The ease of accessing the internet and increasing use of smartphones are enabling companies to target consumers in APAC countries with aggressive digital marketing campaigns. The wide technology spectrum between markets like South Korea and Japan vs. India and Pakistan is giving birth to new digital marketing challenges for businesses targeting these countries. Previously, native market search engines like Naver, Baidu, and Yahoo! forced digital marketing companies to target these countries differently according to the specific search engines serving that market. However, the widespread adoption of Google as a standard search engine cleared many of these challenges and encouraged marketing companies to develop strategies specifically designed for Google’s algorithms. Contrastingly, targeting a non-Google search engine is still beneficial for businesses, as consumers in countries like China rely more heavily on Baidu, which has a separate set of rankings factors and displays the different results accordingly.
In addition to this, one of the biggest challenges for international companies is to create local content. In countries like China and India, the general translation is more difficult as these countries are assembled with a wide variety of languages which do not even share a similar character set or alphabet. Therefore, targeting these markets require a native speaker who can help companies tackle difficult translation challenges.
The Hive Approach, Opening the Door of APAC Countries for Clients
Based in North Carolina, Hive Digital, Inc. works as a pathfinder for the firms seeking to expand in the APAC countries by utilizing its years of experience and vetted relationships across APAC markets. The expert SEO team of Hive Digital ensures proper implementation of hreflang tags and ensure search engine crawlers are finding the appropriate content regardless of their locations.
Hive started in the late 90s as a consultant for brick and mortar companies to create their digital storefronts. In 2002, the company shifted its focus toward helping companies earn a considerable market share through search engine optimization. Since then, Hive Digital has successfully evolved into a full service digital marketing agency which offers website analytics, paid advertising, search engine optimization, and social media services.
Co-founder’s Views on Rewards and Challenges in the Digital Marketing Space
Today, Jake Bohall, Co-founder and Vice President of Hive Digital, feels proud that his company represents impactful clients who are on a mission to utilize their products and services to make the world a better place. He delightfully asserts, “This makes it easy to know that every day I go to work and help amplify the voice and impact of a company that I can be proud to share with my family.” Despite these rewarding benefits, Jake believes that there are certain things to be tackled to thrive in the drastically changing digital marketing landscape. The volatility requires rapid R&D efforts and a diligent team to keep up with the changes. For instance, a simple change in Google algorithm can make a significant impact on a business’ ranking, traffic, and revenue goals. Every year, Google creates numerous changes in algorithms, which often results in a moving target for specific client goals.
In case of updating with the latest trends, new tools are launched daily and marketers need to upgrade to utilize the existing as well as new tools effectively for tracking and improving their websites. Likewise, Jake draws light on the new GDPR laws that are acting as an addition to aforesaid challenges. The recent GDPR ruling restricts insight into a buyer’s journey and consequently limits the opportunities to personalize targeting specific customers. Successful digital marketing requires the well-balanced coordination of the entire organization because digital marketing success is dependent upon the customer experience and brand perception which is heavily influenced by things like bad reviews.
Teamwork, Solving the Problems with Continual Efforts
Therefore, Jake and his team at Hive Digital have set some top priorities to tackle these challenges. Hive Digital is on the mission to be a better educator for its clients. It will be implementing impactful strategies based on the aforementioned challenges. While streamlining its internal information consumption/testing processes, the company will focus on growing the business responsibly. The team of Hive Digital has observed good results when their clients are well informed about reasons behind their methods for doing their work. There are times when the team faces some issues like information overload while processing and monitoring all the data points. To resolve these issues, the team continually strives to find solutions over these problems. Currently, they are looking for ways to improve their efficiency at distilling the information to their fellow teams and clients.
Relaxed Company Culture, Promoting Team Satisfaction
To encourage its team members, Hive Digital provides a relaxed environment that promotes the unique talent and passions of its employees. Jake and the managing team at Hive Digital want everyone to love their job. Therefore, they consider employee passion and satisfaction as a priority so that they work with dedication and help Hive Digital to thrive ahead. Additionally, the business development team of Hive Digital interacts with the consultants regarding their interests in industries and businesses. This brings a feeling of fulfillment for the consultants as they get an opportunity to work for clients or industries as per their interests.
“Marketing will be more personal and intimate,” predicts Jake
Moving forward with the latest trends, Hive Digital is ready for combating the next-gen challenges as its VP already predicts the upcoming changes. Jake says, “Marketers are going to strive to be more personal and intimate with their target audience. The internet is changing from a destination where you find things, to an assistant that is always on in the background, waiting for your request.”
