1. Social Commerce

Social shopping is already a multi-billion pound industry in China, but it’s expected to double by 2029. The last Double 11 sales festival grew by 46%, with Millennial and Gen Z customers particularly jumping onto the trend.

Social commerce in China continues to grow through sophisticated tech development including slick payment integration options, the popularity of Little Red Book and Douyin (TikTok) and WeChat mini-programs.

The tech that drives these programs (particularly concerning integrated payment processing) is expected to be further refined in 2025, making delivery even slicker for customers.

2. AI Everywhere

Chinese customers are already very comfortable with AI, and over half of online retailers already use AI chatbots to personalise customer experiences and enhance customer service.

AI is also being integrated into a wide array of cutting-edge products, from smart appliances in the home to a new generation of EV cars.

Expect to see AI integrated into every aspect of Chinese digital marketing in 2025, with customers expecting chatbots, smooth user experiences (including targeted real-time content delivery) and optimised sales fulfilment from brands they shop with.

The good news is that AI can greatly benefit Western brands as they build in China, so the opportunities are excellent for brands that invest in their knowledge and AI integration.

3. Livestreaming and Short-Video

Short-form video platforms such as Douyin will continue to dominate digital marketing strategies, with brands creating attention-grabbing short videos that engage customers and drive sales.

Livestreaming e-commerce will also rocket, with brands and KOLs livestreaming in real-time and via digital shopping events to drive sales.

These experiences will start to include more creative experiences, including gamified shopping, real-time votes and AI-generated recommendations.

Interestingly, micro-KOLs and AI-generated KOLs are expected to become increasingly important.

An interesting sub-trend will be community-based buying, with Chinese customers pooling their purchasing power to gain attractive discounts. This will give Western brands an interesting way to target niche customer groups.

4. The Metaverse and VR

Expect to see China’s futuristic metaverse continue to evolve, with virtual retail stores and shopping malls complemented with AR and VR shopping.

China will lead the way in this level of cutting-edge technological commerce. For example, brands will use virtual gaming environments to sell in-game digital products such as filters, stickers, characterisation and branded personalisation options.

5. Green Marketing

Chinese customers, particularly Millennial and Gen Z customers, will continue to fuel demand for eco-friendly and sustainable products.

They will also expect to see brands demonstrating their ethical stances, sustainable manufacturing processes and corporate social responsibility strategies.

6. Growth Markets

The changing needs and preferences of Chinese customers mean that new markets offer exciting and lucrative opportunities for Western brands. Here are just three examples:

The Pet Market

One of the biggest growing markets in China is pets! Driven by increased pet ownership by middle-class Chinese customers, one in eight people now have a pet.

This means that demand for pet products is growing fast, from premium food and snacks to dog training schools, and there is also a new wave of pet-focused KOLs!

EV Cars

Chinese-manufactured electric vehicles are in demand globally and now Chinese EV brands themselves are increasing; from 60 brands in 2019 to 137 by the end of 2024. PHEV hybrids are leading Chinese growth, with sales since 2023 rocketing by 85%.

Already, global brands are leveraging long-standing JVs in China to produce EV vehicles for global markets. Expect to see demand for related products and services grow too.

Outdoor Living

The Chinese middle class are investing heavily in their hobbies, which has already fuelled growth in sports, wellbeing and fitness in 2024.

In 2025, forecasters expect to see Gen Z and Millennial customers driving demand for outdoor activities such as camping (already a growth industry in China), fishing, hiking and glamping.

The silver generation will also be big consumers of fitness and leisure products and services, offering great potential for Western brands offering health supplements, outdoor equipment, fitness accessories and sportswear.

7. Made in China’s Moment

Made in China, or Guo Chao, is now a huge trend in its own right. China’s economy has grown to a stage where Chinese customers are confident in their homegrown brands and culture.

Guo Chao, which means ‘Chinese Trend’ combines traditional and modern elements. Chinese skincare now competes with imported South Korean skincare (formerly the holy grail of skincare!), and electronic giants such as Huawei and Xiaomi are booming.

8. The Silver Generation

China has the world’s biggest older and ageing economy and the so-called-silver economy is already worth around $982 billion USD.

By the end of this decade, the demographic is expected to grow by another 100 million people, with a growing demand for related products including healthcare, recreation and financial planning.

9. Lower Tier Cities

China’s economy is so powerful it drives the global economy. As China’s vast middle class grows, new consumers coming on board with high disposable income are from China’s lower-tier cities.

Consumer sentiment in these smaller cities is strong, and global brands are working hard to increase their presence. For example, in 2023, KFC opened 60% of its new stores (around 720) in lower-tier cities.

Western brands that can understand the needs and preferences of consumers from these cities have lucrative target markets to pursue and the chance to gain a foothold before these markets become too saturated.

Get Expert Chinese Digital Marketing Help in 2025

2025 certainly offers superb opportunities for Western marketers ready to build their brands in China! A strong and well-planned Chinese digital marketing strategy is key to success in this lucrative, vast and tech-driven market.

Market Me China can help your Western brand to achieve success in China. Our team of native-speaking Chinese digital marketing professionals works with brands to offer expert, flexible digital marketing services when you need them most.

From tailored and custom Chinese market research to digital ecosystem development in the form of smartphone-optimised websites, Baidu, KOL engagement, Chinese social media and ePR, we evidence our success with clear metrics and prove ROI!

Talk to us about your brand’s Chinese digital marketing plans for 2025 and let’s see how we can help!

The post 9 Chinese digital marketing trends to know for 2025 appeared first on Market Me China®.

What is brand localisation in China?

When we talk about brand localisation we describe a process of adapting a Western brand for a different market, so that its messaging, identity and brand attributes resonate more successfully with the local target customers.

When Western brands take steps to localise their brands for China, they have a better chance of creating a meaningful connection with local customers, building awareness and engagement, and not causing offence! Chinese culture is highly nuanced and contextual and even some of the biggest global brands have made inadvertent cultural faux-pas, resulting in anything from humour to boycotting!

What sort of activities help to localise a brand?

Different strategies exist to localise a brand in China, but the main areas include:

1. Investing in local research and insights to understand the unique needs of your target Chinese customer group
2. Adapting your brand to meet Chinese needs, including elements such as the brand name, colour palette, visual attributes and messaging.
3. Localising your digital assets to work swiftly, smoothly and correctly for the Chinese market (including smartphone optimisation and localised UX, and taking censorship and access into account.)
4. Using local influencers, or KOLs, who can bring your brand to their followers in a meaningful, culturally appropriate way that enhances adoption and positive perceptions.
5. Working very carefully on messaging – ideally creating Chinese language content from scratch rather than seeking to adjust existing Western messages. This is because translation efforts can be clumsy, and it may be best to adapt key messages entirely with this audience in mind.

Chinese customers are sophisticated and technologically advanced. Yes, they are keen to shop with quality Western brands, but there is also huge competition in China and increasingly these quality, high-end brands are Chinese themselves. So Western brands must work hard to localise their brand carefully.

