indonesia digital and content marketing report in 2017
TRANSCRIPT
INDONESIA’S DIGITAL
AND CONTENT
MARKETING REPORT
IN 2017
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary
Key Findings
Overview of Indonesia’s digital landscape
The state of Indonesia’s digital marketing in 2017• Finding 1: Social media, the most effective marketing
channel; and B2B’s focus on content
marketing• Finding 2: Increasing shares of digital in
marketing mix• Finding 3: Average and median digital spending in
Indonesia• Finding 4: Key digital marketing problems• Finding 5: Clarity on digital marketing goals and
measurements• Finding 6: Most exciting opportunities: customer
experience and content marketing
Content marketing deep-dive• Finding 1: Content marketing main goals are
engagement & awareness• Finding 2: Most effective content type: written
articles and videos• Finding 3: In-house and outsourced digital
marketing; B2B vs B2C
About GetCRAFT and this white paper
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01GetCRAFT.com
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Indonesia’s digital landscape is rapidly growing with country’s over 260 million population along with rapidly rising number of internet users, striking 40% of social media penetration rate, and developing in-frastructure. Blessed with growing economy, digital literacy, and rising urban population, Indonesia has a potential to become a hotbed of digital creativity.
However, despite being one of the most attractive and lucrative markets in South East Asia for digital marketers, digitalization taking place across indus-tries still seems to be quite overwhelming for some players, and the practice of Digital Marketing in the country is still far from its optimum state.
The proliferation of digital platforms and improved technology savviness are making consumers more discerning about how they spend their time online. With this, there is a real emerging mindset shift among marketers, as they start to think as a publisher to lure prospects to their own channels with compel-ling contents, among other strategies.
GetCRAFT observed that a lot of marketers in In-donesia are still struggling when it comes to digital marketing. An online survey was therefore initiated across big cities in Indonesia (Jakarta, Bandung, Yo-gyakarta, and Surabaya) to capture general market overview and analyse the current state of the indus-try to obtain some valuable learnings.
Based on the findings from our survey, social media tops the list on the most effective digital marketing channel in Indonesia, with organic social media cam-paigns ranked first on the list, followed by social me-dia ads. This is mainly due to high level of active users across social platforms in the country, making ways for wide marketing campaign exposures for brands.
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In terms of digital investment, marketers surveyed will spend 31% of their total marketing budget on digital in 2017 (an increase from last year), which is translated into an average of IDR 1.9 billion annual spending on digital. This shows an increasing posi-tive perception of digital marketing as it allows more detailed measurements and optimisation for perfor-mance improvements. Marketers also realise that digital marketing campaigns focus on netting long-term returns and prove to be more efficient over time.
However, growth of digital does not come without challenge. Budget restraint along with skills and re-sources gaps are two main issues faced by marketers in Indonesia. Additionally, a striking 55% of marketers admitted that they still lack clarity about how their digital marketing activities drive business objectives. Whilst financial issue in digital practices can be coped with effective strategies through content marketing, a better knowledge transfer scheme, such as semi-nars, is necessary to close skills and resources gaps.
The white paper also goes into more details on content marketing, showing that the most effective content marketing types are articles and videos. However, the use of content marketing in Indonesia is primarily still aimed for customer engagement and awareness, not yet sales or lead generation.
There is further elaboration on each finding as to what drives every trend, what opportunity is available to be leveraged for better marketing performance, as well as some strategic advices on how to improve the dig-ital and content marketing initiatives for the readers. This white paper does not only showcase the state of the industry and market overview, but also aims to address key challenges and provide some actionable strategies for all marketers in Indonesia.
KEY FINDINGS
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1.Social media is the most
effective marketing channel
3.Average
digital marketing budget: IDR 1.9 billion /
year
4.Key digital marketing
challenges: budget restraints and skill/re-
source gaps
5.55% of marketers lack clarity on how digital
marketing drives busi-ness objectives
6.Most exciting growth
opportunities: customer experience and content
marketing
2.Marketers spend 31.5% of their budget on digital
1.Main content marketing objectives: engagement
and awareness
2.Most effective content
marketing type: Written articles and videos
3.On doing content : B2B prefers in-house, B2C
relies on agencies
On Digital Marketing
On Content Marketing (deep-dive)
TOTAL POPULATION
LAPTOP & DESKTOP
TABLET DEVICES
MOBILE PHONE
262 million
55% 40%51%URBANISATION PENETRATIONPENETRATION
YEAR-ON-YEAR CHANGE
YEAR-ON-YEAR CHANGE
YEAR-ON-YEAR CHANGE
106 million132.7 million
TOTAL ACTIVE MOBILE INTERNET USERS
123.3 million
28%
2%
+3%
-7%
NUMBER OF INTERNET USERS
47% of total population
69%
-1%
ACTIVE SOCIALMEDIA USERS
INTERNETUSERS
MOST ACTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS SHARE OF WEB TRAFFIC BY DEVICE
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OVERVIEW :INDONESIA’S DIGITAL LANDSCAPE
Source: Global Web Index, GSMA Intelligence, Statista, Akamai,StatCounter, Ericsson
YOUTUBE
GOOGLE+
FB MESSENGER
LINE
BBM
WE CHAT
49%
48%
39%
38%
36%
38%
31%
30%
26%
28%
21%
22%SOCIAL NETWORK
MESSENGER/CHAT APP/VOIP
THE STATE OF INDONESIA’S DIGITAL MARKETING IN 2017
05GetCRAFT.com
FINDING 1SOCIAL MEDIA IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE MARKETING CHANNEL FOR MARKETERS, BUT B2B WILL PRIORITISE CONTENT MARKETING IN 2017
Digital Marketing channels’ effectiveness (B2B & B2C)
When it comes to measuring marketing effectiveness, what
works for each marketer may differ depending on their
strategies, business objectives, resources, target audience,
and more. Effectiveness often comes down to the return on
investment (ROI) of each initiative and this is where mea-
surements become pivotal in the decision-making process.
