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IH Digital

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All your latest news and updates on B2B marketing across Asia. IH Digital is a 360 digital marketing agency in Asia that offers comprehensive B2B marketing services, including market research, lead generation and more.

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4 Steps to Conduct Successful Competitive Research

IH Digital Marketing Team
competitive research

Competitive research refers to the collection and review of information about business rivals. The process involves identifying your competitors, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses and discovering the business opportunities to surpass them.

Whatever business you run, it is almost certain that there are other companies out there offering a similar product or service like yours. You need to keep tabs on them to gain an edge over your competitors.

Understanding what your competitors are doing will help you position yourself, and your product or service, within the market.

Although performing a competitor’s analysis isn’t rocket science, it does go beyond the simple Google searches. Let’s delve into how to accomplish a competitor analysis in a systematic way to yield the most insights. 

How to conduct competitive research?

1. Identify your competitors 

First, you’ll need to figure out who are your competitors so you can compare the data accurately. There are two types of competitor to identify: direct and indirect.

Direct competitors are targeting the same audience as you. They sell the same product or service and trying to solve the same problem. 

Indirect competitors sell a product or service that is slightly different from yours to the same audience, or they may sell a similar product or service to a different audience.

Being able to identify these two type of competitors is important for two reasons. It enables you to see the growth opportunities for your business, and it could highlight a threat to your business of which you are unaware. 

Your ultimate goal at this stage would be to cast a wide net for businesses who are competing with you and have a thorough understanding of the competitive landscape.

2. Analyze competitors’ online presence

Once you have identified your main competitors, you would have to know how they are attracting the customers through their website, blogs and their social media presence.

You can start by exploring your competitor’s digital footprint by looking into:

  • Website content and blog articles
  • Newsletters
  • Social media posts 
  • Online communities

Once you’ve located their content, you can take notice on are they doing anything that you are not doing. If your competitors are consistently publishing four times a week compared to your one article per week. That could be a part of the reason why you have lower website traffic than your competitors.

This insight helps you to get a grasp of where you should be focusing your attention and resources.

3. Examine competitors’ marketing strategy

Looking at your competitor’s positioning strategy will give you a good sense of your market’s demands and expectations.

This is where you start gathering ideas for your marketing plan, by discovering what the customers buying from them, how they differentiate their products or services from the competition and what benefits do they emphasize in their marketing copy.

These insights help you to determine who your competitors are communicating with and how they position themselves within the market, which pays dividends when you work on how you will position yourself in the market.

The best way to collect information about your competitors is by pretending to be their customers. Subscribe to their blogs so you can know what types of content they are publishing.

You can also consider shopping in their stores so you can know what makes their product or service unique and what the brand experience is from a customer perspective.

4. Check online reviews 

After gaining insights into how they position themselves in the market, it’s the time to start evaluating the strength and weakness of their strategies. Try to read through the reviews of your competitors, there could be an opportunity for you to stand out. 

Reviews tell what’s good and what’s bad about them. If they are selling a product similar to yours, this is a good way to find out if the audience is interested. Not only can you learn best practices from competitors, but you can also identify key areas where you can improve your product or service.

Want to outpace your competitors? Work with IH Digital.

After performing a competitive analysis, you now have a better idea and understanding of what your competitors are doing. It is time to think critically about how you can use this information to devise a strategy that can improve your business results.

Research does not always have to be a complicated and time-consuming process when you have IH Digital that does the work for you.

We offer APAC market research for businesses in the region by combining all market research, audience research and competitor research in one package – Market Readiness Research (MRR).

IH Digital | Asia-Focused Digital Marketing Agency

IH Digital is an Asia-focused digital marketing agency providing Consultancy, Strategy, Content, Social Media, Media Buy, Web Development, SEM & SEO.

Interested to work with us and conduct competitive research? Contact us today to schedule a consultation with our Market Research team soon. 

AnalyticsB2BTop Stories

Business Growth Strategy: Market Penetration & Market Development

IH Digital Marketing Team
Featured Image Template

Identify the low-risk business growth strategies

Successful leaders understand that if their organization is to grow in the long term, they need to find new ways to increase profits and reach more customers.