Where Western brands go the extra mile to do this, Chinese customers are more likely to appreciate their cultural awareness and targeting efforts and feel that the Western brand is authentic and genuine in wanting to meet their needs. Where Western brands are clumsy, they may fail, and lose potential customers forever.

Examples of Localisation

In a country so vast, so complex and so driven by innovation, trends and technological advancement, localisation is an ongoing challenge for Western brands, particularly as it requires native language skills and a real ‘ear on the ground’ for what’s going on in the Chinese target market. Examples of localisation could include:

• Responding to local payment preferences, so that your Chinese language website uses AliPay, WeChat Pay or Union Pay, for example.
• Ensuring your Chinese language digital hub is optimised for Chinese UX, including typography and design considerations (hint – Chinese customers love a busy and visually packed page – unlike Western customers!)
• Using digital devices such as QR codes, which are far more popular in China than in the West.
• Remembering that Chinese customers prefer to sign up for things using phone numbers, rather than email addresses.
• Considering local promotions, pricing, and competitive activity in any particular geographies you are targeting for your products.

Localising digital marketing assets in China

There are several steps you can take to localise your digital assets in China. Here are three priorities to begin:

1. Website

A good approach is to begin with your Chinese website. If you are translating your existing content, make sure that you consider local expressions, idioms and cultural references as well as the actual language itself. Sometimes creating content from scratch for your Chinese audience can be easier.

Consider the UX carefully when you build Chinese website pages too, remembering that Chinese readers scan content differently, and like to see a page packed with graphics, animations, text and links (unlike Western audiences). You’ll need to localise with hosting and your URL as well, and remember to eliminate any links to Western websites, which are banned.

2. Baidu SEO and PPC

Invest in SEO so your Chinese website begins ranking for your keywords on Baidu. This long-term strategy requires consistent effort and fresh content, but the investment will pay off. In the meantime, you can drive short-term leads to your new site with Baidu PPC campaigns. SEO and PPC campaigns will work hand in hand to bring traffic to your content, and careful analytics monitoring will allow you to refine your parameters for the best results continually.

3. Social media

Choose the Chinese social media accounts that your target market tends to use. This might include the obvious ones, such as WeChat, Weibo & DouYin, but it might also include some of the smaller and more niche accounts, such as Little Red Book, if your target demographic is a heavy user. Remember too that ‘smaller’ and ‘niche’ are relative terms in a country as vast as China, where over a billion citizens are online!

Get the help you need

A Chinese digital marketing agency can help you with your Chinese marketing localisation efforts so that you get it right the first time and avoid wasting time and budget. Market Me China offers the service of highly skilled digital marketers with native language skills, offering the expertise and hands-on support you need to localise your brand and deliver high-performance digital marketing campaigns in China.

We work flexibly around your needs to support your business to succeed in this exciting, lucrative market, whether you’re a new brand looking to launch or an existing business seeking to grow or enter a new Chinese target market. Please contact us in the first instance to learn more about how we can help you.

The post Why does localisation matter for Chinese digital marketing? appeared first on Market Me China®.

Once you’ve gained a base understanding of your target Chinese market and the demographics that shape it, it’s important to understand the biggest trends that are likely to impact it. Marketing trends in China can hit fast, enabled by sophisticated digital technology and customers who love exciting, new and personalised experiences. So here are some of the main trends to know and factor into your Chinese digital marketing campaigns for 2024:

No More Loud Live Streaming

Western brands have long been using integrated live-streaming on Chinese e-commerce and social media platforms and enjoying the benefits of traffic generation and sales. However, younger generations are turning away from aggressive live-streaming strategies. Gen Z customers particularly seek content that focuses on engaging storytelling and personalised, unique experiences. They want connection and authenticity, rather than intrusive and traditional live selling streams. This means seeking a different, more meaningful approach for your brand.

Using social media for search

Some social media channels have integrated search engine features so that users can find products within the app itself. This offers a new customer journey that brands can capitalise on with the right keywords. Research shows that half of WeChat users search different terms and keywords on the platform each day. Western brands can create e-commerce stores on key platforms and then invest in their ongoing optimisation. Consider too that 90% of Little Red Book users visit the platform to carry out pre-purchase research, leading to 300 million search volumes daily!

Ubiquitous VR and AR

Chinese customers are true digital natives and they love technology! Already, virtual reality and augmented reality are transforming shopping experiences and customer engagement in China, in a way that isn’t yet seen fully in the West. Chinese revenues for AR and VR technologies are expected to reach $7.8 billion by the end of this year. These trends are integrated into industries that include retail, education, entertainment and even healthcare, whether to experience a virtual product in a digital realm or to travel immersively using VR. Western brands have the opportunity to consider how these technologies can be leveraged within their offer, to engage Chinese customers and offer something novel, meaningful and compelling.

Evolution of Influencer Marketing

Most Western brands are familiar with KOLs, but this influencer market is evolving too. Today, Key Opinion Consumers (KOCs) and micro-influencers are becoming increasingly credible for meaningful, valuable and authentic brand experiences. These online influencers have smaller audiences, but they are highly concentrated to specific demographics. Brands that can connect with the right target demographic have a strong chance of success with the right influencer collaboration. This trend is important because it shifts away from big-time celebrity influencing, to authentic and small daily experiences, between micro-influencers and followers who have a more personal relationship.

WeChat Search and SEO

Baidu indexes WeChat articles and these can rank highly on SERPs, offering brands a chance to become highly visible for target keywords. Again, it shows the importance of creating quality, optimised content that works for both Chinese social media users and searchbots.

A Desire for Personalised Marketing

A particular trend that has been growing for some time in China now, relates to personalised marketing. Millennials and Gen Z customers in particular seek products and services that have been designed for them – and they will spend premium prices if it means they can get a tailored shopping experience and a unique product designed around their needs. Many brands have worked to satisfy this need by transforming consumers into ambassadors or co-creators, with options for customisation that includes entirely bespoke pieces (for example, designer brands such as Longchamp offer bespoke bags via WeChat mini-programs). It’s worth noting that these affluent customers are very quick to explore competitor brands if they find a better UX or more appealing brand elsewhere.

The growth of user-generative content (UGC)

High-value content in China is increasingly being driven by user-generated content, rather than online advertising campaigns. The growth of Little Red Book is a key example here. These types of content are heavy drivers of purchasing decisions, as UCG helps to create a sense of confidence in authentic recommendations. The most popular type of UGC is video, but testimonials or reviews are a close second. This type of content also includes social media posts, images, ratings and live streams; all content categories for Western brands to consider.

Ethical and sustainable purchasing

Chinese customers increasingly want to buy sustainable, ethical products too, often from smaller, high-end brands with clear ethical values. This drive towards sustainable, environmentally friendly and values-led marketing is similar to the drive seen in the West, and the ‘value mindset’, also means that Chinese customers want quality products, rather than fast quantities. Yes, pricing must still be competitive, but the focus is on how products are sourced, made, distributed and recycled, with the entire supply chain under scrutiny. This offers challenges and opportunities to Western brands alike.

