Marketing Advice That Matters
When looking for a digital marketing company to pull off marketing campaigns in China, you may find yourself lost and confused more often than not. How do you separate the legitimate offers from the impossible ones? How do you ensure the success of your campaign in China? Read on and find out more about how to pick the right digital marketing company in China for your brand or business idea.
Make sure the company knows its way around China’s social media ecosystem
Now the tricky part about marketing in China is that it doesn’t quite operate like other countries. Even though China has been ranked the most attractive market for the 6th time in a row in the world, when it comes to digital marketing, one must be extremely careful about picking their suitable digital marketing company. Since other familiar tools such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter, which are ideally used to market and promote your company won’t work in China, you have to be extra cautious.
China’s social media needs are met primarily by 3 companies: WeChat, Baidu, and Weibo! This seems like a small pool of options when compared to the wide range of social media platforms available in other countries. But when you hire a marketing company, the first thing you must ensure about them is that they have played this game before, and they’ve played it good- they must be familiar with the Chinese digital ecosystem.
Challenges One May Face
• The Ever-Changing Ecosystem
We’ve established that advertising and marketing in China is hard enough, but add to that the inconsistent and heavy regulations involved (that are constantly changing, by the way), you’ve got another problem coming your way. The strict advertising limitations is yet another thing you must consider. All of this does make for a rather complex environment to tap into.
• Lack of Data Flow
Different digital marketing channels in China are isolated, if you think about it. This is because of the aggressive competition between them. This further leads to poor data flow and demanding optimization with campaigns!
• A Whole New World: Language & Culture
Advertising in China is no joke- did you know that the most suitable option while appealing to the Chinese population is advertising in Mandarin? Scarce knowledge and lack of awareness about international competency often leaves global companies confused about starting to advertise in China!
Hire for a more holistic marketing campaign
So, what is the buzz about SEO- and just how effective is it with regard to marketing campaigns? Is it really worth the hype? Well, the truth is that digital marketing companies today put all their eggs in one basket and focus solely on keywords in order to make their SEO search phrases more efficient. But in reality, those keywords have little impact on your marketing campaign’s success. Apart from the keywords, one must put in a tonne of secondary research and work on developing ads, corresponding landing pages that are captivating, and gripping content that essentially turn those clicks into sales.
Don’t forget about your ROI
While most reliable sources of digital marketing companies prove the Return On Investment (ROI) of their efforts, it wouldn’t help to have tools and other analytics to help demonstrate the business growth in China. If your hired help is showing you anything similar to the following, you’re in good hands:
• Analytical tools demonstrating the metrics and growth over a timeframe of your website traffic and the success of your ads.
• A call tracking log that shows the leads you’re closing every day, helping measure the number of sales for a given period of time.
• Tools used to show how one could reduce the cost of advertising per new customer, and thereby increase the potential profit margin.
Have Your Game Plan Ready
Last but not least, make sure to have your marketing plan with a high-level overview sketched out by them before anything else. Ensure they have a meticulous plan and detailed process in place, while being able to explain how it’ll work for you in the long haul. With the right digital marketing company, there’s nothing you cannot do in China!
For successfully penetrating the Chinese market means brands are able to distinguish their products from the substitutes. It is very challenging for achieving this level of brand consciousness and promoting your brand in China is totally different than the rest in the world. Brand awareness has an effect on people’s minds. This means a customer can able to connect the slogan, the logo, the name and other attributes of a particular company or product. In this post, we will explore how digital marketing agency in China can leverage to build your business in China.
The key to sell in China is Digital Branding
Any discussion on how to develop brand awareness in China requires tapping the digital environment as a priority strategy. According to a report in 2018, the internet penetration in China is more than fifty percent which means there are three to four times the number of smartphone users and over twelve times the number of mobile payment users than in the United States. In addition to that, the rural internet users are also increasing with a penetration rate of over 35 to 40 percent.
