Over the past few years, the world of online marketing has exploded, as have the tactics available to reach people online. As a marketer you might feel overwhelmed by all the information and options available to you. Where do you even begin?
Well, you don’t have to start from scratch. Vietnam, like many other countries, has an incredibly vibrant online marketing community that is eager to help, teach, and guide you on your journey.
In this article, we will discuss how to market online from Vietnam, starting with exploring the various tools and techniques that you can use and then moving on to discussing the country’s peculiar SEO tendencies and the competitive landscape in the country.
Why Vietnam?
Vietnam is a country in Southeast Asia. It is classified as a developing country and is one of the world’s most rapidly expanding online markets. It currently has a population of over 92 million, and over 130 million people are predicted to be living in the country by 2050.
The population is highly engaged with consumer technology, and the government has an extremely active digital marketing agency named Gizo that is focused on leveraging the power of digital technology to promote consumer-government interaction and improve the daily lives of people in Vietnam. Gizo was established in 2015 and is run by an Australian named Mark Evans, who previously led the digital marketing division at Saigon Marketing, a well-known agency in Vietnam.
Evans notes that even prior to the establishment of Gizo, there were already over 100,000 active websites in Vietnam, many of which were quite successful. He attributes this to the fact that the country’s population is highly attracted to new technology and understands the importance of digital marketing in driving sales and building trust online.
The Digital Marketing Scene In Vietnam
Based on the results of a recent survey, online marketing in Vietnam is now a $19 million business, and this figure is predicted to rise to nearly $30 million by next year. Even more impressively, the survey found that 72% of respondents plan to increase their budget for digital marketing in the next 12 months.
This is an incredible growth opportunity for any business that is looking to enter the market. Vietnam currently only has a few well-known players, such as Google and Facebook, and a large number of small-to-medium sized businesses that are looking to build their audience, engage with customers, and eventually drive sales. This makes for an extremely vibrant and promising market.
SEO In Vietnam
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving a website’s search rankings on search engines like Google and Bing. If your website’s content is relevant and interesting to users, then it will naturally rank well in search results.
In order to truly optimize your website, you will need to do some serious research on SEO in Vietnam and then implement a strategy that is both effective and affordable.
In the next section, we will discuss some of the peculiarities of the Vietnamese search engine market and how you can take advantage of this to effectively market your products online. After that, we will move onto discussing some of the best affordable SEO strategies for small businesses in Vietnam.
Vietnamese Search Engine Market
While traditional search engines like Google and Bing provide powerful tools for marketers to reach potential customers, they are still considered traditional search engines because the majority of content on a typical website will appear in alphabetical order, according to web addresses (URLs).
However, with the vast majority of Vietnam’s population relying on mobile phones and tablets to access the internet, going green with a laptop just to search the web, especially when traveling, is now considered antiquated. This presents a huge opportunity for SEO in Vietnam.
Forbes writer, Jeff Bullas, notes that while SEO in Vietnam isn’t cheap, it’s not as expensive as you might think. The reason? Phonetic algorithms, or sounds that resemble words, are now used in place of keywords, and due to this, there is less incentive for webmasters to overtly optimize their content for keywords.
As a result, you will find that some websites in Vietnam rely more on SEO than they do on traditional, paid search ads. In fact, the SEO industry in Vietnam is so promising that many large companies, such as Samsung and Fossil, have established dedicated research teams to explore and optimize their websites for foreign audiences, especially in Southeast Asia.
Why Is Vietnamese SEO Different?
The people of Vietnam love to communicate through text messaging, and this can be considered a huge advantage for SEO. Since the majority of searches on Vietnamese search engines are now done through messaging apps like TikTok, WeChat, and even WhatsApp, which have hundreds of millions of active users, webmasters must take this into consideration when doing SEO.
This is why we see a lot of memes and short videos in Vietnamese SEO. In addition, videos used to be considered poor quality, and thus, less valuable for SEO. However, as video content continues to grow in popularity, especially on TikTok, SEOs must understand the importance of video and use appropriate tools to effectively measure and analyze video content, like Google Analytics and Hootsuite.
How To Market Online In Vietnam
With so much opportunity in the Vietnamese search engine market, it’s important to find the right approach, strategy, and tools to ensure your business’ success.
Even though you might be tempted to jump in with a quick and easy strategy, similar to what you did in the West, you need to take into consideration the country’s linguistic and cultural differences. You also need to remember that Google and Bing are still the most popular search engines in Vietnam, so it’s imperative that you familiarize yourself with the search engines’ algorithm and know how to effectively use the data that they provide to you.
Fortunately, the Vietnamese digital marketing community has you covered. The Gizo Agency, as mentioned earlier, is a well-known agency that is a bit of a mixture between a search marketing agency and a digital marketing agency. They focus on SEO, PPC, and display marketing, and they also provide digital marketing consultancy, planning, and audit services. What this means for you is that Gizo will take care of the nuts and bolts of gaining top rankings for your website on major search engines, such as Google and Bing.
You also have Hootsuite, a media management platform that allows you to pull and assemble content across social platforms into one place for your followers to consume. This content can then be boosted through paid or organic distribution across various social platforms, like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Now, you could go the traditional route and hire a team of people to help you manage your social platforms and carry out SEO tasks, but the truth is that a lot can be accomplished through a combination of these services, and this is what makes them so valuable—especially if you’re a small business, looking to get started, without the finances or time to outsource all this activity.
To that end, let’s discuss some of the best affordable SEO strategies for small businesses in Vietnam.
1. Link building
Creating a large number of high-quality, authoritative links to other websites that are relevant to your potential customers is one of the most effective ways to gain SEO rankings. Your goal is to have other websites cite your content, and in turn, have your content appear higher in search results.
In Vietnam, there are a variety of options for link building, including content creation, guest blogging, and social media marketing. The key is to find relevant ways to connect with other websites and bloggers, and when possible, have these individuals cite your content, as this will increase your SEO authority, and thus, your rankings.
2. Content outreach
Outreach is the process of establishing valuable relationships with decision makers, businesses, bloggers, and other people that have the power to choose or reject your product or service. Outreach can be incredibly effective in gaining trust and credibility with your target audiences, and subsequently, increasing sales.
Establishing and maintaining healthy relationships with influential people in your business’ industry is a complex and time-consuming process, but it’s an essential step if you truly want to grow your business, in any country, not just Vietnam. You need to make sure that these people know who you are, what you offer, and why they should care about your product or service—in other words, your unique offering proposition.