Find out more

These digital marketing trends in China are hot for 2024, and Western marketers should seek to understand them fully before developing marketing campaigns. Often, it makes sense to focus on a few trends initially, rather than trying to do everything at once!

It can be valuable to use the services of a Chinese digital marketing agency to assist with this kind of strategic development. Market Me China is here to help your Western brand navigate the complex, huge but exciting Chinese market, with its rapid evolutions and technological shifts! Our team of digital native language speakers have years of professional experience and are perfectly placed to help your Western company build a successful brand in China.

We deliver a range of services to suit your needs, working as a flexible and expert extension of your business and evidencing our results to prove our ROI. Please contact us in the first instance to find out more, and to discuss how we might help you reach your goals!

The post The biggest trends shaping the Chinese market appeared first on Market Me China®.

Here are five main Chinese digital marketing trends that Western brands should know.

1. Localisation matters

The Chinese market is vast and highly fragmented, and successful Western brands must go beyond basic measures to translate their messages into Chinese. Today, it’s vital to deeply understand your target Chinese customer’s preferences, behaviours and cultural nuances, considering key factors such as demographic data; especially city tiers.

The key to success lies in using digital marketers with native language skills, devising highly targeted, segmented Chinese marketing campaigns, and building profitable relationships with Chinese KOLs as part of an integrated Chinese digital marketing strategy.

Takeaway: Invest in primary, targeted research delivered by a Chinese digital marketing agency that can tailor your research to your specific brand and objectives. Use the outcomes to create customer personas that you can really seek to understand before creating targeted and segmented marketing campaigns.

2. Conversational marketing is surging

Businesses still engage with Chinese customers via traditional means, but the growth of chatbots and virtual customer service assistants is accelerating. In China, this trend is particularly noticeable, as digital platforms are a key part of everyday life. Expect to see growing use of individualised, real-time customer service interactions driven by AI. If conversational marketing isn’t yet on your radar, 2024 is the year to consider it!

Takeaway: Upskill now in the areas of conversational marketing and see where there are possibilities for adding AI chatbots to your website and apps. These can support your customers 24/7 with the common questions they may have that otherwise prevent a sale, and as AI chatbots are powered by machine learning, they grow their capabilities to answer questions accurately over time.

3. Ethical and sustainable marketing

Chinese customers are increasingly concerned about sustainability and environmentalism, and they want to shop with brands that share their values and demonstrate commitment to ethical business through their actions. It’s vital to have transparent business practices, a strong stance on climate change and responsible business, ethical practices and a commitment to sustainable operations. This trend is expected to grow quickly in 2024 as the power of ‘green marketing’ in China continues to gain prominence.

Takeaway: Understand how your business can operate in the ‘greenest’ and most sustainable way. Seek to continue to improve in these areas, have strong ethical values and communicate regularly to your Chinese customers on these topics. For example, you might focus on wrapping products in recyclable paper, power your business with renewable energy or grow your raw materials in a way that supports the environment.

4. The rise of micro-influencers – and Douyin

Influencers have long been a powerful route to market for brands in China, but there is a noticeable growth in the micro-influencer realm, where individuals have targeted, smaller followings who are heavily engaged. Micro-influencers can attract heavily niche audiences and then engage with them personally during the key purchase stages.

Many brands are now working with micro-influencers are part of localised marketing strategies to target niche groups with great success. The micro-influencer trend also ties in with the ongoing growth of Douyin (TikTok in the West), which is already hugely powerful for businesses and brands and one of the world’s largest advertising platforms. Other platforms are also growing in importance and it’s clear that short-form video content is here to stay, and likely to be a key digital marketing trend in China for 2024.

Takeaway: Identify the right influencers for your brand and invest in short-form video content on the right platforms. Expert advice can help you to pick the right ones!

5. Personalisation and individual marketing

Another key trend for Chinese marketing in 2024 is the growth of one-to-one, individual or personalised marketing. Brands can no longer expect to push out spammy content and expect it to resonate with customers, let alone convert them. Sophisticated Chinese customers expect their experiences to be customised and tailored, whether those experiences are delivered via social media, online advertising,

Takeaway: Invest in high-quality, nuanced and carefully localised content, tailored and segmented to your target audience/s.

Key things to remember

Marketing trends are important for brands to be aware of, but it’s still important to stick to a clear marketing strategy when building your brand in China. Here are some tips for success:

• Consider Chinese digital marketing trends and decide which you will incorporate into your marketing strategy. Begin with a strategy and then choose your channels and tactics so that you focus on some key areas. Don’t try to do everything all at once!
• Start small if you’re new to a certain area of digital marketing and seek to build your experience and expertise as you get a handle on what the channel or tactic involves. This is particularly important in China where the market is so vast and fragmented and the available technologies are highly sophisticated and varied.
• Get the help that you need to build your Chinese digital marketing capabilities, bearing in mind that Chinese digital channels are all hosted and managed in Chinese and require native language skills as well as in-depth marketing knowledge.
• Carefully manage the results of what you do, to see what’s working and where you can adjust your efforts.

Find out more

Market Me China is here to help your Western brand to succeed in the exciting, fast-growing and lucrative China market. Our digital marketing professionals all have native language skills and the experience needed to deliver highly impactful marketing campaigns that deliver measurable results.

We work on a flexible basis to deliver strategic marketing campaigns of all kinds for our clients, helping Western brands build their presence in target Chinese markets. If you’re keen to find out more and to learn how we can help your brand experience success, please contact our friendly and helpful team for a no-obligation chat about your needs.

The post 5 top Chinese digital marketing trends Western brands should know appeared first on Market Me China®.

However, some professionals aren’t sure whether ChatGPT will entirely replace content creators, or simply enhance their work. Learn more about the role of ChatGPT in Chinese digital marketing, including some of the advantages and drawbacks of AI implementation.

Will ChatGPT replace general content strategies?

As a general rule, ChatGPT won’t replace your content marketing strategies. This is because ChatGPT, whilst a relatively intelligent tool, doesn’t quite have the same flexibility that a human writer does. People are able to actively include references to pop culture and relevant news events, where many artificial intelligence systems are trained on relatively old data. This outdated training information limits the utility of the system, stopping marketers from providing prompts based on the latest data. Whilst some of the most recent systems and AI services can respond to ongoing events, ChatGPT runs on relatively old data.

In response to this, content marketing is at its best when it combines artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT with human inputs in one cohesive system. Whilst the platform can help to provide a basic foundation of content, having an effective copywriter editing the outputs to be more appropriate for your audience is a must. This is especially true when your content needs to be factual, as there are recorded examples of the system inventing academic references that have no real-world basis. ChatGPT needs to be kept in check to keep your company’s copy relying on accurate facts and data.

How does Chinese digital marketing differ?

There are a few ways that Chinese users interact with the digital market in comparison to Western customers. Adapting to these differences can have a big impact on your content’s performance, with some of the main differences between markets including:

Brand image

Brand image and the way that a company establishes itself is one of the first differences between the markets. Western organisations look to use their products and prestige on a global scale when presenting themselves to customers, with Chinese audiences paying more attention to the brand’s image and brand story. Having a cohesive narrative behind a brand can be more important and build interest in Chinese markets, requiring a shift away from the specific copy that you use in the West.

Authenticity

Chinese audiences pay attention to companies that have a high degree of authenticity. Where Western customers look for value and quality in their products, marketing in Chinese sectors introduces a further requirement for a company to be authentic. This means retaining business values across several years of operation, sticking to promises that the company makes to customers and having a greater degree of consistency. If a company’s communications feel inauthentic or artificial, you could risk pushing customers away as they prefer alternative brands.

Hyper-generational

There are significant generation gaps in any market, but those in China are particularly notable due to the country’s political history. The history of the country under the CCP in recent years is one of more liberalisation, with younger generations being increasingly exposed to Western culture by studying internationally. Consider blending Western and Chinese marketing methods for younger age groups as these have been exposed to a greater level of Westernisation, with digital marketing for older generations targeting primarily Chinese principles.

How to adapt your ChatGPT use for Chinese markets

There are a few steps that you can take in your use of ChatGPT to make it more appropriate for Chinese markets, such as:

Increasingly personal prompts

ChatGPT works by providing the platform with a series of prompts before the platform creates content based on those prompts. China’s preference for a more authentic service means that a greater level of personalisation is ideal, prompting more loyal customers that are satisfied with the product. Make your prompts specifically refer to your customer and their history with the company, as this indicates that the company cares about them as a person rather than simply a revenue source.

Use human oversight

Running an artificial intelligence program is all well and good, especially when it creates copy much more quickly than a human alternative, but having some level of oversight over the process is a must. Some AI text is detectably written by software rather than a person, which can make the company appear artificial and inauthentic. This is highly unattractive to a Chinese audience. By using a human proofreader you not only eliminate any factual errors from the piece, but you can adjust the tone and pacing of the message so it comes across as more human. Attracting and retaining Chinese customers is far simpler when you do this as it removes the risk of inauthenticity.

Implement data

Companies have more and more data surrounding their customers in recent years, from information about their past purchases to demographic data. Use this information in your messaging to target the user’s specific preferences. For example, if they bought a product recently, consider recommending some of the accessories that go with the product. The more you target your messaging to someone’s specific circumstances, the more likely they are to interact with your company and continue to buy your products.

Will ChatGPT replace your Chinese digital marketing strategy?

Ultimately, ChatGPT isn’t in the position to completely replace your digital marketing strategy in China. The preference for authentic communication makes complete automation unfeasible, but it can be a useful tool for your team. Trial ChatGPT as an integrated part of your workflows over time to improve the way that you interact with your Chinese audience and secure a foothold in a market that is expected to be growing for years to come.

The post Will ChatGPT replace or enhance your existing content strategy for Chinese digital marketing? appeared first on Market Me China®.

Providing businesses with the chance to streamline and expand their approach, ChatGPT has the potential to boost your Chinese digital marketing efforts if you use it correctly. So, how can you incorporate ChatGPT into your digital marketing strategy for success?

1. Understand the Chinese market

Perhaps the most important advice for any company hoping to enter the Chinese market is to develop a strong understanding of its intricacies. The techniques you use will be very different from the ones you use for a Western audience, due to cultural differences and a number of other factors, like censorship.

Juggling these differences and the volume of banned topics may seem like a daunting task, but it’s also possible to use this to your advantage. Demonstrating knowledge of the Chinese market and appealing to differences in cultures (instead of shunning them), helps to show that your organisation is respectful of the countries that it conducts business.

With a digital agency partner specialising in China, you can make sure your strategy is consistent and is able to account for cultural nuances.

2. Use ChatGPT for campaign inspiration

A good tip for employing AI in any international market is to use it for inspiration, especially if your team is struggling to develop a clear angle for advertising. This can sometimes be more effective than allowing ChatGPT to write the entire campaign, as it gives you some valuable ideas that you can tap into while still maintaining that human element. In its current state, AI is most useful for generating or repurposing ideas.

ChatGPT and other machine learning tools are constantly discovering more about the world and the right ways to approach it, including by simulating human responses and ingenuity. The exact technique you use depends on the firm (and its available resources) but it might still be better to reserve AI for inspiration. These solutions can determine what would be compelling digital content across each market, granting your advertising team a strong advantage over its competitors.

3. Refine the content for a Chinese audience

Using ChatGPT to translate pre-written English articles can save companies a lot of time, but it could be much less successful than writing articles with the aim of distributing them to Chinese readers. This goes beyond knowing their cultural nuances and ensures they have bespoke marketing content that matches their requirements; just like any other target audience. ChatGPT is able to understand foreign markets and their diverse needs – letting firms generate content that matches this with ease.

One key way companies can write with a Chinese audience in mind is by incorporating phrases, and even slang, specific to China. This might be part of the prompt that ChatGPT uses to create text-based content or may be a manual addition that the marketing team makes while refining this content to fit the firm’s unique voice. It can again be useful to hire a Chinese marketing partner to better understand how to engage with Chinese readers.

4. Verify the copy with a fluent speaker

If you use ChatGPT to generate content in Mandarin, make sure you check this with a fluent (and preferably native) speaker. Mandarin is generally more commonplace and could take priority when generating materials. ChatGPT has native support for various languages, including Standard Chinese – but also lets users translate pre-existing content into other languages with ease and distribute their marketing materials internationally.

Whilst many of these translations can be quite accurate, the only way to make sure is to consult someone who knows this language and can easily identify a mistake. No matter the culture, a poor grasp of the language may prompt people to stop reading your content; they might also realise it’s an AI translation. It can often be faster and cheaper to verify a ChatGPT translation instead of commissioning a full-scale Chinese content conversion.

5. Make use of social media

Around 95% of people who live in major Chinese cities use social media on a regular basis, meaning it can form a significant part of your company’s digital marketing strategy in China. It’s important to be mindful of this AI’s limitations, however – especially as ChatGPT and OpenAI are officially not permitted in China. The business can still use these tools to generate content before posting it online, such as in the form of a WeChat article.

One particularly useful feature of ChatGPT which this conflicts with is its ability to deliver automated customer service. This improves the company’s social media presence further by allowing it to address queries and solve problems without human intervention; the business may need to find an alternative solution. McKinsey Global Surveys discovered that social media content influences Chinese customers and their purchases far more than other countries – integrating this with ChatGPT while still respecting the ban could have tremendous benefits.

Find out more

Artificial intelligence services could pave the way to new markets and even change how your company engages with customers worldwide. Though it’s important to be aware of ChatGPT’s limitations – especially in a country that heavily regulates its use – there are many ways you can apply it to match the Chinese market and develop a thorough strategy.

Market Me China specialises in helping firms reach and appeal to Chinese audiences,. For more on our services and how we can help your brand succeed in China, contact us today.

The post Top tips for success in using ChatGPT for your Chinese digital marketing appeared first on Market Me China®.