Our survey revealed that the majority of brands admit
that social media (paid and organic) is the most effective
digital channel to do marketing. Effectiveness level here is
gauged based on the rating (0 – 5 point scale) submitted
by each respondent, and they put social media on top of
the list. This could be due to several main reasons: its high
number of active users in the market (a third of the entire
population, or ~80 million), audience engagement-enabling
feature, cost-efficiency, and more – all of which encourage
06GetCRAFT.com
Social Media
Social Media Ads
Paid Search Marketing
Content Marketing
Influencer Marketing
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Sponsored Content
Email Marketing
Display Advertising
Webinar & Podcasts
Level of Effectiveness
brands to leverage this channel more than others.
Ranked third, paid search marketing is also deemed
effective as it enables better audience targeting. Indonesia’s
huge market asks for specific targeting to achieve more
relevant reach and prominent exposure – both of which are
offered by paid search marketing. Some of the most success-
ful social media initiatives are also combining organic and
paid campaigns, as the two have synergistic effects.
On the other hand, display advertising is ranked rather
low in terms of effectiveness. Interestingly enough, brands
are still investing in quite big amount of money for display
advertising but with the rise of ad blockers and improving
performance of native advertising, display advertising will
have to evolve or it would not survive in the market.
0 1 2 3 4 5
As social media appears to prevail over any other distribu-
tion channels, another interesting finding was revealed
when we compare how marketers in the business-to-con-
sumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) companies pri-
oritise their strategies for the 2017. B2C marketers align
their plan to focus on social media marketing in 2017, but
B2B marketers put content marketing on top of their pri-
ority list this year. This asks for further observation as to why
content marketing registers more importance over social
among the B2B marketers.
By nature, B2B firms are targeting key decision makers and
business owners — the cohort which requires a lot of
information in the process of their purchasing decision.
This makes content imperative in educating these people
about products and services which may be conveyed via
white paper, report, video, blog, article, webinar, and more.
An effective content marketing strategy is never a one-way
street; instead, it includes interaction and engagement from
Why do B2B marketers prefer Content Marketing over others?
Prioritised channels by B2B marketers
“Social media has a high penetration and reaches almost all internet users, which is a primary need for B2C - they would
like to leverage content marketing combined with social media to reach and engage consumers. In the case of B2B, since the
target is usually more well defined and smaller in number, it is possible to focus on pure content marketing.”
- Matt Wiggers, CEO at Havas Jakarta
07GetCRAFT.com
Level of Effectiveness
the audience or customers to not only facilitate knowledge
sharing, but also build brand loyalty. For B2B brands, this
means a lot as their buying cycle tends to be longer and
purchasing decision is likely to be more complex. But this
does not necessarily mean that social media channels are
overlooked by the B2B brands. Great B2B marketers uti-
lise it as one of the main distribution channels to do specific
targeting and reach out to their niche audience.
On average, marketers we have surveyed will spend 31%
out of their total budget on digital. This is an increase com-
pared to last year, according to 76% of them – with nearly
half of the total respondents admitting that this year’s in-
crease is less than 25% of last year’s spending.
On the flip side, almost a quarter (24%) of the total respon-
dents will not increase their budget allocation for digital
marketing in 2017. Their reasons may differ: financial con-
straints, business objectives and needs, knowledge and
skill gaps within the organizational structure, failure to
prove effectiveness in digital initiatives, or more. However,
this portion will have no other option than to decrease as
digital marketing will only grow and companies inevitably
will have to adjust in order to survive.
A big chunk (48%) of all marketers surveyed plan to rise
digital budget by less than 25% out of the 2016’s spending.
FINDING 2
MARKETERS SPEND 31% OF THEIR BUDGET ON DIGI-TAL, 76% SAY THIS IS AN INCREASE
Increase of Digital Marketing Spending in 2017
It is important to note that the actual amount differs for
each company size and revenue number across industries.
Whilst it seems healthy that the digital budget is increasing
within the marketing mix, it poses a question worth consid-
ering: is knowledge increasing, too? Although there is no
solid scientific evidence that marketing excellence is get-
ting better, digital is still promising a good bet as more and
more marketers are seeing higher ROI over time through
digital initiatives.
We are seeing significant digital campaign transformations
in brands from their formerly traditional initiatives. Digital
is inevitably taking shape in Indonesia, but this is not to say
that conventional marketing is neglected. Some of the most
successful campaigns combine both, and the key is really
finding the right formula of mixing them along with proper
measurements according to certain business objectives.
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Unchanged / by 0%21%
48%
24%
7%
To increase by <25%
To increase between 25-50%
To increase by over 50%
“Increased availability of data and tools for sharper targeting are the main drivers for increase in budget on digital. B2C
marketers are more knowledgeable and aware of the role of digital for their brands and this has created more confidence in using digital channels. On the other hand consumers are actively looking for information and transacting online that
are forcing marketers to build digital capabilities.”
- Pradeep Harikrishnan, CEO / Technical Advisor at IPG Mediabrands
The rising role of digital in the marketing mix today is
inevitable. Many companies are starting to shift away from
traditional media to eventually focus solely on digital as it
is considered more cost-effective. Another reason is also
because marketers are relying heavily on the market
behaviour. People spend more time on digital devices today
and depend on the information being showcased across
platforms to make a variety of decisions; marketers are le-
veraging this digital prowess to affect their targeted audi-
ence’s purchasing decisions.
