What Is Search Engine Optimization?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the art and science of optimizing your website to enhance its visibility on popular search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The ultimate goal of SEO is to rank higher in search engine results, driving organic (non-paid) traffic to your website.

Why SEO Matters in Malaysia

Malaysia’s digital landscape is rapidly evolving, with cities like Kuala Lumpur and Penang witnessing a surge in online activity. Consumers and businesses alike are increasingly turning to search engines for solutions. In this context, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services have transformed from an option to a necessity. For businesses in Malaysia, SEO services are the key to capturing local audiences and gaining a competitive edge in the flourishing digital marketplace.

Imagine a local bakery in Kuala Lumpur. Instead of relying solely on word-of-mouth, it now needs to ensure its online presence through professional SEO services. When someone in KL searches for “best bakeries near me”, SEO services ensure that this bakery’s offerings are prominently displayed, enabling it to thrive in Malaysia’s dynamic digital landscape. SEO services are the essential strategy that bridges the gap between businesses and their customers, making it a vital journey towards success in the ever-expanding world of Malaysian online commerce.

Key Element of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

In the realm of digital marketing, understanding the key elements of SEO is akin to holding the map to online success. This section is your comprehensive guide to mastering these elements, with a focus on both on-page and off-page SEO strategies that are tailored to the unique nuances of the Malaysian digital landscape.

1. On-Page SEO: Crafting the Foundation

On-page SEO is your launchpad for achieving higher search engine rankings. It refers to the optimization strategies that are applied directly to your website. In this section, we will delve into the intricate details that can make or break your on-page SEO game in Malaysia.

a) Keyword Research: The Language of Malaysians

Understanding the way Malaysians search online is paramount. Our guide will take you through the process of thorough keyword research, uncovering the terms and phrases that resonate with the local audience. By aligning your content with these insights, you will ensure that your website speaks the language of your target users.

b) Crafting Compelling Meta Tags: The Art of Attraction

Meta tags, including titles and descriptions, are your website’s first impression in search results. Discover how to craft compelling meta tags that not only inform but also entice clicks from Malaysian searchers. We will explore the delicate balance between optimization and user appeal, ensuring your listings stand out.

c) Creating High-Quality Content: The Content King

Quality content is the backbone of on-page SEO. Dive into the principles of creating high-quality content that resonates with your audience and addresses their specific needs. Understand the importance of relevance, depth, and engagement, and how they contribute to your site’s authority.

d) Exceptional User Experience: Navigating the Digital Landscape

User experience (UX) is an integral part of on-page SEO. Learn how to ensure an exceptional user experience, from fast-loading pages to intuitive navigation. In Malaysia’s competitive digital arena, a positive user experience can be the key to retaining visitors and converting them into loyal customers.

2. Off-Page SEO: Building Your Digital Presence

Off-page SEO extends beyond your website’s domain and plays a pivotal role in establishing a strong online presence in Malaysia. In this section, we will unravel the art of off-page SEO, including techniques that are tailored to the Malaysian digital landscape.

a) Link Building: The Digital Connection

Link building is the currency of off-page SEO. Discover the strategies for effective link building that can bolster your website’s authority in the eyes of search engines. We will explore how to acquire high-quality backlinks and the nuances of local link building for the Malaysian market.

b) Harnessing Social Signals: The Power of Influence

Social media is a force to be reckoned with in Malaysia. Understand how to harness social signals to boost your website’s visibility. We will explore strategies for sharing and promoting your content on social platforms, tapping into the vast digital communities that thrive in the country.

c) Online Reputation Management: Guarding Your Image

In the age of digital transparency, your online reputation is everything. Learn how to manage your online reputation effectively. We will discuss strategies for handling reviews, testimonials, and feedback in a way that builds trust and credibility among Malaysian audiences.

3. Technical SEO: The Key to Speed and Visibility

In the fast-paced digital landscape of Malaysia, where mobile internet usage is on the rise, the technical aspects of Search Engine Optimization hold immense significance. This section is your gateway to unlocking the secrets of technical SEO, with a special focus on optimizing website speed and mobile friendliness, as well as harnessing the incredible potential of schema markup to enhance your visibility in local search results.

a) Website Speed and Mobile Optimization

With a significant portion of Malaysia’s population relying on mobile devices for online access, website speed has never been more critical. Slow-loading pages can lead to high bounce rates, frustrated users, and a drop in search engine rankings. Our guidance will take you through the steps to ensure your website is lightning-fast, catering to the preferences of the local audience.

• Optimizing Images: Learn the art of image compression and selection, ensuring your visuals are high-quality and load quickly on mobile devices.
• Responsive Design: Explore the principles of responsive web design, which allows your site to adapt seamlessly to various screen sizes, ensuring a user-friendly experience on mobile.
• Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): Discover how CDNs can distribute your content across multiple servers, reducing server load times and enhancing website performance.
• Mobile-First Indexing: Understand Google’s mobile-first indexing and why it’s crucial for your website’s ranking in Malaysia’s mobile-centric landscape.

b) Schema Markup

Schema markup is the secret sauce that can elevate your website’s visibility in local search results. It’s all about providing context to search engines, enabling them to understand your content better and present it more prominently in relevant search queries within the Malaysian context.

