Insider Japan Co., Ltd.

It was not easy to cultivate the Japanese market. Still, through repeated trial and error, it has expanded the business by lowering barriers to adoption by customers and providing finely tuned services.

First, to mitigate the skepticism about using overseas companies’ services, the company offers GMP and all support free of charge for a month, getting clients to use them and experience the benefits directly. The company's product is easy to implement, simply by adding a line of codes to the client’s website, and authorizing relevant staff to access the Google tag manager. Japanese companies often involve internal approval procedures before signing a contract, which often becomes stumbling blocks for introducing new services and products. Insider has encouraged Japanese companies to “give it a try” and understand its services through measures mentioned above, resulting in subsequent customer acquisitions, says Mr. Ishisaka.

The second key to expanding business in the Japanese market is the company's meticulous customer services. In Southeast Asian countries and other emerging countries, there is a culture in which clients discover the best ways to use GMP themselves through trials. In Japan, on the other hand, the practice of following the user manual is predominant. This characteristic is especially true for large corporations. For this reason, Insider made it a motto to go the extra mile beyond providing services and work closely with the client to make the most out of them. Insider explains all GMP functions directly to the clients for their use in developing and achieving marketing goals. While the industry standard is to report to the client once a month, the company does so twice a month, plus an additional review every quarter. The frequent reporting is part of the headquarters' strategy to increase touchpoints and enable the client to maximize the benefit of GMP. Carefully listening to and reviewing the client needs through “request-taking” activities allow the company to make various proposals for creating projects to work together with the client.

In the three years since entering Japan, the number of clients has been gradually, but steadily, growing. Providing elaborate services to each client results in higher customer acquisition costs than in other Asian countries. Nevertheless, each business size is substantial, and once a client decides to use the service, it often enters into a long-term contract in Japan. As a result, headquarters' expectations for the Japanese subsidiary have become larger since its establishment. To date, the company has provided services to a diverse range of companies, including cosmetics and travel-related fields. Going forward, the company aims to expand the business outside of major metropolitan areas while focusing on traditional craft products, etc. Mr. Ishisaka expects the company's style of working closely with the client to maximize its service value to be a strong marketing advantage in Japan’s regions, where businesses tend to be unfamiliar with digital marketing. Amid rapid expansion in online consumption due to the impact of COVID-19, we expect further progress in digital marketing by Japanese companies and further penetration of the company's services.