Jaycee De Guzman – Evolution of Digital Marketing

Derek: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Outsource Accelerator Podcast, my name is Derek Gallimore, and this is episode number 123. Today, we are lucky to have Jaycee De Guzman back with us who we previously interviewed him on the episode 120. He’s back today to discuss iPresence digital marketing that is his digital marketing agency. He has been in the content production and like digital world, digital economy since 2001 so he’s got good experience to share. We Deep dive into his company, how it’s different, what it can offer clients both in the West and his client and services. So, I hope you enjoy, hopefully you get some good insight into the opportunities here in the Philippines and of course if you want any of the show notes then go to just outsourceaccelerator.com/123. Enjoy

Derek: Hi, welcome back everybody today we are joined by Jaycee De Guzman again. Hi Jaycee.

Jaycee: Hi Derek

Derek: And Jaycee is from iPresence digital marketing and it is as the name suggests agency based here in the Philippines but catering mostly in the west. Well, this isn’t an infomercial as I keep on mentioning that I really just want to drill down into iPresence. What it offers, where Jaycee’s expertise is and why businesses in the west should really consider agencies and Outsourcing and Staffing Solutions in the Philippines because of their equal levels of ability and output instead of maybe their hometown supplies. So, thanks for joining us again Jaycee maybe, do you just want to introduce yourself and how you came to be chatting to me today

Jaycee: Yes, Derek. So, it all started in 2001, my journey in the digital marketing business started in 2001 as a freelance writer and it all began by offering content writing services to people and then come 2012 I decided to become a full-time digital entrepreneur. And so, from a freelance writer I now operate a corporation wherein we focus on digital marketing services as mentioned by you Derek.

Derek: Cool, and what are your what are your key strengths? And you know content now is becoming huge, isn’t it? Which you know is a huge requirement now it seems for everyone to produce good valuable content but a lot of you know keyword rich content as a part of a kind of an SEO strategy. But do you take it further than that? Do you work on SEO or do you work on SEM. What do you specialize in?

Jaycee: So, this 2018 we have all in all six Digital Marketing Solutions advertised or being offered to our clients and to list them down we have content writing, keyword research, forum marketing,virtual assistance, website design, graphics design and we also have two more services that we are yet to add on to our website this month and they are explainer video or video animation services and the 8th one is the transcription service. Oh I think I forgot the other one, voice-over. We are also going to offer voice-over services. So, expect by March that we have 9 services on our website.

Derek: It’s huge isn’t it? And it’s a sign of the industry and it’s evolving so fast, isn’t it? And that you need more and more functions to keep up with the requirements of content production these days. And do you as an agency can I ask, do you sort of do those separate items delivering model or can you take someone’s website and look at it strategically and deliver all of those parts a part of a bigger strategy.

Jaycee: Yeah it is actually, we can combine all of these 9 services as your toolbox for you to have a powerful digital online marketing strategy. Now, there are some businesses who already have someone who takes care of their voice-over needs or maybe graphics design needs. In that case then they can order some Ala carte from our website.

Derek: Right. Okay and yeah how do you find. So, you were saying previously that you have a high predominance of  Western Clients, is that right?

Jaycee: That is correct.

Derek: And you know do you, how do you differentiate between like a Western client or a local client? Is it really all just work to you? Do you see that actually there are no more barriers in terms of delivery in terms of sort of markets is it all just one world now from where you’re sitting?

Jaycee: There is contrasting, a stark contrast when you are marketing with or when you are when you’re speaking with someone from the Western, from the western part of the world and someone from the Philippines. If let’s say an American, if an American approaches us in a way we no longer have to do marketing or selling they already know what they mean they will just come on to our website saying okay I need this I need that, how much. In comparison to an SME in the Philippines you still have to. I think SMEs in the Philippines are still in the process of knowing the significance of digital marketing on how to incorporate digital marketing in their businesses. So, we have to do some work on that on that part whenever we speak with an SME week we have to emphasize why they need to we have to help them understand why do they need to update their Blog Page regularly. And when we see a regular, we have the mention how regular is regular is it everyday, once a week, twice a month and then you’ll also have to “educate”. We have to give customer education on why keywords must be incorporated in content writing and then we also have to mention, basically we introduce the role that each of our services will play in their business. How it can improve their ROI, how it can improve their sales, how it can build if not to rebuild their online reputation. We have to do some work on that part.

Derek: And you know funnily enough, I bet there is sort those businesses in the West in the US as well you know that really are a little bit backward  but then maybe just not reaching out to you then maybe not you never reaching out online because they are still pretty backward. But I agree, there’s maybe a bit more of an education required in the Philippines because maybe the average is a little bit less developed in terms of their SEO schedule. And how do you find the work expectations and you know delivery schedules and expectations and quality standards of people coming from the West versus the Philippines and but also then the price sensitivity of the people in the west?

