Knowing every customer and being able to communicate with them anytime & anywhere have always been the goal for companies. With Social CRM (SCRM), this is no longer a trouble. In short, SCRM is the use of social media for organizations to engage customers. Companies use the tool to dig out customer information and online behaviour. This information is used for personalized communication later.
What’s more, SCRM not only allows you to follow your online shoppers along their journey, but also be there for your offline shoppers whenever and wherever. Let’s look at how it works.
Know the very details about your customers
With SCRM, your knowledge about customers is no longer just the basics (e.g. gender or date of birth). Nonetheless, you are able to know every aspect of their life! For example, if someone post a selfie on Weibo with the location ‘Great wall’, your SCRM will immediately recognize and mark down the location as ‘Beijing’. Moreover, your knowledge of your customer also extends to the people in his/her network. For instance, if a lot of people in the person’s network ‘liked’ a post of a Christmas party, then it’s very likely that your customer is also interested in attending this party.
Nurture interest
Now that you already know the details about your audiences. It’s time to be the little fairy who offers each person exactly what they want.
With the information stored in your SCRM, you are able to personalize content for your readers based on their labels. For example, send your store information in Beijing to the person who just posted a picture at the Great Wall. Similarly, you can also personalize your website for different viewers: show winter jackets for those who are living in the cold north; and sweaters for those living in the warm south.
Strengthen loyalty & expect more
Once someone’s interest has been fully nurtured and made a purchase, it’s time to strengthen his/her loyalty and expect repeated purchases. With SCRM, an email is triggered real-time as an order confirmation and a thank you note. What’s more, product recommendation should also be included in the email to attract further purchase. The recommendation could be based on previous purchase (e.g. supplementary good), location (special promotions going on in the city where the person lives) or any other attribute that could intrigue them.
Remind your customers as if they are gold fishes
It’s common that someone check out on a product (or add it to the shopping cart) and forgets about it. With SCRM, a remarketing campaign will be triggered to remind the person of his/her view history. In the ad, you can also provoke the purchase by showing that his/her friends are also interested in the same product. If the person still leaves the product behind, send a text message to offer a special deal on the abandoned order.
Not online? Follow wherever your customers are!
Of course we don’t want to miss out on those who prefer to shop in offline stores. SCRM enables to you to follow your customers when they are walking on the street. With the beacons, you are able to trigger an SMS/Wechat message when someone is close to your store and invite him/her for a visit. What’s more, you can also include a coupon in this message to further motivate this person to come.
One of the most common statements we hear from international companies is that ‘China is so different!’ Yes, the Chinese market is unique and challenging, but also filled with many opportunities. Don’t dream about being successful here by copying the strategies back home. To win the heart of Chinese consumers, you have to understand the differences and adapt to the local environment.
To begin with, the online landscape in China is different. Forget about Google, Facebook and other worldwide platforms, most of them are not working in China due to the Internet censorship. However, there’s a counterpart for nearly everything: Google is replaced by Baidu, Twitter is replaced by Weibo, eBay is replaced by Taobao (with way more vendors & merchants)… Although these ‘doppelgangers’ bear similar functionalities, when it comes to marketing, the rules are completely different.
Secondly, consumer behavior in China is also unique. When buying online, Westerners usually research for products on Google, and then go to brand stores to place an order. In China, however, everything happens on ecommerce marketplace. People tend to search for products on Tmall or JD (two of the biggest local platforms), and place their orders directly within the platform. Meanwhile, Chinese consumers are used to consult customer service BEFORE they make a purchase (asking about size, delivery, material…), therefore, a live chat tool is essential for your online sales in China.
With all the differences and ‘culture shock’, how to approach Chinese consumers online? The answer is: 1-to-1 communication. Think about the market size here: regardless of what your product is, you’ll find thousands of competitors selling the same, probably even at lower price! Moreover, you can’t count on your western heritage either. With so many international brands flooding in China, imported products are less and less associated with ‘premium’, and the local consumers have switched their focus to quality and the brand story behind. Hence, the only way to win the heart of consumers is to show that you really understand and care about them.
Nonetheless, no single channel fits for all the billions of consumers. Successful online communication in China always involves multiple channels, so as to follow and engage consumers along their journey.
Email
Technical setup for email marketing in China is different. Due to the heavy censorship, emails sent from a foreign server are likely to be blocked. So it’s important for international companies to hire a local server. Moreover, obtaining an ICP (Internet Content Provider) license in China could further secure your email delivery rate. An ICP license is basically a permit to your online activities: building a website, sending email/ SMS/Wechat…you name it. You can apply for such a license through the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), however, be aware that the application process is fully in Chinese.
Meanwhile, Global email providers such as Gmail or Hotmail are not accessible in China. To get your mailings in people’s inbox, make sure that you are complying with the rules from the local ISPs. For example: 1) Add [AD] to your subject line for promotional emails; or 2) Avoid words such as ‘free’ /‘best’, or any sensitive terms.
