Every Ramadan I find small companies posting about the TV series, the food, and the atmosphere of the month, pleasant content that sells nothing.
The reason is simple: you are imitating companies whose goal is completely different from yours, with budgets that allow what yours does not.
Why do the big brands do it?
A large brand spends in Ramadan to stay in people's minds, measures it with different metrics like recall and market share, and has a budget that can absorb producing no direct sales.
It also has something you do not: distribution. Its product sits in every shop, so any rise in recall converts to sales automatically. If people remember you, you still have to get them to the point of purchase.
Your budget is limited and every pound has to return. Spend it on entertaining content unrelated to your product and you have bought views, not customers.
The season is not the subject, it is the context
The point is not to talk about Ramadan, it is to connect what you sell to something people genuinely need this month: less time, more pressure, guests, higher spending, different hours.
If you sell cleaning services, you do not need to discuss the drama, you need to discuss the house before hosting. If you sell an accounting system, talk about the crowd in the shop and speed at the till at peak. If you sell training, talk about using the quiet hours of the month.
The difference is that the first gets watched and the second gets replied to.
Why is entertaining content so tempting?
Because its numbers look good. Content about the atmosphere of the month gets higher engagement, the page looks active, and the end-of-month report reads well.
But that engagement comes from people who are not necessarily your customer, and most of it does not persist. The right measure: how many enquiries, how many orders, not how many hearts on the post.
If work is judged on engagement, the team will produce content that generates engagement. Change the measure and the content changes.
What works in season for small companies
- A clear, time-limited offer. People compare quickly in season; a vague offer is passed over.
- Content solving a seasonal problem. Delivery times, early booking, exchange options after Eid.
- Fast replies. In Ramadan the buying decision is made in minutes. Whoever replies two hours later gets nothing.
- A reminder before Eid. The last ten days are the strongest buying window of the whole month in many categories.
- Proof that you deliver. Photos of real orders and customer reviews from the same week convince more than any design.
Two weeks before: prepare the page
Before you run any advertising, open your page with the eye of a new customer. Is the price clear? Are the Ramadan hours written? Where do you deliver and at what cost? Is there an easy way to get in touch?
Any question without an answer within thirty seconds turns into a message, and any delayed message turns into an order that went to a competitor. A half-hour page fix can raise your result more than a thousand-pound ad.
And update the seasonal information yourself on the first day of the month, not a week later when someone reminds you.
If you want to use the season's atmosphere properly
It is not forbidden to use the spirit of the month, but tie it to something that belongs to you. Practical examples: content about how your team works under the new hours, a small genuine initiative you are running, or advice from your experience relevant to customers this month.
The only condition: it must be something you are more entitled to say than any other company. If anyone could publish the same post, that post is not yours.
And stay well away from content that exploits the emotions of the month to sell. People have become alert to the difference, and reputation suffers.
A simple content plan for the season
Instead of hunting for ideas daily, split the month into four weeks and give each one goal: week one introduces the offer, week two provides proof (experiences and reviews), week three answers objections (price, time, guarantee), and week four is a final reminder before Eid.
That order makes the content follow the customer's thinking rather than being a scattered set of posts. And every post has a clear job you can judge it against.
And if you cannot produce much, five strong pieces with a clear purpose beat twenty posts with none.
Replying to messages in season
In Ramadan messages increase and their timing shifts. Many orders arrive late at night after iftar, and people expect an immediate reply because they are comparing three shops at the same time.
Prepare ready answers to the ten most common questions, price, delivery times, payment methods, exchanges, and put someone in charge of whichever period is your peak.
The companies that win in season are usually not the ones with the best advertising, they are the ones that reply fastest.
Costs rise, be ready for it
Advertising costs rise noticeably in Ramadan because everyone raises budgets at the same time. The same campaign that cost you a certain amount in March will cost more in season.
Preparation means two things: starting a little earlier to catch a lower cost before the rush, and focusing on the narrowest possible segment instead of targeting everyone with a small budget.
And if you do the maths and find the cost will not allow a profit, the right decision is not to enter, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Watch the production cost
Seasonal entertainment content is expensive: shooting, editing, sometimes actors. A small company spends half its season budget producing one video that is watched once and forgotten.
If the same amount went into a simple ad with a clear offer running all month, the result would be entirely different. Big production has its moment, when you genuinely have something big to say.
The practical alternative: simple, repeated content from inside the business itself. Photos of orders, answers to questions, a phone video from the shop or the workshop. Cheaper, more honest, and closer to people.
And after the season?
The most forgotten thing: the customers who bought during Ramadan. They are your cheapest source of sales in the following months, if you recorded their details and contacted them at the right time.
Make a list of every new customer, and two weeks after Eid send a simple message: thanks, a question about their experience, and a small offer for next time. The return rate on that message beats any new campaign.
In short
Do not imitate a company whose budget and goals differ from yours. Use the season's context in service of your product, and make every piece of content clearly connected to something you sell.
And measure by messages and orders rather than engagement. That is the difference between a company that spends in Ramadan and one that earns in it.
This is part of a series on seasons and new markets, which also covers deciding whether to sell in Ramadan at all, and expanding into Saudi Arabia.