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Online Strategy Development
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SEO Japan's Marketing Philosophy
Internet marketing is hard. It requires: capability, objectivity, experience, good information, and business savvies. This fact is very seldom acknowledged by marketing agencies and marketing gurus that engage in online marketing. This tends to create a false image of the online world as a place in which trickery and magic rule. Believe me that this is not so..
Despite the promises made by online marketers the fact is that very few of them can prove those promises with their past results. This is not my opinion. It is a fact. In today’s online world as a business you will either need a favorable place in the market (such as when your product becomes trendy) or an excellent team to propel you forward. The best online marketers will probably be able to do very little to help you in the situation is otherwise. Not truly, there are cases when a mediocre product, or mediocre service –with the help of a talented marketer –became a huge success. However famous these cases are they seem to be few and far apart from each other. What is more plentiful on the cases of businesses storming the Japanese market just to receive a bloody nose and return to where they came from. I had seen firsthand online agencies presenting the charts and graphs to businesses that took them as “three steps to success” type of formula. Unfortunately, this happens a lot to medium and small businesses. Make no mistake, Japan like any other fully developed country/ economy is no different. It is the same competitive battlefield as is any other saturated market.
I don’t want to sound overly negative. However, if you are interested in engaging full force in online marketing in Japan you have to see the online marketing experts for who they really are. They simply live and work in an industry that makes it a sort of competition between its members to overpromise on what they are capable of delivering under the best of circumstances. Their optimism and confidence in their PowerPoint presentations to new clients bear no marks or for numerous failures and business disasters I ensure you lay on their business karma. Yet the fact remains that only about one out of three online marketing efforts bring substantial business results. The one single reason for this, I believe, is the almost perplexing lack of knowledge of online marketing by these companies. The companies that commits substantial amounts of money and resources into these programs simply fail to educate themselves about them in advance. Often simply reading at two page intro on SEO, what it is, and how much resources and time it requires, and often go a long way in making the right decision, or following up on the project.
This is why I pride myself on being selected with my clients. While it is difficult to cool down the over optimism both on the part of agencies and their clients who engage in online advertising in Japan, I make it my point of honor and honesty, sound judgment, and truthfulness that goes beyond profit of their president in the beginning when the client makes the decision.
While it is close to impossible to make a sound judgment on whether a company and its products will be a success in Japan or not, it is always a good idea to go through a detailed and in-depth review process before the company commits itself.
On a positive note, Japan is a huge market with a multitude of smaller, ever evolving, expanding, and growing submarkets. That our money to be made. Many markets are waiting to be discovered. If you’re company is already established in Japan and has been functioning without a major loss for over a year, chances are that you had already proven yourself and your product. Online marketing can now take you higher.
