Opportunities and Challenges for ASEAN Digital Marketers

The present leading driver of innovation and growth on almost all aspects of the business sector, and even the human life is the digital evolution as of late. While the existing boundaries and geographical borders are now considered redundant, business models are changing, and new industries are being created today.

With the upcoming ASEAN integration, it is said that they have an opportunity to come up on the top 5 digital economies by 2025 — if these major and highly developed economies gather up their digital marketing strategies and concentrate on how they can co-opt these new advancements to help boost economic development.

The need for this digital marketing strategy is the reason marketers are in abundance of opportunities, which they can use to up their game. Another would be because, under the ASEAN integration, the e-commerce industry will be enjoying a boost in their key areas like a seamless environment for electronic commerce, a common marketplace for ICT goods and services, and e-governance.

In terms of cold cash, the execution of an appropriate digital agenda and procedure could add $1 trillion to ASEAN GDP throughout the following ten years.

But, in spite of this, situations like the ones below hinder our growth potential as digital marketers. These roadblocks should be addressed at the soonest possible time to achieve said maximum growth.

• Limited Broadband Access

A significant chunk of the populace, particularly in nations such as Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam, lives in country ranges where Internet availability is generally poor. As we all know, with limited broadband access comes limited reach to people in terms of digital marketing.

In their respective metros, there are decent enough internet signals, but as the majority of these countries are still rural, there are not enough antennas that can accommodate the populace today.

A solution to this would be for policymakers over the region to organize an all-inclusive broadband access by enhancing the business case for putting resources into the advanced digital infrastructure in these rural zones, and promoting digital literacy and consciousness of the advantages of a digital society.

• Inadequate Access to Banking Facilities

There is also a large number of consumers within the ASEAN countries, especially in the Philippines, who lack access to banking facilities. This constrains their capacity to shop online and prevents the development of the sector.

Even among the individuals who have admitted to keeping money administrations such as platinum and credit cards, there is a hesitance to lead online exchanges and share personal financial information on the web.

By educating fellow risk averse Filipinos that credit card and online transactions are safe, we can solve this hurdle of promoting personal data protection and consumer privacy, as well as the implementation of trust and confidence on the internet as digital marketers.

Looking back, it’s not just challenges that the ASEAN integration brought us, but opportunities as well.

• Focused Governments

Governments over the ASEAN district have likewise been attempting endeavors to assemble the data and communications infrastructure. Their interest in such tasks has been developing at a compound yearly development rate of 15 percent in the course of recent years — with $100 billion put resources into 2015.

• We’re a Youthful Populace

Did you know that within the 600 million people within the ASEAN bloc, 90 percent of them are educated, and 50 percent are under 30 years of age. With 90 percent of those under 30 years old having access to the internet, this tech-savvy young group is going to contribute vigorously to the development of the digital economy by doing most things online. From shopping and banking to utilizing taxi and hotel booking applications, and progressively notwithstanding finding love with the quickly developing dating applications — everything is possible.

Marketers should take this advantage and use it, as with the ASEAN bloc and the Philippine market being a hotbed of digital adoption. It would mean an easier way to reach the masses and contribute to growing the digital market. To do a better job at this, one should take up digital marketing courses that are sure to help understand how to reach this tech-savvy populace in an efficient manner.

All these prove how much of a challenge and a great opportunity the ASEAN integration brings. But, to fulfill the potential for ASEAN to enter the top five digital economies in the world by 2025, the region needs a comprehensive overhaul of in-country and cross-border regulations, like improving broadband connections and e-governance.

Considering that there are no valid laws for the digital world yet, this is a great challenge for the government to create, enforce, and improve existing laws in a very dynamic territory.

Find out more at: http://www.imadigitalmarketer.com/blog/opportunities-challenges-asean-digital-marketers (2/11/2016)