Halal marketing: a marketing strategy perspective Syed Adil Shah, Sarwar M. Azhar and Niaz Ahmed Bhutto Department of Business Administration, Sukkur IBA University, Sukkur, Pakistan Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize halal marketing from the marketing strategy perspective, particularly segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP). Design/methodology/approach – A literature review is carried out for the study. Building on the STP framework, an attempt is made to conceptualize halal marketing from the marketing strategy perspective and provide its implications. Findings – The findings suggest that halal marketing has emerged and is used as a segmentation strategy. Furthermore, halal marketing can be more effectively used as a positioning strategy. Research limitations/implications – The paper presents the opportunity to use halal marketing by combining the Islamic principles for halal with the marketing positioning strategy. In this way, halal marketing can also be used to attract consumers from other religious segments. Originality/value – The paper presents a marketing strategy perspective of segmentation and targeting. Furthermore, the paper proposes an approach for using halal as a positioning strategy. Keywords Positioning, Islamic marketing, Marketing strategy, Halal marketing, Marketers Paper type Conceptual paper Introduction Marketers are using various ways to attract and address customers based on the factors that shape consumers’ decision-making. According to Gajjar (2013), few of the factors influencing consumer behavior include social, cultural, psychological and personal. More specifically, these factors include, social class, reference groups, family, age, beliefs and attitudes and many more. Religion and religiosity are also the factors influencing consumer behavior. Religion influences consumers and society both directly and indirectly (Agarwala et al., 2018; Mokhlis, 2009). As far as Islam is concerned, Wilson et al. (2013) argued that Islam and Muslims articulate themselves as not merely being religion by conventional interpretations, but a way of life in which Islam governs all the decisions. According to Izberk-Bilgin and Nakata (2016), marketers are using religion-based marketing to address the needs of customers. They further stated that progressive companies have already built their customer-base by pursuing Muslims, the fastest-growing religious segment. The marketers are using halal marketing to pursue Muslims as a consumer segment and address their needs. The Muslim population is rapidly growing and is regarded to be the fastest growing in the world (Johnson and Grim, 2013). Statistics show that Muslims have become the second- largest religious group in the twentieth century[1]. The religious population trends can be seen in Table I. The average growth rate of religious population during 1800-2025 (estimated) indicates that the Muslim population’s average growth rate is greater than all other established religions except New religionist, Agnostics and Atheists. However, Agnosticism is skeptical about the existence of God, and Atheism dictates that there is no Halal marketing Received 9 November 2018 Revised 26 May 2019 17 October 2019 Accepted 19 October 2019 Journal of Islamic Marketing © Emerald Publishing Limited 1759-0833 DOI 10.1108/JIMA-11-2018-0211 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1759-0833.htm