When it comes to email design, Chinese consumers are big fans of icons. It’s proven that including emoji/icons in the subject line could boost open rate, especially for ecommerce/retail industries.
SMS
Apart from sending promotion info, SMS in China is also combined with email for database cleaning. Once someone subscribes/becomes a member, a welcome email will be triggered. If the email is bounced back due to invalid address, an SMS will be triggered to remind the user of the wrong email address. The user is able to change his/her email address simply by replying to the SMS with the correct one.
SMS can also be connected with social media to enlarge your database. For example, Lacoste included a QR code in its MMS. After scanning the code, users are directed to an H5 page to win a trip to Sanya. Personal information is required for a lucky draw, and in this way, Lacoste was able to both create a social buzz and collect useful information from subscribers.
WeChat
WeChat is by far the No.1 killer app in China, and it’s basically What’s App + Facebook +Amazon all-in-one. On average, young adults in China spend 4 hours on using the app. Nevertheless, when combined with Location-based-service (LBS), WeChat could help to direct foot traffic to your offline stores.
Many Wechat users tend to enable in-app location service, making it possible for brands to track where their customers are on a real-time basis. When a user is wandering around your store, a WeChat message can be triggered to inform him/her about promotions in the store(s) close by; or send a promotion code that can be redeemed in a nearby store. By doing so, brands are able to boost store visit and increase sales.
KOL (Key Opinion Leader)
The use of channels mentioned above requires companies to have their own database already in place. For those who are complete strangers to the Chinese market, how to accumulate massive subscribers within a short time? The answer is KOL.
KOLs in China are centered around industries such as fashion, cosmetics, and the show biz. They garner from thousands to hundreds of millions of followers. The only task for a company is to inform the KOL about the goal of the campaign, and then the KOL would be able to plan online content and execute the campaign on his/her own. KOL campaign in one of the most efficient way to obtain members/subscribers with targeted demographics.
In Chinese New Year 2017, Mr. Bag (one of the most popular Chinese KOL in fashion, with more than 3 million followers social media) collaborated with Strathberry (Scottish luxury brand) to offer a special handbag collection for Chinese consumers. Weeks before the sale, Mr. Bag published posts on social media (Weibo and Wechat) as a warm-up for the product release. These posts got tens of thousands of reposts and ‘LIKEs’. Finally, within only 3 hours after the official release, all the 400 bags were sold out!
In conclusion, the Chinese market is unique and ever-changing, marketers need to fully understand the differences and integrate the right channels to communicate with the right audiences at the right time.
JD.COM’s Kepler Mini-Program on WeChat offers amazing new mobile platform for brands interested in ecommerce in China. Few international brands have caught on to this new retail option. So now is the right time to learn more and expand your multi-channel strategy for China!
The ecommerce sector in China rarely takes a break from launching a new retail channel, and last year JD.COM unveiled its Kepler Mini-Program Solution.
The Kepler Mini-Program Solution allows brands to use their existing presence on JD.COM and open a WeChat mini-program shop with the exact same products.
JD.COM, as you may be aware, is a dominant e-commerce company in China alongside Alibaba. It is a leader in logistics, including fulfillment services for international suppliers. JD.COM is strategically aligned with WeChat’s parent company Tencent. The Kepler Program Solution is a new step in integrating social media and e-commerce between the two companies.
And the beauty is that a brand can open the new WeChat Mini-Program shop without having to think about separate logistics of delivery and returns because it all runs on the JD.COM system.
The new world of WeChat mini-programs
As discussed in a recent AgencyChina blog post, WeChat mini-programs are sub-applications that exist inside WeChat’s primary interface. Accessible from a search feature within WeChat, users can search for products sold on JD and now also for Kepler Program-backed stores of individual brands.
This seamless integration with WeChat saves customers from navigating to their mobile web browser or downloading the JD.COM mobile app to shop from their smartphone.
Levi’s Kepler Program store searchable on WeChat mini-programs
Within one year of its launch, over 2,000 brands and merchants have started working with the Kepler program according to JD.COM. This figure includes retailers such as the Swiss luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet, Levi’s, and Singaporean belt brand Goldlion Leather.
Goldlion Leather’s Kepler Program store on WeChat.
What the Kepler Mini-Program means for brands
As one of the rare few online platforms unchallenged for market share in China, WeChat offers a lucrative platform to drive traffic and sales. Statistica.com reports that WeChat had 1040 billion monthly active users by the second quarter of 2018.
For brands, this opens up a vast new audience of potential customers and an important platform to target as part of a multi-channel strategy.
Number of monthly active WeChat users from 2nd quarter 2010 to 1st quarter 2018 (in millions) Source: Statistica.com
These new customers, for example, may be WeChat users who prefer browsing through Mini-Programs rather than using the JD.COM mobile app or desktop website.
Additionally, as users increasingly use the search function in WeChat, as replacement for Baidu or Sogou, the Kepler program also offers brands a new outlet to reach customers through organic search.