Now, we don’t think AI will replace the value of human marketing – at least for now – but this powerful system can certainly help to bolster your Chinese digital marketing efforts if you use it correctly.

How do I use ChatGPT?

It couldn’t be easier. Simply register on the platform, create your account, and type in your question. The powerful AI will generate a response in a matter of seconds. This can provide a useful base for a blog, website copy, a customer Q&A and so forth.

It’s important to note, however, that there are some limitations. For example, ChatGPT warns that it may not generate 100% accurate information and that it can occasionally create biased content. It may also have limited knowledge of current global events, again, because it relies on a solid base of existing content to produce answers.

What can I use ChatGPT for?

Here are some ideas for using ChatGPT to support your Chinese digital marketing efforts:

1. For inspiration

It can get tricky to think of endless catchy titles, engaging introductions and fresh new ways of phrasing those key marketing messages. But ChatGPT can offer ideas for new phrasing by interrogating vast bodies of conversational data in seconds. If your marketing team is spending too much time trying to brainstorm exciting new angles for social media posts, ChatGPT can help you jump ahead and save time.

2. For content generation

ChatGPT can help you to generate content for blog posts, news articles, social media posts and email templates. This can be very useful when you need body content to develop to your own branded needs, especially for those longer pieces.

3. For better customer service

ChatGPT can also be incorporated into chatbot technology for your website, building its machine-learning capabilities to provide ready and tailored answers to your Chinese customers at any time of day. This helps you to deliver a fuller customer experience, without the difficulty of resourcing a team of customer service advisors around the clock.

4. To grow your website

ChatGPT can help you to shape your Chinese website by thinking about ideas for content, and by creating a shape and structure for content pages. For example, the system can offer answers to FAQs, which can help your content to rank more highly. It can also help you to research possible keywords.

One word of caution, however – Chinese customers engage with Chinese-language websites differently than in the West. This means that your Chinese website UX needs to be optimised accordingly. So use ChatGPT as a way of beginning your website work and to help generate content sections, and then work with your Chinese digital marketing agency partner to localise your site for your Chinese audience.

5. To generally free up time

Give ChatGPT a keyword or topic and it automatically generates high-quality content that can form the basis of any written marketing. This can help your marketing team to springboard past the basics and move towards the more creative, engaging and innovative aspects of your Chinese digital marketing campaigns, working with your Chinese digital marketing agency partner to unlock maximum benefits.

5. For translation

ChatGPT can also translate English content into Chinese. Again, this can be quick and helpful when dealing with large volumes of content requirements, but it’s essential that the finished result is checked and verified by a native Chinese language speaker, especially in China where censorship, cultural context and other subtle localisation factors come into play. Nothing would turn off a Chinese customer quicker than a bad (or even worse, insulting) translation.

So, should you use ChatGPT for your Chinese digital marketing?

In short, when used correctly, ChatGPT can be highly valuable for your brand. The tool isn’t going anywhere and as a machine-learning software, it will continually evolve and improve to sound as human as possible. It can be a great way to save time (and budget) by outsourcing some of your basic marketing legwork, and it can help to meet the sizeable content requirements that all modern brands have when operating commercially online.

How should you NOT use ChatGPT?

This type of AI can save time, money and stress, but it’s important to remember that it has key limitations. For example, it cannot write in a brand tone of voice, it may draw on controversial data sources that don’t pass Chinese censorship guidelines, and it may not always be accurate, particularly when relating to cutting-edge or emerging topics.

We also recommend that brands only use ChatGPT to augment their human content. Google has already said it will penalise rankings that solely rely on AI generation, and we expect to see Baidu take a similar stance (or potentially find a way of prioritising content generated by its own Ernie-bot system.)

Perhaps more fundamentally, people want to read content that other, human, people write. And when you’ve invested in a brand tone of voice that is values-driven and imbued with human values (warm, authoritative, helpful, fun, etc), it’s vital to commit to it. Without that investment – in accuracy and brand TOV – you risk eroding your brand and turning customers off.

In conclusion

We recommend two primary takeaways:

1. To use ChatGPT as a starting point for your content and then personalise it to your brand, with your target Chinese audience always in mind.

2. To work closely with a Chinese digital marketing agency to plan the best way to integrate ChatGPT and other AI and machine-learning tools into your Chinese digital marketing strategy.

By taking an intelligent, planned approach, you can define the instances in which ChatGPT (or alternative tools) can be used to add value to your Chinese digital marketing activity and unlock maximum value without any risk of switching off your demanding, intelligent Chinese customers. As ever, the fundamentals ring true. Marketing tools can save time, money and hassle, but they must sit within a successful marketing strategy, rather than becoming the strategy itself.

Find out more

To learn more about ChatGPT and how it can help to grow your brand’s success in the Chinese market, please contact Market Me China. Our team of Chinese digital marketing professionals are all Chinese language natives with years of experience in the market, working in industries that include education, e-Commerce, B2B and travel.

The post New to ChatGPT? How to use it for your Chinese digital marketing appeared first on Market Me China®.

The challenge for marketers

Marketing is increasingly becoming a data-driven discipline, and the rise of digital marketing methods makes it easier than ever to track where tactical activities are performing – and where they aren’t. This can help marketers by allowing them to target and organise their spend to where it will achieve intended goals – submitting strong business cases for more budget, where necessary, and where a clear opportunity exists for more conversions.

But when marketing in China, the challenge is to track and measure marketing activity success when most of native platforms are in Chinese. Unless you have those native language skills, combined with the ability to understand and interrogate back-end systems of platforms such as Baidu, WeChat, Weibo, Douyin and others, it’s very difficult to gather the data you need.

Luckily, a Chinese digital marketing agency can help you to remedy this challenge.

How a Chinese digital marketing agency can help

Here are some ways that the right Chinese agency partner can help you to really extend your marketing budget – and to leverage it to the best effect.

1. Expert guidance on your marketing strategy

Whether you’re new to marketing in China or have existing experience, this is a hugely complex and rapidly-evolving market, with a vast number of digital platforms. It’s difficult to keep up to date with everything that’s going on in the Chinese digital world, and the customer market itself keeps growing and changing too.

For example, the lower-tier cities that your strategy might have ignored in previous years, are now becoming increasingly affluent, with young motivated customers who have plenty of disposable income and a desire to buy quality Western products.

If you’re not updating your market research and checking that your targeting, positioning and overall strategy are correct at least once a year, you could risk missing out on valuable opportunities for your brand.

A Chinese digital marketing agency can help you to identify emerging trends, possible new target markets and the right digital platforms for your marketing strategy. Sometimes these platforms will be smaller and ‘niche’ – but with audiences that vastly exceed Western equivalents, and which offer more cost-effective targeting in this country of 900+ million online users!

2. Assistance with measurement and evaluation

A Chinese digital marketing agency will naturally include marketing professionals with native Chinese language skills and the ability to work confidently with the back-end systems of Chinese platforms, from Douyin to Little Red Book.

