How foreign companies can open up the Indonesian market

There is no doubt that Indonesia has become one of the most important markets in Southeast Asia, and its growth rate has been comparable to China. Therefore, it is very important to pay full attention to the Indonesian market and expand foreign trade business.
According to data, more than 70% of Indonesia’s population are active Internet users, which means that the rise and rapid development of e-commerce in Indonesia has already begun. For enterprises, more online promotions need to be put on the agenda.
1. Build a unique brand
Whether you want to sell goods or provide services to Indonesia, your website needs a unique and attractive brand.
In the long run, this can increase website traffic and customer loyalty, as well as improve user recognition. Then you need to do sufficient work on the website’s color tone, brand VI design, content, and product selection.
It should be noted that we need to plan based on the culture acceptable to the local Indonesian audience, rather than completely following the domestic market.
2. Indonesia seo (search engine optimization) for website
One of the keys to increasing website traffic is to use SEO. Although Google’s ADS advertising can help us quickly increase the volume, relying entirely on advertising is not a long-term solution. Sharing costs through SEO is a good strategy.
SEO for the Indonesian market first needs to work hard on keyword selection, and determine which users are searching and the keywords with search volume as the main keywords.
Secondly, for a market like Indonesia, it is also very important to optimize long-tail words. Because local search habits and user composition determine that search traffic is dispersed towards long-tail demand.
When users need to know about a product, they will spend a lot of energy searching for keywords that can specifically describe their needs. These words are long-tail words.
In addition, special attention needs to be paid to local SEO. Whether it is Google or Indonesia, local SEO means huge opportunities.
3. Conduct influencer marketing and social media optimization
Indonesia’s Internet celebrity culture has gradually formed, and some local Internet celebrities have begun to emerge in various fields. These local internet celebrities have a natural sense of trust for users.
Moreover, social media usage in Indonesia is very deep. Indonesia is the city with the second largest number of TIKTOK users, which is evident from this data.
In the early days of opening up the Indonesian market, we established cooperation with some local internet celebrities and used them to quickly increase the popularity of our products in Indonesia. This can help us save a lot of effort.
4. Consider the company’s localization layout
A study by McKinsey shows that customer purchasing behavior is greatly affected by geographical location, especially in Indonesia. For example, some products sell well in Jakarta, but it is not possible to sell them in Surabaya.
Because users will be more inclined to products provided by companies closer to them, especially for fast-moving consumer goods.

LI yaofei (023202305037) from Class – A 2023-1 Masters of
Technology Management, Faculty of Business in the subject Strategic Marketing
for Prof. Dr. Jony Oktavian Haryanto at President University