Whether that’s developing better products or adopting more efficient processes, there are numerous ways for business growth. But how do you know which one will work best for your organization?  

The best practice tip is to use Ansoff Matrix – a strategic tool to quickly devise potential growth strategies and weigh up the potential risks. The matrix shows four business growth strategies that can be applied to identify opportunities to grow a business by developing new products and services or entering new markets.

Ansoff Matrix Business Growth Strategy

If your company wants to grow revenue with existing products or services, the lowest risk business growth strategies for expanding your customer base and increasing sales are:

  • Target new customers in an existing market (market penetration); or
  • Sell to similar customers in new markets (market development)

Market Development vs. Market Penetration

Market penetration focuses on the sales of existing products to existing markets, whereas market development is finding and developing new markets for existing products.

While market penetration is the lowest risk strategy, market development comes a close second because these two strategies avoid risk-taking product development, unlike the diversification and product development strategy.

Market penetration is the recommended strategy to start with, but it can have a reverse effect when the market is saturated. Sooner or later, you may need to take account of a higher risk, higher reward strategy to support continue steady growth. This is where market development fits in as a favourable strategy.

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How to implement Market Penetration strategies?

Market penetration is the least risky business growth strategy since it focuses on selling existing products in familiar markets. Most companies made it as a starting line and promote growth without the high-risk nature of tapping into new markets.

Even so, this strategy is highly competitive as you’ll be capturing the market share from your competitors, this is called a ‘red ocean strategy’.

There are several market penetration strategies, including:

1. Attract new buyers in your current market

This strategy is to convert occasional users to regular users by increasing brand loyalty.

Free trials or samples, promoted with advertising and experimenting with pricing strategies can be a successful way to capture the new consumers who are just ‘testing the water’. By allowing them to experience your product, you are getting yourself an opportunity to impress them.

2. Make your product more appealing than competitors’

The strategy, in this case, will be adjusting the 4 basic pillars of the marketing mix; it can be altering one or more of the elements such as product or promotion approaches.

Setting yourself apart from other products with very similar features — by offering better customer service, more competitive pricing, or more product promotion or expanding more distribution channels are among the competitive approaches in getting competitor’s customer to switch to your product and increasing your market share.

For instance, McDonald’s launched McCafe by serving premium roasted coffee for a reasonable price and placing itself as a secondary coffee provider to compete with Starbucks.

How to implement Market Development strategy?

If market development is the option for your business, the objective will be to develop new markets for the existing products. It is a higher risk but higher reward strategy to help your business continues to grow steadily. No fierce competition with existing competitors hence is called ‘blue ocean strategy’.

There are two broad market development strategies:

1. Enter into a new geographical market

This is a strategy where you can target the users in different markets with similar needs to your existing customers. It is mainly adopted by multinational companies to expand their businesses.

Expanding into a new market requires careful considerations and proper analysis to make sure you have a solid grasp of market growth rates, demand, barriers to entry and competitors, before making the initial investment.

Different geographical market has different preferences and needs. You’ll need to understand the market situation to consider creating buyer personas in the potential market. This is where market research call into play.

▶ Analyze your business’s potential to expand into new markets with IH Digital’s Market Readiness Research (MRR) Package. Learn more here.

2. Suggest new uses for your existing product

Exploit the alternative uses of your product enables you to hunt for new customers and expand into new markets.

Humans have exceptional creativity in improvising tools to get the job done, so how your product is being used may not make certain. Interviewing your customers can uncover the innovative ways that they are using your product, and you’ll be able to turn their inputs into fresh ideas to promote your product.

The small changes such as repackaging the product may open up a new market. For instance, a business selling tea leaves to the hotel or restaurant market may start selling to consumers by repacking the product in tea tins.

If a new customer segment can be acquired with an existing product, this amounts to market development.

Choose the suitable business growth strategy

In a nutshell, the difference between market penetration and market development relies on whether the existing products are offered in higher volumes in the existing market or a new market segment. Both strategies have their benefits and limitations.

Refer to the table below for the suitable strategy to adopt for expansion:

comparison table for business growth strategy

If you’ve been planning to expand your business in Asia but you don’t have accurate information about the new market to decide on your business strategy, we can help you to conduct market research to access and analyze the market potential.