Digital allows detailed measurements and optimisation for
better marketing performance, along with the ability to facili-
tate real-time interaction with targeted audience. Many other
new technologies are also driving brands to keep experiment-
ing and investing more to improve their digital excellence.
Moreover, digital marketing generally focuses on netting
long-term returns. More marketers are starting to become
more aware of this: as they add more permanent content
and attract or retain more followers, their results will start
to compound. Over time, this is a more significantly cost-ef-
ficient investment than any other traditional marketing
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
Shares of Digital in Annual Marketing Spending in 2017
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Digital gains momentum in marketing
methods, proving a higher ROI when optimised properly,
no matter the industry.
The digital landscape is always changing and will continue
to do so. However, no matter the channel, customers will
always stay as the focal point of all marketing strategies.
Digital offers a bright future for marketers because as
technology improves, there will be more innovative, effec-
tive, and greater ways to serve the customers’ needs.
13.80%
25.64%
22.64%
31.03%
6.90%
> 40%
31 - 40%
21 - 30%
11 - 20%
0 - 10%
The growing role of digital in today’s marketing practice is
reflected in the increase of brands’ digital spending. Our
survey reveals that in terms of the amount being spent on
digital this year of 2017, the biggest chunk of respondents
(almost 25%) admit that they will spend IDR 251 – 500 million
this year only for digital marketing initiatives. The second
highest rank (covering inputs from 20.69% of the total
respondents) of annual digital budget is in the range of IDR
1 – 3 billion.
It’s important to note, however, that the data being showcased
here is based solely on our market survey and may relatively
differ in the reality of each marketer, depending on the size
*Average digital marketing budgets are calculated with exclusion of outliers (IDR >30 billion) in the market
FINDING 3
AVERAGE* AND MEDIAN DIGITAL BUDGET IN INDONESIA ARE IDR 1.9 BILLION/YEAR* AND IDR 875 MILLION/YEAR, RESPECTIVELY
Amount of Digital Marketing Spending by Brands in 2017 (IDR)
of the company, their spending interpretation, as well as
the definition of each digital marketing initiative they are
carrying out.
The numbers shown here are sourced from a variety of
industries, which may have different standpoints and in-
vestment priority. Companies that are reliant significantly on
digital as part of their business by nature would skew higher
on this scale.
It is also highly possible that over time the average number
of digital spending will ascend across the industries as tech-
nology advances and available skills in the market improve.
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3.45%
11.34%
9.34%
20.69%
20.35%
24.14 %
6.90 %
10.34 %
> 10 billion
5 - 10 billion
3 - 5 billion
1 - 3 billion
501 million - 1 billion
251 - 500 million
50 - 250 million
< 50 million
As marketers are getting better at learning from their
previous year’s marketing performance through different
quantifiable metrics, they now have better grasp of what
is working or not, and how much they should spend to
achieve certain objectives. They are willing to spend more
not only because of the potentials they are clearly seeing
in the market, but also because of the confidence in digital
based on its effectiveness that can be more clearly mea-
sured in comparison to the traditional medias.
Across industries, marketing spending eventually is pri-
marily determined by the revenue and company size, the
market’s competitive landscape, the nature of the business,
marketing objectives, capacity of resources, and their own
target demographics – as to how they behave along the
purchasing journey.
On a macro level, the rising budget for digital in Indonesia
is driven mainly by market condition such as intensive so-
cial media activities, high use of mobile, improved internet
and telecommunication infrastructure, as well as technolo-
gy-driven customers’ purchasing journey.
An evolving digital landscape in Indonesia is also driving
digital marketing spending across other industries. E-com-
merce, financial technology, fast moving consumer goods
(FMCG) and gaming, are namely some main industries
driving the growth of digital advertisement spending in the
country. This is also made possible by the government sup-
port, as they recently announced to invest as much as USD
1.5 billion in high-speed internet connection, pushing fur-
ther the development of telecommunication infrastucture
towards LTE.
Last but not least, the millenials’ buying power is also driv-
ing this digital budget increase. As these digital natives are
entering high-spend life and settling down through careers,
starting families and homes, they become the key targeted
consumers. Being digital savvy as they are, brands are beef-
ing up digital campaigns to reach this audience group and
this will only grow because over time brands will get better
and more efficient in performing digital campaigns.
A foreseeable trend is, a shift towards quality over quantity
when it comes to what the digital spending increase would
mean. Many marketers in Indonesia today are still primarily
allocating digital budget for volume-based advertising and
marketing strategies, but this is starting to change as they
are realizing that these volume-based metrics (e.g. impressions)
can potentially annoy or spam the audience.
The growing prevalence of consumers data is also progres-
sively transforming how marketers do digital marketing in
Indonesia. Continuous technology advancement will only
make it easier for everyone to attain data - and this will
not be the issue in the coming future. Marketers will be
required to develop more advanced and meticulous strat-
egies to reach a new level of personalised customer expe-
rience (CX).
It is expected that companies will spend more money on
higher level of data intelligence technology or stacking up
on more data analysts for better understanding on cus-
tomer behavior and what they need. It will not be about
‘how much’ one spends for digital marketing, but ‘how’ they
spend it.
Despite some current concerns such as digital effective-
ness, ROI, and rising trend of ad blocking, digital invest-
ment will remain a strong highlighted area, and will grow
even stronger in the upcoming future.
Annual Digital Marketing spending in Indonesia: what are the drivers?