• Rich Snippets: Learn how to implement schema markup to create rich snippets that enhance your search listings with additional information, such as reviews, ratings, and event details.
• Local Business Schema: If you’re a local business in Malaysia, discover how to use schema markup to provide essential information like your address, phone number, and business hours, making it easier for local customers to find you.
• Product Schema: For e-commerce websites targeting the Malaysian market, we will explore how product schema can boost the visibility of your products in search results, complete with pricing and availability details.
• Event Schema: If you’re hosting events in Malaysia, learn how to use event schema to ensure that your event details, including dates, venues, and ticket information, stand out in search results.

Local Search Engine Optimization for Malaysia

Local SEO in Malaysia is a game-changer for businesses aiming to establish a strong online presence within their specific geographic regions. It’s not just about being found on the internet; it’s about being discovered by the right people, right in your neighborhood.

a) Google My Business Optimization

For Malaysian businesses, Google My Business (GMB) is an invaluable tool. This section will provide insights into optimizing your GMB listing to improve visibility in local search results. It includes tips on managing reviews and leveraging GMB features to connect with local customers effectively.

b) Citations and Local Directories

Effective management of your online presence across local directories and building citations is crucial for local SEO success. We will delve into strategies for ensuring consistency and accuracy across various platforms, strengthening your local SEO efforts.

SEO Tools That You Need To Know

In the world of Search Engine Optimization, having the right tools at your disposal can be the difference between ranking on the first page of the search results or getting lost in the digital wilderness. Let’s explore some of the essential SEO tools and resources that will not only streamline your optimization efforts but also help you gain a competitive edge in the ever-evolving Malaysian SEO landscape.

a) Keyword Research Tools

Keyword research is the foundation of effective SEO, providing insights into how your audience searches online. In this section, we will explore powerful tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush, essential for understanding Malaysian search trends and improving your online visibility.

• Google Keyword Planner: This free tool from Google provides valuable insights into search volume, competition, and keyword trends. It’s particularly useful for understanding how Malaysians search for products or services.
• SEMrush: A comprehensive SEO suite that offers keyword research, competitor analysis, and more. SEMrush has a specific database for Malaysia, making it a must-have for local SEO.

b) On-Page Optimization Tools

On-page optimization is the art of refining your website’s individual pages to boost their search engine visibility. These tools empower you to craft user-friendly, content-rich pages that resonate with both search engines and human visitors. In this section, we will introduce you to some invaluable on-page optimization tools like Yoast SEO and SurferSEO.

• Yoast SEO: If you’re using WordPress, Yoast SEO is a plugin that guides you through optimizing your content for SEO. It helps you craft better meta titles, descriptions, and more.
• SurferSEO: SurferSEO is a tool that analyzes top-ranking pages in Malaysia and suggests optimizations for your content based on the ranking factors they share.

c) Link Building Tools

Link building is the linchpin of a successful Search Engine Optimization strategy, playing a pivotal role in enhancing your website’s authority and search engine ranking. In this section, we will delve into the world of link building tools that are indispensable for establishing a robust online presence. From tools like Ahrefs and Majestic that provide in-depth analysis of your backlink profile to solutions that help you discover new linking opportunities, we will explore how these tools can elevate your SEO efforts and drive organic traffic to your website.

• Ahrefs: Ahrefs is a powerhouse for backlink analysis. You can identify your competitors’ backlinks and find opportunities to build high-quality links to your site.
• Majestic: Majestic offers a detailed analysis of backlinks and trust flow, which can be invaluable for understanding your site’s link profile and its impact on your SEO.

d) Technical SEO Tools

Technical SEO is the backbone of a website’s search engine visibility and overall user experience. It involves optimizing the technical aspects of your site to ensure it’s accessible, efficient, and search engine-friendly. In this section, we will introduce you to an array of powerful technical SEO tools that will help you diagnose and resolve critical issues, improve site speed, and enhance mobile-friendliness.

• PageSpeed Insights: This Google tool analyzes your website’s speed and performance on both mobile and desktop devices. It provides recommendations for improving page load times, which can have a significant impact on SEO and user experience.
• Screaming Frog: A website crawler that can help you identify technical issues like broken links, duplicate content, and missing meta tags.

e) Content Optimization Tools

Content optimization is the art of fine-tuning your website’s content to not only engage your audience but also to rank favorably on search engines. In this section, we will introduce you to an arsenal of content optimization tools that are designed to help you craft compelling, relevant, and SEO-friendly content.

