Online company quits Thailand.. we hear why?

March 16, 2011 - PRLog -- Net Media Thailand was the company behind contactbangkok.com and later became the number one Search Engine keyword company for internet marketing Bangkok they spent two years getting many companies to the top of Google, however in a shock move they have quit Thailand we asked the owner  why....

"Many people fall in love with South East Asia, and sadly there are only a selected few who actually make it. There are those who inadvertently end up there, sent by their employers on an expat relocation package and realize by accident how laid back and simply hedonistic the place is, and realize how lucky they are when they see the rest of the expats in the gutter trying to make it. The rest the floundering majority, try to adjust their lives to make their new found home fit in to their lifestyle. Most will try to go it alone set up niche companies and try to fit in with the other expats there, but almost everyone will end up back in the West at some point working in misery to get the funds or on the floor begging family for cash to return. A few who make it online through sites like e bay selling goods gleaned at great prices to sell onwards, have realized that it is not a couple of hours work then down the beach it is very time consuming. Those who have sold properties in the West are finding that it’s more expensive than they thought, and have to do something or they will eat through their savings very quickly indeed.

The reason for my return to the West is an all too familiar business challenge that’s faced by everyone regardless of where you live. It’s the chasing of money. The chasing of money in a highly regulated Western country is one thing, try it in South East Asia and it’s a completely different ball game, it will lead you to despair and an impossibility to budget for anything.

Thai Bureaucracy does not help either and the costs of setting up business and the constant changing of the goalposts make it an irksome task. Work permits are supposed to coincide with Visas, but out of the 2,000 or so business people I met over 5 years, so many still did Visa runs!

The business of online marketing is a growing one and I still get many leads from businesses all over the world, however the main income was from expats who lived in Thailand, and sadly many know the price of everything, and the value of nothing. You can get a company to Number one on Google for all their keywords and their website name, and then they conveniently forget to pay you your continuance fee, and then argue that they are dropping off Google faster than a swatted fly as you are no longer blogging, posting on social media sites, writing comments on other blogs, etc etc.  Then they demand all your domains you bought yourself. A long term expat friend recently told me,
“Why are they in Thailand? Is it perhaps they were not good enough for the West”
Who knows but the ‘insanely annoying’ paying of cheques after 3 PM on a Friday before Songrahn is the preferred method of payment, as then it takes a week to ten days to get your money. What you going to do write a nasty blog, I mean you may as well, as you have ten days staring at the wall in the Condo you can’t afford the paltry rent on, whilst everyone else is out at Thai new year having a whale of a time!

It will be a few more years before people really begin to understand the difference between branding your company over the long term and the:
‘Why the hell are we at number one for all our keywords now, yet we are not selling anything? (This is not the online guy’s job perhaps your product/service stinks, just  maybe hey?) So, let’s pay the web designer/online marketing people when we sell something’ attitude.

Business takes forever in Thailand when a company tells you next week multiply by 5.2 weeks then make sure you have enough money to last till then, then you get a cheque 3PM Friday!!

So we have changed tact completely, and we are going for affiliate marketing, Affiliates pay on time, they don’t know you, but familiarity breeds contempt, as any web designer will tell you, when they begged for content from the client, only for it to fall on deaf ears, and did his own best educated guess, as ‘no content at all’ is professional online suicide, and then got told that it’s all wrong by the clients standards,

Our new thinking is: well if I have gotten everyone of our clients to number one in the Search Engines, why don’t I do it myself and get paid direct from affiliates. I don’t expect sales in the first three months as it is about branding yourself first. My old business and websites are up for sale, and the new ‘one site focus’ is http://cheapesttravelinginsurance.com  yes, it’s a tough industry to break into, but give me a few months alone here in my bedroom in UK and I will emerge victorious.
Next time I come back is to go to the beach and not work, and I will probably sit next to loads of people who owe me money oh Ke sara"

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Online Media consultants. Based in Bangkok we are part of a Media conglomerate and offer every conceivable pro active media for Online and offline promotion