What the future may hold
“Digital marketing budgets in Indonesia generally range from IDR 1 - 2 billion, with most brands spending 11-20% out of
their total marketing budget. This said, there are some outliers who are investing heavily into digital due to the fact that they can measure, optimise, and see overall better results - and this
trend will only continue to rise.”
- Patrick Searle, Co-founder and CEO at GetCRAFT
11GetCRAFT.com
FINDING 4DIGITAL MARKETERS’ KEY PROBLEMS ARE AROUND BUDGET RESTRAINTS AND SKILLS/RESOURCES GAPS
More than half (51.72%) of the brands surveyed admit that
budget restraint is the main factor hindering their Digital
Marketing initiatives, followed by skills and resources gaps
to make these initiatives happen (44.83%).
Our survey also revealed other issues including establish-
ing and sustaining customer engagements, lack of proper
tracking and measurements, and weak data analytical skills.
The latter two problems are highly associated with the second
biggest challenge, which is skills and resources gaps. Without
proper talents and capability, tasks such as digital marketing
tracking and data analysis would be affected, which may
result in campaign ineffectiveness. Furthermore, many
marketers are finding it difficult in moving past descriptive
analysis (how much/many/often), towards predictive anal-
Brands’ Biggest Challenges in Digital Marketing
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Budget restraint
Customer engagement
Skills & resources gaps
No tracking / proper measurements
Weak data analytical skills
No clear ROI
Dependency on third parties / agency
Lack of tools to help my digital marketing invitatives
No clearly defined goals
Misalignment between in-house team and third parties (agency)
ysis (big data use to optimise marketing campaigns, foresee
customer behaviors, and leverage opportunities).
Interestingly enough, no clarity of ROI scored rather low
in the survey regardless of the fact that there are signifi-
cant skills and resources gaps. To some extent, this reflects
a positive possibility that some marketers have already
proven the ROI through numerous digital experiments and
optimisation.
Closing these gaps are not easy and challenges will surely
take time to overcome, but some strategic actions can be
taken to start addressing these problems starting in an or-
ganisational level, namely by focusing on content market-
ing and investing more in education or knowledge trans-
fers.
Coping with budget restraints through Content Marketing
One possible solution to cope with the budget issue here
is through content marketing and sponsored content. The
traffic of content marketing campaigns compounds over
time, making them highly cost-effective. In Indonesia, run-
ning large high quality content marketing campaigns is gen-
erally 2-5 times more cost efficient than paid media. And if
desired, content marketing content can break-even or become
profitable by letting third party brands run sponsored con-
tent across different media platforms.
Content marketing in Indonesia also makes it easier for
startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to com-
pete in the same landscape with bigger players via social
media, of which costs are nearly zero. Content marketing is
actually so cheap that it is highly suggested that all kind of
companies (startups to SMEs to big, global brands) include
it in the marketing mix. One single article, for example, is
reusable for social media posts (across channels), blog post,
email marketing, and effective driver for organic SEO.
Another way to address this issue is by making an informed
financial decisions across different fronts, from determining
how to do the digital campaigns (in-house vs. outsource via
agencies), to prioritising initiatives according to the objectives
and needs, etc. It is also feasible for high upfront investments to
result in high ROI, if done properly with optimisations.
It is clear to see that the industry critically requires some
solutions to close these gaps. In some cases, the problem is
rooted on inadequate organisational support to invest in digital
developments via tools and training, or lack of proper struc-
ture that enables quick knowledge transfer among each oth-
er. Each brand is encouraged to closely assess their weak
points and start identifying the best ways to address them.
In order to achieve optimum digital literacy through knowl-
edge transfer, a streamlined, effective system has to be es-
tablished : from hiring an internal resources with relevant
capacity to continue growth, documenting all the mar-
keting processes and its results, to eventually facilitating
hands-on training from past projects and best cases.
The system also goes a long way and has to be expertise-fo-
cused. A non-traditional method such as “reverse-mento-
ring”, where younger employees introduces and teaches
new technology to an older colleague, can work well in the
digital landscape, as this practice implies reciprocity and
generates cross-generational trust.
In the macro level, conference, seminars or other sharing
sessions are needed to be more often facilitated in the
industry. Transparency in best practices can also be enabled
much more easily across the industry stakeholders with
the technology advancement. Facilitating an unbiased plat-
form to share insights, for instance, would help information
distribution more fairly and efficiently.
“In Indonesia, digital talents are very scarce - not because we are lacking great local talents, but due to the explosion of demands for digital marketing professionals from many com-panies wanting to go online. Meanwhile, budget restraints is
a result of the lack of knowledge on utilising digital marketing channels.”
- Timothius Martin, Head of Performance & Branding at Matahari Mall
13GetCRAFT.com
Knowledge transfer to close skills and resources gaps
FINDING 555% OF MARKETERS STILL LACK CLARITY ABOUT HOW THEIR DIGITAL MARKETING CAMPAIGNSDRIVE BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
There is a knowledge gap among marketers in understanding
proper digital marketing measurements – and this is partly
due to lack of relevant skills and talents as shown on our previ-
ous finding. Whilst the majority of them have clear marketing
goals, almost half of them cannot really measure how their
digital campaigns contribute to the business goals. Lack of
agility to adopt new technology can also be the reason why
brands find it difficult to gauge their digital marketing strategy.
Successful digital marketers anywhere start with proper un-
derstanding of both objectives and their performance mea-
surements. In Indonesia, sadly, marketers are still struggling
to comply with both, resulting in ineffective digital campaigns.
In order to resolve this, marketers need to firstly identify what
goals they want to achieve for each of their digital campaigns:
Is it brand awareness? Is it customer engagement?