• Clearscope: Clearscope analyzes top-ranking pages for your target keywords and provides content recommendations to improve your chances of ranking higher.
• Grammarly: Ensuring your content is error-free and reads well is essential. Grammarly helps with spelling, grammar, and style checks.

Analytics and Measurement

Search Engine Optimization is not a set-and-forget strategy; it requires continuous monitoring and adjustment. In Malaysia’s competitive SEO landscape, tracking your progress effectively is vital. Let’s dive into how you can measure your SEO efforts and make data-driven decisions.

a) Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

To gauge the success of your SEO campaigns, you need to define KPIs that align with your business goals. Some common KPIs include:

• Organic Traffic: The number of visitors coming to your site through search engines.
• Keyword Rankings: Tracking the positions of your target keywords in the search results.
• Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who take a desired action, like making a purchase or filling out a contact form.
• Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page.

b) Metrics and Analytics Tools

Understanding the performance of your Search Engine Optimization efforts is pivotal for making informed decisions and optimizing your strategy. In this section, we will delve deeper into the essential metrics and analytics tools that will empower you to monitor, measure, and fine-tune your SEO campaign for success in Malaysia’s competitive digital landscape.

• Google Analytics: This free tool provides a wealth of data about your website’s traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates. Set up custom reports to track KPIs specific to your SEO goals.
• Google Search Console: As mentioned earlier, GSC offers insights into your website’s performance in Google search results, including click-through rates and the keywords driving traffic.
• SEMrush and Ahrefs: These SEO suites offer detailed analytics, including competitor analysis, backlink metrics, and keyword tracking specific to Malaysia.

c) ROI Measurement

Ultimately, SEO is an investment, and you want to know that it’s paying off. To measure ROI, calculate the revenue generated from organic traffic and compare it to your SEO expenses.

By regularly analyzing KPIs and metrics using these tools, you can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your SEO efforts in the Malaysian market. This data empowers you to make informed decisions, refine your strategy, and stay competitive in the dynamic world of SEO in Malaysia. Remember, SEO is a journey, and the tools and analytics are your trusty compass and map to navigate the digital landscape effectively.

Staying Ahead in 2023 With Emerging SEO Trends

To maintain a competitive edge in Malaysia’s ever-evolving digital landscape, it’s essential to stay ahead of the curve. Explore the latest SEO trends for 2023, such as voice search optimization, AI-driven SEO strategies, and the growing importance of user experience (UX) in Search Engine Optimization. Adapt and embrace these trends to ensure sustained growth and visibility for your website.

In conclusion, SEO stands as a dynamic and indispensable element of online success in Malaysia in 2023. By mastering the fundamental principles outlined in this guide and staying vigilant to the ever-changing SEO landscape, you can achieve higher rankings, increased organic traffic, and a more prominent online presence in Malaysia’s competitive SERPs. The time to start optimizing your website for success in this thriving digital marketplace is now. Take action today and reap the substantial rewards that Search Engine Optimization can offer to your Malaysian business or website.

The post Mastering SEO in Malaysia: A Comprehensive Guide appeared first on Ematic Solutions.

Many people recognize us for our strong, data-driven, tech-enabled approach to digital marketing. We take pride in holding our ground. However, we understand that in today’s competitive digital world, it’s not enough to rely solely on data-driven optimization to achieve success. Without effective creative designs, your digital performance will only go so far. That’s why we’re now offering a full suite of design services to help you create visually appealing and persuasive websites, marketing materials, logos, and more.

Our talented designers work hand-in-hand with our consulting team and development team to create the most effective marketing communication and UI/UX solutions for web, iOS, and Android. We take pride in following modern trends and applying proven approaches to design, prototyping, and product validation to provide you with the best possible design solutions for your brand.

By complementing our data-driven optimization with creativity, we’re confident that we can help you achieve real impact and stand out from the competition. Whether you need a flexible expansion when your designers are busy or professional help to provide a design solution for your brand, we’ve got you covered.

So why wait? Let’s work together to take your digital performance to the next level. We’ll share more details on each of them in the coming weeks. Keep an eye out!

The post New Design Services On The Way appeared first on Ematic Solutions.

Dear Elixus Clients,

For those who don’t know me, I’m Paul Tenney the Founder and CEO of Ematic Solutions, the parent company of Elixus. Elixus was originally formed as part of Ematic Solutions back in May of 2019, but with its exceptional growth and the rapidly growing demand in digital marketing we made the decision to spin it out back in late 2019 as its own company and brand. For several years, this model worked very well as it allowed both Ematic and Elixus to focus on what each did best, and operate fairly independently.

That said, as digital marketing and the broader digital ecosystem has continued to evolve, I continued to see an increasing interconnectedness between all things digital, and grew to believe that you simply can’t operate any aspect of digital marketing in isolation anymore.  In light of this, over the past year we’ve been working to integrate Ematic Solutions and Elixus into one business, one operation, and going forward in 2023 we will officially operate as one brand, Ematic Solutions.

