadan. Online shopping becomes more prevalent, making it essential for e-commerce businesses to leverage business messaging for advertising special promotions and creating engaging content on social media platforms.

A “Meta Ramadan Moment Study” by YouGov highlights that 66% of shoppers or observers feel more connected to a brand through business messaging during Ramadan. Businesses can use business messaging during Ramadan as a powerful tool to capture customers' attention and engage them through a conversation.

72% of shoppers or observers surveyed say they often explore different product categories during the Ramadan season than they do during the rest of the year. Brands can rely on messaging apps to offer a display of more products and allow easy browsing of details and make purchase.

71% of shoppers or observers agree it’s easier to complete their Ramadan shopping with personalized product and gift suggestions. Leveraging the chatbot to offer personalized product recommendations make the shopping experience more convenient, enhancing the customer experience, resulting in increased customer satisfaction.

What is the preferred way to communicate during Ramadan?

According to Meta, 76% have communicated to a business through business messaging during Ramadan. Meta Business Messaging platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram Direct Messenger, are preferred by 69% of consumers or observers during Ramadan. Utilizing these channels for targeted marketing campaigns and personalized interactions can drive better engagement.

Enhancing Customer Experience: To stay ahead during Ramadan, businesses must focus on providing a personalized customer experience. Information on demand, empathy, and understanding during customer interactions can significantly impact customer satisfaction. Integrating intelligent conversational communications, such as AiChat, into shopping experiences can further enhance the virtual assistant's capabilities.

Providing information on demand helps you stand out. When your customer gets in touch, they want empathy and understanding while they ask questions about a product, pay for it through a website, share feedback about their purchase, and process a return if necessary. People spend more time on their mobile phones during Ramadan-- it’s mandatory to have your virtual assistant to recap customers’ shopping journey at its finest. AiChat can integrate intelligent conversational communications into customers’ shopping experiences.

Customer’s decisions during Ramadan are also influenced by ads; personalization is the key. It can improve customers' shopping experience. In Indonesia, people feel more connected to a brand through business messaging.

When someone has positive feelings towards a brand, they will purchase the same product repeatedly. Among Indonesian respondents, 85% chose free shipping as the most popular promotional program during Ramadan in 2023.

To start the messaging experience, you can help use the recipient’s name, create a custom message, and avoid using generic greetings. Personalization helps build trust and increase the likelihood of conversation. The customer journey plays a significant role in increasing customer engagement for business development.Curious to learn about some quick and savvy WhatsApp Marketing stats every marketer should know? Read our previous article here.As a marketer or business owner, you can target new customers through Ads that click to WhatsApp with soft-sell or hard-sell content. Observers usually take some time to scroll through their Facebook/Instagram timelines. As an entry point, you can provide them with special Ramadan offers, highlight special packages, free shipping & discount content. After that, you can give a space for a click to WhatsApp Ads to capture customer data. You can also enable business search in WhatsApp so that users can find and initiate messages.

To make a continuous conversation with the customer, business owners must ensure that the customers complete the purchases regarding reminders to complete ongoing transactions or limited offer coupons. To get back to your business, you can re-engage your customers by item reminders, provide special offers to activate their purchase intent or send follow-up notifications about their previous purchases.

How to optimize customer experience in business messaging during Ramadan? Make sure that you create relevant messaging formats for your content. You can use carousels to display multiple products or features and videos to showcase product demos or customer testimonials. Many people spend more time on their mobile phones during Ramadan, a simple and clean design of your messages for small screens. Use short paragraphs, bullet points, and clear CTA that are easy to tap on like “Shop Now”, “Order Now”, “Learn More”, etc.

Image: Example Use Cases for Ramadan. Buildup purchase intent with tailored welcome messages & recommendations.

According to Meta, the volume of clicks increasing regarding engagement with branded content ads by 48% before and during Eid—that’s the best time to increase marketing spend to reach a wider audience. In Indonesia, there is an activity named buka bersama —the social gathering of the day to break the fast together.

Before or after buka bersama is the best time in Indonesia to reach your customers so it can expand your product to many people in real life. Besides buka bersama time, 60% of customers or observers started planning to shop at least 10 days before Ramadan.

If you can plan your campaign early is better. For the content, business messages can be Ramadan-related messages a month before Ramadan or one to two weeks before Eid.

Image: Businesses start sending Ramadan related messages a month before Ramadan and peak one to two weeks before Eid. Source: Meta internal data, WhatsApp Business Platform, Ramadan 2022.

Ready to elevate your customer journey during Ramadan? Connect with AiChat today to accelerate your business messaging. You can experience messaging platforms and integration enabling you to move faster, deliver business outcomes through quality messaging experiences, and provide analytics and guidance to optimize conversation.