For promoting a band successfully, it requires a target to reach, uniqueness and exclusivity of the product or the business to create an impact in the market. A digital marketing agency will help your business to full ambitions and create specialized services and products that will help to tap a large audience. The USP or Unique Selling Proportion is central to how visible and valuable your business can become in the market. Business needs to understand that the efficiency to manage a brand depends directly on how your company’s employees understand your products and promote its values to the consumers.
Trending Strategies to Build Your Business
Here we will be discussing some of the core trends that you must note while formulating a digital marketing strategy.
Short Videos
This is a huge trend in China and there were more than 350 million viewers of shirt video. The short video platform is becoming lucrative for branded content. The brands who promote their services and products through videos earn three to four times more. When using this strategy, you have to remember the “Five Seconds” rule where you need to catch the viewer’s attention in the first five seconds.
OmniChannel Policy
No algorithm can able to give you accurate data when and why each client will be making a purchase or an acquisition. E-tailers use omnichannel e-commerce because they have built up offline investments over the years. Over the years, retail customer interaction has been changing rapidly from traditional ways of visiting the stores to shopping in the comfort of our own place through e-commerce. Now various e-tailers use a New Retail omnichannel policy that demands higher customer-centric interaction that can be achieved seamlessly through leveraging data technology.
Group Purchases
Your digital marketing agency in China encourages a close group of people to purchase together for availing high discounts and forms a significant portion of online sales. It is a fast-growing trend based on the share/split model.
Tools for creating Online Buzz
The development and maintenance of online buzz are fundamental for longevity and brand appeal in China and here are few tools for creating online buzz. For social media networks use Tudou, Youku, Weibo, and WeChat. Use Taobao for online shopping websites. Since China is the best for new websites and for online communities use Douban. It is important to stay up-to-date with these popular platforms as the latest topics and issues trending on these platforms so that you can able to promote your brand effectively. For instance, a luxury leather goods company uses the power of social media and mobile shopping to appeal to Chinese millennials.
Content Marketing
For any brand to flourish content is the king. Hire a digital marketing agency in China to create engaging content for consumers that should be informative and entertaining. It will allow a consumer to hold, sometimes, negative, positive or lasting associations with your brand. Consumers can provide feedback on various social media platforms that will help you to understand their online behavior and create promotion strategies for preserving the image of the brand.
When looking for marketing ideas for your company, there are several different methods that can be chosen. One of the most successful current strategies for marketing your company, however, uses both proactive and reactive methods to bring in new customers and keep your current customers coming back: lifecycle marketing. You need to know what you are looking for in a lifecycle marketing agency to effectively choose one that will help your company grow.
What is Lifecycle Marketing?
Lifecycle marketing is making sure that your customer, whether they are a current, future, or former customer, receives the appropriate marketing message in order to inform them of your products or services and encourage them to purchase from you. A lifecycle marketing agency will use all the marketing formats available in a proactive and reactive manner to achieve this.
Buying Process Cycle
Using a lifecycle marketing agency, you will gain access to a means of engaging with your customers in all stages of their buying process—not just at the decision-making stage. By giving your potential customers information during earlier stages of the buying process, it will nurture a relationship with the customer early on, increasing the chances that they will choose your products. But also, lifecycle marketing includes marketing to those that have already purchased from you because, as studies have shown, you have a 60% to 70% chance of selling to an existing customer versus the 5% to 20% chance of selling to a new one. All of these different stages will be treated differently, allowing the customer to receive the right type of message for the stage of the buying process they are in. Using a mix of direct communication, social media, sponsorships, advertising, articles, etc. will give you all the tools you need to get the message out.
Choosing a Lifestyle Marketing Agency
Choosing the right lifestyle marketing agency for you is similar to choosing a business to partner with. There are several criteria you should look for in a marketing agency, and there are a few that you don’t need to focus on as much.