We, like many of you, are quite fond of the Elixus brand, and while it’s a bit of a shame to leave it behind, consolidating it into Ematic Solutions allows us to bring Elixus’ value to a much broader reach and presence. Ematic has been in operation since 2013 with its headquarters in Singapore, over 200 employees across the region, offices in 9 markets across Asia with strong local teams spread across all of those markets. We are one of the very few independent agencies able to bring such a strong regional presence to our clients.

Everything you enjoy about Elixus remains the same except the name- our team is still here, the offering remains the same, and our dedication to ensuring the success of your digital marketing remains our driving focus.

With the addition of the Ematic Solutions team though, we will bring a whole new set of capabilities and offerings that can only improve what we’re working on with you today. For those who don’t know Ematic, our company grew up as a CRM-focused business, bringing the deepest arsenal of partnerships in all of Asia, the foremost expertise in the CRM space, and our own technology which has been backed by investors such as Wavemaker, 500 Startups, TNB Aura, Enterprise Singapore and MDI Telkom Indonesia.

Ematic and Elixus have been collaborating over the past year to bring even more technology partnerships and service offerings to the market, and we hope the new combined offering can address your challenges and needs in an even more fundamental way than before, and that the impact we’re able to bring for your business is stronger than ever.

A few key highlights of the kinds of things Ematic Solutions can do that are new to you:

• Radically restructure your Marketing Technology spend: between our 80+ marketing technology partners and massive aggregate buying power, Ematic can help companies improve both the quality of their marketing technology investment while significantly reducing the overall costs.
• Engineering and data capabilities: Ematic Solutions has nearly 50 in-house engineers that help our clients build the fully-integrated digital ecosystem of their dreams.
• New verticals including CRM, CRO, SEO, Ecommerce and Analytics to complement the Social Media, Performance Marketing, Design, Creative and UI/UX offerings of Elixus.

We have been developing and improving the service in this combined fashion for most of 2022, though we’ve maintained separate brands until now, and we do expect that this brand transition should be seamless for our clients.

Through this initiative, we hope to open up more ways of collaboration to you. We can now complement and augment your teams and capabilities aside from only outsourcing.Our goal with the new combined team is to be able to help your business with whatever you need in terms of your digital initiatives, and we’re aware that those priorities can change as things evolve. Particularly heading into 2023, we know a lot of our clients are being asked to do more with less, and that often means there are gaps in your manpower and budgets to do the things you’re being asked to deliver. This is precisely where a partner like Ematic can be the ultimate help, as we can plug nearly any gap you have whether that’s right now or longer term.

We hope this update doesn’t come as too much of a shock to you, and please rest assured that what you love about Elixus isn’t going to change, and we hope that this initiative can help every one of our clients achieve greater success in 2023. I’d also love to hear from you – if you have any questions or feedback, you’re welcome to contact me directly at paul.tenney@ematicsolutions.com. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all more in 2023, so in the meantime Happy New Year from all of us at Ematic and Elixus and we look forward to a prosperous year ahead.

Paul

The post Letter from CEO – An Elixus x Ematic Update appeared first on Ematic Solutions.

MarTech investments account for around 25% of total marketing budgets on average. However, in the 2022 Gartner Marketing Technology survey, marketers report that they utilize only 42% of the capabilities available in their MarTech stack, down from 58% in 2020.

Challenges that lead to Martech underutilization

The last ten years have seen an explosion of interest and new applications in MarTech. Back in 2011 when Scott Brinker started tracking the MarTech landscape, there were just 150 tools. Today, the number is 9,932.

The complexity has grown exponentially, which makes it more challenging than ever to keep technology up-to-date and staff up-to-speed in acquiring the necessary MarTech knowledge.

Challenges are mounting in all aspects, but most marketers cited the below three root causes as the biggest hurdles standing in the way of effectively leveraging MarTech, according to Gartner’s survey:

1. A significant amount of overlap among marketing technology solutions (30%)
2. Difficulty identifying and recruiting talent to drive adoption/utilization (28%)
3. Complexity/sprawl of the marketing technology ecosystem (27%)
   

Why should you care?

Failing to fully leverage the tools or finding more cost-effective alternatives can lead to a degradation of your marketing ROI, especially during times like 2023 when the economic outlook doesn’t look promising. The impact of such gaps will be even more detrimental in the event of recession-driven budget tightening.

Make better use of your marketing tools

It’s time to scrutinize your investment on marketing tools and squeeze out more ROI! If you are looking for ways, here are some of our suggestions:

1. Conduct a marketing technology stack audit

The very important first step is to identify the gaps and establish routine measurement. You should:

a) Start with reviewing what tools you have in place, how they work together, whether they meet the goals and requirements you set for your business and what your team has been using or not using them for.

b) Calculate the percentage of utilization and the cost of acquisition against the business value it provides to keep track of your Martech ROI.