Moreover, having their own branded WeChat Mini-Program shop connected to their verified WeChat account gives users the feeling they can trust the shop more. And because all the information from the JD.COM shop is automatically copied into the Mini-Program shop brands can even leverage social proof established from the user reviews and authenticity guarantees on JD.COM. This helps improve user conversions from WeChat.
And finally, having such a WeChat Mini-Program shop gives way to holy grail of seamless user experience. As Josie Zhang, Vice President of Burberry in China, told Jing Daily, “Mobile is now the largest digital channel for us in China. Our WeChat mini-program allows the customer to experience our brand in a seamless and engaging way, which is perfect for social commerce.”
Little Red Book Mini-Program with customer reviews on the right.
Joining the Kepler program
The Kepler Mini Program is open to all brands whether they have an existing store on JD.COM or not (but to us the clear benefits lie in having the Mini-Program store next to a JD.COM store). The e-commerce platform also offers brands a range of services to operate their WeChat mini-program store. These include marketing, fulfillment and logistics, big data analysis, and financial services.
Need help setting up a Kepler Mini-Program or do you have some questions before you get started with your multi-channel strategy? Talk to us to find out how your business can be one of the first foreign brands in your industry to take advantage of this new e-commerce platform.
The Chinese social media space moves at a hectic pace, and after a slow start in 2017, WeChat mini-programs are on the rise and offer immense value for companies in the hospitality industry.
In the first half of 2018, mini-programs racked up 280 million daily users, including an average of four daily visits along with 10 minutes average usage time according to the mini-program analytics company aldzx.
But what does this mean for your business and what exactly are mini-programs…?
Quick recap: What are mini-programs and what are the benefits
WeChat mini-programs are essentially sub-applications that exist within WeChat’s primary interface. They provide advanced features such as ecommerce, task management, coupons, search, and booking services.
Previously, it was not possible to put hyperlinks into WeChat articles of Subscription accounts. WeChat was clearly trying to keep user activity contained inside the APP, but it obviously had its downsides. Mini-programs have created a way to solve this disjointed user experience that limited user conversion. Because brands can now link from WeChat articles directly to mini-program product or booking pages. So the mini-program effectively provides a new conversion channel. Hence conversion rates from Subscription accounts can now also be optimized and even tracked.
More benefits and something to keep in mind
As WeChat mini-programs are built into WeChat, it means they’re extremely quick to load and they integrate seamlessly with WeChat Pay. This makes them a perfect tool for offering e-commerce and omnipresent services. By “omnipresent”, we mean exchanges between the offline and online world such as scanning a QR code at a restaurant to order food or checking in to a hotel room from your phone.
Another benefit of WeChat mini-programs is that they can be easily shared online and offline through QR codes (which are favored in China over URL links). Online sharing is also made precise so that a specific page selected by the sender is sent directly to the recipient without reverting back to the landing page. The latter is often the case with HTML5 pages.
One thing to keep in mind is that sending push notifications to users from a mini-program is very limited. All such notifications are grouped in the so-called “service notifications” folder. This fits in with the intended purpose of mini-programs to assist users when needed and remain unobtrusive the rest of the time. But it does make them less ideal for sales-focused activities.
Integrating mini-programs into the hospitality industry
The hospitality industry in China is booming with increasing demand from the growing middle class, but this comes with the necessary problems. Obstacles such as hotel and venue saturation (especially in first and second tier cities), rising demands from consumers regarding quality and convenience, and rising training costs due to high turnover in staff.
For businesses operating in the hospitality industry technology is an important enabler to overcome these challenges. By digitalizing segments of their service offering, they’re able to offer a better and more convenient service to guests alongside lower overheads. In turn, this helps hotels to stay competitive as they keep guests satisfied and returning for repeat business.
One of the hottest new platforms to digitalize the experience for guests in China is WeChat mini-programs. Using this platform businesses can offer a range of useful options suitable for the hospitality industry. Features include venue selection, pricing/rates-check page, image libraries, payment options, maps, search nearby venues, loyalty program registration, bookings, games, and much more.
MacDonald’s mini-program packs a number of these features. This includes ordering dishes, coupons, food delivery service, menu and a loyalty program. They even run a campaign for kids, which links to another mini-program related to that campaign.
The MacDonald mini-program
Key benefits for brands
With their advanced features and a slick interface, mini-programs enable businesses to focus on optimizing the user experience and tracking the behavior and needs of their guests. Through the mini-program analytics dashboard, companies can view their page rank list and which pages attract the most traffic, the source of traffic, QR code performance, and other important metrics.
Next, mini-programs are an excellent resource to target a specific segment in the user journey, such as guest bookings or after check-in services. The Hilton mini-program, for example, helps hotel guests to discover nearby eating and leisure activities as well as route navigation to save guests from getting lost.
The Hilton mini-program
Other companies focus on the start of their customer journey when using mini-programs as a marketing channel. Banff and Lake Louise Tourism, for example, use their mini-program as a digital brochure for their national park in Canada. The mini-program includes information about nearby entertainment activities, local dining options, car hire, and other content relevant to Chinese tourists.