This gives your business rapid insight into which of your campaigns are working, and which need adjusting for the best results. By harnessing agency expertise, this activity can be carried out quickly and effectively, with accompanying insights that allow you to optimise your campaigns quickly for the best results.

3. A flexible digital marketing resource

An agency partner also offers you the ultimate flexibility when it comes to resourcing your marketing activity. We work on a partnership basis with our clients to provide access to the Chinese digital marketing skills that they need but on a highly flexible, customised basis. This is far easier than trying to resource your own business with an in-house Chinese digital marketing expert, especially one with native language skills.

By using an agency you get immediate access to skills, delivery expertise, a wide range of services and a cost-effective means of acquiring the skills that you need without the time and running costs of a permanent, in-house team. Even better, we can flex our support to match your changing needs at short notice, offering you complete flexibility and scalability around your business demands.

4. Tactical tweaking

By using a highly experienced Chinese agency partner, you also get to fast-track your tactics, with effective ‘tweaks’ that make them perform better and which avoid more expensive projects later down the line. For example, you might benefit from reworking your mobile-friendly website UX to factor in the different journey patterns Chinese customers take online. This action alone can make your website perform better, without the need to create a new one.

Equally, an expert Chinese digital marketeer might identify that you could achieve better results by adjusting your campaign keywords on Baidu to avoid competing with bigger brands and to target a profitable niche. These adjustments can stack up benefits quickly and more than justify their investment – whilst keeping your budget tightly under control and avoiding waste.

5. Contacts

Perhaps the other powerful way that a Chinese digital marketing agency can help your budget go further in 2023 is by accessing and leveraging networks and contacts in China, especially when it comes to booking and negotiating KOL relationships and other types of service.

Effective negotiation techniques can often unlock better pricing arrangements and favourable marketing terms, and a deep understanding of Chinese business and cultural practices goes a long way to achieving these outcomes. Again, native language skills help greatly too and can help to fast-track these relationships for the quickest benefits to your bottom-line results.

Find out more

Market Me China is here to assist you with every element of your Chinese digital marketing campaign, with services that include market research, Chinese PPC advertising, Baidu SEO, social media marketing and KOL marketing, ePR, website localisation and translation and copywriting services, marketing strategy development and plenty more.

We work for clients across all industries, delivering integrated digital marketing campaigns that yield real results. Our team is friendly, helpful and extremely flexible and we can work in a way that best suits your unique business needs. Please contact us in the first instance to find out more about how we can help you to enjoy Chinese marketing success in 2023!

The post How a Chinese digital marketing agency can help your budget go further appeared first on Market Me China®.

So with everything to play for, what steps should you take to develop the most successful digital marketing strategy 2023 for China that you can? Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Review your progress so far

Perhaps you have a Chinese language website which is already optimised for unique Chinese customer UX and smartphone optimised – or perhaps you are still reliant on the translation of Western content, and just dipping your toes in Chinese e-commerce. Maybe you already have a strong brand presence on Weibo and WeChat, or perhaps you are wondering which of China’s many cutting-edge social media platforms to invest in for your target audience. Wherever you are at, use this point to gather data about your progress, results to date and key areas for focus. What worked well with your China marketing strategy last year? What would you do differently?

2. Build your Chinese customer profile

If you don’t yet have target Chinese customer profiles, then consider creating them so that you can clearly understand user personas and target your Chinese digital marketing activity with clear groups in mind. For example, are you looking to target mid-aged, affluent urban sophisticates in Tier 1 cities, or are you more interested in the emerging Gen Z customers in high-growth Tier 3 and 4 cities?

3. Set some priorities

It’s impossible to do everything at once – at least, without an unlimited budget and team behind you! So set some priorities and measure what you do to see what is giving you a strong return, and what might need further focus, optimisation or shelving for the time being. For example, it’s impractical to have a brand presence across every Chinese social media platform, so perhaps choose a couple, to begin with. Equally, your budget will erode rapidly if you attempt to hit every target keyword for Baidu advertising. So think smartly, research carefully to find some less common and less competitive keywords and keep tracking your campaigns. Remember to invest too in the things that take longer and don’t necessarily bring immediate returns, such as Baidu SEO for your longer-term organic search gains.

4. Review your brand

It’s very easy for Western brands to make errors when it comes to launching their brand in China. After all, China is a very contextual culture, and elements such as numbers and colours can have a profound meaning that is very different to accepted meanings in the West. To avoid clumsy cultural mistakes that turn off sophisticated Chinese customers, it helps to assess your brand with the expert help of a Chinese digital marketing agency, which can review your brand and key messages with a test audience. This type of acceptance testing can be done as part of wider customer research for confident brand positioning.

4. Look to localisation

For many Western businesses, the immediate focus – after brand optimisation – will be on localisation efforts for their websites. This will often mean creating targeted, Chinese language content, optimising hosting and UX, resourcing engagement channels, and considering your marketing messages, brand position, use of graphics, images and other elements carefully. Localised, expert knowledge can be very handy here and help to avoid expensive mistakes later down the line. If you invest in quality, Chinese content then you can repurpose it widely to maximise its value. A Chinese marketing agency can help you to target, create and repurpose your Chinese language content for the best possible results, and to optimise your website UX to work for Chinese readers.

5. Consider your channels

For most Western firms seeking to build their brand in China, it makes sense to have an integrated, omnichannel strategy, but these more complex approaches to marketing in an overseas market must be carefully planned for and managed. For example, if you are going to invest in Baidu PPC advertising, Baidu SEO for long-term organic search gains, website optimisation and development, social media and KOL influencing and ePR, it’s important to have a tightly integrated plan with accompanying ongoing measurement. Native language skills are also a must when it comes to successful digital marketing in China 2023 because most Chinese platforms are only available in Chinese. For many brands, it makes sense to focus on limited channels initially in order to prove an approach and to build up a knowledge base about what works and what doesn’t. From this benchmarking position, it is then easier to grow efforts and multiply gains.

6. Get the right team in place

Some bigger brands may have the luxury of a well-resourced in-house Chinese digital marketing team with native Chinese language skills, but most will not, and need access to these specialist attributes. A Chinese digital marketing agency can give you the flexible access to digital marketing expertise that you need for the China market.

Our professional digital marketing experts have native Chinese language skills and excellent experience in the China market. We work with clients across all industries to help them achieve their Chinese marketing goals, whether they are seeking to launch a brand to build their online sales capabilities. With our flexible, bespoke support packages built around your needs, we are pleased to evidence the results of our work to prove our value to your business.

Find out more

To find out more about Market Me China and the ways in which we can help your brand to succeed and grow in the China market, please contact our friendly team for a no-obligation chat.

The post Develop your new digital marketing strategy 2023 for China appeared first on Market Me China®.

Unfortunately, that’s just not the case! China isn’t just a vast, complex (and lucrative) market – it’s also very different from the West in terms of its cultural factors. The better you can understand these different cultural differences and nuances, the more effectively – and successfully – you can market your products and service to this fast-growing market.

