This startup is storming the gates of Indonesia’s big brands with content marketing

The hardest part about running a content marketing firm in Indonesia is weaning local businesses off the idea that low-quality writing is effective. This much is true according to Patrick Searle, co-founder of GetCRAFT, an Indonesian site that connects brands and agencies with local publishers, writers, and videographers.

Searle says GetCRAFT gives publishers and media outlets that are struggling to make money from digital banners, subscriptions, and events, access to new revenue streams that still have yet to fully develop in Indonesia. “These are the same revenue streams that Buzzfeed, Quartz, Vice, and Vox rely on to drive their business growth,” explains Searle.

Essentially, GetCRAFT’s business model capitalizes on brands that are willing to pay for outsourced, high-quality, and less-invasive marketing messages to feed to the media. The “craft” can come in many forms, including news articles, photos, infographics, videos, and more. GetCRAFT’s website serves as a marketplace and escrow service that makes these kinds of content exchanges possible.

Indonesia is not too crowded for content

Searle says GetCRAFT’s direct competitor in Indonesia is KapanLagi, as it sells its sites’ content for syndication at scale to brands looking to boost their search engine optimization. “The only problem with this content is that it’s generic and not customized to the brand’s needs, leading to spam,” says Searle. He believes that his indirect competitors are local freelancing sites like Kreavi, Freelancer.co.id, Elance-oDesk, and Sribu.

Searle claims the difference between his company and those mentioned is that GetCRAFT’s team of editors also acts as a liaison and quality assurer, positioning itself as the intermediary between creators, buyers, and the media at large. Other freelancing sites simply let people come together and deal with each other directly.

See: Game on! Indonesia’s race for outsourced work heats up between Freelancer.co.id and local challenger SribuLancer

GetCRAFT’s network currently consists of more than 110 freelance writers, 120 publishers, and 30 videographers. The firm’s list of media partners include names like Forbes Indonesia, DailySocial, MalesBanget, National Geographic Indonesia, Cosmopolitan, as well as the localized versions of Reader’s Digest and Esquire magazine, among others.

Subtlety is sexier than spam

Searle’s company slogan is: “Stop spam. GetCRAFT.” He characterizes all work that flows through his firm as the highest-quality original content available on the Indonesian market. He says: