A small Singapore Internet market company recently sent out an emailer urging potential clients to “Seize the day and turn the coming recession to your advantage. Invest in your future.”
But, along with that promotion, was a heartfelt account about a small startup trying to survive in the tough Singapore digital marketing market.
The email came from Angela Chen who wrote, “As a boutique Internet marketing agency in Singapore (we specialise ONLY in Google Search Engine Optimisation – SEO), the term ‘government grant’ is a dirty word for us.”
She explained that government help has actually made business for legitimate players like themselves very, very tough having to compete with new companies who illegally abuse the various grants.
Although she did not specify how, she did share that as a result of the “Law of the Jungle” where only the fittest would survive, her own company Fusevision had focused on offering their niche SEO services to the China market, and thrived.
Chen said, “The attractive government grants have attracted a lot of fly-by-night companies who are just trying to milk the grants dry while delivering little or no value to their customers.”
As a result of the recession however, many of these fly-by-nighters have closed shops, leaving many digital marketing projects in limbo, and worse yet, the impression that the Internet marketing and web development industry as a “crappy” and “scam-my” industry.
IT BYTES BACK! Says: Thinking out-of-the-box and few-steps-ahead, is always a good method to recession-proof your business. In Chen’s eyes however, the government’s good intentions has left the local digital marketing industry in limbo.