Expertise
Expertise is a big one when it comes to a service like those offered by a lifestyle marketing agency. You want to hire a company that actually has the expertise they claim to have because there are many companies out there that know how to sell themselves, but that don’t actually have the knowledge and expertise to back it up. Always research the agencies you are considering; find out who they have worked with before. References are great resources to ensure they are as knowledgeable as they claim to be.
Chemistry
You’re going to be working with your lifestyle marketing agency for a long time, so chemistry is very important, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Hiring a company that understands your business goals and atmosphere will allow them to market more effectively, amplifying your company ideals in your marketing campaign. Respect works both ways, as well; if you respect your agency, and they respect you, then the creativity between you can flow freely and more effectively.
Creativity
The most effective marketing campaigns are creative ones, so you want to look through the lifestyle marketing agency portfolio to get a glance at what they are capable of. When they pitch their marketing campaign ideas to you, you will get to see how creative they can be when marketing your company. Try to find an agency that isn’t just using the same ideas for every client. Your business is unique, and it needs a unique campaign to make you stand out.
Resources
When hiring a lifestyle marketing agency, ensure that they have the ability to take you on as a client. You want an agency that is going to have a team available to work with you, and the means they need to be able to do what they claim and they need to be financially secure so they don’t disappear, causing you to have to choose a different agency mid-campaign.
Cost
Cost is a less important aspect when hiring a lifestyle marketing agency. You want to hire an agency that is within your budget, of course, but you don’t want to just hire the cheapest one—they may be cheap for a reason. Quality is most often going to be worth the extra costs in the return on investment for a marketing campaign.
When you choose a lifecycle marketing agency, it’s important to find one that is the right fit for your company—one that can produce a creative marketing strategy that encompasses the entirety of the buying process cycle for your customers. This agency will be an extension of your own marketing team, so ensure you choose one that will work with your company’s atmosphere. Good chemistry will make for a great relationship and will improve the quality of marketing that is produced.
Importance of Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing is the overall term given to the varied techniques applied to get more traffic to websites. These include related advertising, paid search, organic placement, etc. In SEM, the traffic to the related website comes because of paid tactics. The main idea is to get into numerous other customer segments, other than that come through the organic search. The overall intention of performing SEM is getting enhanced traffic from all possible sources.
General Benefits of SEM
You will be able to create productive online leads, which will result in sales. When you can do the SEM convincingly and persuasively, then there will be augmentation in your website traffic. The customers will have no confusion, as they will get a lot of information from different sources. Whenever they search through the internet for related products or services, the promotional material of your website will pop up on their screens. Such a situation will prompt them to visit your website. If they feel satisfied with the items, they will take a chance and buy your products and services. This method will become practically useful to boost your business. You will be able to earn extra market share by exploring new customer segments. By conducting handy SEM works, you will be able to retain the existing line of customers. Remember, customer retention is also significant; you will have to take care of this matter, along with the efforts to gain new clientele. Hence, along with carrying out the SEM tasks, you must not neglect to do the required SEO to make your website rank top.
Search Engine Marketing Tips for Your Online Business
Ø Creating a functional website is a must for online transactions. The website must be customer-oriented and must be easily navigable. There must be an option for quick transactions.
Ø The SEM manager must be well aware of the aspirations of the targeted audience as regards to the related product or service promoted. The company that is going to perform the SEM must conduct market studies to get the precise market pulse as regard the varied customer segments. This research will enable the company to decide where to put the target advertisement, PPC, etc.
Ø Create useful contents; these can be blogs, articles, case studies, or guest posts; let whatever be the basic structure of the created content, keyword usage is highly significant. Here, one must take care to create the qualitatively good contents, from which the readers will get various information. Besides, it is very important to do content creation frequently, at regular intervals.
Ø One must take care to use the generally used search words as keywords or key phrases. A casual customer who has just searched for a similar product must reach your website.
Ø Social networks are highly active in our time, and hence, it will be only prudent to get involved in such sites. This active participation will create brand awareness as regards your products or services. This platform will be a functional channel for the existing and prospective clients for having interactions with you.