Business goals and objectives shift over time, so learn to adapt with new marketing tools and integration. To keep up with the ever-changing business landscape, it’s observed that more marketing teams start to assess their marketing tech stack at a more frequent, regular pace.

If you don’t have a review routine in place or struggle with how to make a start, consider taking advantage of our free Martech audit. With our experience built on thousands of Martech stack reviews, we can set you off to a flying start much faster.

2. Choose best-of-breed over integrated suites

Marketers are divided between best of breed and best of suite when it comes to marketing technology investments. Both approaches have their pros and cons.

Although in Southeast Asia, we see businesses prefer an all-in-one platform for its ease of management almost by default, recent research indicates businesses that choose the best-of-breed approach have a higher chance to see the technology exceeding their expectation (2022 Gartner Marketing and Communications Technology Survey).

An integrated suite that bundles all the functionalities may seem powerful, but in reality marketers often find themselves only using a small set of features yet unable to cut the cost off from unused ones.

Rather than being locked into one inflexible, single-vendor platform, where change requires huge amounts of planning, resources, and disruption, consider using best-of-breed solutions to build a composable Martech stack that allows you to stay more agile and adaptable to economic changes.

Read more: Growth Stack Series #2 – HOW TO develop a strategy for your Growth Stack

3. Migration pain shouldn’t be a blocker

Many businesses are passive about evaluating new marketing tech alternatives, not because they are 100% satisfied with the existing solutions, but because migration and relearning of a new platform can be strenuous.

The fear of data loss, missing connectivity and level of engineering efforts required stand out as recurring concerns when it comes to replatforming, especially among companies that are short of engineer resources or stuck in monolithic legacy business systems that don’t integrate easily with other solutions.

Don’t let the friction stop your quest for more effective tools though – Migration pain is a one-off but the impact can be long-term. If migration or integration is your bottleneck, Martech agencies with tech capabilities like Ematic Solutions can serve as your augmented engineering team.

At Ematic, we’ve performed thousands of platform migrations – We can smoothen your migration/integration by providing both hands-on engineering support and strategic technology planning to step-change your way to the stack of your dreams.

4. Leverage outside experts to bridge the skill gap

However good a tool it may be in theory, tech will never provide ROI in practice if end users can’t get a grip with it. Internal talents and skills gaps are considered the biggest challenges to capitalize on the investment in marketing technology.

But let’s face it! With the proliferation of new marketing tools and updates, asking your team to always keep up the knowledge is a bit unrealistic as they also need to focus on strategy and other areas where they excel.

On the other hand, Martech consultancy agencies like Ematic Solutions have an advantage of “economies of scale” in knowledge accumulation across platforms and industries which is often impossible to match in-house. Leaning on such experts to help your team with onboarding, platform adoption and staying abreast on industry updates that are relevant to your business will make it less difficult to get your in-house team to ramp up the skills and thrive in the complex Martech world.

According to the State of Martech 2021 report, 18% of senior marketers are using an external partner or agency to upskill their employees.

Optimize your marketing technology stack for success

Marketing tool utilization is essential to your digital marketing success. We’ve built knowledge in hundreds of MarTech tools and would like our expertise to be of use to you!

The post Is your Martech under-utilized appeared first on Ematic Solutions.

Although it sounds extremely challenging, it is not impossible.

Marketing during an economic downturn presents particular challenges. It’s not a knee-jerk reaction to simply put all marketing on hold and pause advertising. On the contrary, it requires attention on operating your marketing system at optimal efficiency and making the right cuts while investing towards the future.

But how do you make a start? Well, one very easy option is – talk to Ematic!

Ematic’s expertise in digital optimization

Digital optimization is our day-to-day. As you may have known, Ematic offers a wide arsenal of MarTech tools and full-funnel marketing services, so that we have a high ground advantage to help any business optimize their whole digital ecosystem. Whether it’s migrating technologies to lower cost solutions, examining marketing strategies that are wasteful, taking over from high-priced agencies, or complimenting your marketing team’s capacity to ensure their productivity, we have plenty of experience in systematically eliminating wasteful spend without disrupting ongoing growth plans.

The three pillars of digital optimization

For those who are interested to know more, here we summarize the three key pillars you should review to optimize your marketing system:

MarTech Stack Optimization

MarTech investments make up a quarter of marketing budgets on average. However, the latest survey from Gartner reports that marketers utilize only 42% of the breadth of capabilities available in their MarTech stack overall, down from 58% in 2020. The under-utilization means you are overspending on something unnecessary for your actual use. This problem is particularly prominent when you are using an all-in-one integrated suite. When it comes to digital system optimization, MarTech investment is an area where you can oftentimes find some fat to trim.

Ask these questions:

• What features do you buy for the platform and how many have you used? Do you use your platforms to the fullest?
• Is there a cheaper, more flexible alternative that fits your actual use and need?

