Global Immersion Program Report: Customer Acquisition and Problems

This report, authored by Tejasv Mehta, details his experience in the Global Immersion Program at Serra Digital Marketing in Dubai. It covers his role as a Business Developer, focusing on lead generation, customer acquisition, and the use of tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The report analyzes the digital marketing market in the UAE, highlighting the importance of understanding client needs and tailoring communication to different nationalities. It discusses the challenges faced, including competition and budget constraints, and provides recommendations for improving the company's operations, such as cost-cutting measures and more efficient hiring practices. The report also reflects on the competitive nature of the digital marketing market in the UAE, emphasizing the importance of understanding organizational structures and adapting communication styles to different cultural contexts. It offers insights into effective customer interaction, emphasizing the significance of building relationships and providing tailored solutions for clients in the financial and food and beverage industries. Finally, it suggests improvements for the company, focusing on cost-effectiveness and the development of a more robust client management system.

Global Immersion Program Report
Tejasv Mehta- BBA – 19
BBA1901010

Table of Contents
Global Immersion Program Report..............................................................................................................1
Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................................2
Introduction.............................................................................................................................................3
Methodology...........................................................................................................................................4
Customer Acquisition..............................................................................................................................6
Problems and Implementation.................................................................................................................8
Reflection..............................................................................................................................................10
References.............................................................................................................................................11

Acknowledgments
The completion of this assignment could not have been conceivable without the contribution and
help of many-valued partners whose names may not all be stated. Their contributions are
sincerely appreciated and gratefully acknowledged.
To all my friends and superiors who in one way or another shared their support, either morally,
financially, or physically, thank you.
This report would not be possible without the help of my Student Supervisor Ms. Vigetha
Thank you.

Introduction
Serra Digital Marketing is a startup organization that was set up in Dubai – UAE in the year
2021. It is a company that specializes in all aspects of digital marketing, they can help all
companies set up digitally in any industry to improve or start their online presence and
continually increase their digital footprint. They are a small organization and use that fact to their
advantage by providing specialized services instead of the competitively generic services that
have lost utility in the last 3 years due to Covid – 19 pandemic and quarantines also including the
emerging creative aspects that remained underrated throughout the digital outbreak since 2010.
They provide a multitude of services including Website Development, Social Media Marketing,
Google Ad Campaigns, Social Media Campaigns, SEO Marketing, and many more such intrinsic
services.
Their target market is all of the Small to Medium organizations that have either been set up for a
while but haven’t crossed their desired digital threshold or are new to the market and need help
with creating awareness about their product or service. Being set up in the UAE was
advantageous as they have an understanding of the digital marketing market previously and can
create new trends and also are available to an entire world of possibilities since there are 200
nationalities set up and living here.
My role in this internship is to use the tools at my disposal and create a list of clients, generate
leads, and schedule meetings for my superior to hopefully convert to our organization and use
the services that we provide. I create these meetings by calling a number of contacts of business
owners or future owners and approaching them with this new opportunity of growing their
business.
I aim to find such individuals or groups of individuals and create a chain of awareness at the
least. As a Business Developer, my role is to find these possible prospects and have to use any
means at my disposal to do so. During my tenure of 9 weeks here, I have understood that at this
given moment in time the industries that are looking for Digital Marketing services the most are
– Food & Beverage, E-learning, Coaching, and Financial Services.

Methodology
As stated earlier my job as a Business Developer in this organization is to generate leads and
meetings that will be set up with my employer/supervisor and then he shall convert them if
possible.
I use my personal and professional contacts and reach out to them with this business proposal
and to see if they require these services. These contacts are business owners in the UAE or
people who wish to set up a business here in the UAE mainly Dubai. Using my connection with
them I can reach a higher level of understanding of these possible prospects for our organization.
I have been advised by my supervisor tovi0 use LinkedIn Sales Navigator which is a software
that has a database of all businesses worldwide and also has the information of the number of
people in the organization and everyone’s roles in the organization, using Sales Navigator I find
a lot of international businessmen or business owners with the need/want to set up in the UAE.
These are people mainly from Europe, the United States of America, and Australia. There is an
abundance of these nationalities here at the moment because of the EXPO 2020 event taking
place from October 2020 until March 2021 and are looking to set up here seeing the prospects
which would help them do so.
When the internship had started, I was trained by my supervisor – Samer Jamal in having
conversations with these business owners and CEO. My main takeaway was that I have to first
understand their need for Digital Marketing or the need for one of our services. Unless I
understand that and build my relationship with that in that conversation, I will be unable to pique
interest and then it just turns into a cold call. Using that I have had multiple successful
interactions.
Psychologically speaking people tend to favor those with who they feel familiar with (Kiderra,
2017). To stay put with this psychological point, I make it a point to call back all clients who
were even slightly interested to increase my sense of familiarity with them. By doing so I am
continuing the relationship I created in the first call. Using this tactic even if the first interaction
was below par, creates an opening that I can exploit in the future.