Brands’ Clarity on Digital Marketing Strategy
Lead generation? Subscription or web visit growth? Many
can be explored according to the unique nature of each
business and its needs.
In an ideal condition, both marketing and business objectives
are the same – say, increasing sales, and this happens rather
often in the e-commerce business. The purchase journey is
rather short and clearly quantifiable. On the other hand, in
some cases such as in most of the B2B industry, marketing
objective may be capturing leads, while the actual business
goal is sales increase – and here a gap exists.
However, minimizing this gap is possible through smarter an-
alytics which entails identification of different touch points
along the customer journey. Once identified, it would then be
easier for marketers to understand how they can convert leads
to the actual business goals and optimise it over time.
14GetCRAFT.com
No Clarity
45%
7%
48% Clarity on both goals andmeasurement metrics
Clarity on both goals, but NOT on how to measure
Why do B2B marketers struggle more on digital marketing?
Area of understanding in Digital Marketing, B2B vs B2C
Our survey revealed that there is a relatively fair split
among the B2C marketers when it comes to the understand-
ing of digital marketing. 52.17% of them admit to have clar-
ity on both goals and measurement metrics, and the re-
maining 47.83% have a difficulty in measurements.
B2B brands, however, appear to struggle more with only
16.67% of them are able to fully grasp both digital market-
ing goals and its success measures. A third of the total B2B
marketers surveyed have no clarity on either objectives or
measurements, and the remaining 50% admit difficulties only
in gauging their digital marketing performance.
By nature, the B2B companies deal with other businesses
whose buying cycle tends to be long and requires more parties’
consideration. Not all the touch points in the buying jour-
ney can be enhanced via digital, and they try to generate leads
hoping that their campaigns are closer to the end of the
marketing funnel to help them make sales – and this makes
digital seem hard to prove its ROI as quickly as expected.
In order to address this issue, B2B marketers have to realise
that digital marketing, especially in their case, cannot be
“There is a lack of industry-wide knowledge transfer when it comes to digital marketing best practices, as it is now done exclusively amongst group of companies or within
clients-vendor relationship, resulting in lack of knowledge, confusion of practices and measurement metrics. Hence,
education initiatives are needed to help marketers learn and refer to the best practices. Digital media companies also need
to start standardising their metrics, so results can be more clearly measured and compared.”
- Anthony Reza, Co-founder and CEO Indonesia at GetCRAFT
15GetCRAFT.com
ultimately tied to complete revenue attribution. Instead,
they can measure conversion rate or customer satisfac-
tion rate that could contribute to the company’s busi-
ness objectives. Some B2B companies even choose to have
bigger control in the buying process by digitizing it, for in-
stance by providing a self-service platform to help custom-
ers manage and customise their own inquiries, and enable
the company to track each touch point, collect more data,
and optimise it for their marketing purposes, among others.
Clarity on goals, BUT not on how to measure
Clarity on both goals and measurement metrics
No clarity
52.17%
16.67% 50% 33.33%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
B2C
B2B
47.83%
According to our survey, brands in Indonesia believe that
customer experience, content marketing, and mobile platform
hold the top 3 exciting opportunities to explore in the
digital marketing space this year.
The three areas are interconnected with each other and
can be leveraged with proper integration. The improvement
of customer experience can be done via great, relevant con-
tent that helps customers make purchasing decisions along
their journey through mobile devices. Given the potential
growth of mobile use in the country, brands can then focus
on the betterment of our customer experience through dif-
ferent types of content made accessible on mobile across the
different touch points.
FINDING 6CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND CONTENT MARKETING, THE MOST EXCITING GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
Most Exciting Growth opportunities in Indonesia’s Digital Marketing in 2017
16GetCRAFT.com
Customer experience
Content marketing
Mobile
Social media
Personalisation
Big data
Automation
Omnichannel campaigns
Native advertising
SEO / SEM
Webinar
Social media does not score primarily high in the rank as the
channel is relatively getting saturated. Although there are
new apps / features rolling in and growing popularity such
as Snapchat, the market is not yet ready to consider this as
one of their significant touch point in the customer journey.
The different opportunity areas which are identified and
ranked here are not only based on the marketers’ percep-
tion on potential effectiveness and benefit consideration,
but also on the market’s habit and its readiness. Brands align
their strategies to match the audience’s receptiveness, ensur-
ing that they are using the relevant channels or familiar with
the initiatives, and whether they have a sufficient adoption lev-
el to make this viable.
Customer experience: more than just marketing objectives
When it comes to customer experience, brands can look
at the overall customer experience as digital touch points
which they can optimise to improve through, for example,
different kinds of engagements. Marketers’ focus are now
back on customers and how to improve their experience
with the brand. They realise that this is critical because bet-
ter customer experience can either strengthen or weaken
purchasing intent, customers’ loyalty, engagement, and
brand advocacy.
There are many ways that marketers can use to improve
customer experience. For instance, leveraging digital tools
by enabling automation, utilising customer data to provide
unique customisation, and even using mobile-first strategy
to delight the customers with high phone activities rate.
Practically marketers could go the extra miles by creat-
ing compelling contents to lure visitors (or prospects) to
brand’s website, specialised microsite, or social media ac-
count. Visitors will be eventually asked to supply informa-
tion that will later be used to market more directly to them.
This is when content marketing meets marketing automa-
tion technology in customer acquisition. Content market-
ing attracts visitors then marketing automation move them
through the buying journey.
Marketers could also mine marketing insights from the
data gathered through digital tools by diligently listening
to their voices on social media, you can even understand
their behavioral pattern, changes in lifestyle, or even un-
derstanding deeply what they really need to create new
stories to engage them, or even develop new services and
products to meet their demands.
