3 Global Marketing Experts Share Their Strategies for Making Content Marketing Work in Asia. On one hand, HubSpot stats for Asia, Australia, and New Zealand show that, in 2016, “70 percent of APAC businesses feel their content marketing efforts are limited, basic, or inconsistent.” On the other hand, according to LinkedIn, an equal percentage of B2B global marketing practitioners plan to increase their spend on content in the next year, while brands in Asia already devote close to 25 percent of their marketing budgets to it. If your brand is looking to expand its global content efforts to Asia in 2017 or soon thereafter, this is disconcerting. According to Campaign Asia, content marketing in Asia is growing between 5 and 10 percent annually, mostly due to the number of companies that are becoming full-fledged media brands. isabella barbato “Despite the challenges, innovation is picking up quickly in the market.” Brands in Asia are growing increasingly mature in their understanding of content, and the budgets are indicative of this. This makes the landscape ripe with opportunities for brands to engage with consumers through thoughtful, creative content marketing on the medium. Nevertheless, there are significant differences between nations and communities. Don’t confuse content marketing with campaigns because the success that content marketing derives from is longevity and sustainability. There should be a conscious effort to recognize that communication and distribution strategy differs from region to region when engaging with audiences in Asia. And if brands understand that authenticity, personalization and consistency are key in content marketing successes, it will be a win-win for both them and their Asian audiences.
The Asia Pacific region is home to over 4.5 billion people, about 60 percent of Earth’s population. It encompasses a variety of cultures, histories, and economic conditions difficult to group together under a single headline. While these intricacies and regional characteristics are important to grasp in global marketing in Asia and everywhere else, we can begin to uncover what it takes for brands to expand into this part of the world.
If you Google “content marketing in Asia,” you’ll find results that say “Asia hasn’t realized the potential of content marketing,” and “why content marketing isn’t succeeding in Asia.”
That’s disheartening. But perhaps worse—or at least, more confusing—is the fact that the numbers neither confirm nor deny the validity of these terms. On one hand, HubSpot stats for Asia, Australia, and New Zealand show that, in 2016, “70 percent of APAC businesses feel their content marketing efforts are limited, basic, or inconsistent.” On the other hand, according to LinkedIn, an equal percentage of B2B global marketing practitioners plan to increase their spend on content in the next year, while brands in Asia already devote close to 25 percent of their marketing budgets to it.
If your brand is looking to expand its global content efforts to Asia in 2017 or soon thereafter, this is disconcerting. You can’t plan your next moves without a clearer picture of the environment you’re hoping to enter.
According to Campaign Asia, content marketing in Asia is growing between 5 and 10 percent annually, mostly due to the number of companies that are becoming full-fledged media brands.
Interested in learning more, I asked three global marketing experts based in Asia the same question I asked European marketers in a previous article: how can a company succeed in expanding its content strategy into the region? Below are their answers.
Are There Content Marketing Strategies That Work Better or Worse in Asia? If So, Why?
“Despite the challenges, innovation is picking up quickly in the market.”
Brands in Asia are growing increasingly mature in their understanding of content, and the budgets are indicative of this. Statistics from the Content Marketing Institute reveal that the average business in Asia spends about 25 percent of its marketing budget on content marketing creation and distribution. This is proof that marketers in the region are relatively convinced of content marketing’s potential to generate leads and sales.
While this is so, there are nuances to take note of when executing content marketing in Asia Pacific. They include 1) its status as a mobile-first region 2) publishers’ fiercely independent stance, and finally 3) a fragmented landscape.
Opportunity as a mobile-first region
The surge of mobile as a medium is also fast-growing in popularity in the more mature markets where smartphone penetration is high. 2016 has been a year of continued growth for the APAC mobile industry, with smartphone penetration outstripping traditional desktop devices in most countries in the…
COMMENTS