Cut through the noise when marketing to China

First thing first – appreciate the differences between the western and the China market

• Appreciate the cultural differences – in product design, user behavior, use of language, aesthetic preferences and sense of humor, etc. There is a large chance that what works in the West won’t work in the East.
• The differences in digital media landscape – especially for China’s, which is highly complex and fragmented, making it a challenge for marketers to cut through the when running digital campaigns. For instance, while YouTube and Netflix are the obvious key video players in the western markets, there are Youku Tudou, Sohu TV, iQiYi, LeTV, PPTV and more in China which each plays a significant role and serves a different group of demographics in the market.

Get local help

• Surely it’d be best if brands can establish their own team in the local market yet it would mean a considerable amount of investment, especially when your brand is just getting started in the market.
• It’s advisable to get help from marketing partners with a local execution team. In this digital age, communications can be seamless with the aid of various teleconferencing tools.
• To ensure you would understand and connect to the China market well, and hence delivering culturally relevant and effective marketing campaigns therein, work with reliable local partners who have local knowledge and a local execution team, as well as solid experience, connections and concrete expertise of the market.

Make good use of data to navigate the complexity and fragmentation

• Get a data management platform in place to enable true understanding of your target consumers based on their interactions with your website and ecommerce site as well as other channels (say, CS, social media, etc.). Then make good use of the data to facilitate future programmatic media buying, or fine tune your brands’ messaging and offerings online and offline.

What we see as the biggest opportunities in China post-Brexit

• Outbound travelling that benefits the travel, luxury and retail, F&B and entertainment industries most directly
• Cross-border retail ecommerce
• Overseas education
• Property and real estate – especially properties in the school and college towns in which tiger parents search for quality accommodations for their kids during their overseas studies

A few more China-specific tips before I go

• Mobile is a must have in the marketing mix, given the mobile first culture in China. According to CNNIC’s data, 70%+ of people in China who began using the Internet for the first time in 2015 said they do so via smartphone.
• Get your website (with a simplified Chinese version), ecommerce and online payment solutions in place to ensure smooth conversion (all in mobile-friendly setup for sure).
• Get a data management platform in place so you can collect quality data to facilitate programmatic media buying. In China, it’s imperative to take a data-driven approach to cut through the noise, or else your campaign message may simply get lost in the giant sea of information, no matter how well-crafted your message or visual are.
• Take a cross-screen programmatic approach when it comes to digital marketing as Chinese Internet users tend to use multiple devices at different times of the day for different purposes
• Work with a digital marketing partner with strong data and technology capabilities – one who can effectively identify the right target audience groups based on data analytics and deliver a truly programmatic and precise audience buying for their campaigns.
• Learn about the power of WeChat – the ubiquitous mobile app in China – and make good use of it. According to Tencent, of the 684M+ WeChat users in China, 60%+ open the app more than 10 times per day, and 25% of the user activities thereon are ecommerce-related via WeChat Wallet, the app’s mobile payment solution.

Alan Ngai, Business Planning & Operations Manager, iClick Interactive.