What is also critical but is unfortunately often overlooked
is creating and nurturing the right culture for customer
experience-centric business. Organisational and operational
improvement in transparency, more seamless technology,
the culture of empathy and colectiveness or a sense of being
as part of an entity, would make it easier for the team to al-
ways prioritise customer experience above other things.
Content marketing holds promise as storytelling becomes
increasingly pivotal in any marketing strategies nowadays,
given that over time the cost per view for doing content
marketing is cheaper than doing paid and programmatic
media. Marketers are also realising that content marketing
also allows brands to communicate in much more ways to
the audience compared to paid media, hence there’s higher
efficiency to bring them closer to the business objectives.
Unlike other types of marketing, almost every opportunity
is a content opportunity – from new product release, hot
market issue, to even customer data, which can all be leveraged
through content. The opportunities are also existing across
numerous channels, from social media, news platform,
email, paid media, to offline events – all of which are sought
after by marketers in today’s digital era.
Marketers’ ability to incorporate customer journey with
their content marketing strategy will be crucial. By under-
standing every moment of the funnel to target the right
audience with the right story at the right moment, then it
will be able to turn audiences into customers, and further
nurture them into brand advocates. It is about creating the
right story for the right audience, when to inform or edu-
cate and when to entertain.
“Customer experience is one thing that should allow the company to genuinely differentiate itself, and that in itself
makes an exciting opportunity. Although customer experience professionals have been around forever, but as a profession,
less so. Finding genuine customer experience professionals is still quite hard here, but at least it is growing in importance.”
- Colin McDougall, Chief Marketing Officer at AXA Indonesia
17GetCRAFT.com
Why and how to take advantage of content marketing opportunities?
CONTENT MARKETINGDEEP-DIVE
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Our survey revealed that the most prioritised content marketing
goal is customer engagement, with almost 60% of our total
survey respondents putting this on their list. The idea of using
content to increase user engagement starts with understanding
the customers’ needs and their pain points, then deliver it
through insightful content. Marketers nowadays realise
that relevant content helps them to influence their customers’
behaviour through useful information wherever they are
within their purchasing journey.
The fact that social media activities are particularly high in In-
donesia is game-changing, as the use of content helps shift
marketing from ‘all about the company’ to ‘all about the
customer’, encouraging them to interact with the brand.
The second most prioritised goal of content marketing is
brand awareness, shown by 55% of our surveyed marketers.
Clearly, relevant quality content is imperative to help properly
define a brand’s identity and correlate it with their customers.
Brand awareness is imperative in any kind of marketing, as
FINDING 1CONTENT MARKETING IS GENERALLY BEING USED FOR ENGAGEMENT & AWARENESS, NOT YET SALES/LEAD GENERATION
it helps customers recognise and distinguish brands in a
competitive landscape.
In the chart, the first two content marketing objectives also
show that marketers are focusing on invoking brand loyalty
in the eye of their customers, proving that content market-
ing focuses on long-term instead of immediate results.
However, web traffic, although related to brand awareness
measure, is not scored as high. This shows that marketers
have started to shift towards value-based marketing objectives
with more personalized and higher business impacts, rather
than tricky numbers like web traffic that lacks context and
provides less meaning in the whole marketing strategy.
It is also worth noting that engagement, however, is one lay-
er closer to the end of the marketing funnel, bringing audi-
ence or potential customers towards the purchasing point.
It enable marketers to measure and sometimes predict the
conversion rate from awareness to targeted actions.
Content Marketing : Brands’ Main Goal
19GetCRAFT.com
Customer engagement
Lead generation
Brand awareness
Customer retention
Lead nurturing
Web traffic
Improve search engine rankings
Content marketing for B2B and B2C: goals VS measurements
When it comes to measuring success, brands in Indonesia
align their metrics with the objectives that they are trying
to achieve. B2C companies are prioritising metrics such as
social media engagement rate (likes, shares, retweets, etc)
and website traffic that can reflect how high their custom-
er engagement quantifies. For B2B brands, however, customer
engagement rate does not rank as high in their content
marketing measures scheme, but specific call-to-action such
as leads generation rate and subscription are on top of the
list.
The reason behind different tendencies between B2C and
B2B marketers in terms of measurements is rooted in the
nature of their business. Whilst B2C firms are targeting
general audience with relatively short purchasing cycle,
B2B companies are targeting businesses which tend to
take more thoroughly informed decisions and have longer
purchasing cycle. B2C therefore uses content to gain cus-
tomer engagement that can increase brand loyalty and put
them on top of their customers’ minds. B2B companies, on
the other hand, leverages content to help their customers
make an informed decision and shorten their purchasing
cycle.
“Lead generation is closer to sales and more suitable for B2B. In the case of B2C, the sales conversion on digital platforms
are yet to be developed fully and hence the preference for awareness &
engagement using content.”
- Pradeep Harikrishnan, CEO / Technical Advisor at IPG Mediabrands
Content Marketing success measures / KPIs
B2B B2C
20GetCRAFT.com
Today’s marketers are leveraging interactive content in
order to increase customer engagement. We have also
observed that interactive content tends to gain message
involvement and customers’ purchase intent than the static
ones. In such case, some are even measuring the depth of
user interaction with the website to see how engaged and
explorative a person is with a brand’s website content. Lead
generation, however, can be measured by specific call-to-action
that is included in the content. For B2B case in particular,
great content can better guide potential customer to a specific
landing page, which entails specific action that can eventually
be nurtured and converted into a quality lead.