IH Digital | Asia-Focused Digital Marketing Agency

IH Digital is an Asia-focused digital marketing agency providing Consultancy, Strategy, Content, Social Media, Media Buy, Web Development, SEM & SEO.

Interested to work with us in expanding your business? Contact us today to schedule a consultation with our marketing expert soon. 

B2BSocial Media MarketingTop Stories

IH Digital’s #PhygitalBeautySpace To Reinvent Beauty Marketing

IH Digital Marketing Team
3

The new marketing strategy for beauty retail 

Beauty businesses have been baffled in the shadow of Covid-19, due to the lockdowns, physical stores are forced to shutter and the sales of beauty products declined. Even for global beauty giant L’Oréal, their fiscal revenue in the first half of 2020 fell by 11.7%, in light of widespread store closures and limitations with physical shopping.  

In current times, hygiene is the key to prevent product contamination. As might be expected, for a highly personal category, safety measures have restricted the in-store practices of product testing and in-person consultations, resulting in drastic decline in engagement with cosmetics and skincare products. 

To keep pace with the shifting market demand and consumer buying behavior, setting new business model and beauty marketing strategies has become more important than ever.  

While everyone was thinking that virtual stores set limitations and does not replicate the in-store experience and so forth, L’Oréal-owned luxury beauty label Lancôme debuted its first-ever virtual tech-enabled store that is seamlessly integrated with retails. 

ih digital - asia 360 digital marketing agency in singapore

IH Digital’s innovative beauty marketing solution  

Inspired by Lancome’s initiatives in adapting to the pandemic, IH Digital has made a breakthrough by rolling out the unprecedented marketing solution – #PhygitalBeautySpace Package for beauty brands to provide consumers an immersive online shopping experience at the comfort of home. 

PhygitalBeautySpace is a brand new digital offering that replicates offline retail experiences by launching massive digital marketing campaigns backed up by offline trial kit. 

To help the beauty brands to penetrate deeper into the Southeast Asia markets, we have integrated our hardcore digital marketing services and complementary offline support to craft a 6-steps marketing solution.  

6-steps solution of the #PhygitalBeautySpace Package 

1.Set up Shopify e-commerce website 

Setting up a Shopify e-commerce website would be the first critical step, as all the customers will be directed to the virtual flagship store at the end for purchasing. Shopify is a global e-commerce platform open for all countries with easy store set-up and providing over 100 payment gateway options.  

To lift the chances of product purchase among visitors from across Southeast Asia, the ability to view prices in local currency has become more important, and Shopify plays a role with its convenient currency converter. 

While setting up a store is simply not enough, we will be providing monthly store maintenance. The website is not only a store, it’s also a platform for branding and advertising with its inclusive suite of marketing tools – blog, Google and Facebook Ad and reporting.  

AB’s beauty marketing with Shopify store
E-commerce store on Shopify

2. Create AR Filter for your brand 

Following this towards the creation of Augmented Reality (AR) Filter – a computer-generated effect designed to alter the real-life image your camera displays.  

In the time of pandemic and where e-commerce is the now and the future, we can’t tell how a lipstick colour will appear on our lips, therefore cosmetic brands have to discover new ways to replace color swatching to drive e-commerce sales.  

With touchless AR filters, consumers get to test the effects of wearing the makeup products without product contamination. Consumers can virtually try-on different lipstick colors by swiping through a range of filters on the camera. The digital effects will move in synchronization with the user’s actions, giving them the real-life expectations, this in turn, facilitate their decision-making process.  

Beauty marketing with AR filter to give consumers a virtual cosmetics try-on
AR filter for virtual try-on

3. Trial Kit Delivery to consumer 

The journey continues with its third Trial Kit Delivery step, where a brand provides a physical product experience by sending product samples to potential customer’s doorstep. This is also how a brand can collect the database of potential consumers that can be used for future re-targeting. 

With highly restricted in-store experience, people who work from home might decide to shorten skincare regimes and even completely skip cosmetics. By sending a sample to potential customers, you can remind them that you are always available online, ready to meet any new needs they might have now. 