What to know about Chinese culture

Chinese culture is incredibly nuanced, and it’s a fascinating blend of the ancient and traditional and the incredibly modern. For example, in the West, we may instantly think of dragons, festivals, fireworks and complex history, but the reality is that China is also one of the most cutting-edge nations when it comes to digital marketing, social media, AR, VR and technology in general. This is truly a nation that embraces the new whilst cherishing its history – and this represents fantastic opportunities, and challenges, to Western marketers.

If you are new to digital marketing in China, did you know that colours and numbers have a far higher degree of significance than they do in the West? For example, in China, white is associated with death and funerals and the number eight is considered the luckiest number. There are layers of symbology to consider too. The number three is considered to be neutral or positive in most situations, but not in relationships, where it signifies being apart.

Along with these cultural factors, there are local or geographic differences not to mention generational differences that marketers need to know about. For example, older luxury lovers may still prefer more traditional advertising campaigns in China and turn off from the types of ‘sulky-faced’ models that we see in Western advertising campaigns. But younger Chinese customers may enjoy the cosmopolitan and international feel of these types of aesthetics.

A case study: Why luxury matters

‘Mianze’ or ‘face’ is a central concept in China. It means prestige or social standing and is incredibly ingrained in the culture, encouraging Chinese customers to buy things (including services such as education) that showcase their success. This translates into high demand for luxury goods and other kinds of status symbols, such as overseas travel and children studying in high-profile Western universities.

Because of this love of luxury, Chinese customers also value designer Western brands because they are authentic, are of top quality and have heritage. In a market that has often been flooded with counterfeits, these are brand values that Western marketers can leverage for success.

Case study two: festivals matter

In the West, brands often run special promotions for occasions such as Christmas and Valentine’s Day. But in China, the festival calendar is packed and it includes plenty of festivals that aren’t celebrated or recognised in the West. Successful brands know that they can delight customers and grow their sales by launching exclusive products, personalisation and collections that celebrate Chinese festivals. For example, for Chinese New Year, many brands repackage their products in holiday red. Maybelline launched its ‘Red on Fire’ lipstick series, for example, which included Chinese zodiac signs and characters printed across the packaging and product.

Ways to be more culturally sensitive when marketing in China

There are various ways to become more culturally sensitive when you market in China. One of the most important focus areas is to choose your medium and messaging extremely well. Here are our top tips for success:

1. Do your market research carefully

Before devising and launching a Chinese digital marketing campaign, carry out targeted research on your intended audience to really understand their characteristics, likes, wants, needs and turn-offs. You can then use this to create your user persona.

2. Localise your content

Where you already have content that you plan to map into the Chinese market, spend time carefully localising it so that it is relevant, culturally sensitive and of very high quality. Chinese customers are used to rich, immersive and cutting-edge digital experiences, so they are likely to turn off content that doesn’t meet their needs and expectations.

3. Use the right platforms

Most Western marketers know that social media is huge in China, but it’s also vital to know which channels will work best for your China. For example, younger users love Douyin (TikTok), and most people are on WeChat and Weibo. Little Red Book is particularly popular with affluent, educated younger women who want to know about experiences, travel, fashion, beauty and luxury.

4. Understand changing trends

In the West, women led the #MeToo movement, but in China, the younger generations, in particular, have forged ahead with a drive to achieve financial independence and to break traditional gender norms. For example, SK-II launched its #ChangeDestiny campaign which encouraged unmarried Chinese over the age of thirty to feel in control of their destiny, happy to be single and ready to enjoy successful, financially independent lives.

However, it is very important to avoid taboo topics such as politically sensitive content. Only recently a number of global brands including Zara and Delta Airlines were forced to change their websites after they categorised Taiwan and Hong Kong as being separate from China.

5. Use a Chinese digital marketing agency

When you use a Chinese digital marketing agency, you can fast track towards digital marketing success in China. At Market Me China we have a team of highly experienced, knowledgeable Chinese digital marketing professionals with native language skills. Our team works with your business on a flexible basis to deliver culturally sensitive, impactful marketing campaigns that really work – attracting target Chinese customers, and building long-term profitable relationships with them for ongoing success.

To find out more, please contact us for a no-obligation chat about your needs and your business. We look forward to hearing from you!

The post How to be culturally sensitive when marketing in China appeared first on Market Me China®.

Features of Chinese Millennials and Gen-Z consumers

China’s economy and society have completely reshaped within a generation, and as Generation Z comes of age, brands are competing to attract these affluent and… extremely disloyal young customers! Surveys show that when it comes to brands, marketing and shopping, Generation Z customers are not attached to particular brands and will readily switch to competitors. This has huge implications for Western brands that are used to using brand loyalty and retention marketing campaigns.

However, the fact is that this trend has been emerging in China (and in the West) for some time. Fickle customer traits are also seen in millennials, with a third saying that they are also less brand loyal than their parent’s generation. This trend has been driven by a rise in online shopping and the power of KOLs, which regularly promote brands to their loyal audiences. Customers also spend less time in retail stores and other brand-owned spaces, driven partly by Covid, and brands no longer control their own narrative.

Chinese customers have long been known for carrying out in-depth research into the products and services that they buy, and they have more information at their fingertips than ever before. This means that they can easily buy from one brand and then switch to a competitor at the click of a button, especially if there is a ‘new customer’ incentive, a fresh trend or a compelling KOL recommendation to pursue.

How can Western brands gain loyalty from young Chinese customers?

There is a temptation for brands to simply ‘do what they always did’ but with more vigour, focus and spending. But research suggests that measures such as price-cutting, bigger advertising or product innovation are no longer enough to guarantee brand loyalty in China. Instead, brands should look at the brand itself. Key points for success are:

– Create a brand that has a bigger purpose (social responsibility and sustainability)
– Show that customer loyalty matters – and is rewarded – with a personalised approach.

Let’s look at these in closer detail.

1. Brand purpose

Western brands should no longer innovate by developing quirky product features, being the first to market or even delivering better value. Instead, they should work on developing the purpose, meaning and value of their brand. This will help to build a more genuine and long-lasting connection with fickle and discerning younger Chinese customers. Millennial and Gen Z customers care about the environment, sustainability and social good. Your brand needs to care about these things too – and do something positive about them.

2. Loyalty

Secondly, Western brands should know that Chinese Millennial and Gen-Z customers do still respond to loyalty programmes and they are more likely to buy from brands that operate them. This should remain a focus of retention marketing, with high-quality rewards schemes and loyalty experiences that matter to these customers. For success, there needs to be a meaningful and substantive offer. This means genuine perks and a true community that offers value. For example, there could be an actively managed online community, regular rewards for members, special birthday messages from the brand and personalised offers.

