It’s a hugely exciting time when your business begins to move into the China market. After all, everyone knows that China is a huge, fast-growing and hugely lucrative market filled with consumers who love quality international goods.

But to succeed, you’ll need a strong Chinese digital marketing strategy that’s optimised for your target niche. China’s market is hugely competitive and sophisticated, and Western brands simply cannot afford to mirror their local marketing and expect it to work for Chinese customers.

With this in mind, here’s what to do next:

Learn and research

There is no ‘standard’ Chinese marketing strategy for Western brands entering this vast market. So accept that you’ll need to start from the beginning and learn as you go.

This is the stage to research and learn as much as possible about your target market, the right initial marketing mix, and the cultural norms and societal factors that affect how this complex market operates.

For example, if you don’t yet know the deep cultural significance of certain colours, dates and numbers in China, now’s the time to learn! In this highly contextual culture, it’s easy to make mistakes that cause inadvertent humour or downright offence!

Consider your Branding

Again, don’t assume your Western brand will naturally translate well for the China market. You may well have to localise it and change everything from the name to the colour palette, typeface and other brand elements. Even small tweaks can make a difference and allow your offer to resonate more effectively with your target Chinese audience.

Once you are comfortable that your brand is well localised, you can apply it to your website, brochures, eBooks and other marketing collateral.

Work on your Website

Your Chinese language website is a cornerstone of your Chinese digital marketing and it will help to anchor your digital ecosystem.

Because China is such a smartphone-centric nation, you must ensure your Chinese website is smartphone-optimised and integrated with other Chinese platforms for payments and social media.

You’ll need to host it locally, optimise it for Chinese readers (considering everything from language to UX) and optimise it for Chinese SEO. Baidu SEO uses different algorithms from Google, so it’s valuable to learn more about these and develop your SEO tactics accordingly (recognising that, of course, human-centred content is the priority for your customers and search bots alike.)

Be mindful that Chinese websites are subject to censorship and certain topics must be avoided. Equally, remember that Western websites are banned by the Chinese internet firewall. This is relevant if you accidentally link to a Western site such as Google Maps. Always use acceptable local equivalents.

Choose your Social Media Platforms

The Chinese digital marketing landscape is vastly more complex than in the West. There are dozens of social media platforms in this nation of netizens who carry out every aspect of their lives online.

Chinese digital marketing technology is also typically far ahead of Western equivalents, and its social media giants are so huge that they have created entire national shopping days of their own, such as Alibaba-led Singles Day, or ‘Double 11’ in November, which is about four times bigger in sales volumes than Cyber Week!

So when you move into the China market, research carefully before you pick your platforms, and build up slowly and sustainably.

Learn as much as you can and don’t automatically assume that the biggest Chinese social media platforms (WeChat, Weibo and Douyin) are necessarily the ones your brand should focus on. Even ‘smaller’ platforms, such as Little Red Book still have hundreds of millions of active users!

Invest in Social Media Marketing

Chinese social media is also more than just an obvious place to build a branded presence for customer engagement. These hugely comprehensive and sophisticated platforms offer far more than Western equivalents, from mini-programs (mini stores and apps integrated within WeChat for everything from eCommerce to coupons) to Key Opinion Leader (KOL) campaigns.

Again, research, start slowly and track your results at every stage. As you grow in confidence and experience, you can begin to do far more with your social media marketing in China. You can also leapfrog ahead by partnering with the right Chinese influencers, or KOLs (see below.)

Invest in KOL relationships

Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) are akin to Western influencers, but their power and relevance are far greater in Chinese society. There are KOLs for every market, product, platform and niche, and they can offer your brand key benefits.

KOLs work as brand partners to recommend products, soft-sell, promote, advertise or host competitions, launches and other promotional strategies. There are thousands of KOLs and sometimes the smaller influencers can be incredibly powerful, especially if you are targeting a particular niche. The trick lies in finding the right KOL for your brand.

Develop a Baidu PPC strategy

As with Western marketing, your SEO work will take time to see effects and should be considered a long-term and consistent effort, delivered against a carefully-devised strategy.

To drive short-term, qualified and organic traffic to your website’s key landing pages, Baidu PPC is your friend! Baidu is China’s leading search engine and ideal for PPC campaigns (which must be set up and managed in Chinese.)

Online PR

Once your digital ecosystem is up and running, you can invest in online PR to help share the word of your brand and its offer on relevant platforms. This includes advertorials and it can be incredibly powerful.

Chinese customers value recommendations and tips from trusted media sources, so PR has an excellent role in your marketing mix if you choose the right publications and follow effective content-sharing and media liaison strategies.

Get expert help from a Chinese digital marketing agency

It can be both daunting and challenging to build an effective Chinese digital marketing strategy, especially if you aren’t experienced in Chinese marketing, and don’t speak the language. A trusted Chinese digital marketing agency partner can help you to get the best possible results, by providing access to expert digital marketing skills from native language speakers.

Market Me China is here to help your business grow in the hugely exciting and lucrative China market, with a flexible team of talented professionals who can help you get the best possible ROI and build a sustainable, successful Chinese marketing strategy for your business.

We work flexibly and effectively for our clients, evidencing our results at every step! Please contact us for a no-obligation chat about how we can help!