Do these:

• Implement an audit of your MarTech stack deployment and usage
• Leverage professional agency like Ematic for overall diagnosis and help determine the best vendor approach
• Ingest right knowledge and skills to drive adoption/utilization

A MarTech optimization example: Cupshe

Cupshe, a female swimwear brand, previously ran their CRM on Mailchimp in some countries and Klaviyo in some others. This put them in a pricing disadvantage since they couldn’t aggregate the send volumes to effectively drive down the unit cost. In addition, both platforms didn’t support in-app or push channels to achieve real cross-channel CRM.

To overcome these issues, we helped Cupshe move to Iterable, a cross-channel CRM platform with rich features, added our monthly platform management service and achieved cheaper unit cost per send. It was a triple upgrade with even lower total cost than before!

Marketing channel efficiency

Most marketing teams structure ownerships by marketing channels. However, even when everyone is working hard, optimizing each channel doesn’t always sum up as optimizing the whole portfolio to its best. Sometimes you find you are over-communicating the same message to the same group of users; sometimes you realize your paid channels accidentally cannibalize your organic channels (common mistake in SEO & SEM).

On the other hand, the demise of 3rd party cookies and the rise of data privacy make it harder to rely on paid advertising as the main growth driver.

Ask these questions:

• Do your channels work in silo or do they create synergy?
• Are you effectively capturing the audience and moving them down the funnel?
• Have you seen a diminishing result in paid ads simply using demographic or interest data?
• Have you developed a 1st party data strategy to empower your marketing?

Do these:

• Establish data groundwork to collect, use data and understand your marketing attribution
• Develop a cross-channel, integrated marketing approach driven by 1st party data
• Strengthen existing relationships and build upon customer loyalty

Process & Team resources

When the economy declines, consumers tend to tighten their belts. The decrease in demand imposes a shift of business mindset from “move fast” to “stay focused”. In such a situation, marketing leaders need to take a broader perspective on how they think of their in-house teams. It is natural to think of using the existing team to cover more work for cost-saving purposes, but you might risk drowning your team in the grunt work and leaving them little time to focus on real value-add, which impedes team productivity and refrains the growth you could have maintained.

Ask these questions:

• What should be your key 1-3 big bets to drive growth?
• Are you able to move your team nimbly to support those focused areas while keeping the lights on?

Do these:

• Adopt an agile approach and streamline the process to deliver value more quickly and minimize waste
• Regularly review your team resource, skillset, productivity and identify the gaps
• Allow your team to focus on fewer but more impactful bets while providing enough support to take the tedious execution off their hands.

A team resource optimization example: Uniqlo

Uniqlo has a lean digital marketing team in each local market. From early on, they understood the value of hiring external experts to compliment the capacity and knowledge of their in-house teams.

They started leveraging Ematic to manage and optimize their email campaigns in the Philippines in 2018. With the collaboration, they were happy to save their internal team hundreds of hours from execution per month, so soon it was introduced to other SEA markets like Indonesia, Vietnam.

Closing

Your ROI is our focus. Ideally, we aim to introduce our services without any increase to your total costs.

In the following series, we will talk deeper in each pillar. But if you cannot wait, why don’t you talk to us now? We are happy to help you look into your current situation, for free!

Get a free consultation

The post Finding the ROI Upside of an Economic Downturn appeared first on Ematic Solutions.

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For one, digital marketing is highly efficient because of how digitally connected everyone is around the world today. Therefore it is easier to reach a wider audience for a brand by sharing its product information and promotions through various channels.

One aspect of digital marketing that is absolutely beneficial is performance marketing. This is when you would set up ad campaigns in various channels in different ways to grow your brand awareness and connect with your audience. These ads, along with the data you will get once started, can provide your business with the competitive edge it needs. 

How exactly can performance marketing help your business?

As mentioned above, performance marketing is all about spreading the word about your product or service through various channels – which can include Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads, among others.  It plays an important role in achieving your business goals as you can specifically concentrate on your targeted audience. 

• Grow your traffic on website or app: Performance marketing can help you grow the traffic needed in an efficient way. You can specify your target audience based on your objectives to drive them to visit your website or app.

• Increase your online or in-app sales & repurchases: Performance marketing can allow you to specify your campaign ads based on your KPI. Performance marketing can help you drive sales or even repurchases by allowing you to heavily specify your campaign ads and measure the ROI.

• Optimize your cost: In performance marketing, you’re not only paying when the action occurs in your campaign, but also optimizing your metrics based on your objectives such as clicks, impressions, leads, and various others. This is so that your budget is spent wisely and the ads are targeted correctly at the same time.

There’s a certain art to running a successful performance marketing strategy, which might require an expert to build and implement. The key is to not only focus on one goal but also to oversee the entire process from building awareness to gaining more conversions in the right way in order to make your spending worth every penny.

However, there are plenty of digital agencies that provide performance marketing services. Unfortunately, not all of them have in-depth knowledge of thoroughly implementing ad campaigns either in the technical or strategic sense. This is why Ematic is launching its performance marketing service. We’ll tackle all the common (and uncommon, we’ll do our best) problems that will occur and help you to deliver the best results.