When setting meetings, the basics is finding a time that is suitable for both parties. Where I try to
go the extra mile is to set up meetings face–to–face since face–to–face meetings are more
successful. Research shows that face–to–face meetings are 34 % better than conversation
through technological means (The Washington Post, 2018).

Customer Acquisition
With the multiple nationalities, I talk to daily there are methods the differentiate how I talk to
every specific nationality. The majority of nationalities I converse with are Arabs,
Indians/Pakistanis, and English.
There are two types of MENA Business Owners in the UAE
 Those who know how to converse in English
 Those who don’t know how to converse in English
When conversing with business owners who don’t know English, I felt that difficulty in
providing an overview of our business. The terms of the business and all the services were
English – language-based. To translate these terms was a drawback from my side as I am not as
fluent in this language. When talking to those who know English it is easy to converse and I stick
to the point of the conversation, introducing the services we provide and the importance of these
services in the market structure they are working in.
When talking to Indians/Pakistanis it is very important to show compassion during and after the
call. This compassion makes them like me and my conversation style better. During the call
being more understanding of their businesses situation and giving them possible solutions and
after the call wishing them good luck with their venture and the hopes to work together.
With the English audience, it was 50% conversation, 50% business because they are always up
for information and also want to understand the person they are talking to. On-call they wanted
to learn more about our company and how we operate and they were very open about their needs
and exactly what they felt would be useful. They let up information about their company also
very easily if talked properly.
When talking to these businessmen, a step from my side is to not take extra time and they
appreciate this. It is commonly understood that Time is Money and especially when they are
SMEs. Decreasing their time taken put me in a better position to have future relations since I
come off as considerate and to the point.
When working in this internship our clientele was divided between the two vivid sectors of
Financial Institutions and the Food and Beverage Industries. These two sectors being worldly

apart have one thing in common – these industries are tight with their budget for decisions in
relation to Digital Marketing. When talking to the Financial Institutions it was more difficult to
persuade them as the industry is based on numbers, they are also looking for certified and
defined rates of success in margins with the amount of money invested but that kind of value
cannot be provided in the open-ended industry of Digital Marketing. To create common ground,
I created a sense of numbers being the number of people they would reach and with what
services, creating an equilibrium there makes it easier to explain the need of the services
provided.
Meanwhile, in F&B, persuasion is easier as they understand exactly what digital marketing
entails and what are the chances of success and failure. Digital marketing is a risk because with
our companies’ efforts what needs to be good is the product, there we cannot assure success
hence success can also plummet.

Problems and Implementation
With any organization, the main aspect is making a profit, usually by any legal means. By the
means that he has started his investment, there are a lot of opportunities and areas that could
decrease the amount of money invested into the company and increase the chance for investment
elsewhere.
Without having a client for the past 5 months of the business they are paying rent for the office
and the founder is employing interns continuously. By this process, the company is investing
money that they don’t have at the moment in a place he could make the business online for the
time being and decrease the expenditure. That money saved can be invested into Phone Number
Databases to find genuine working numbers and then have a higher number of calls made hence
also increasing reach and awareness.
Instead of looking for interns and converting them into full-time employees, the company should
look for and hire permanent employees from the start so that there is continuous information and
no repetitive process of training and restarting the working process. Hiring through online
platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, Oliv and many more may be useful to reach a larger audience
but to find permanent employees using contacts are much better, that way you are hiring
employees with direct references and also a good quality of workers.
There was an issue with the contacts of the company and where they can comply. The owner of
the business was testing new Customer Relationship Management software’s to find what fits
our needs the best but was always losing client info whenever the rial ended or they were lockout
for trying to find a workaround. I took all the contacts in a sheet and complied with them and
color-coded them with their status and their procedures.

Unfortunately, I was not permitted the rate of conversion after the client was handed off to my
supervisor, so I don’t know how many clients were made.

Reflection
Working in this internship I have understood that the Digital Marketing market in the United
Arab Emirates is very competitive in means of contacts and prices. Lots of people work with
organizations outside the UAE because the overall cost or the marginal cost is much lesser.
Understanding how companies compile information and the step-by-step process that goes being
choosing programs and initial investment into such programs is a tedious process. Without
proper analysis and understanding, a wrong decision leads to a loss of capital.
I have learned how to talk to multiple nationalities and also the market concerning how
organizations work in the United Arab Emirates. The version of hierarchy that is followed in the
UAE and how information is passed in the companies. It is very important to understand how
most organizations operate because if that is not taken into consideration it seems disrespectful to
the company and decreases our organization’s image.

References
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-familiar-face-friendlier-one
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/brand-connect/hilton/the-science-of-being-there/