Banff and Lake Louise Tourism mini-program
For foreign operators such as Banff and Lake Louise Tourism, hosting a mini-program helps the business to understand Chinese guests through dashboard analytics and enables them to offer a fast-loading digital asset in China. After all, hosting a website in China isn’t possible for businesses that aren’t registered in the Mainland due to ICP (Internet Content Provider) regulations. While establishing a mini-program isn’t a substitute for a traditional website, it does offer a viable channel and an additional spoke as part of a multi-channel strategy.
Getting started
Even though setting up a WeChat mini-program takes up a fraction of the resources and time needed for developing a fully-fledged native app (outside the WeChat ecosystem), the process is more involved than simply setting up a WeChat Official account from a design and development standpoint. It’s therefore vital that you do your research and select the right features to generate a higher conversion rate and ensure a slick user experience.
For most foreign brands, this is one part of the Chinese digital marketing line-up you should resist attempting on your own. Experience is key to launching an effective mini-program, and at AgencyChina we can help lead you through this complex and exciting path to development.
While WeChat and Weibo come first to mind for foreign brands doing business in China, few Chinese social media platforms help brands connect with their intended audience as well as Zhihu.
Zhihu is a Chinese-language Q&A platform, similar to Quora, which came online in early January 2011. Right from the beginning, Zhihu has offered similar features to Quora, including user-generated questions and answers, content voting systems, the ability to follow topics and users, and a personal messaging application.
The reason it’s a great match for foreign brands is that it provides a place to discover consumers’ pain points and desires and connect directly with customers.
Let’s take a look at this unique Chinese social media platform and how your brand can incorporate Zhihu as part of your digital marketing strategy for China.
Who uses Zhihu
Zhihu attracts a broad audience of inquisitive and well-educated users, including a large number of users with medium to high incomes and enough purchasing power to discuss premium topics such as studying, investing, and traveling overseas. Users also turn to the site for information on a range of topics including culture, retail, education, career development, TV and films, politics, sports, technology and lifestyle.
Zhihu traffic sources as of July 2018, Source: SimilarWeb
A large proportion of users arrive on the site from an organic search on Baidu and Sogou, which means Zhihu is also an effective way to improve your search engine visibility. As some readers may remember from our previous blog post (Why being ‘foreign’ is no longer enough to gain trust in China), online visibility is key to building brand trust among Chinese consumers. Zhihu is one Chinese social media platform to build an online presence without even investing in a website or registering an official Chinese social media account.
Who should post
While users can post anonymously on the platform, trust can only be truly developed through providing a real user identity. For brands, providing a real user identity may mean inviting staff (i.e. the CEO or China Manager), brand ambassadors or industry experts to provide helpful answers to questions on the site. Another fast and effective way to make an impact in the short-term is to identify and invest in cooperating with established Zhihu KOLs (key opinion leaders).
“Power-users” of Zhihu tend to have specific domains of knowledge and expertise. Take for example 陈希 (Chenxi) who has posted more than 1,700 answers on the site about the car industry and who has more than 4,400 followers.
Zhihu user Chenxi responds to the question: “Why is Audi famous but few people know about the A5 and A7?”
Source: Zhihu
Perhaps due to language limitations and a heavy focus on other Chinese social platforms, there remains a low level of participation among foreign brands on Zhihu. Unlike Quora, where there’s a high presence of CEOs and company spokespeople. For example Kaiser Kuo (formerly at Baidu) and Evan Williams (formerly at Twitter) are active there.
There are, though, lucrative opportunities for foreign brands to participate as shown by Nissan in 2017. The Japanese car maker hosted a live demonstration of their luxury car division Infinity in 2017, which was viewed by 15,000 Zhihu users, along with 397 reviews and a 4.5/5 star average, underlining users’ satisfaction with the live presentation.
The Zhihu platform offers a Chinese-language text editor that supports images, hyperlinks, and embedded videos and GIF animations. Zhihu also offers a feature that enables users to submit a 1–2 minute sound recording to answer questions. Users can purchase the recording for a price set by the recorder.
In addition, there is Zhihu Live, which invites top Zhihu users to prepare TED-style talks on the site, including, of course, Q&A time with the audience. Users need to pay on average 20-100 RMB to attend these live sessions. Popular topics include education, health and personal well bring, as well as design.
For individual account users, it is free to create a user account and post both questions and answers. Creating an organizational account, though, entails a separate registration process including an initial setup fee. There are also advertising costs for marketing campaigns such as live-streaming that depend on your product offering, targeted customers, and campaign goals.
You can find out more information in Chinese about Zhihu’s brand account services here and begin the registration process here. Your account will need to be approved by Zhihu and this includes uploading proof of your business license and providing other basic company details one of which is contact details of a company representative.