0%0% 10%10% 20%20% 30%30% 40%40% 50%50% 60%60% 70%70%
Number of leads generated
Customer engagement rate
Quality of leads
Subscription growth rate
Website Traffic
Sales revenue
Lead conversion rate
Search engine ranking
Whilst the utmost idea of great content marketing is the
ability to do better storytelling, many formats are being put
into consideration by marketers in Indonesia when it comes
to communicating to their targeted audience. According
to our survey, written article is the most favorable type of
content they are using within their marketing strategies
based on its effectiveness. Our respondents rate written
articles with average score of nearly 4 out of 5 (with 5 being
the most effective). Types of written articles here can be a
news or feature article, sponsored article, blog post, how-to
or instructive content, and more.
Video scores the second highest on the content marketing
rank in our survey. The definition of a video here is now not
as narrow as advertisement video being put up on Youtube
or Facebook – but instead an extensive range of other vid-
eo formats. From creative campaign videos that bring light
to pain points, to customer testimonials and personalized
FINDING 2WRITTEN ARTICLES AND VIDEOS ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE CONTENT MARKETING TYPES
Content Marketing Initiatives : Level of Effectiveness
21GetCRAFT.com
Written articles
Videos
E-newsletters
Infographics
Case studies
White papers and reports
Webinars
Least effective
product demos, video will play a starring role at all stages
of the marketing and sales funnel in 2017.
In the future, video will account massively of all online
traffic, it is not only considered as the most effective way
to convey messages, but also key differentiator between
brands and their competitors.
The lowest ranked format in terms of marketing effec-
tiveness here is webinar, and this leaves so much room for
growth. As stated by many other studies, webinars can be
very effective as it offers very immersive content experi-
ence, real time content delivery, live interaction, and more.
It is important to note that however each marketer may
identify effectiveness differently, as they are measuring
content marketing metrics according to their own specific
needs, goals and business objectives.
Most effective
Video is gaining its power and is getting increasingly popular
within Indonesia’s digital landscape – especially among
youth. Video is considered to be more visually engaging, ex-
pressive, and easier to invoke to the emotions of the
audience. Although the initial production cost can be rela-
tively higher than written content, a series of videos with
consistent publication frequency can build loyalty and en-
gagement, which increases viewership over time and can
progressively bring down the cost per view. In another term,
the return on investment can be proven over time, with
stronger branding and engagement as a result.
The internet has always been dominated by text, but now
with technology advancement (and its continuous develop-
ment), video is getting more accessible to more people, and
it is becoming one of the most effective media in conveying
brand messages to audience. It is not only attention-grab-
“Video is getting increasingly popular among the marketers and consumers themselves. By nature, the ability of video to show specifically how to use products or its services, and its
engaging visual are making it vital in customers’ buying deci-sion process. To top it off, as the infrastructure provides more stable internet connections, video consumption continues to
rise. Best cases of video production and distribution have also shown that this method gets very cost-efficient over time.”
- Patrick Searle, Co-founder and CEO at GetCRAFT
Video marketing : building momentum in Indonesia
The power of written content
22GetCRAFT.com
The tendency towards written articles when it comes to
content marketing type is primarily based on the multi-purposes
and advantages it serves. When budget and affordability
are taken into consideration, written article can serve its
marketing purpose rather well as its production cost is
relatively lower than, for instance, video.
Written content can also help increase web page rank
through search engine optimisation (SEO) by using
relevant, valuable tags and keywords. It can definitely help
boost brand awareness if combined with strategic distribution
plan, e.g. via integrated channels such as news platform,
owned media, and social networks.
Written article also tends to be more recyclable over time
without much effort, some content can be updated and re-
published to convey messages to the audience. In Indonesia,
particularly, written content may be more effective to
deliver a message to a targeted audience as it is more easily
accessible, and quickly loaded, and simpler in comparison
to video and other marketing formats.
bing, video is reliable in conveying factors that text cannot:
emotion and personality.
Opportunities for video marketing is inevitably growing
as internet infrastructure in Indonesia is getting stronger,
more solid and stable. Growth of mobile and smart
phones allowing fast online video display is also driving
the marketers’ intent to focus more on this format. With a
highly visual content, video is becoming more preferred
to media consumption during tedious times, including
commute. We are also seeing exciting potentials for the
video marketing as there are more portals enabling easier
video consumption in Indonesia, combined with relatively
affordable connection schemes provided by telecommunication
providers in the market.
Influencer marketing is also playing its role when it comes
to video. Non-celebrities who like to share their interests
and make appealing content can now even gain their own
audience, creating a market which previously was non-exis-
tent. Brands realize the power of this format, and are leveraging
it through partnerships and professional contracts to
improve brand exposure and customer engagement.
Brands have to be able to create video contents that reso-
nate with Indonesian culture, understanding how they con-
sume information when your main objective is to inform
and what make them laugh or touched when your objective
is to engage with entertainment.
It is an ongoing debate in any market as to whether it is better
to do content marketing in-house or via external sources
with stronger strategic and execution capabilities. Apart
from skills and available resources, some other factors are
also typically taken into consideration, such as budget,
nature of the business, and its general marketing objectives.
Our survey revealed that a striking 83.3% out of the total
B2B marketers choose to do content marketing inter-
nally via specific in-house content team. On another hand,
more than half of B2C brands tend to rely more on relevant
agencies to help them execute their content marketing
initiatives. The rest however, have started to internalize
the process and own their dedicated team to do it – inde-
pendent from the support of external agencies.