Western brands should also define loyalty carefully. In China, this means more than just a repeat purchase. The notion of brand loyalty means having an emotional connection and a sense of positivity and dedication to the brand. Aim to be first in your target customer’s mind with an integrated digital strategy. For example, you might:

– Focus on putting the right online adverts in front of your Chinese Millennial and Gen Z audience
– Use the KOLs that your young target audience value and listen to
– Offer meaningful reward mechanisms such as your loyalty programme, and private online communities (for example, you could share added-value explainer, tip or ‘how to’ content with your private community, delivered by popular KOLs).
– Integrate your social media marketing for social reinforcement – with an engaging, user-led community that shares positive feelings and experiences about your brand.
– Keep your values and purpose at the heart of your brand. Share content that focuses on positive emotions, societal benefit, community gains and wellbeing. Public good and environmentalism are very important to these customers.
– Offer added-value services to your network of customers. These could include gift registration services, consultation services or installation, birthday and anniversary perks, special gift-wrapping and delivery, referral offers and so forth. Be creative!
– Make full use of your branded social media feeds with live streams, digital stickers, social shoutouts, personalised communications, contests and user testing.
– Create a sense of anticipation with pre-order lists, sample giveaways, live stream launches, special events and customisation.

The end-to-end experience

Savvy young Chinese customers also expect to experience a brand in a holistic, consistent way that is wholly authentic. Many brands are using this knowledge to create added-value activities, such as pop-up events and campaigns. For example, Moleskine hosted a pop-up cafe in Beijing in 2018 to encourage its creative community, providing a flexible hub space for users to work or pursue creative pursuits. Other brands such as Lululemon are extending their retail spaces so that they also host yoga and fitness classes, workshops and socialising spaces. These brands are focusing on the value, the authenticity and the community aspect of their high-end offers, and making their brands go to’s for products and services that reinforce young customers’ lifestyles.

Social media at the heart

These brands are creating a new wave of’ fan-sumer’; a term that describes shoppers who engage with brands in an entirely new way, and one that is built around clout and culture as well as the product and services themselves. Social media has built the power of these customers like never before and young Chinese customers want to co-create their brand experiences. Western brands who want to become – and stay – relevant to their millennial and Gen Z customers must leverage their social platforms to the max. This means listening to customers as well as communicating with them, and delivering ‘ultra-engagement’ strategies via targeted, private and valuable communities that bring the brand to life in a more meaningful way than ever before.

It’s certainly a big challenge for Western marketers, but one that has the potential of huge reward. China’s Gen Z alone represents almost 150 million increasingly-affluent customers, so there really is everything to play for!

Find out more

Market Me China can help your Western brand successfully navigate the evolving world of Chinese marketing. Our digital marketing experts can help you to create powerful and integrated digital marketing strategies that will appeal to your Gen Z and Millennial customers. Please contact us in the first instance to find out more and to discuss your needs.

The post How to market to Chinese Millennials and Gen-Z consumers appeared first on Market Me China®.

What’s really on?

A useful starting point for any budget planning is to establish which marketing activities are giving you a clear return, and then to use these measurements to establish where and how you will funnel further budgetary spending. It sounds obvious, but it’s surprising how many businesses still don’t clearly measure their marketing ROI – and who struggle to justify spend or to link marketing activities with sales conversions.

Why you need to invest in marketing for China

When you are looking to market your products and services in China, there is no doubt that you will need to have an adequate budget. This is because you will be competing against a huge number of existing and competitor brands – some of whom will already have a strong customer base and powerful brand recognition.

What happens when you cut your marketing budget

If you are a new brand, and you don’t invest properly in your marketing, you will struggle to get your brand heard and recognised in the market – let alone gain new customers and those all-important sales.

If you are an existing brand, you will fall behind as your competitors invest in their digital marketing activity and pull ahead with comprehensive, funded, and well-conceived marketing strategies that win Chinese hearts, minds… and sales!

Now is not the time…

Research shows that cutting your marketing budget in any kind of economic downturn will invariably be a bad move. Remember without marketing in China you will struggle to get sales. Without sales, you won’t have revenue… and so forth!

Effective marketing in China does require a budget. It also requires a great strategy, time for the results to embed and repetition of marketing activities to allow them to ’embed’ within your target market’s consciousness. Similarly, you must touch on all digital marketing channels that your target customers in China use, if you are serious about succeeding in this huge, buoyant and lucrative market. Speculate to accumulate! This means investing in optimised website experience, s Baidu PPC, SEO, social media influencer relationships and advertising campaigns, online PR… and doing it well!

A contrarian view

The most successful businesses take a contrarian view to spend on marketing in challenging periods, as they know that you can’t save your way out of a challenging business climate. Instead, many of these forward-thinking and ambitious businesses see their competitor brands pulling back on their spend, and use the time to launch better, bigger, and more comprehensive campaigns to grab the space that their competitors have left behind, and to take advantage of ready and motivated customers who want to spend! This makes sense because the Chinese market is growing. The longer you leave it to gain a foothold.. and the less committed you are to doing so… the more you will fall behind as other competitor brands swoop in and gain a consolidated space with increasingly loyal customers. Act now and cement your position for long-term sales and success!

Chinese customers want to spend!

Remember that Chinese customers are already keen to enjoy e-commerce and shopping once again and that the Chinese economy is already strongly rebounding after the pandemic. Chinese customers have money, the motivation to shop online, and are keen to experience high-quality Western brands – so now is absolutely the time to build your brand with them – not to pull back and see if you can do it on a shoestring. You simply can’t – not if you want to see results.

The good news…

If you are under pressure to justify or to limit your Chinese marketing budget, then you’ll find it perfectly possible to establish your ROI for existing channel spend and to see what is working, and what might not be working.

When you have this data, you can then clearly establish where you should be spending your money and where you might ease back – or even stop spending completely for a period of time. As ever, good data helps effective management decision-making. This is where a Chinese digital marketing agency can help – providing everything from the data to the market research you need to justify your budget spend.

Establishing what works with your Chinese digital marketing

Chinese digital marketing channels are hugely sophisticated – and often far ahead of Western counterpart platforms! This means that they also allow a huge amount of rich analytics for business customers. When you place a Baidu PPC campaign, invest in Chinese SEO, advertise on a Chinese social media platform or work with a Chinese KOL – it is always possible to gather clear, tailored, and actionable data on the back of your work.

Using native language Chinese marketing skills

Of course, this data will invariably be in Chinese, and the key to optimising Chinese digital marketing campaigns will be to have the native language skills and in-depth Chinese digital marketing knowledge that allows those analytics to be gathered, interpreted, and be used effectively to adjust or recraft campaign work – and spend.

Getting the help that you need

At Market Me China, we work with clients from across all industries and sectors to help them craft and deliver highly impactful and effective Chinese digital marketing campaigns. What’s more, we provide the analytics needed to evidence every budget line on marketing spend and to show where marketing investment is generating a powerful return!

The Chinese market is very much online – and digital marketing is more important than ever in this vast audience of sophisticated consumers. If you want your brand to gain a strong foothold in China – or to maintain one as the competitive landscape only becomes more saturated – now is the time to act. Our team of professionals works flexibly with your business in the way that you need – to get results. Contact us in the first instance to find out how we can assist.

The post Looking to cut your marketing budget in China? These are the considerations to take appeared first on Market Me China®.