Jaycee: Yeah you know clients coming from the West, they have high standards whenever they outsource their digital marketing needs from iPresence, maybe because prior to trying iPresence, my company, they have already tried other digital marketing services and we can say maybe they have some they had some not-so-good experiences from other digital marketing agencies and then they are kind of risk-averse I would say when they go to us. So, here comes in now here comes in now the idea of reassuring these people these clients that we know they’re, we are aware of their not-so-good experiences from the other agencies and we have a proactive measure and how to avoid that. How not to let that happen again because of our quality control, quality control processes. And I think our Quality Control process is the very thing that they like the most instead of just outsourcing let’s say your content writing needs to fly by night freelancer. And when you outsource your content needs to a solo flight freelancer, you cannot guarantee you have no assurance that that person has another person who will proofread his or her work. In most cases, the writer acts as the editor. And we know there’s a bias when you proofread your own.

Derek: Yeah I generally read a lot of content I think it’s very easy to under-state or underestimate the amount of time required for management of content production as you say the editing the checking the quality control but also assigning, finding good writers, assigning tasks to the right writers. It’s really a big job, isn’t it?

Jaycee: Yeah, sometimes, the research part takes longer than the writing part.

Derek: Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. So, content now is such a big thing now for websites and I’m concerned for the future of the internet in that I think we could all just be swamped in high output content but are you finding things evolving? You start with just content production as a digital agency but now you are spreading out. Are people still relying mainly on content or are things changing now?

Jaycee: I think there’s an evolution, there’s an evolution on the content marketing strategy that works. We have noticed this trend way back in 2017 that video marketing is, has become the focus. Has become the focus of content marketing strategist. I’m not saying that text based content will be abandoned sooner or later. I think it’s it’s in here for the long haul, text-based content will still be needed specially that we know that Google favors long form content than short-form ones. But as far as what’s being patronized, if I may use that word, as far as being what’s being noticed the most I think that the trend has shifted from written content to video based content.

Derek: Yeah, we’re certainly getting messages from people at Facebook and YouTube that they are pushing in that direction and that also the live medium and things like that. But do you find that a bit of a pain because it’s relatively an easy job to write a blog article and also to update a blog article. But I find there’s a lot more production complexity with with creating videos and then you can update but also what concerns me is, is Google really advanced enough to recognize video content to search it, to crawl it, to recognize engagement with it

Jaycee: I think although I don’t have a very deep understanding of you know how Google’s algorithm works on a technical level. Maybe in the future Google’s artificial intelligence would be able to recognize that. But for now here’s what I’ve noticed. Those businesses that venture on video based content usually they add two kinds of things at the bottom of the video it’s either the transcription of that video or audio or and or some show notes show notes these are the summary because I think they also know that Google is not yet on that level of being able to recognize on its own what’s being talked about on a video. So, they kind of favor what’s in demand in the eyes of humans, of people and what’s being loved by Google at the same time. That’s why they still add some text at the bottom.

Derek: Yeah, yeah, there’s kind of a fork in the road at the moment isn’t there? Where, it’s I think trying to push towards video and but the systems are not really advanced enough yet to kind of fully recognize it but that’s not.

Jaycee: Yes, yes. You mentioned something a while back that which I agree. It requires more talent more skills and it goes without saying more time to produce an animated video or a video explainer than to write an article. The challenge there is not just on time but some most often also on the cost. So, I think we are at an advantage of being in the Philippines because like what I’ve mentioned in the previous podcast we can afford to be cost-effective just because we can. Because of the you know that the cost of living in the Philippines and the manpower which is where the bulk of the operating expense comes in or comes from.

Derek: And actually the Philippines getting quite the reputation now for video production for animation for these kind of creative industries. And I think like one of the most recent Pixar or Disney movies was wholly created here in the Philippines. So it’s really becoming quite a specialization of the country isn’t it?

Jaycee: And I think I watched that interview, I just forgot what’s the.

Derek: Yeah what was it? It’s a little pony or something. Good, yeah. Fantastic. Thank you Jaycee, it’s you know fantastic input. And you know I encourage people, businesses out there in the West, we all need to get the most efficient output for our businesses possible. So, do consider not only Outsourcing to the Philippines but all of the agencies here in the Philippines that can produce output as good a quality but commonly for with a little less money. If people wanna get in touch with you Jaycee or learn more how can they do that?

Jaycee: I would recommend you to visit our website at  www.ipresencebizsolutions.com or you can just simply take  look at the podcast and our contact will be displayed on there.

Derek: Fantastic and of course we’ll put all of that on the show notes thank you so much for your time Jaycee.

Jaycee: Thank you Derek and you’re welcome.

That was Jaycee De Guzman, hope you enjoyed that if you want to get in touch with Jaycee or learn more about iPresence digital marketing then of course just go to our show notes that is at outsourceaccelerator.com/123 and of course if you want to just ask us anything get in touch with us then drop us an email to [email protected]. See you next time