What to post
As part of their brand research, consumers often navigate to Zhihu from a search query (Sogou or Baidu). This offers an opportunity to highlight the benefits of your brand to potential customers or remove barriers to purchase. This may include concerns about the origin of ingredients, price, or the quality of the product/service.
For example, in May 2017, China’s dairy giant Mengniu and Zhihu cooperated to launch a “Knowledge Dialogue” video marketing campaign about product branding in the milk industry. The video included a discussion about natural techniques and science, Mengniu’s own product packaging upgrade, and an introduction to their new QR code tracking system.
But your marketing activities on the site can be as simple as answering other users’ questions, such as where to travel and what to buy on vacation.
A Zhihu user suggests Ryanair, easyJet and Skyscanner in response to another user’s question about cost-effective travel destinations
Source Zhihu.com
Responses should of course always be helpful. Interestingly on Zhihu this often translates into long and detailed posts with multiple images. Significant scrolling is required on behalf of the user to get to the next answer. This response from Angelene in response to a question about “Which German cosmetic products to buy” is 2,600+ characters in length and includes over 30 images! At the time of writing the post has been upvoted 194 times and has attracted 55 comments.
These types of answers reflect the intense and demanding culture of influential Zhihu users to post high-quality content (potentially on behalf of brands). It also indicates a greater level of tolerance by the Zhihu community for indirect advertising messages in comparison to Quora. It is about the same tolerance as Chinese users have when reading WeChat posts that go on seemingly forever. The Chinese simply love their Social media content exhaustively informative.
Zhihu user, Angeline, posts a detailed introduction to a German cosmetic brand. Source: Zhihu.com
Driving traffic from Zhihu
One obvious marketing ploy might seem to drive traffic to your website or e-commerce store from your employees’ or KOLs’ answers on the platform. However, it may not be the most suitable as Zhihu is first and foremost an educational platform. So, we would recommend sticking with building credibility and dialogue with consumers as the core priority when using this Chinese Social media platform.
Another good reason not to focus on driving traffic to a site is that hyperlinks incorporated into content posted on Zhihu are regarded as “no-follow” links by Chinese search engines anyway. Therefore, they do not generate SEO link juice as part of a link building strategy. Meaning that while adding the links to the content might bring more traffic to your site, it does not affect keyword ranking.
Another way to go is to drive traffic from Zhihu to other Social media apps and platforms. Not surprisingly, the live-streaming platform Bilibili and Chinese social media app WeChat (Weixin) are popular when it comes to that(according to SimilarWeb). Brands should consider adding links for further educational content and direct Zhihu users to these or similar Chinese social media platforms. This will keep the focus on helping users to learn more about the brand rather than directing them to a checkout/purchasing page which might not be desired at that stage.
Zhihu top referring and destination sites as of July 2018, Source: SimilarWeb
If you are still dead set on collecting leads you can establish an official organizational account and engage in paid marketing activities such as ads and live-streaming on the platform. But it might be best to drive the traffic to an external landing page to collect or nurture leads for a further campaign.
Next level digital marketing
Zhihu offers immense potential for brand discovery, dispelling myths, and learning from consumers. Especially if you follow a few simple rules:
respect the platform
cooperate with credible voices on the site
avoid link spamming
and emphasize quality over quantity
If you do your online presence on the platform will be rewarded in the long-term. That presence, in combination with a strong base presence on Baike, Sogou, WeChat and Weibo will help lift your brand’s marketing to the next level!
Does content about your brand already feature in a Zhihu search? Do you need help building credibility and a content presence on Zhihu? Talk to the experts at AgencyChina to craft compelling content that will inform and encourage brand awareness in China.
As the industry saying goes, “you only get one chance in China.” With Chinese shoppers ranking social networks as the #1 source of inspiration for purchases across online media channels, it’s important to make a strong impression from the start. Learn from these recent brand blunders before developing your own digital marketing strategy in China.
Source: Jing Daily
Choose your KOLs carefully
Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) are important in a solid digital marketing strategy in China, but not all are created equal. NARS, a brand that recently entered the Chinese market, learned a hard lesson. Superstar Kai Ko, who gained a reputation as a ‘drug user’ after a 2014 marijuana incident, made an appearance at the brand’s Taiwan event. Upon posting an Instagram update, he received so much backlash that NARS asked Ko to delete his posts. The company eventually posted an apology letter on Weibo, but customers remained angry. Said one netizen, “Please report our complaint to your headquarters in Japan and ask them to apologize, otherwise, we will continue boycotting you!”
Don’t be fake
Honesty and authenticity should be at the forefront for brands. In June, a local Chinese company OXN crafted a fake partnership launch with New York-based brand Supreme, a street fashion company popular among Chinese millennials. Participants quickly realized the company hired a fake CEO at the event to pose as Supreme’s real CEO James Jebbia. The event backfired. According to Jing Daily, a Weibo user commented, “Well, that’s the end of OXN. No one will buy from them now.”
