Unlocking the Secrets of Digital Marketing Pricing in Malaysia 2023: Your Ultimate Guide!

Eager to know how digital marketing can revolutionise your business? Stay with us as we guide you through everything you need to know about digital marketing and its cost.

Before we delve into deeper topics, let’s have a look at what digital marketing is and what it offers to businesses in Malaysia.  

Digital marketing is important for businesses because it enables them to utilise the Internet to reach potential customers globally.

You might be wondering why is it important for businesses to be aware of the costs of digital marketing. It’s the key to making well-informed financial decisions and budget allocations. Besides, it is also the lifeblood of a business, without it, the heart or brain of a business cannot function. 

Which Marketing Strategy Should Businesses Opt For?

Marketing isn’t just about throwing in some cash and resources to get guaranteed results. 

It is necessary to consider your business goals and target audience. For instance, if your target audience is active on social media, your go-to strategy would be social media marketing. 

Alternatively, if your business is in a highly competitive industry, SEO would be a superior choice for you to distinguish yourself in the vast sea of search engine results. 

Understanding Digital Marketing Costs in Malaysia

There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to digital marketing. What works for others might not be the best fit for your business. So, you should familiarise yourself with the types of digital marketing channels available before making the decision. Let’s have a look at today’s prominent digital marketing channels!

Types of Digital Marketing Channels

Website Marketing

A website is an intersecting point where all digital marketing activities meet. Some companies might just need a website to satisfy most of their business needs. It’s a platform where you can showcase to people your brand, products, and services in a clear and impactful way.  

The average web traffic generated through mobile phones is estimated to be 60.66%. The reason for this is, most people are accessing the Internet using their mobile phones.

So it’s no longer just about publishing content on your website, it’s also about ensuring that it’s optimised for both mobile and desktop users.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)

Pay-per-click advertising or PPC is an advertising method that helps businesses reach more Internet users through paid ads. Essentially, it’s where businesses pay a fee each time their ads are clicked. 

PPC can bring great returns if it is working as intended, the advertising fee would be insignificant as the clicks are worth more than the cost. They usually appear on social media platforms, websites, and search engines. So, it’s a great way of reaching a wide audience of potential customers across different demographics. 

Another form of PPC that’s popular among marketers is search engine advertising. Marketers will be able to bid for ad placements. They would appear at the top of search engine results as sponsored links.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategy that involves the production and dissemination of content such as blogs, newsletters, social media posts, and so on. It’s good for establishing your expertise, promoting brand awareness, and remaining on consumers’ minds during purchasing times. 

Content marketing works because it’s able to generate leads, increase engagement and influence customers’ purchasing behaviour. 

By leveraging solid content, you can build authority for your brand and build trust among your audience. Compared to external marketing, this internal marketing strategy attracts and builds customer loyalty which in turn increases customer retention. 

Credit: sunanman | Getty Images

Email Marketing

This strategy should by no means be confused with the likes of spam emails.

It remains one of the most effective digital channels because it allows businesses to reach potential customers and prospects with interest in their brand or products and services. 

Businesses can also curate their marketing messages to a specific list of customers and subscribers, which builds brand loyalty. It can cost from RM1,500 to RM15,000, depending on the email list size, industry nature, email design, and so on.

Credit: Business.com

Social Media Marketing

There is an estimated record of 4.7 billion people worldwide using social media. This whopping figure in itself is an indicator of how effective it will be in today’s society if it’s well-executed. 

Similar to content marketing, this strategy helps build brand awareness and social credibility. As you delve deeper into this strategy, it could help you acquire leads, or act as a platform for direct marketing or sales. 

SMS Marketing

Credit: SMS archives

Text message (a.k.a. SMS or short message service) is also a means for companies to send the latest information about promotions or to reel in potential customers. For example, telecommunication companies have been known to use SMS marketing to inform their customers of the latest deals and promotions. 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

This strategy is the process of making your site better optimised for search engines such as Google and Microsoft Bing. It increases your website visibility in those search engines whenever people are looking for products, services, or information on certain topics of your expertise. 

The more visibility you have on the search results page, the more likely people are going to click on your website. The ultimate goal of SEO is to attract audiences and potential customers and clients without relying on paid ads (PPC). SEO takes a holistic approach in the sense that the content that you publish or campaigns you carry out matters and is key to driving traffic.

Average Costs of Digital Marketing in Malaysia

How Business Size Affects Digital Marketing Costs

For SME (small and medium enterprises) companies, their focus is mainly on determining their target audience and providing a great customer experience. So, they would prioritise efficiency in terms of cost, meaning they prefer to get maximum benefits at lower costs. 

Smaller businesses usually have smaller budgets than middle or bigger businesses. However, compared to traditional marketing, digital marketing is still accessible at a lower start-up cost. The average cost of digital marketing for SMEs is RM3,000 to RM 50,000.

So, if you’re a small business owner, you’ll still be able to achieve outstanding results within your budget. 

And as for, large companies, their focus will involve Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and remarketing at every opportunity. Their objective is to maintain positive relationships with their clients and digital marketing helps them to develop more personal connections with their clients, as well as boost sales by communication through SMS or email marketing. 

Large companies will have a significantly higher amount of funds for paid advertising. Aside from that, they can also spend on digital marketing tools to help increase their conversion rates. Therefore, their digital marketing costs would be vastly different than that of smaller companies. 

Pricing models used by digital marketing agencies in Malaysia

Credit: Qualtrics

Here are a few prominent pricing models used by digital agencies in Malaysia.

Hourly Rate Model

Hourly rate is one of the most common pricing structures used by agencies worldwide. However, it’s not as celebrated in Malaysia. It works best for marketing campaigns that need to be completed within a short timeframe. 

Digital agencies that utilise this model charge their clients on an hourly basis. For example, if their hourly rate is RM200, then the total cost for a 10-hour campaign would be RM2,000. 

This model is usually used for projects that can be executed quickly at a lower cost. If your project spans longer, this pricing model would be unsuitable.

Project-based Model

Digital marketing agencies that utilise project-based models charge their clients based on projects. It’s great for businesses that are looking to hire an agency for one-time projects without spending a lot of resources. 

If it’s an extensive project, this pricing model would be ideal as you would get to make amendments along the way, if there are any. Furthermore, you’ll be informed about the project expectations, costs, and date of completion. 

However, there is a possibility of your project getting outsourced to a third party such as freelance marketer for services ranging from graphic design to SEO audits.

Retainer-based Model

This strategy can be divided into 2 parts: a monthly retainer with a specific amount of hours and a monthly retainer with exact deliverables. 

The hourly retainer approach would be to have an agreement on the number of hours of work with the agency that you’re hiring. For example, if the SEO service is 50 hours per month, you will be charged a monthly fee of RM10,000, at RM200 per hour.

On the contrary, marketing deliverables are a different form of the monthly retainer. There would be a set monthly expectation of outcomes. Most digital agencies would charge their SEO clients a typical rate of RM3,000 for services such as keywords audit and creation of links. 

So if you’re a business owner, it would be advisable to opt for agencies offering monthly retainer rates as you can plan for your monthly budget allocation. However, if you can’t afford to spend on digital marketing monthly, this pricing model might not be suitable for your business. 

Recent Trends in Digital Marketing Pricing

The digital marketing landscape in Malaysia is ever-changing and constantly evolving, as new trends emerge each year. Businesses—small, medium, or large—must be aware of them to stay ahead in their game and competitors. 

Digital marketing will indefinitely continue to grow in the Malaysian market, as the number of businesses recognising its potential continues to increase. 

The average pricing for digital marketing costs differs from one business to another because each one of them has a different business model and goal. But here’s a list of price ranges for you to have a brief idea of how much digital marketing can cost. 

For starters, social media marketing costs can range from RM 2,000 to RM 10,000 per month. It also depends on the number of platforms involved and the level of engagement required. 

Similarly, search engine optimization (SEO) costs can range from RM 2,000 to RM 8,000 per month, depending on the level of competition and the complexity and effort involved in getting your website to rank at your desired level.

On the other hand, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising costs can range from RM 3000 to RM 10,000 per month, depending on the industry, competition, and keyword volume.

These are just a few examples to provide you with an overview of digital marketing costs in Malaysia. 

Maximizing ROI 

Credit: Meme Creator

How do you figure out which marketing agency is the right fit for your business to maximise your ROI? 

Pricing is undeniably an important factor that affects your choice. However, you want to be wary of agencies that claim to be able to able to provide unrealistic results at a lower-than-average price. 

Those agencies are in fact, more costly than agencies that offer services at higher price ranges. The reason for that is that you’re spending your resources on a service that offers mediocre results. 

Therefore, you should reach out to credible marketing agencies and enquire about their strategies, pricing structures, business approach, and performance tracking metrics. 

Here’s an example of a successful case study of how My Adore, a leading Malaysian importer of international beauty products, was able to maximise its ROI after signing up for digital marketing services. 

They opted for a Facebook conversion and web traffic campaign for their online store. The Return on Advertisement Spend was 4.73 times, the number of conversions was 123, and the click-through rate was 1.92%.

Conclusion

Make sure that you’ve done your research before deciding whether or not to sign up for digital marketing services. Besides, you should also keep in mind your business goals, target audience, budget and ROI expectations.

As much as digital marketing is relevant to businesses today, don’t spend more than what you earn. So, financial planning is necessary for businesses to prosper long-term. 

If you want to implement digital marketing in your business and learn more about its pricing, get in touch with our team of experts today! We can help you choose the right digital marketing strategy and package to get the best ROI for your business.

Vee are here to bring your business forward!

FAQ

What’s the Difference Between Freelancers and Agencies?

An agency consists of full-time employees that carry out various services that they offer, whereas a freelancer works independently on their basis, and usually specialises in a specific niche. 

There are pros and cons in both of these choices, and it depends on the qualities you’re seeking in the party you choose to hire. 

For example, an agency might be more costly but they have more resources and manpower to manage your project. On the other hand, freelancers excel at the skill sets that you’re looking for, as they are professionals that have been honing said skill sets for years. 

Are SEO and SEM the same?

Even though both SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM’s (search engine marketing) objectives are to increase a website’s visibility on search engines, they still have differences. 

SEO and SEM both target different search results. SEO focuses on the enhancement of webpages to improve their organic search results ranking. On the other hand, SEM focuses on using paid ads to get the sites to rank on top of SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). 

Furthermore, SEO takes a longer time than SEM to show results. SEO efforts may require up to 3 months to 2 years to achieve significant improvements in terms of ranking, whereas an SEM campaign would be able to increase traffic within hours. 

Lastly, SEO is more costly than SEM in the short run. Although SEO doesn’t require costs per engagement, it still requires a lot of time and effort. The company that hires an SEO agency would need to invest in content writers, SEO specialists or even SEO tools. Once the SEO starts to achieve organic visibility, companies can receive tons of traffic at no extra cost, which in turn makes it highly profitable in the long run.  

Is SEO better than PPC?

SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click advertising) are much like the two sides of the same coin, where SEO is the unpaid side and PPC is the paid side. One should not have the mentality of “SEO vs. PPC” as they complement each other. Having both of these channels work simultaneously would deliver excellent results, as long as your budget allows. 

Why is there such a range of SEO prices?

Search engine optimization encompasses a wide range of strategies. Some are effective and quick to show results, whereas some that are more intensive would require weeks or even months to fully take shape. Like all the other marketing services, the cost of SEO is dependent on which agency or freelancer you choose to hire and the complexity or difficulty of the optimization you require.