Marketing Advice That Matters
Baidu boasts of being the World’s largest Chinese search engine with a whooping 800 million users and earns over 80% of the sum of Chinese digital marketing advertisement revenue. With its 4th position world, it’s quite a consistent and top trusted search engine to Chinese consumers. Akin to Google, it hosts Wikipedia, Baidu Map, Baidu image and is a recognized as a trustworthy site for foreign company to kick start in China market. While comparing between Google AdWords with Baidu PPC Services, it is better to way that even if they are relatively similar in certain terms, there’re divergence also. Being a prospective marketer in China, before joining Baidu PPC, it’s vital for you to have an idea on these differences.
Google Adwords Vs Baidu PPC: Three Key Differences
Paid Advertising Products
Google AdWords is equipped with an array of paid advertising products including display ads, text, shopping, search, video, and app ads.
On the contrary, when it comes to Baidu PPC, marketers can go for superior promotional plan with its wide range of exclusive and highly popular advertising products such as Brand Zone, Baidu Knowledge aside from display ads, text ads, information feed ads etc.
Information feed ads are budget based advertisement plans that come in mixing with organic contents and are displayed through Baidu Forum, News, and others.
A wonderful advertisement scheme designed for world-class companies to promote their products or brands is Brand Zone. Advertisers need to purchase keywords relevant to the products or brands and can have higher presence in Baidu’s SERPs. Even if, this is bit expensive, however, if dominating the other advertisers as well as competitors is your intend, the Brand Zone is an unbeatable choice. With this, you can get coverage on Baidu’s video, image, plus news also. The search page literally leaves no space on either side and thus avoids traffic loss and appears on the top of the page pushing all other competition ads down. In comparison to Baidu, Google’s ad is not much impressive, however consistent.
It is Baidu’s own product, which appears in organic Q&A model page and always gets higher rank in organic search product. Baidu Knowledge is a platform that can make you brand more popular in Chinese community given that, Baidu’s is the most trusted name in China.
Account Generation
Creating an account in Google Adwords is as simple as anything. Typically, the process takes only a few minutes and all you need to have is a Gmail account plus credit card.
When it comes to Baidu PPC account, the process is rather comprehensive before you reach your Chinese consumers.
First of all, like Google, Baidu is not entertaining customers directly while marketers need to go through Baidu’s authorized agencies to create account, advertise or making a payment. It’s therefore, to begin a voyage with Baidu, identify your Baidu PPC reseller. You will have to submit a series of official and legal documents and needed verification and approval from Baidu. Like
It takes around 30-60 days to get your website/ad displayed in Baidu PPC.
Fees and Payment
With Google AdWords you enjoy free of charge entry and require bidding based on your credit score to place ads. For big and regular businesses Google AdWords also allows monthly invoicing system depending on credibility.
To open an account in Baidu PPC account is equally free; however, to initiate running ads, enterprises are expected to keep a minimum deposit of 6,000 RBM equivalents to $900. This is where you need to make a constructive marketing plan and monthly budget of advertising to enjoy its maximum return. Another vital point is Baidu recommends businesses to pay 600 RMB, equivalent to $90 toward yearly verification. Followed by verification, your ad will appear on the page with a symbol of ‘V’. On clicking on the symbol, users can check a company’s score, web security, dealing safety, reputation etc. Especially for foreign companies stepping into China market, apart from boasting own legitimacy, the feature can give extra mileage to boost business.
As an interviewer, you need to ask questions that allow you to uncover the strengths and weakness of the candidate you are interviewing. You are not going to achieve your objective by asking rudimentary questions. To help you achieve your recruiting goals, we have compiled a list of the top ten toughest marketing interview questions to test your marketing talent.
1. Which Marketing Method Is Best- Education-Based Marketing or Selling Based Marketing?
There is a fine line between sales and marketing and this question would help you identify if the candidate is from marketing or sales domain. The right answer to this question is education-based marketing.
Education based marketing gives the customers what they want – advice and information. This helps them take the right purchase decision. Selling based marketing is more likely to fail as it is designed with the sole purpose of selling.
2. How Would You Ensure the Money Used in a Marketing Campaign Is Not Wasted on Targeting the Wrong Audience?
The candidate should ask questions to get a clear idea about the target audience. After you define your target audience, the candidate should be able to mention different ways to reach the target audience. Some ideal ways to reach the target audience can be PPC, social advertising, direct mail, display ads in trade publications, feature articles, and even tv and radio spots.
3. Have You Worked in Sales?
If the candidate has worked in Sales, it is a plus point. Only a person who has worked in sales would know how people make buying decisions that would ultimately help in creating effective marketing strategies.
4. Do You like to Work Alone or in a Team?
This question is aimed to know more about the personality and the preferred method of completing a task. There is no right answer for this question and you need to evaluate the answer on a case-by-case scenario basis. Different situations may require the marketer to work alone while some situations may need efforts from all members of the team.
5. How Do You Measure Marketing Success?
This is one of the marketing interview questions that give you an opportunity to discuss tools that are useful in the day-to-day job duties. For example, for online marketing, you can ask the candidate if he/she is familiar with Google Analytics and with metric acronyms like CPA, CPC, and CTR.
