Kuwait is largely a conservative nation especially when it comes to contemporary marketing platforms. This implies that modern channels of marketing such as social media (Facebook and Twitter) are hardly embraced by the old generation. It is pertinent to mention that overreliance on traditional marketing tools like radio, billboards and newspapers might not sufficiently suffice the growing needs of business enterprises that face stiff market competition.
As it stands now, social media mainly serve young entrepreneurs and unfortunately exclude the old folk. In any case, social media is a powerful marketing medium that can rapidly boost the market presence of a business entity (Alfadly 236). In other words, Kuwait is losing a lot marketing opportunities because the targeted population is yet to accept some of the modern marketing options.
On the other hand, social media marketing has its own setbacks even when used in a country like Kuwait. For instance, it is impossible to compel social media users to follow, like or share adverts. Hence, the target market cannot be easily controlled when social media is used as the marketing channel. The inability of business organisations in Kuwait to control the market has led to gross marketing challenges for a long time.
Therefore, a number of upcoming business entities may fail to reap the full benefits of marketing their products in Kuwait if they continue to depend on social media marketing. It is necessary for marketers in Kuwait to realise that social media can be applicable only in certain selected segments of production (Alfadly 239). There are myriads of marketing campaigns that cannot auger well with social media.
The current rates of placing adverts in Kuwait are quite high. A simple advert in a Kuwait’s newspaper might cost as much as 750 Dinars. When the same advert is placed in five different newspapers in order to reach the desired population, it becomes extremely expensive especially for small business start-ups that are still struggling to establish themselves.
When the cost of advertisements is above the standard level, it becomes extremely cumbersome to generate significant profits. Worse still, even effective social media marketing demands a serious capital injection. Unless the cost of advertisements goes down considerably, marketing operations in Kuwait will continue to be a burden to most business organisations.
As already hinted out, the Kuwait population firmly trusts and believes in advertising messages delivered through televisions, radios, magazines, newspapers and billboards. As much as such marketing platforms have produced decent results in the past, they are no longer viable for rigorous marketing campaigns. Besides, a number of traditional media tend to disseminate marketing news in local languages only. As a result, they ignore the fact that people from other nationals also reside in Kuwait.
Due to limited resources, quite a huge percentage of Kuwait’s entrepreneurs are not in a position to fully comprehend the prevailing marketing trends and strategies that can be used to improve sales. The last decade witnessed major transformations in marketing. In spite of the difficulties experienced by marketers in online marketing, Kuwait’s entrepreneurs have not yet met the expectations of potential customers due to lack of robust technological systems (Alfadly 239).
Latest technology ought to be used in marketing. In addition, feedback collection from customers is not vastly used by several marketers in Kuwait owing to the conservative nature of the culture. Deploying technology in marketing can remarkably drive traffic and generate awareness of both old and new products launched into the market.
Works Cited
Alfadly, Ahmad. “Improving the Quality of Services Marketing in Kuwaiti Organisations.” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 2.20 (2012): 235-243. Print.