As you head to the end of the financial year, perhaps you have some “use it or lose it” marketing funding left in this year’s budgets. How should you invest it to deliver results and lay a foundation for future activity next year? Based on Current Asia’s experience with a portfolio of B2B clients across technology, property, professional services, and financial services, here’s a rundown of what works in Asia Pacific right now and why.
- Events – Combining digital marketing with offline events boosts interaction and engagement by more than 50% in our experience. Content is compelling, but the urgency of an event creates time pressure and real reasons for prospects and customers to engage. Although it’s ironic it’s also true that digital can work better when it crosses over to offline.
- Work with specialist publishers – There is a shortage of data in the region, and lots of brands chasing that data. People with desirable titles such as CIOs must be completely barraged by all kinds of messaging way out of proportion to their ability to process it or act on it. Working with publishers and event organizers to sponsor their newsletters or include opt-in/download links can be relatively expensive on a CPA basis, but it saves looking through a lot of haystacks for a very few needles.
- Programmatic traffic driving – Yes, it still works. Using search and display to drive relevant audiences to a microsite to download a piece of content in return for their opt-in contact details is not sexy, but the flow of marketing qualified leads is real. Google Search & Display and targeted inventory from Current Asia partners such as The Trade Desk and Ctrl Shift — and of course Baidu and Tencent in China – drive results with clear attribution models.
- Test-and-learn – do a little, learn a lot. Repeat. Always a good idea, especially with analytics to decipher what’s happening, and highlight the strategies to double down on. Innovation disrupts, refreshes and energizes. Even failures provide valuable learning.
- LinkedIn – Sponsored Content is a particularly strong way to get your content in front of your audiences by company, geography, job title, and skill set. LinkedIn does a slick sales pitch, for its marketing solutions, backed up by performance. Good thing we’ve all been endorsing our colleagues for their skills for many years to help with the laser-like targeting!
- Mid-to-lower funnel content – Thought leadership is terrific for building your database and positioning your company. However, it’s important not to let your campaign get stranded at the “our world is changing and here’s our point of view” stage. You’ll get significant business value from buyers guides, case studies, tips, and other lower- to mid-funnel content. And the more specific you make it, the better! You may turn off 99% of your audience but the ones who engage will be truly interested and moving towards contacting sales.
Your customers are not standing still so you certainly can’t. Want idea of what work for your business now? Contact Current Asia at info@currentasia.com or call +852 2535 7738.