4. Discover Yourself Quiz

In the fourth step, consumers will be invited to take a Discover Yourself Quiz for the brand to collect data of their skin types and lifestyles, effectively discovering the consumer’s needs, then recommend the suitable products, just like an in-store beauty consultant. 

The design and development of quiz will be hosted on a microsite which comprised of a collection of webpages – Home Page, How to Play Page, Quiz Pages, Results Pages, Personal Details Registration Page, T&Cs Pop-up Page. 

Beauty marketing with online quiz to understand consumers’ lifestyle and preference for better product recommendations

5. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is an active way to increase your brand visibility in the online community. This is the source for you to reach millions of users worldwide where you can spread the words about your product and build a connection with your target audience. 

There are 3 keys services to ensure the objective of your beauty campaign is achieved on social media – content marketing, query management and reporting.  

This includes activities like generating and updating the social media pages with visual image, videos, and other content to drive audience engagement. With our in-house expertise in English, Thai and other Southeast Asia languages, we can manage your social account’s query and comment in a timely yet professional manner.

In addition, you will be able to view the performance of your and competitor’s page with our well-structured social media report. 

6. Virtual PR Event

The last step is to conduct a virtual PR event to showcase your company, products or services to the general public through live-streaming either on FB page or YT channel.  

The presenters or product experts are able to share their product knowledge and information on screen and reach up to 5,000 people in one presentation. There will be live interactions to keep the virtual events engaging and alive – Question & Answer session, live chat room and sticky announcement.  

The purpose of the event is to garner brand exposure. Even so, we want the conference to be in positive vibe. We will be providing and delivering the light refreshment right in front of the attendees to get them in good spirits by the time you begin delivering your speeches, presentations, and announcements. 

Beauty marketing with virtual PR event to publicize the products online and to engage with potential consumers

Get ready to give your beauty marketing a makeover? 

IH Digital is an Asia-focused digital marketing agency providing Consultancy, Strategy, Content, Social Media, Media Buy, Web Development, SEM & SEO.

We launched this #PhygitalBeautySpace Package purposely to help the beauty brands to counter the pandemic crisis with the 6-steps beauty marketing solution, at the same time embracing the evolution of beauty marketing towards a greater digital play. 

Looking for an innovative beauty marketing solution? Contact us today to schedule a quick chat with our marketing expert soon. 

B2BTop Stories

Marketing Partnership Programme (MPP) Grant available until September 2020

IH Digital Marketing Team
MPP grant

Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has launched a Marketing Partnership Programme (MPP) Grant for local Singapore tourism sector. It is STB’s COVID-19 Recovery Plan to help hotels and attractions in marketing and maintaining their international presence. 

If you’re a Singapore-registered company running a hotel or tourist attraction, then you are eligible to apply for the MPP Grant. The application deadline is 30 September 2020. This means that you only have less than 30 days to apply for the government grant.  

Hurry before the application closes in 4 weeks. To help you quickly prepare for the application, we’ve prepared a comprehensive MPP Grant Quick Guide to help you understand the whole funding program. 

To accelerate your application, we have summarised all the details on this page. Read through it to make sure you fully understand the funding program. 

ih digital - asia 360 digital marketing agency in singapore

MPP Grant Quick Run-through 

  • Eligibility: Open to all Singapore-registered companies who run hotels or tourist attractions as their core business
  • Qualifying costs: Only the approved marketing campaigns are qualified for claiming funds, starting from the signing date of the STB’s Letter of Award until 31 December 2021 
  • Support level: Covers up to 70% of marketing costs  
  • Application deadline: Application must reach STB by 30 September 2020  
  • Approval lead time: 5 to 10 working days 
  • Campaign evaluation: Every property must report marketing results (e.g. number of leads generated, sales revenue, etc.) for STB to evaluate the effectiveness of MPP 
  • Disbursement of funds: Invoices must be audited by a third-party auditor before submitting it to STB 

What should you prepare for the MPP Grant application? 

  1. A ready copy of the Company’s ACRA Bizfile to be uploaded in the MPP Grant Application Form 
  2. Details of your marketing plans and estimated budget  
  3. Assign and prepare the contact details of Key Contact Person. ‘Key Contact Person’ refers to the person in charge of the project. 

