Discussing the burgeoning trend of businesses expanding their marketing output around the globe was Oban Digital founder, Greig Holbrook who took questions on how businesses could target new markets, including Asia.
He discussed the need for a road map for businesses, but revealed that he didn’t believe that many companies developing one, opting instead for a ‘build it and they will come’ methodology.
Holbrook also bemoaned the number of companies who were willing to spent big budgets on English-language content, only to then spend a minimum on automated translation or a translation agency to repurpose it in other languages. He advised taking time and effort to develop local market-led content, but added that this would need real understanding of each territory being entered.
The same was true of understanding popular keys words which varied from country-to-country, which could prove a powerful draw for audiences, but added that this method would need continual optimisation.
Holbrook underlined that making assumptions about a marketplace was a mistake and explained that the US audience was being ahead of the UK in its digital uptake, with China, Brazil and India in a third tier, where desktop access was more limited than the adoption of mobile previously.
Being aware of internationalised thinking is crucial he relayed, including the need for knowledge of opportunities around emerging retail opportunities such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Singles Day, which has proven to be the single largest day of spend in history in China. He also highlighted a day in Russia which celebrated women, and a day in Korea and Japan where loved ones were given white goods as gifts. Such knowledge of emerging opportunities can prove vital for many companies to utilise, he suggested.
Holborn also said that he felt that restrictions within China, notoriously closed off to the west in the past, maybe softening slightly with visa restrictions perhaps not quite as difficult a process, and retailer Alibaba making strides into the western world.