Source: Ikea
Be culturally sensitive
Take a cue from IKEA and Audi and avoid a digital marketing strategy in China that’s of poor taste. Netizens were offended by the sexist takes of “leftover women,” a term used for unmarried women over the age of 27. Audi’s commercial compared marrying a woman to choosing a car. IKEA featured a mother chiding her daughter with, “If you don’t bring home a boyfriend next time, then don’t call me Mom!” Said one user, “Even if this sort of situation does happen in a lot of families, it’s not suitable to make advertisements about it, because it’s wrong.”
Check the geography
Gap went viral on Weibo for leaving Taiwan off of a map of China on its T-shirts. This caused a stir among netizens. Similar incidents happened to the Marriott, suspended for putting Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan as “other countries” on their website and to retailer Muji, fined for putting a “Made in Taiwan” label on its products.
Source: Dolce & Gabbana
Understand “Face”
Dolce and Gabbana made waves in China after its recent campaign, “DG Loves China.” The brand shot models alongside everyday people in Beijing in iconic locations. However, the resulting images angered at the way the city was represented. Said one user, “Isn’t this an insult to China? Why don’t they go to places like Sanlitun and Guomao instead? Why do they go find an old uncle that collects garbage to be part of their photo shoot?”
Successfully planning a digital marketing strategy in China requires in-depth understanding of consumer behavior, suitable platforms, and gaining consumer trust. Once your campaign is well-executed, your brand has a chance to make a solid impression and set itself apart from the competition.
The pace of change in China is difficult to comprehend for those outside the Middle Kingdom but at AgencyChina we have a front row seat as local consumer behavior and technology collide at rapid speed. Here are our top three insights on key elements of Chinese consumer behavior in the digital marketing world .
Rigorous research before purchasing
When it comes to retail spending, Chinese consumers have long had a tendency to conduct more in-depth research than their western counterparts before buying. While word of mouth and family recommendations were once the primary starting point, Chinese consumers now increasingly turn to online platforms and diligently read peer reviews from other consumers.
According to a PwC report, 61% of Chinese consumers begin their product search journey on Alibaba’s Tmall, meanwhile, only 39% of global consumers use Amazon for the same purpose.
Xiao hong shu (Redbook) is also an example where online peer review content is king. Used by consumers as a product search engine, Redbook is a highly relied on resource for Chinese female consumers around the world. It is there that trusted user-generated content and online word-of-mouth marketing shape purchasing decisions, and especially in regards to international brands in the space of cosmetics and health products.
Heatmap of Redbook users based on geographic location, Source: Redbook
The platform also has a content-to-commerce approach that links user-generated content directly to online purchasing options, which is popular in China but generally less developed in the West.
Click on well-targeted advertising
While users in the West tend to veer away from clicking on paid advertising, Chinese consumers have a higher threshold for paid links and are almost twice as likely to click. According to a PwC report, 31% of Chinese consumers will click on an advertisement that is relevant to their needs – almost double the global average of 16%.
This is not to say that one in three Chinese consumers will click on your paid advertisement! The key to interpreting this statistic is matching relevant content to the user and this is why researching and investing in the right online channels is key to hitting your target audience.
e-retail via mobile
With the already broad popularity of smartphones and 5G connections destined for China in 2019, there’s no underestimating the power of e-retail on mobile. From the moment of waking, to long subway commutes to work and online shopping during lunch break, there are endless opportunities to connect with Chinese consumers through their smartphone.
As shown below, Deloitte visualizes the dramatic growth of mobile Internet browsing and the market share it is taking away from PC terminals.
Growth of e-tail via PC terminal and mobile terminal, Source: Deloitte
Given the importance of mobile as an interface for communication, it’s vital that your website is mobile friendly.
This includes having a page layout that renders quickly on a range of devices. Static websites can benefit from deploying on a Content Delivery Network (CDN) in China such as Alibaba Cloud or Tencent Cloud, which saves a copy of your website across multiple node locations and improves load speed by serving content to users based on their location to the nearest node.
Mobile payments are a must with WeChat Pay and Alipay the preferred options, which are both fast and saves the hassle of consumers sharing the private bank card details.
In regards to search engine optimization, it’s important to have your mobile sitemap uploaded to Baidu, 360, Shenma and other search portals in China. This is because Chinese search portals do not automatically detect mobile and PC sitemaps like Google and both sitemap versions should be uploaded manually.
Finally, avoid Adobe Flash for streaming and multimedia as it is no longer compatible with Android and iOS.
Understanding these three overarching consumer behaviors will help serve your digital marketing strategy in China. If you need assistance with digital marketing channels, online marketing in China or social media, AgencyChina is here to help you achieve your goals.
Cutting through the noise in China’s buzzing consumer market can be difficult for small to medium-size brands without the funds or partnerships to support mass distribution.
The good news is that it’s still possible to create buzz among the right audience by distributing targeted content across niche platforms on a modest budget.
Short video platforms
Let’s suppose your brand has an upcoming brand launch event at a fashion week or cross-border ecommerce exhibition in Beijing or Shanghai.