To apply, simply fill in the form here: https://form.gov.sg/#!/5e8a8a0c8890bc00114f3eb4 

Don’t have a marketing plan yet? Contact us to get professional assistance with your Asia marketing strategy.  

Let a professional Asia marketing agency fulfill your tourism marketing plan 

If you’re running out of ideas for your marketing plans, IH Digital can help generate a plan that works in your target Asia market.  

IH Digital is an Asia-focused digital marketing agency providing Consultancy, Strategy, Content, Social Media, Media Buy, Web Development, SEM & SEO.

We’ve worked with many travel brands in the past until now, helping them plan and execute marketing strategies that work across the region. Contact us today to schedule a quick chat with our tourism marketing experts soon. 

Account ManagementAnalyticsB2B

Gain Customer Insights Through Social Listening

IH Digital Marketing Team
Gain Customer Insights Through Social Listening

Insights like social listening are crucial to a successful marketing strategy. Researching and understanding your market, audiences, and the sentiment behind your brand, are all essential efforts to achieve an optimal business strategy. And the best way to collect these insights is through social listening. It’s not simply monitoring the discussions and mentions of your product and brand, but it’s also understanding the customers’ response and feelings towards your brand.

What is Social Listening?

Social listening, also known as social media listening, is part of the market research to analyse conversations on social media channels. Its primary goal is to gain consumer insights and observe trends and general sentiment about your brand, products, competitors or industry. It also helps you understand why, where, and how these conversations are happening, as well as what people think—not just when they’re tagging or mentioning your brand.

Rather than doing all the guesswork about what your customers want or think, you can know exactly what they want. With social listening, you can devise future campaigns, create a killer content strategy, and even surpass your competitors. By using social listening to direct your business strategy, your company will surely save both time and money.

ih digital - asia 360 digital marketing agency in singapore

Why your business needs Social Media Listening?

1.    You can keep track of your brand’s performance

One of the greatest benefits of social media listening is that you are able to identify and analyse customer comments, complaints, and sentiments around your brand in real time. You’ll uncover insights about the positive or negative feelings people associate with your brand, and the specific features that they concern about.

Understanding the public perception of your brand is an essential starting point to take your strategy to the next level. If you are getting positive sentiment, find out the reasons behind it as those information can guide your marketing strategies. If sentiment is negative, look for the problems and make changes right away.

2.      You can discover new opportunities

Social listening helps you to perceive the upcoming industry trends. By knowing the popular hashtags or emerging topics within your industry, you can get a better sense of where your market is moving to. This information can help you to reposition your brand’s product, content, and general messaging and become a trendy discussion point.

When people are complaining about a competitor’s product or customer service, you can grab the opportunity to step in and ask them to explain what shortcomings they found. If you engage with them, they will give you meaningful feedbacks or ideas which help to find your sweet spot.

If you can modify your products to address the concerns people are talking about, you can satisfy more of your customers and hopefully, outpace your competitors.

3.      You can increase customer acquisition by optimising content

Simply being on social is not enough. Content is equally important to drive engagement and conversion, so you want to get it right. Social listening helps you to discover what topics and hashtags your audiences are interested in. Through it, you will then know exactly what you need to talk about or what type of content to deliver in order to reach as many people as possible.

Social media holds many opportunities for broadening your reach to prospects. Rather than just capturing inactive followers, you convert them into your customers. After all, your followers aren’t simply your loyal customers sticking to your brand; they’re also people who enjoy your content or willing to share ideas with you.

More importantly, it is much easier to convert your active followers into leads and, eventually, customers – compared to random strangers, hoping they can magically turn into loyal customers.

Enhance your market research or strategy with social listening

If you’ve been struggling to keep abreast of the industry trends, it’s high time you listen to your customers on social media. Get to know them better to create a winning and up-to-date strategy with social listening.

At IH Digital, we use Digimind – a global social media monitoring and marketing intelligence platform that provides comprehensive enterprise tools and resources for social listening, social analytics, and competitive intelligence.  

IH Digital is a B2B marketing agency in Asia that provides full marketing services, including market research, social listening and more that works across the region. 

