Guest contribution by Alexander Bock, Vice President Global Online Marketing at Arvato SCM Solutions
If we talk about online marketing, we often reduce the mere discussion on marketing via Google. As this may be right because of the leading role of Goolge in search for Europe (as the Lunapark data shows below), it's a different story for Asia. In the following we would like to discuss what has to be considered when you want to internationalize your online marketing.
Alternatives to online marketing via Google
Do you know such a thing as a competitor from Google? Not those small projects like
Wolfram Alpha, which is a semantic search trying to give you the best relevant answer (and not a website, where you can find an answer) or
Duckduckgo and
Ixquick. The last two focus much on data security of their users to differentiate from Google and recently saw a lot of traffic to their websites. But still - as data from Lunapark show clearly - it cannot mess with Google.
Especially for Europe Google has an overall leading role for the user when it comes to find informations and websites.
http://www.luna-park.de/blog/9142-suchmaschinen-marktanteile-europa-2014 Source: luna-park GmbH © 2016; Data source: Statcounter.com; Link:
www.luna-park.deOnline Marketing is a different story in Asia
When we think about Asia – as entity in our mind –, as Europeans we often think of it as ONE entity. But this is a mistake in many ways because it's a VERY diverse one. If you want to expand your marketing into the biggest continent of the world (2/3 of earths land mass, 60 % of all people live here) we have to embrace this diversity and rather divide Asia in different regions and approach these regions on a not global, not local but regional base.
The initial tactic I always would recommend to start with is Search Engine Advertising/PPC – as it allows you to identify your potential with the least amount of resources you need to spend.
Which region does make sense? And which one to attack first? Regarding a geographical classification I would go as follows: There is China including Hong Kong and Taiwan, Japan often combined with South Korea, Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) and South East Asia (SEA) – the last consisting of such different entities like Singapore, the SEA powerhouse in economics, and Indonesia – the world’s 4th largest country by population, its capital Jakarta counting for over 30 million people. And not to forget India with over 1.2 billion people.
So starting in Asia with your business, first it makes sense to prioritize the different regions – some have tough language barriers, mainly China and Japan, partly SEA. Easier inroads are into ANZ, where the search engine world is still in order from a Google perspective, over 90 % market share. Singapore as another English speaking market provides as well quick access and Google is the leader there, too (over 90%).
When it comes to search engines, different players for different regions in Asia have to been considered
After that we need to overcome the language barrier. In
Japan Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.co.jp) and Google battle for the first place, which means you have to be in both engines to get the full potential out of your SEM. In South Korea
Naver (http://www.naver.com) is the clear No 1 in the market. And in Taiwan again Yahoo is the clear leader, while in China we have
Baidu (http://www.baidu.com) as the main player, and Google is no player at all. India as well is Google dominated and both particularly interesting because of its size and a difficult market because of its regulations.
The culture how people expect a search engine to be is very different and that is one reason for Google not being the market leader in different Asian regions. In Japan you expect a side to be full of information and blinking – while in China Baidu is as sober as Google.
So keep in mind that Asia is different, not only compared to Europe or the US, but as well in itself.
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Author: Alexander Bock is Vice President Global Online Marketing at
Arvato SCM Solutions
You can explore more on this topic and the author,
Alexander Bock at the CeBIT Digital Marketing & Experience Arena where
he will part of a number of different expert discussions and a keynote talk on Friday / 18.03. at 10:00 am. More information about
Arvato SCM Solutions can be found here.