As part of the leadup to the event, you decide to create an animation video to promote your brand and event activities. For example an event with a key opinion leader/celebrity/brand founder appearance, an opportunity for customers to personalize their purchase (i.e. Magnum pop up store) or other interactive activities.
If you are not a massive brand it may be more effective to distribute content to a more targeted audience by using niche video channels. This is a viable alternative to using the more mass media, less targeted channels such as WeChat or Weibo, and certainly more cost efficient. For a youthful audience, this might mean Watermelon video or Douyin. Your digital marketing promotion might start with a 30-second trailer animation video 2-3 weeks out from the event, followed by a full release of the video one week before the event.
By posting smaller videos across different platforms, you effectively boost the reach of your content and create multiple touch points for viewers. Viewers who see the trailer may be enticed to see the second video and then be reminded of the event at the second viewing. And your activity on such platforms might motivate your audience to post their experiences too!
User generated content of Magnum pop up store. Either linking #magnum or the location of the store.
Spreading your own content can also take the form of direct content posting from your official account as well as the option of engaging with Chinese KOLs (key opinion leaders) to share and interact with your content.
There’s also the opportunity to leverage live-streaming leading up to and on the day of the event. Live-streamed content can then be repackaged and uploaded to the earlier mentioned video platforms.
Ecommerce platforms
Besides short video platforms niche ecommerce platforms are another good alternative option to reach your target audience. In China ecommerce channels are a popular medium for brand discovery, and they are used in abundance. According to a 2016 PwC report, 19.6% of Chinese consumers shop online daily, compared to 7.1% globally.
In the Chinese ecommerce space, there are the major platforms such as Tmall and JD.COM but also many niche platforms too. Xiaohongshu and Meilishuo focus on cosmetic and fashion brands, mainly targeting female users. In luxury, 5lux and xiu.com focus on luxury products such as bags, clothing, cosmetics, jewelry, and other accessories. The latter tend to be most popular in smaller Chinese cities where there is a limited supply of popular female luxury brand outlets.
Another platform which hosts a combination of luxury brands and FMCGs is Vip.com. The platform targets mostly female customers offering short-term discounts on popular brands in what is known as a Flash Sales.
Screenshot of vip.com
Listing fees and platform commission on the smaller niche platforms are generally lower than large ecommerce platforms, which offers the opportunity to extend beyond one platform.
Final take away with a “warning”
The tips described above will help to spread your content assets further and it will help you set yourself apart from competing brands that are just using the big social and sales channels.
However, these platforms do NOT replace the big platforms completely. For a strong and well rounded online presence in China every brand must have a presence on the “Big Five” channels. Want to know more about these channels? Keep an eye on our blog page or sign up to our market updates so you don’t miss our next blog!
Not sure how to set up and promote effectively on China’s countless niche platforms? Contact us at AgencyChina for advice and a customized solution.
China has a long history of managing diversity and change, and with up to 1.4 billion citizens inside its borders, people in China sure know how to spot value from a crowd of options.
This quick guide will get you up to speed with three online user engagement norms in China. This includes two norms you might not expect in other regions of the world but which are all the rage in the world’s biggest consumer market.
Design: the Las Vegas approach
Whereas brand websites and apps in the West tend to uphold minimalistic design and stay close to the hem of Steve Krug’s best selling guide to web design Don’t Make Me Think, standard practice in China is to do the opposite.
This means planting a medley of options on the landing page with everything from sliding image carousels, to inflated menu options, links to live-streaming, QR codes, and flashing ad banners reminiscent of Las Vegas.
A larger-than-life example of this principle is “Danmu”.
Translated into English as “bullet words” or “barrage”, Danmu is an overlay of user text comments rolling across video content in real-time. This doubles as a raw but effective technique to gauge the audience’s reaction and attitude towards video content. Having hundreds of other viewers streaming their contents as “Danmu” builds trust through visible peer popularity – especially as 34% of surveyed Chinese users trust online customer reviews when shopping with their favorite online retailer, compared to the global average of 15%.
Chinese consumers also tend to trust online content and websites based on the depth of content provided rather than on friendly navigation and aesthetic design. Thus, having numerous menu options helps to visualize the depth of your online offering.
China’s Taobao ecommerce platform prides itself on its product options, as shown on the left-hand-side tab and the countless menu options on its homepage.
Source: www.taobao.com
Instant gratification: give, give, give
Threaded through the multiple layers of content must be the option of instant gratification. Just as you wouldn’t want to walk away from a local fair or arcade without playing a little Pinball or lucky dip, Chinese consumers love an adrenaline spike of random chance and reward – even when browsing a brand site or social media channel.
PwC report that 36% of Chinese users value instant gratification with personalized marketing offers. This often comes in the form of coupons to spend on the site, lucky red packet money games they can play on their phone, refer-a-friend program to earn credit, app downloads (again with coupon incentives) or a chance to win tickets for a holiday as part of a social media campaign.
Online VR activity for users to claim prizes by collecting virtual “hongbao”.
