Inbound Marketing Thriving in Asian Markets

Three out of four marketers in Asia are prioritizing inbound efforts, with growing SEO/organic traffic and creating blog content topping the list of activities being put into action, a new study by HubSpot finds.

The top priorities for marketers in Asia (regardless of company size) are generating contacts/leads and converting them into customers. The survey included responses from about 360 marketers from all over Asia representing small businesses and enterprise-level companies.

Proving return on investment (ROI) was both a priority and a challenge and the study found a strong correlation between measurement of ROI and securing additional budget for their efforts.

The survey showed marketers who consistently and frequently measured analytics (at least two times per week) were twice as likely to achieve greater ROI.

One of the differences between Asian marketers vs. international marketers is where they struggle. Measuring return on investment and securing budget are top challenges globally for marketers, but the challenges of creating content for international audiences and hiring top talent were specific to Asian marketers.

“As inbound marketing and sales methodology continues to take root around the world, the Asia State of Inbound Report shows that in a region like Asia where a large percentage of the population are mobile-first, inbound tactics that focus on creating quality content that pulls people towards your brand really work,” said Ryan Bonnici, Marketing Director APAC, HubSpot.

Marketers Recognize Need for Multicultural Strategies

Marketers in Asia aren’t alone in their struggle to develop content for international and culturally diverse audiences. The CMO Council and Geoscape white paper published in September 2015 showed how U.S. marketers are beginning to develop strategies to best engage culturally diverse audiences.

More than 80 percent of B2B marketers did not have a multicultural marketing initiative in place, but 66 percent of respondents had the support of their CMO to develop a strategy.