The way we optimize your ad campaign is to approach it holistically. l We’ll focus on the entire journey: fixing your tracking issues, structuring your data settings, implementing a full-funnel ad strategy, optimizing it through key touch points of your customer’s journey from Acquisition to Retention, and implementing cycles of A/B testing iteration to find the perfect matches.

If you’re ready to set a new bar for your digital marketing efforts, we are here for you. Check our latest service here, or contact us directly to discuss your business needs.

The post How Performance Marketing Can Help Your Business appeared first on Ematic Solutions.

The performance marketing association defines performance marketing as the following:

“Performance marketing is a comprehensive term that refers to online marketing and advertising programs in which advertisers (retailers or merchants) pay marketing companies (affiliates or publishers) when a specific action is completed; such as a sale, lead or click.”

So what does this actually mean?

As a marketer (or a company), you want to directly connect with your audience and bring attention to your product, service, or brand. To do this, you may create an ad that is shown to people on social media, or similarly in Google results when they search for certain products. With performance marketing, you pay depending on how your campaign performs. For example, you might pay every time a user clicks on your ad, or only when your campaign generates a sale.

This is totally different compared to the traditional marketing model, when for example, in print advertising, you will pay upfront for your ad to be printed. You’ve invested the money and effort upfront, and have little influence on how your ad performs.

How performance marketing works

To keep it simple, performance marketing has two distinct sides. One party owns the audience and another party (the marketer) wants to reach that audience.

Picture LinkedIn, which has over 774 million users who’ve displayed their professional information on the platform. That is a specific set of users which are valuable to advertisers looking to sell to these individuals. Through LinkedIn ads, marketers can target their desired customer profiles and pay based on the performance of specific actions such as clicks, downloads, or signups. Google offers the same to advertisers who want to reach unique audiences searching for products and services on their search engine. 

Performance marketing channels

Social Media Platforms

Performance marketing is the core of the social media platform’s business model. For example, Facebook and Instagram offer companies access to specific audiences through cost per click (CPC) performance ad models. TikTok and LinkedIn on the other hand, offer a combination of free organic reach and paid performance marketing-based reach. TikTok has a specific for you page where it would recommend content based on your audience preference and behavior, and for brands, this could mean free organic reach.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

As the name suggests, Search Engine Marketing relies on traffic, from search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Advertisers pay search engines to promote their landing pages when users search for keywords related to the service or products they offer, but they only pay when the user clicks on their website. 

Native advertising

Native advertising is designed to blend your ad into the publishers, or social platforms, design aesthetics and are therefore less intrusive to the end user. You may have seen examples of this content on platforms like the New York Times or Bloomberg with a ‘sponsored’ label, or content recommendation at the bottom of articles. 

Affiliate Channels

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance marketing where third parties introduce the advertiser’s products to their audience for a cut of the sale. This usually relies on affiliate networks that manage partner relationships.

Benefits of performance marketing

Analytics and data tracking: You get to measure the performance of your goals such as clicks, impressions, leads, and sales directly, and instantly. With modern marketing management tools, it’s easy to track your ad performance and adjust or even cancel your campaigns based on the insights gathered.

ROI-Driven Marketing: Performance marketing focuses on bringing in a good return on investment. You can watch the results in real-time, adjust or reallocate your budget as you see fit, and even put a full stop to campaigns to avoid overpaying for underperforming campaigns.

Targeted & new audiences

Performance marketing can help you acquire an increased and more diversified audience that wouldn’t otherwise be possible with traditional advertising. Campaigns are highly targeted and you can easily adjust based on the audience you want to target.

Leverage your business through performance marketing with Ematic

These days, it’s not enough that businesses establish good branding. The new age of data-backed marketing ensures you only pay for the results you want, so your ad spend is worth every penny. Performance marketing is an excellent method to build your brand, improve product awareness, interact with your audience or even increase your sales without worrying about wasting tight budgets.

If you’re looking for a performance marketing agency that can help you plan the best strategy to drive results for your business, look no further.  Ematic has just launched a new performance marketing service designed to increase your ROI. Learn more about our new service here, or contact us directly to discuss how we can help your business.

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Recently, we collaborated with our sister company, Elixus Agency, to establish a new offering – Content Marketing, with the goal of improving the quality of content online and providing better solutions to help brands expand their businesses. This is truly one of the important components we put together to fuel your marketing performance and enhance your digital marketing ecosystem.

Ematic’s Content Marketing service

Whether you want to build awareness, engagement, conversion or brand loyalty, pretty much everything you do in marketing requires good content. Yet, producing high-quality content and generating content consistently mark the top 2 challenges marketers face today*.

Ematic’s vision is to help you build an integrated digital ecosystem and solve whatever problems and needs you have so that you can keep things moving and growing. Content, in your digital marketing, is like the blood and vessels to pump the whole system. Without it, even a strong body wouldn’t work.