We offer APAC market research for Asia businesses using the 3-Step Market Research Method. We combined all essential marketing research steps in one package known as the Market Readiness Research (MRR), aimed to help you understand your target market  from competitors to audience.

Interested to work with us and conduct Asia market research? Contact us today to schedule a consultation with our Market Research team soon. 

B2BTop Stories

Government Grant: Marketing Partnership Programme For Local Attractions

IH Digital Marketing Team
Government Grant for Singapore Attractions

Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has launched a government grant for local Singapore attractions to aid its marketing initiatives. If you’re a Singapore-registered company running permanent tourist attractions, then the STB Marketing Partnership Programme (MPP) is the best government grant for you.  

The submission deadline of the grant application is 30 September 2020. So, before you begin  your application, read through the grant basics below to quickly understand this funding program. 

MPP Funding Program Quick Facts

  • Open to all Singapore-registered company who run tourist attractions as its core business 
  • Supports local tourist attractions in their international marketing activities 
  • Covers up to 70% of marketing costs 
  • Closing date for submission: 30 September 2020 

Contact us to learn more about this government grant, as well as get assistance on your Asia marketing strategy. Whether you’re targeting Koreans or Chinese for your business, we can help you generate a plan that works in your target Asia market. 

ih digital - asia 360 digital marketing agency in singapore

MPP: Singapore Tourism Grant for Local Attractions 

Marketing Partnership Programme (MPP) is part of the Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) COVID-19 Recovery Plan to support attractions in its international marketing initiatives. The primary purpose of the government grant is to aid attractions in marketing and maintaining their international presence, as well as drive  tourists’ demand during recovery.

Timeline & Key Dates 

Timeline & Key Dates for the MPP Government Grant
Image by IH Digital | Source: Singapore Tourism Board

The approval lead time is normally 5 to 10 working days.

Qualifying Costs and Support Level 

Here’s the grant’s qualifying costs and support level for your quick reference. 

Qualified activities supported by the MPP Government Grant

Note that the qualifying costs must be incurred and paid within the approved Campaign Qualifying Period, starting from the signing date of the STB’s Letter of Award and to the end of the year (31 December 2021), both dates inclusive. 

Non-Qualifying Costs 

However, there are also costs not covered by the grant. These are: 

  • Creative/Media/PR Agency-on-Retainer (AOR) fees 
  • Manpower costs such as engagement of temporary and contract staff 
  • Product and price subsidies or discounts 
  • STB-supported familiarisation trips and tradeshows/roadshows 
  • Marketing costs already receiving other grants from STB/other government agencies 

Deliverables Submission for Claiming Funds 

At the end of the project, the applicant must submit deliverables to be able to claim the funding. The deliverables will be tied to the submitted and approved marketing plans in the application. 

Moreover, for partially fulfilled plans, the supporting grant will be pro-rated accordingly. 

Reporting Marketing Results 

To evaluate the effectiveness of MPP, each attraction property is required to submit the below indicators on a monthly basis until 31 December 2021: 

  • Marketing Campaign KPIs 
  • Number of leads generated 
  • Number of local and foreign visitors  
  • Sales Revenue from local and foreign visitors (S$) 

Disbursement of Funds 

To relieve cash flow pressure, there will be two stages in the disbursement process: 

  1. First disbursement – mid-way of the campaign period 
  2. Final disbursement – after the campaign 

Likewise, the invoices must be audited by a third-party auditor before submitting it to STB. 

How to Apply for MPP

To apply, simply fill up the Marketing Partnership Programme Application Form. 

For more information on about the programme, please visit the Singapore Tourism Board website. 

Do you need help with your marketing plan? 

If you’re interested to apply for the MPP government grant but you don’t know how to start with the marketing plan, IH Digital can help you build a strategy that will get you the results you want. 

IH Digital is a B2B marketing agency that provides simplicity and flexibility for clients’ marketing needs across Asia. Founded in 2006, our 80+ digital specialists work on campaigns across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Greater China, Korea and Japan. 

We’ve worked with many hotel travel brands in the past until now, helping them plan and execute marketing strategies that work across the region. Contact us today to schedule a quick chat with our tourism marketing experts soon.