6. What Is Your Biggest Marketing Failure?
Majority of marketing candidates face failure at some point in their career but many would not be willing to talk about it. Some marketing failures come due to personality conflicts while some come due to lack of experience.
Only genuine candidates would accept failures or show the readiness to take responsibility for it. Try to find out the reasons behind failures, what went wrong, what the candidate did to put things in place.
7. If Your Marketing Campaign Does Not Work, What Could Be the Reasons Behind It?
This can be a follow-up question for candidates who tell they have not met failures in their marketing careers. The answer to this question will help you determine whether the candidate would take responsibility for his efforts or put blame on someone else.
8. What Do You Know About the Role You Are Applying For?
Each marketing role is different, and its success is measured differently. The candidate should have complete knowledge about the job profile and the responsibilities related to it. You need to ensure the candidate can live up to your expectations.
9. Which social media channels do you have experience with?
Find out if the candidate has proven experience in social media marketing on popular channels Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If you are looking for something with a younger demographic, look for candidates that have had success with platforms like Reddit or Snapchat.
10. What Kind of Management Style Do You Prefer?
Some marketers prefer hands-on-style with a lot of direction while some like to be given their space to work. You need to look for a candidate who knows how to stay composed, professional, and diplomatic in different situations.
These are some of the toughest marketing interview questions that would help you get more visibility of the candidate’s skills and personality and help you select the best candidate for your next marketing role.
The Chinese digital market arena is very much unique in terms of its consumer behavior, likings, and legal formalities especially for foreign companies whereas language issue will appear as the biggest blockade at every step. Imagine you are targeting a market that counts 724 million internet users, and more than 58% of business ads in online platform.
This shows clearly that your target digital market landscape is extremely competitive. So, with a view to generate a rewarding ROI, being a western business counterpart you need to be careful to understand the market, grasp the dynamic digital marketing mediums, tailor your advertisement before knocking the target audience. Incidentally, in no way, you are going to meet Google community, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube in China which are banned with the Chinese Firewall policy. If you still have any sort of uncertainty to hiring a China digital marketing agency, go through the top reasons stated below which will surely help you take the right decision.
Top Reasons to Hire a Digital Marketing Agency
Help Access Marketing Platforms
No denying, your digital marketing endeavor in China begins with the correct accessing to the digital platforms, which have already been proven in the industry. Simply put, as your first choice is boasting your presence in Google, consumers in China determine the reliability of a foreign company only if it’s well presence in Baidu advertising and search engine. So long it concerns to social media marketing, WeChat and Weibo are the top popular social platform, where promoting you makes it a must to reach largest number of potential consumers. However, none of Baidu, WeChat or Weibo work directly especially with foreign companies, whereas hiring a Baidu’s certified and experienced digital marketing agency in China is the only choice.
Market Knowledge
The Chinese market is completely distinct from West whereas the market trend is equally fast varying due to advanced technology, consumer likings and law and regulations. No one but a skilled digital marketing agency in China, operational for quite a good time in the industry and has a good client base can come handy in your challenging marketing drive. You will find them up-to-date with the real time market scenario which is crucial to understand which class of Weibo advertisement or WeChat tool will be rewarding to get the best response from Chinese consumers.
Legal Formalities
Meeting the legal formalities to enter into the digital market arena will appear simply oceanic for you, being a foreign company in China. Whether, it is about registering in Baidu, booking an ad in Weibo or becoming a WeChat member, just ‘signing in’ is not going to help, that you’ve done so far. You have to furnish a series of official documents plus pay registration fees on verification and approval to get started in China. Tracking them without being prepared with a digital marketing agency in China is next to impossible. In addition, once you begin, as your trusted partner the agency will guide you to locate other business associates whom you will require on the path, say for example Shipping Services of C&F agent.
Expert Services
All that the internet can do for you is providing the basic guidelines about the things to do, ideas about the digital mediums, cost of having membership etc. However, what you need is detailed expert services and advisory of a reputed digital marketing agency, which will work in combination with your team members, suggest you for needed documentations to get registered. Operational with expert SEO in The Woodlands, web designers, professional writers, meanwhile, your agency will customize website, advertisement page, web contents, and research keywords for Baidu SEM.
Experience
None can deny the worth of experience that comes through education, practical knowledge, and awareness concerning the always changing industry. A specialized digital marketing agency in China that has developed in Chinese digital marketing setting is unambiguously deeply-informed concerning its consumers likings, activities, expectations from their service providers. In a word, they are the seasoned professionals to make your digital marketing endeavor a success.
There are many recruitment agencies that operate in different domains and claim to be a jack of all trades which is hardly true. There is a difference in recruiting for engineering positions and recruiting for marketing positions.
If you plan to recruit top talent for your marketing department, you need to find marketing recruiting firms who specialize in recruiting staff for marketing departments. Here are a few tips that will help you select the best marketing recruitment agency.