This is the very important reason we bring in top-notch content talents and present this Content Marketing solution for you. We are dedicated to providing you both the content quality to move the needle and the bandwidth to keep up in the game.

What is this service about

We support you to refine your audience persona and tell good stories of your brand in most communication channels you’re on.

Appealing storytelling and visual presentation are the powerful weapons we bring to you, but behind our creative content are solid insights, strategies and performance-driven optimizations to make your content success more than a one-hit wonder.

If you don’t have an in-house team, we can provide a full-suite solution for your content marketing; if you have some internal bandwidth but seek for scaling, we can work with you on the parts where you need the most help with.

What content types do we support

• Social media
• Online advertising
• Email marketing
• Landing page / web copy optimization
• SEO
• Motion videos and graphics

What’s special about our content marketing service

There are tons of content agencies, but more often than not they only specialize in one domain. You might have an agency extremely creative at social media marketing, and another that knows SEO principles to write blog content. Although each is good in their own space, they are not able to provide you a cohesive communication strategy and messaging. At Ematic, we are multi-channel experts and through an integrated approach, we eliminate the channel silo to manage the overall content experience with optimum efficiency. 

• Available for multiple channels: From social media to website copywriting, from blog posts to motion videos, we can help with any format of content creation that fits nicely with the channel’s advantage.
• Data & insight backed strategy: Making good content can be scientific too! We use data and consumer insight to support creativity, and monitor/review the performance of content in order to formulate more ideas for the next content iteration. 
• Audience personas in a smarter way: We build personas not only based on demographics but also motivation, psychographics, bizographics, relationship and modality, etc.
• Video first: Video brings higher engagement with your audience. We embed motion designers in our content team at your disposal whenever you want to turn static content into more interactive videos.

A new service, with a proven record!

We’ve worked with several renowned brands like Decathlon, Paul, KEF, to boost their content performance. We are excited to share more awesomesauce content and some good work we’ve done with you in the following series. Stay tuned!

Can’t wait?

Our Content Marketing service is now at your disposal. Check for more details here and let us do the magic for you!

Contact our experts

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1. Holistic approach to performance marketing
2. A/B testing
3. Marketing analytics
4. Engaging creatives

Let’s explore each of those points:

Holistic approach to performance marketing

Today, an average consumer journey involves at least 20 touchpoints. Your potential customers might be jumping around between multiple devices and channels. If you only focus on a single ad channel, you are missing the secret sauce. That’s why you’ll need a holistic approach to your performance marketing.

A holistic approach means looking at the entire customer journey from discovery to repurchase. One must craft messages for each stage of the customer’s journey, and map them to corresponding channels and/or devices to curate your paid marketing activities. With a holistic approach, you develop a streamlined process that leads to more efficient ad spend and a wider span of influence.

A/B Testing

Think of A/B testing as an online focus group for your business. A/B testing allows you to learn about your audience while providing you with results with clear, actionable evidence, thus offering a clear direction for your next actions. Another benefit of A/B testing is that, as you keep honing in on messaging that works with your audience, you eventually find the best ads that can drive better results, and they are never the first.

With A/B testing you can also quickly identify the best-performing communication angles along with the best-performing design variation for each customer segment, resulting in lower overall acquisition costs & optimized campaign performance.

Marketing Analytics

Marketing analytics allow you to track the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and strategies and monitor data in the customer journey throughout each stage.
To deliver good results, you need to start with understanding what to scale, and what to optimize, which without proper tracking you lose direction of. That’s why you need to make sure that you’re tracking and measuring the right data. What makes this information so powerful is the insight into where things are working best to help with future planning, while also giving feedback that will help the current efforts which need improvement.
For example, you could connect Google Analytics with Google Ads in order to create custom remarketing lists. You can create highly-specific remarketing lists for your Google Ads campaigns based on pages viewed, goal completions, or any other custom Google Analytics segments.

Engaging Creatives

Just as weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise, good ad performance is 80% content and 20% tactics. Engaging content is the key to your ad quality and performance.

Nowadays everyone watches online videos in one form or another. The rise of digital media, smartphone use, and improved internet speed have led to a boom in video format ads. It has become one of the most popular ways to reach online audiences and is likely to dominate for years to come.

Video ads merge two things that catch user attention: movement and sound. Both of these play an important role in conveying an efficient message, hence leading to better engagement. Where image or text ads rely on copy, punctuation, and visual cues to convey the desired tone, video ads use movement and sound to capture visitor attention. The ad format is more efficient at delivering your narrative to the target audience with a tailored message that is easy for them to consume.

Closing

If you’re looking for a performance marketing agency that always makes sure to cover all of the things that we mentioned above, look no further, as Ematic just launched a new performance marketing service. Start maximizing the full potential of your paid channels.

Learn more about our new service here or contact us directly to discuss anything based on your business needs here.

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