AnalyticsB2B

Understand Your Target Market with Asia Market Research

IH Digital Marketing Team
asia market research by ih digital

Successful companies penetrating Asia markets perform market research to keep pace with the market trends, make strategic decisions on business activities, and gain a competitive edge. Whether you are doing a business start-up or business expansion, research is vital to understanding your target markets and subsequently creating a marketing strategy that plays well in the market penetration or business expansion process.   

What is Market Research? 

Market research is a process of evaluating a business environment by collecting and analysing the facts about a market, which is crucial for the decision-making process. Insights from research help established businesses identify gaps in the market that will enable them to harness available opportunities while avoiding risks.

Why Asia market research is essential to your SEA business expansion? 

1. It helps you make informed decisions about the gaps in the Asia market.

Having a great product is not the end-all of any business in Southeast Asian market, as competitors will always seek ways to gain market share. To secure your market share pie in the region, you have to truly understand your consumers – what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. That’s where market research comes in.  

Knowing what the current market demand is can help you to make informed decisions about your business activities, including the feasibility of a new product or demand for service before launching your target Asia market — potentially saving you thousands of dollars.  

2. It helps you strategise a thorough and successful marketing plan that works in Asia. 

Business success requires detailed planning around the opportunities available in the Asia market. This way, your business gets to survive in highly competitive markets like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, and more. That’s why you have to ensure that your plans are rooted in the information and facts gathered through market research.  

Furthermore, obtaining information about your consumer’s demographics, buying behaviour, and intended use of the product or service, can be useful in developing a product or service that suits their needs. Through this, you’ll know precisely what will work, and what won’t. And you can plan ahead of your competitors in capturing any Asian market.  

Now you know the importance of market research in any overseas business venture, let’s move forward to the 3-step Market Research Method by IH Digital. 

ih digital - asia 360 digital marketing agency in singapore

How to successfully conduct market research in Asia?  

Step 1. Understand the APAC Landscape through Social Listening  

To conduct market research in Asia, you need to perform social listening, which is basically keeping track of social media mentions and conversations in the market. At IH Digital, we do this by using Digimind – a global social media monitoring and marketing intelligence platform that provides comprehensive enterprise tools and resources for social listening, social analytics, and competitive intelligence.  

In this stage, you will obtain key information on your industry, target market, including key consumer insights, and product trends, as well as top rises and decliners. By properly listening to your audience on social, you can identify what they need, what they are concerned about, and what they expect out of your business or brand. 

Step 2. Gain Market Intelligence with Competitive Research 

After understanding your audience’s needs, your next step is to identify your industry competitors in the target market. You can do this by researching on their market and product positioning, online presence, and marketing spend.  With competitive research, you’ll get more insights into the market and inspiration to further improve your plans.  

Competitive research starts with determining who your competitors are, what they are offering, and how they are attracting customers. This can help you better understand your customer expectations. 

Once you’re clear with the basics, you should look at the strategy they are using. By doing this, you can figure out two things: the factors that lead to failures, and the opportunities that your service can fill in. Having a stranglehold in both areas is key to your success in the new market. 

Step 3. Recognising your Target Audience with Focus Group Study 

By focusing your efforts on the right market, you can see faster results and greater overall performance from your marketing campaigns. However, to know if you are aiming at the right market, one vital thing to verify is your target audience. This third step will help you recognise who you should be targeting in the new market. 

And when you’ve identified them, make sure to verify it by organising focus groups. A focus group is in-depth profiling of your target audience, including: 

  • Keywords they use on search engines
  • Media consumption
  • Social habits 

This research method allows a small group of people to discuss a specific subject, enabling you to gather extensive feedback and develop a deeper understanding of your target audience. Furthermore, the results will help you obtain well-defined brand positioning and improve your marketing assets.

▶ Are you a Singapore-registered business? Get funded for your market research initiatives with the Market Readiness Assistance (MRA) Grant. Learn more here. 

Need help in conducting market research in Asia? 

If you’ve been planning to expand your business in Asia but you have no information about the new market, we can help you make the right decisions. 

IH Digital is a B2B marketing agency in Asia that offers APAC market research for businesses in the region. We combine all essential marketing research steps in one package known as the Market Readiness Research (MRR), aimed to help you to be market-ready with the significant 3-Steps Market Research Method. This package is specially designed for both businesses seeking to introduce its offerings to a new target market or increase penetration in existing markets.  

