Ideation and Wireframing on Automating Al Bawaba Business PR’s Systems: Behind the Scenes

During a slightly uncomfortable arrival in COVID-19 lockdown Dubai, I was asked to present a digital monetization strategy. The broad outlines had been discussed for over a year, as I focused on moving away from capacity building Al Bawaba English towards what seemed to be the next iteration for the Al Bawaba platform as a whole— a far more healthy subscriber base, and a premium content offering that one day soon could be monetized.

Because the Al Bawaba business PR-section already had a twenty-year history in the region and an established client database in English and Arabic, it was the best place to start. The initial April pitch is online here. It has a number of ideas, but one in particular would occupy our minds over the coming months.

Writing in August, I’m still not in a position to release details. The background for the vision was a publishing model far less reliant on ad-revenue, and far more focused on pushing premium content to core subscribers through email, EDM’s and deploying monitoring services like Mautic Marketing Automation, to better understand and reward repeat readers.

At the time of writing, other publishers have started making this move in the region. Our discussions began in late 2018, but it was mainly COVID-19 that convinced everyone that change was not simply possible, but necessary and imminent.