Marketing your brand to Korean consumers
South Korea is the 4th largest economy in Asia and the 12th largest in the world. It is an often overlooked but sizeable market with a GPD of over 1.7 trillion USD. After a long period of economic growth, it has become one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
Koreans are some of the most digitally savvy consumers in the world, with a strong focus on innovation. Although South Korea has been more influenced by Western Markets than neighboring Japan and China, English is not widely spoken. It’s therefore very important for international brands to localize their content and strategy. Whilst Koreans use the leading global platforms for social networking, search, and E-Commerce, they have a number of unique local platforms too.
Korea is one of only a few countries where Google is not the dominant search engine. Naver is the most popular search engine – therefore incorporating Naver into your search strategy is critical for success, and at the same time considering to leverage its E-Commerce and social networking capabilities.
Kindred are perfectly positioned to help your brand to achieve growth within the Korean market.
SEO and Paid Search in South Korea
Naver is the most popular search engine in South Korea, although Google and Daum are utlized by some people too. In line with this, Naver is the most popular Paid Search tool in Korea, but Google Ads still offer significant opportunity for brands too. Our experience in the Korean market will support you to take full advantage of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) in Korea to effectively reach your audience.
South Korean social media platforms
South Koreans use a combination of local and global social networking platforms. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok are all popular, but Naver is one of the most common platforms. Naver’s offering includes a search engine, E-Commerce platform, messenger tool, blog platform and social networking. Depending on the brand’s goals and target audience, different social media platforms may be recommended, as different audiences tend to use platforms and the tools within them differently. For example, Instagram is popular with younger Koreans, but less popular with older audiences – where Naver is stronger.
Korean audiences living outside of Seoul are unlikely to speak English, therefore it’s critical that brands marketing in Korea localise their content. Design aesthetics, cultural trends and language differences all need to be taken into consideration.
Kindred are able to support brands who want to benefit from the reach of social media in South Korea through both organic and paid activity.
UX and branding for Korean consumers
At Kindred, we have a strong focus on optimizing User Experience (or UX) as a way to help your brand solve the problems of its customers. We take the time to get to know your target audience as people, so that we can better understand their experience and help them to achieve their goals in the simplest and most satisfying way. We will remove any pain points or friction encountered by your customers through their online purchase journey, including your website’s User Interface (UI), so that they are confident to pay for your product or services, and don’t default to a competitor at any point.
Crafting your South Korea digital strategy
The Kindred team would love to help your brand develop a South Korean market strategy from scratch or to help you localize your current digital activity for this unique market. We have deep knowledge of Korean market trends, consumer and shopper behaviour, and the ability to support you in across the entire digital landscape including PPC, Paid Search, Programmatic, social media, KOL / Influencer, website UX, SEO and content services.
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