Ø One must definitely use the Pay per Click (PPC) option. You can manage these advertisements on Search Engines. This is a practical way to attract the attention of new clients.
Ø You can also try the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to bring the maximum possible organic search to your site. Here, you can try both the onsite and offsite optimizations.
Search Engine Marketing
In Houston, there are distinct customer segments, and all these sections hold potential customers. To draw on this prevailing possibility, it is imperative that one should try all the feasible ways. Here pops up the need for a professionally capable SEO company, which is well-versed with the diverse technicalities of the SEM (Search Engine Marketing). In brief, for effective Houston Search Engine Marketing, it is vital that you should get in touch with a technically equipped and experienced SEO company, which has performed such jobs earlier in Houston. You must also ensure that the employees are well qualified and trained.
With 1.3 billion Chinese customers online, the Chinese market is arguably one of the biggest in the world. However, the market is difficult to break into since Google, Facebook, Twitter are being blocked. The only solution is working with a China digital marketing agency.
Here are some ways in which a digital marketing agency can improve your business.
Effective Use of Social Media Platforms
As mentioned earlier, Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China. However, this does not mean the Chinese audience does not use social media platforms. For example, Weibo and Wechat are two popular social media platforms in China. But western countries are unfamiliar with these Chinese social media platforms.
Weibo is projected to surpass 400 million users by 2021. It has evolved into an entertaining platform that encompasses features of Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit into one.
Chinese digital marketing agencies know the marketing potential of these social media platforms and use them effectively to improve your business.
Smarter Use of Baidu PPC
Baidu PPC is different from Google Ads in several aspects. If you think marketing strategies that worked on Google Ads would work on Baidu PPC, you are making a big mistake. Unlike Google where English is the dominant language, Baidu PPC success rate entirely depends on a better understanding of Chinese language and culture.
Baidu has evolved to better optimize its search technology to the needs of the Chinese audience. The Chinese language is complex and there are several words that have different meanings when used in different contexts. Baidu’s search algorithms give lots of importance to the relevance of the context in which the words are used in the content.
A good Chinese digital marketing agency will ensure the information feed ads are loaded with organic content and are also displayed in content-driven Baidu products like Baidu News, Baidu Forum, and more that will draw more customers.
Content Localization
If you are planning to reach the Chinese audience, the localization of content is important than anything else. For better engagement, the marketing material needs to be written in Mandarin Chinese with pertinent cultural references.
The digital marketing agency can play an important role in creating marketing materials that engage local Chinese audience. It can help you decide what content needs to be produced in Chinese from scratch. The China digital marketing agency can also help your business with the following tasks.
SEO
To reach a maximum number of Chinese consumers, your website should achieve top ranking on Baidu. The competition for the top position on Baidu’s SERP is immense and you need effective SEO strategies to beat the competition.
According to reports, Baidu holds 75% of the China market. Though Google is blocked in China, it still remains as one of the options for Chinese people to search for information.
A good digital marketing agency would conduct a site audit for SEO purpose and perform Chinese keyword research. To get higher position in SERPs, the digital marketing agency would also perform on-page optimization and create a high-quality link network. All these SEO activities would increase organic traffic to your website that would improve your business.
Help in E-commerce Setup
China has the world’s largest e-commerce market. To build a successful e-commerce store and reach Chinese consumers, you need to have a good understanding of banking and regulation guidelines and Chinese payment system.
To set up an e-commerce store for Chinese customers you need to also learn about e-commerce platforms that are not blocked in China. A digital marketing agency can prove helpful to set up an e-commerce store to attract Chinese consumers.
The competition in China market is huge with Western and native Chinese companies vying to create a space for themselves. Working with a China digital marketing agency will help you reach the Chinese audience in an easier way and ensure you achieve your business goals faster.
Do you have any questions? Please feel free to comment.