Producing content is not only a matter of writing (or filming
or designing, in this matter). Ideally, it goes a long way:
FINDING 3B2B BRANDS INVEST IN DEDICATED IN-HOUSE CONTENT TEAM, WHILST B2C RELIES MORE ON AGENCIES
How Brands do Content MarketingB2B vs B2C
23GetCRAFT.com
from having the operational and general knowledge,
understanding of the objectives, proper collaboration, and
setting the right measures. This notion will then show it-
self what the chart aims to showcase and what reflective
means it offers to the industry.
It is fair to underline that this chart represents resourcing
propensity by brands from different types of industry in
Indonesia, across a variety of company size: from startups
and small-medium enterprises (SMEs) to big, global corpo-
rates. Thus some determining factors e.g. financial capabil-
ity, team capacity, market maturity, and audience may vary.
This finding calls for further assessment and industry at-
tention: will market dynamics outpace the agency model
– and if so, what needs to be done? Is there a critical neces-
sity to streamline the work and processes involved? What
move is right for both parties to spur growth? And more...
Outsource via agencies
In-house by specific content team
39.13% 60.87%
83.33% 16.67%
B2C
B2B
By nature, B2B content marketing tends to focus more on
shortening their customers’ purchasing cycle. It therefore
aims to enlighten their customers with insightful content
and proper call-to-action to better help generate leads.
With this idea in mind, it is considerably more effective for
them to involve sales/business development team in their
marketing projects to help deliver the message and accom-
plish their business objectives.
Among the majority of marketers we surveyed, indepen-
dence and internalization of marketing processes may be
a result of this situation. However, this does not always
come with adequate skills and resources. Reverting to our
finding about clarity on digital marketing, some B2B have
admitted that although they have set clear goals, they are
still struggling when it comes to measuring their marketing
initiatives in this digital era.
Whilst there is no absolute correct answer to every marketing
maneuver, the key suggestion is to have a complete realisation
on existing gaps and capabilities within the company itself,
and how to react upon it. Investing in in-house content team
for example, is not always easy. The risk of hiring wrong
talents and bad hire could be costly for the company, but
if done properly the company could operate their content
initiatives effectively and efficiently. To minimise the risks,
companies often hire some experts to conduct trainings for
their in-house team, ensuring they are well-equipped.
Working with an agency, on the other side, offers an in-depth
experience, advisory services to address possible knowl-
edge gaps, and objectively a set of expertise across the re-
quired niche fields. Whilst the costs required may vary when
compared to hiring in-house content team depending on the
company’s size and marketing needs, hiring an agency can be
highly cost effective as their existing structure diminishes
the costly risks of bad hire in an in-house team. Agencies also
offer a longer-term consistency as it eliminates the element
of employee turnover.
In the end, solutions may differ for each marketer depend-
ing on the company’s affordability, needs and objectives –
but the confusion is addressable through smart, informed
decisions.
In our survey we have discovered that B2C brands are
prioritising customer engagement when it comes to the
objectives of their digital marketing initiatives – and this
requires them to be highly innovative and captivating in
terms of content and how it is being delivered. Agencies,
having a forte on this specific area, gets into the frame and
have so far been able to capitalise in the market through
their creative approaches.
It has also been observed that brands working with agencies
on content creation (among others) can be more cost-effective
rather than they do it internally. Great and clear commu-
nication on content objectives and channels between both
brands’ and agencies’ sides can result in an actual effective
content marketing. Over time, this would result in higher
return on investment and less spending in comparison to
repetitive trials and errors that may come as the cost of
doing it in-house without the required expertise and direc-
tion.
“B2Bs’ tendency to rely on 3rd party is due to the nature of the job: for lead generation, it can be better to have the sales
or account representative involved, but overall we see that there is a trend that companies do not handle their social and content media in-house anymore. It is becoming more difficult
to bring an engaging campaign - more experience, knowledge and facilities are needed - and running that all
in-house becomes too much. ”
- Matt Wiggers, CEO at Havas Jakarta
Why do B2B brands internalize content marketing process?
In which direction should I go?
B2C’s reliance on agencies
24GetCRAFT.com
About
About this White Paper
GetCRAFT is Southeast Asia’s premier content marketing network. The company helps connects brands with 2,000+ vetted content creators and sponsored content channels for their content marketing, influencer marketing & bespoke native advertising needs.
This white paper is developed independently by GetCRAFT based on the market survey conducted in 2016 - 2017 across big cities in Indonesia: Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, and Surabaya. The sample size of the respondents is 150 coming from brands, agencies, and media. The demography of respondents encompasses managers, directors, VP and C-level market-ers, with brand categories spreading across the following industries: FMCG, retail, technology, e-commerce, tourism & hospi-tality, banking & finance, energy, manufacturing, and more.
For more information, visit our website : http://getcraft.comOr contact us at [email protected].
25GetCRAFT.com
Matt WiggersCEO
Havas Jakarta
Colin McDougallChief Marketing Officer
AXA Indonesia
Pradeep HarikrishnanTechnical AdvisorIPG Mediabrands
Timothius MartinHead of Performance & Branding
Matahari Mall
Patrick SearleCo-founder and Group CEO
GetCRAFT
Anthony RezaCo-founder and CEO Indonesia
GetCRAFT
Patrick has spent the last 10 years in 3 different countries helping some of the world’s largest brands with digital. He is now on a mission to help Indonesian brands and agen-cies tell amazing stories that both educate and inspire people to take action.
Passionate in helping brands and companies to tell meaningful stories and give real impact to people’s lives, Reza has had 7 years marketing and advertising experience where he set up and led teams in McCann Erickson, McCann Digital, Sampo-erna Foundation, and Social@Ogilvy.
We are thankful for the valuable contribution to this white paper from :