Motoko’s weblog

The first ad:tech Tokyo was held on September 2 and 3 at the Price Park Tower Tokyo, and it was indeed a blast as it is commented on their website. Despite the current downward financial situation in Japan and Asia, the place was packed with people eager to hear and learn from some of the leading figures in the industry. I haven’t seen the conferences filled with positive energy like this one in recent years in Japan, and was great to be a part of it.

One of the biggest differences between the ad:tech conferences in Tokyo and other locations was that this one was more focused on the advertising with heavy mass media messaging rather than the digital marketing and the search marketing. You could see strong Dentsu influences to many sessions, which probably shows the current advertising market in Japan. Continue Reading »

I’ve been a member of SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) since 2003, and been heavily involved in its activities especially in Asia. Back in 2004, we established one of the first regional working groups, SEMPO Japan. Since then, we created SEMPO Asia Committee to support our activities and efforts in Asia, and were able to establish SEMPO India and SEMPO Singapore. While our membership in Asia is still small compared to that in US, I’m fortunate to welcome and work with some of the leaders in these markets through the committee.

Currently, Asia has more than 40% of Internet users in the world. 3 of the top 5 countries on Internet are in Asia (China, Japan and India). SEMPO definitely recognizes that Asia is a very important market, and in order to learn more about the market, the board members are Continue Reading »

I’ve been providing Japanese Search Marketing services to US and European companies since 1998. Because Japan has been one of the most advanced market online where people actually drop money (Japan is the second largest e-commerce market in the world) since the early years of Internet, regardless of the size of the business, Japan has been one of the attractive online market for foreign businesses. What’s interesting and troubling at the same time is that the type of inquiries I receive haven’t changed much for the past 10 years. There are 4 groups of inquiries:

1. We have a website in English (or one of the European languages), and want Japanese website created and optimized. Don’t know much about how to go about it, and open to suggestions. Oh, and interested in doing PPC campaign, too.
2. We just create a Japanese website, and need someone to optimize it. Will send you the English keyword list for SEO and PPC campaign.
3. We have a Japanese website and our in-house team is managing it. Experiencing some problems and can really use outside help to guide them to the next level.
4. We want to target Japanese market, but our English site should do just fine.  Continue Reading »

I’m doing “Mobile Search” and “Keyword & Content” sessions at SES London next week in Islington, UK.

While “Mobile Search” hasn’t happened in US, UK and in Europe, it has been happening… in fact it’s huge in Asia especially in Japan. I hope to introduce some ideas of how to integrate mobile into the marketing mix.

The session is moderated by David Radicke of  Radicke eCommerce and presented by Cindy Krum of Rank-Mobile, Michael Boland of The Kelsey Group and me. Continue Reading »