Interested to work with us and conduct market research? Contact us today to schedule a consultation with our Market Research team soon. 

B2BTop Stories

Market Readiness Assistance (MRA) Grant Helps S’pore SMEs in Overseas Market Penetration

IH Digital Marketing Team
market-readiness-assistance

Venturing into a new market is risky and costly. Thus, it is advisable for Singapore’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to make optimum use of the Market Readiness Assistance (MRA) grant to grow their businesses internationally. 

The rollout the MRA grant indicates that there is a chance for SMEs to acquire government’s financial support in expanding their business profile into the global market.  

But how does it work and what are the requirements you need to qualify? Let’s delve deeper into the fundamentals of the Singapore government funding.

ih digital - asia 360 digital marketing agency in singapore

What is Market Readiness Assistance (MRA) Grant?

Market Readiness Assistance (MRA) Grant is a funding program offered by Enterprise Singapore to help Singapore incorporated companies to tap into overseas markets by providing financial assistance. This includes support for the following: 

  • Overseas market set-up 
  • Overseas business development 
  • Overseas marketing promotion

The enhancement period for the MRA Grant is from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2023. 

Click here for the full list of supportable activities.

What are the benefits of the MRA Grant?

MRA grant offers funding up to 70% of eligible costs that companies incur on qualifying activities. For instance, identification of overseas business partners, marketing and promoting their products and services overseas. Moreover, the grant is capped at S$100,000 per company per new market with the following activity sub-caps:

  • Overseas market promotion (capped at S$20,000) 
  • Overseas business development (capped at S$50,000) 
  • Overseas market set-up (capped at S$30,000)
The maximum support period for an approved activity under the MRA Grant is 12 months. 

Is your company eligible to apply for the MRA Grant?

To be eligible to apply for the MRA Grant, your company should meet the following criteria: 

  • Business registered/incorporated in Singapore and have at least 30% local shareholding 
  • New to target overseas market , whereby the applicant has not exceeded annual sales of S$100,000 in the last 3 preceding years 
  • Group Annual Sales Turnover of not more than S$100 million; OR Company’s Group Employment Size of not more than 200 employees

Otherwise, the application is likely to be rejected if the company: 

  • Does not meet the eligibility criteria  
  • Has its main business operations outside Singapore 
  • Is a non-profit organization 
  • Seeks support for the purpose of fundraising or increasing domestic sales 
  • Have used up the full S$100,000 support for a particular market (will no longer be eligible for the same market)

How to apply for the MRA Grant?

To begin, submit your application at Business Grants Portal (BGP). Applications must be made at least 6 months before kick-starting the overseas project. 

Each application is only limited to one activity in single overseas market. In other words, a company is granted with application on multiple markets simultaneously, provided that new market criteria are met and projects are within each activity grant sub-cap. 

Here’s the MRA Grant application flowchart from start to finish for your quick reference. 

online application processes for market readiness assistance (mra) grant

Remember to keep track of your application status through the BGP and wait for IE Singapore’s Letter of Offer. 

How to claim your expenses?

At the end of the project, you are required to submit all claims through the BGP within three months from project end date for disbursement.  

Note that all expenses of the approved activity need to be audited. Companies must assign an Enterprise Singapore auditor to verify the eligibility, authenticity, and accuracy of the items listed in the Statement of Claim.  

For more information, refer to Annex 6 of your Letter of Offer in the BGP for the contact details of Enterprise Singapore-appointed auditors upon approval of the MRA grant. 

For more information on the programme details, please visit the Enterprise Singapore website. 

Need help in your overseas marketing plan?

If you’re interested to apply for the MRA Grant but you have zero idea for your marketing plan, IH Digital can help you build a winning strategy that works in your new Asia market. 

IH Digital is a 360° digital marketing agency in Asia that provides B2B services, including market research, social media, China and Korea digital marketing, e-commerce, SEO, SEM, influencer marketing and more. 

Interested to work with us and boost your brand’s Asia marketing strategy? Contact us today to schedule a quick chat with our marketing expert soon.