Content creation a top challenge for Asian marketers: HubSpot

The marketing and sales automation technology company released its inaugural State of Inbound Asia report, which also showed that measuring return on investment (ROI) and securing budget remain top challenges across all the regions.

The report found that businesses, especially small to medium businesses (SMBs),  around the world predominantly prefer inbound to outbound marketing and sales activities.

Inbound marketing entails the creation of engaging content for distribution and promotion across social channels, while outbound includes the use of banner ads, direct mail, cold calling, and other ways of grabbing a customer’s attention.

Ryan Bonnici, APAC marketing director at HubSpot, said the report shows that in a region like Asia where a large percentage of the population is mobile-first, inbound tactics that focus on creating quality content to pull people toward a brand really work.

“As marketers, we use the report to determine which facets of content or inbound tactics people gravitate towards and which elements, or markets, remain nascent,” he added. “As the report shows, inbound marketing and sales have become the norm rather than the exception.”

Key takeaways from the Asia study include:

• Inbound is the norm rather than the exception, with three out of four marketers in Asia prioritising an inbound approach to marketing.
• Companies are three times as likely to see higher ROI on inbound marketing campaigns than on outbound campaigns.
• Growing SEO / organic traffic and creating blog content are Asian marketers’ top two inbound marketing activities.
• Generating contacts / leads and converting them into customers are the top two priorities for marketers in Asia.
• Marketers are twice more likely to achieve greater ROI if they measured analytics at least two times a week.
• Inbound is the preferred marketing strategy regardless of company type, meaning B2B, B2C, and non-profits alike are all adopting and implementing inbound tactics.