Leveraging Digital Marketing in Asia: How to Optimize Content for Asia Pacific region
Digital Marketing has been changing the way people look at advertising. In the Asia Pacific, marketers have now realized that traditional, outbound advertising strategies have gone stale. These conventional marketing techniques are no longer enough to attract and retain potential customers. According to Aimee Engelmann, the chief executive, and founder of Australian outsourcing specialist Beepo, “Customers are sick of the hard sell.”
With the high-accessibility of technology and time at a premium, consumers are just a click away from the information they need at every step of their purchasing journey. Customers try to stay connected with the brands that take substantial initiative towards helping them make decisions. The process adds a lot of value to their post-purchase knowledge.
Since new and innovative brands are sprouting up each day all across Asia, brands are taking digital marketing and SEO more seriously. Companies are trying to step out of the APAC parameters in order to establish a global presence. Proper usage of these digital marketing gizmos is crucial to make the brand visible to consumers across the world.
Since SEO is one of the most complex topics in digital marketing, there are plenty of sources that provide the latest information regarding Google Algorithm updates and the dynamics of consumer practices. The SEO techniques might differ from country to country, but all of them provide similar results. Few tweaks in the digital marketing strategy are required to make them fit for the Asia-Pacific region.
1. Hyperlocal Language Optimization
The APAC region is made up of a collection of countries located on or near the Western Pacific Ocean. People in each of these countries speak different languages, and the total count of languages and local dialects can go up to thousands. Optimizing the language as per the region is extremely necessary as the language barrier is a prominent problem in all of these countries. For instance, the Indonesian and Malaysian languages have similarities, but they differ in vocabulary and pronunciation.
Therefore, it is vital to consider all the dialects and languages before creating content. While optimizing the content for Malaysia and Indonesia, it would be necessary to have different translations for each country.
2. Targeting Language Through Demographics
A country can have many different languages and dialects. Various Chinese languages fall under the spectrum of what the Western world calls the language of Chinese. Even within the same language, many dialects divide people. A classic example is Mandarin. Mandarin is the official language of China, Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia, while the province Guangdong and the manufacturing hub Guangzhou, along with some special regions of Hong Kong and Macau speak Cantonese.
Therefore, when it comes to creating content for landing pages and ad copies, there isn’t a lot of difference between these regional dialects, but it is advisable to use a local copywriter for similar large metropolitan Chinese cities.
3. Different Payment Options for e-commerce
In Asia, selling goods and services online totally differs from the Western world. There is a large number of wealthy potential customers who do not use credit or debit cards as their primary mode of transaction, and some of them might not even have one. As a result, many companies have created options for cash payments in grocery stores, or accept Cash on Delivery. Also, not all credit cards are accepted during overseas usage. Therefore, the credit card penetration rates of a particular target country do not tell the full story of the market size.
An easy workaround is to use payment gateways like PayPal and Alipay (payment company launched by Alibaba), which adds more options for accepting payments.
4. Include a Wider Range of Income Levels
The socioeconomic status of a country has a massive impact on any product’s addressable market. For instance, many groups in Asia do not earn enough to buy the cheapest smartphone available, unlike other countries where a basic smartphone could be purchased for the amount of money earned with a week’s worth of wage.
Also, smartphone ownership in Asia holds no guarantee that there is a data plan attached to the phone due to affordability and connection issues. Many lower-income groups only use the Internet through Wi-Fi or have to purchase a time-limited data plan. Sometimes even larger cities like Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, and Jakarta also have connectivity issues.
5. Mobile Optimization for Apps and Websites
Much of Asia is mobile-first, and Android is the dominant operating system. Marketers should consider mobile optimization before building content for Asia. Also, it would be better to build apps for Android. Given the data plan and limited storage on the lower-end phones, applications should be smaller in size.
SEO and Digital Marketing both are extremely dynamic practices. Hence, the trends keep changing according to the demographics, purchasing patterns, and socioeconomic changes. While implementing digital marketing techniques first-hand is what most companies believe in, there are several digital marketing agencies across Asia to help others cover these marketing touchpoints on the Internet for improved brand visibility.
These are some of the top digital marketing agencies in Asia-Pacific:
1. InkOniq
Location: Bengaluru, India
Clientele: Star Sports, Lowe’s, SanDisk, Chumbak, NDTV, and Flipkart
InkOniq is an award-winning digital marketing agency located in India. They combine design thoughts, technological mastery, and marketing knowledge to deliver a brilliant experience for mobile, web, smart TV, and the Internet of things.
2. Reklam5
Location: Istanbul, Turkey, and New York, the USA
Clientele: Toshiba, Volvo, Vodafone, Renault, Crowne Plaza Hotels, Emaar and Ergo
Reklam5 is an agency that creates and develops ideas for customers’ digital marketing needs since 2008. They primarily focus on high traffic, organization of translation rates, and sustaining higher engagement rates.
3. Xpointo
Location: Singapore
Clientele: Canon, Adobe, Amazon Web Services, Sony, Nikon
Founded in 2008, Xpointo is a hybrid digital marketing agency and technology lab. They create digital campaigns by leveraging social media, rich media promotion, search engines, mobile applications and more.
4. Brandneu
Location: Singapore, India
Clientele: Novartis, Phillips, HSBC, HP
Founded in 2001, Brandneu is a full-fledged digital marketing agency servicing out in India and Singapore. Apart from digital marketing strategy, they provide social media marketing solutions, association marketing, renovation optimization, and lead generation.
5. Clickr Media
Location: Singapore
Clientele: DBS Bank, SENNHEISER, AXA
Established in 2009, Clickr Media is an internet marketing consultancy agency. They also provide services related to analytics, design, website development, search, e-mail, display, mobile, and social. Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Advanced Web Analytics are their areas of expertise.
6. Carbon Interactive
Location: Singapore
Clientele: Disney Interactive, Beko, Kipling, Chanel
Carbon Interactive is a digital marketing agency for all kinds of incorporated and interactive initiatives. The company is a pool of knowledgeable mentors, strategists, creative’s, technologists, and market analysts who want to convert fresh thoughts into impactful campaigns and initiatives.