Look for Real Specialists
A real specialist marketing recruiter would understand the intricacies of marketing departments in different organizations. The marketing field has changed drastically over these years and so has the skills requirements.
A good marketing recruitment agency would know the changing dynamics of marketing field and also know the technical elements required in candidates for a successful marketing career. The agency would be a proven “Masters” in the marketing domain having successfully recruited marketing professionals for industry leaders.
Candidate Reach
According to TPP recruitment survey, finding the right caliber candidate has become difficult in recent years. The reasons are changing business landscape, global competition for talent, and technology advancements.
Today, we are living in a candidate driven job market where the top talent is flooded with ample job offers. To recruit the best talent, you need to look for a marketing recruitment agency which has deeper and wider reach across different recruitment channels.
Leading marketing recruitment firms also have potential to reach and engage passive candidates. Passive candidates are preferred by businesses as they have updated knowledge of the industry and they are valuable to their current employers. You need to look for marketing recruiting firms who are willing to go beyond a list of active applicants and search for candidates with true marketing potential.
A good marketing recruitment agency would have a range of success stories with a client base with a mix of big brands, and SME’s. The agency would be able to demonstrate its talent search skills and advanced techniques to reach local, nationals and international marketing talent.
Also, the marketing recruitment consultant should be able to offer flexible recruitment solution to find candidates with different levels of experience for diverse marketing roles including marketing assistants to C-suite executives.
Reputation Matters
Reputation is important in hiring business. According to Glassdoor findings, 65% of candidates will not consider working with a recruiter or a company of poor reputation even when they are unemployed. Think about – one-third of potential candidates will stay away from your company if you partner with a low-reputation recruitment agency.
Working with top marketing recruitment agency means it will be easier to attract top talent. The right marketing recruitment agency would have a positive word of mouth, would be strongly connected to industry leaders and also have a strong presence in the marketing community. A good recruitment agency would show their relevance to marketing recruitment and also show the added value they bring to the whole hiring process.
Refined Screening Process
The right marketing recruitment agency would not provide you an array of similar CV’s for a particular marketing role. The screening process should take into account various factors such as cultural fit, skills sets, analytical skills, sector background, years of experience, availability, salary expectations, overall fit for the role.
The result of thorough screening process should not result in more than five candidates relevant to any marketing position. Also, the recruitment consultant should be able to demonstrate in detail the screening process which includes details about competency-based interview and selection process. The recruiter should be able to provide concise, brief, and accurate summary of each selected candidate, the relevance of education, skills, and experience to a marketing role.
The above-given tips will help find the top marketing recruiting firms which can help you get top talent for different marketing roles in your company. After all, you want to work with established recruiters in marketing vertical who can find you candidates with right marketing caliber to strengthen your marketing campaigns.
How do you hire marketing staff for your organization?
Whether you run an established business or a startup, marketing is the most important function of your business. You want to have the best marketing team that can attract customers and increase your sales. The success of your company depends largely on the quality of your marketing team and its ability to attract new customers, and retain old ones. However, you may not have the time, resources, or the expertise to pick the right marketing team for your business. If you need quality marketing professionals, approaching professional recruiters such as marketing staffing agencies is your best option.
As full time recruiters, marketing staffing companies help businesses by providing them the best of the marketing professionals from around the country. They have experienced industry veterans onboard who can find, and vet the top talents and offer them to your business.
With the help of marketing recruitment companies, you can find quality talent at short notice and on flexible terms that helps you save money, time, and efforts on recruitment. However, you will have to make sure you work with the right agency that has the experience and expertise to help you hire the perfect marketing team.
Tips to choosing the right marketing staffing agency for your business:
• Business requirements: Before you go shopping for a marketing staffing agency, you need to have a clear understanding of your business requirements. You need to find answers to questions such as, what level of marketing expertise your business/ project requires or if your business requires permanent staff, contract hires or temporary to permanent hires.
• Research the recruitment industry: Once you have a clear understanding of your business requirements you need to understand how the recruitment industry, especially how marketing staffing agencies work. Having an overview of the industry and its working style helps you save time by avoiding companies that are not reputable.
• Check the agency expertise: Once you have shortlisted the probable agencies to approach for your recruitment needs, you need to check if the agencies offer talents for your line of business. Some agencies offer staff for any business, while some specialize in providing talents to only a specific industry, or specialized skills. If you are looking for professionals with special skills or your business requires the services of specialists you need to approach an agency that offers specialists.
• Services offered: Make sure the agency offers the kind of staff you need. Your current project may require contract hire, so make sure the agency offers staff on contract hire basis. It is also important that you work with an agency that can also manage your future requirements of any nature. In the future, you may require permanent or temporary to permanent staff, so make sure the agency offers flexible staffing options.
• Pricing: Pricing is a very important factor in making buying decisions. Similarly, when shopping around for recruitment services, prices these agencies charge is an important factor to consider. You need to select an agency that offers quality staffing solutions to your business at competitive prices.
In addition to the above factors, you also need to check if the agency offers value added services such as onboarding, background checks, etc., if they do, do they charge an additional fee.