Source: China.com
Many apps include “hongbao” (red packet) giveaways and this is not just limited to business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. China’s largest business-2-business (B2B) cloud computing company, Alibaba Cloud, last year ran a lucky money mobile game where users could win free credit for cloud servers.
It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, the goal is not to leave the user empty-handed!
Mobile: in the hands of consumers
In a country where more purchases are conducted through mobile phones than computers (at 66% as of 2016), online campaigns and content must be mobile-friendly and responsive. PwC reports that 24% of Chinese consumers use mobile apps as a source of inspiration before purchasing, compared to the global standard of 13%. And we believe this might even be underestimated.
There is also the additional option of launching a HTML5 site for special events, for example on social media platform WeChat. These simplified website landing pages with compressed but highly visual content – designed for quick consumption on mobile devices – are ideal for large live events and collecting user contact details. This includes industry conferences or live celebrity brand endorsements such as the Maybelline live press conference with celebrity Angelababy.
In summary, when choosing your channels and content and design formats for online campaigns, don’t just choose one. Chinese consumers have a high level of tolerance for choice and they love to find and pick the option they find interesting and relevant or where they can find an instant reward! Keeping everything you do mobile-friendly will also help to ensure a better user experience for your end-users.
Not sure what will work for your brand in regards to user engagement? Talk to AgencyChina for a customized solution or to find out what’s worked in the past for other brands in your industry.
Building trust in China is an absolute must for any brand, and even established overseas brands have an uphill battle without the right digital marketing strategy localized for China.
While foreign brands in China have traditionally enjoyed high levels of consumer “trust”, such as infant milk formula providers, there is growing competition inside China as more companies from overseas enter the market.
A decade ago there were less foreign brands penetrating the Mainland China market and major brands such as Starbucks, Fonterra, Kerry Group, Nestle, and others could seize swathes of lucrative market share. However, with the arrival of cross-border ecommerce and numerous bilateral free trade agreements, a flood of foreign products and services has entered the market (on average 500 launch on a daily basis).
Foreign-language packaging and an exotic brand name were once persuasive marketing techniques juxtaposed with local brands and limited foreign products showcased in a physical store. However, unlike traditional malls where there is a ceiling number of available product-lines, ecommerce sites have unlimited capacity, also known as the “long-tail effect.” A search on the e-commerce site JD.com, for example, returns 82,000 product listings for “imported wine” in Chinese.
Making your brand findable online
To aid their purchasing decisions, Chinese consumers turn to a variety of channels to research new brands, including all kinds of social media and search engines. Baidu search, for example, will often populate results from Zhihu, which is a popular Chinese community-based question-and-answer site.
Search for Australian beef brand First Cut on Baidu, Source: Baidu
If for any reason a customer finds your brand’s product on a physical retail shelf or an online customer listing but can’t find relevant information about your brand via a quick Baidu search, trust is all but lost. Consumers will immediately have concerns that your brand isn’t established and verified or is potentially a fake brand posing to be foreign.
Populating discussion about your brand on Zhihu is one simple method to build an online presence without even investing in a website or social media account. But be wary, Chinese consumers are known to look at multiple checkpoints before making a purchase and their decision-making process shouldn’t be compared with Western consumer behavior. Hence a presence on a multitude of online platforms is very much a necessity. Additionally, while the West might assign a neutral level of trust to a new item and then raise that level with more interactions and knowledge, Chinese consumers are far more likely to allocate negative trust to new purchase items and need far more convincing.
Importance of the right digital marketing mix
According to a 2016 survey from McKinsey of 10,000 in-person interviews with people aged 18 to 56 across 44 cities, “the number of consumers willing to switch to a brand outside their ‘short list’ dropped sharply.” In the apparel segment, for example, the percentage of consumers in China willing to consider new brands declined from approximately 40 percent in 2012 to below 30 percent in 2015.
This is why it’s crucial for foreign brands to invest in a variety of digital marketing channels and techniques to overcome new customer hesitation as well as build loyalty with long-term customers. For most brands this well-balanced online marketing mix should contain the following:
WeChat account (social media chat platform) and regular content production
Weibo account (Twitter-like micro-blogging site that now doubles as a live-streaming platform) and regular interactions and postings
Product demonstrations hosted on live-streaming sites or video sharing sites such as Youku or Inke.
Online marketing campaigns in China with established brands in other industries
Up to date & verified online presence
Beyond launching online campaigns and activities on these and other channels, it’s important that you keep your online presence active and ongoing. A spike of questions and answers on Zhihu in 2015 might help boost confidence around the time of posting but it’s important to maintain an active presence with your audience at regular intervals AgencyChina can also help you navigate the process of verifying your social media accounts which is another vital step in building trust and limiting the influence of “brand imposers.”
Want to find out more about how to best leverage the many digital marketing channels available in China? At AgencyChina, we specialize in helping you design a better marketing strategy to build a relationship with Chinese consumers as well as a sustainable business path in the China market.
