Held on 11th November, Double 11 is hosted on Alibaba’s TMall platform, along with Taobao and other shopping sites. To celebrate the occasion, retailers offer discounts as high as 80%, encouraging single people all across China to treat themselves! The vast scale of the event is supported by a profoundly effective logistics operation which sees many customers in Chinese Tier 1 cities receiving their orders on the same day.

Today the event is seen as a huge opportunity to enjoy a guilt-free spending surge, with Alibaba even running a national TV live broadcast packed with celebrities, challenges, events and games to further drive sales and to create a national entertainment spectacle.

Many Western brands already participate in the Chinese shopping holiday. In fact, global brands such as Apple, Nestle, Dyson, Adidas and Nike raked in more than RMB 100 million in Double 11 sales. Interestingly, 40% of Double 11 customers in China bought from an International brand in last year’s festival, and many smaller and newer Chinese brands were able to achieve a phenomenal degree of success thanks to their smart marketing campaigns.

What will Double 11 be like in 2020?

Covid-19 certainly won’t be taking the shine off this year’s Double 11 celebrations, and E-Commerce brands have been preparing for the occasion for months. This year the festival will be strategically important too, providing an indication of how well China’s economy has rebounded from the pandemic, and how strong its consumer confidence is. At the same time, it gives Western brands a superb chance to grab a slice of the action and boost their sales during what has been a challenging year.

Looking at the Double 11 platforms

Tmall has announced that it will be running the Double 11 event over three additional dates – with extra discounts between November 1st and November 3rd, as well as the usual 24-hour bonanza on November 11th. Alibaba has also predicted that more than 800 million customers will be preparing to bag up bargains, and JD.com is preparing to slash over 200 million products by 50% to lure in buyers. All platforms will be using live-streaming, celebrity and influencer galas and innovative advertising alongside the superb discounts.

Our view of Double 11 in 2020

At Market Me China, we expect Double 11 to be a large success. The 618 Mid Year Shopping Festival in June was the first major Chinese event after Covid-19 lockdown and it achieved a 33% growth against 2019, with accumulated sales of $40 billion. Chinese customers want to buy – and they have the money and smartphone access to do so!

Actions for Western marketers to take now

1. Prepare your digital assets – now is the time to make sure your brand is on the right e-commerce platform and that your digital hub is optimised for Chinese customers and good to go!

2. Look at the right KOL promotion – the right relationship with a relevant influencer can accelerate your brand awareness amongst your target audience.

3. Get your paid advertising (Baidu PPC) campaign in place so that your brand shows to the right target audience on the right platforms – noting that this campaign must be very carefully optimised to maximise ROI and to avoid wasting money against bigger competitors. Market Me China can help you to craft your online advertising so that it is seen only by relevant targets who are more likely to convert.

4. Consider your reputation management – recognising that Chinese customers carry out extensive research before making an online purchase. Now is the time to be active on social media to build your ‘social proof’ along with relevant forums to build trust and awareness. Consider an ePR strategy too – even a few well-chosen and placed press releases, combined with a reputable KOL relationship, can help to place your brand positively in Baidu search results.

5. Invest in good product descriptions! The more detail you can provide to answer questions from your target market, the higher your online conversions are likely to be. It’s amazing how much more detailed Chinese product descriptions are compared to those in the West.

6. See what your competition is doing – it’s surprising how often brands forget to carry out competitor research as part of their broader marketing research, and without this factual insight, it’s very easy to make expensive campaign mistakes.

7. Start promoting those discounts now! Consider offering extra discounts for advance orders too – something that L’Oreal has done with great effect.

8. Get those coupons out there! Some brands are even selling coupons very cheaply, knowing that customers are far more likely to redeem them – and helping the accuracy of their sales forecasting as a result.

9. Consider launching a new product. Dyson released its Airwrap hair-curler for 2018’s Double 11 festival. It marketed the product on social media and made TMall the only sales channel. As a result, more than 1,500 units flew out in sales within just three minutes of the product going live.

10. Integrate your campaign so that it makes sense – your content, ePR, social media, online advertising and other Chinese digital marketing activities must all make sense within a broader marketing plan for Double 11. If you can get professional help from a Chinese digital marketing agency such as Market Me China, this process will be far quicker, easier and primed for the ROI you need.

Get the help you need

It’s not too late to prepare for a Double 11 sales boost! The Chinese digital marketing experts at Market Me China work with Western client brands to help them to succeed in the lucrative, fast-growing Chinese market. If you are keen to boost your e-commerce sales on this huge Chinese shopping holiday, please contact us for a no-obligation chat about your needs. We offer a full service of Chinese digital marketing services and can work remotely too to support social distancing requirements. We look forward to hearing from you!

(Image source: tmall)

The post Are you ready for Double 11? appeared first on Market Me China®.

Yes, it’s a busy time of year for Western retailers, with planning already well underway for most brands in the run-up to Christmas. However, the potential gains are clear; China is now the biggest e-commerce market in the world and its online sales reach over $1.5 trillion annually. Furthermore, sophisticated Chinese buyers love Western brands and view them as offering quality and status. This means a potentially ready audience of motivated customers – if you get your strategy right.

So if you’re ready to take the plunge, how can you get the most from your marketing campaign for China’s singles day?

Gain your insights

It’s important to know the features of China’s Singles Day, which include a growing interest in luxury brands as well as the more typical high volume, deep discount and thin margin sales. It’s also a largely celebratory event, with Alibaba and Amazon investing heavily in TV and experiential advertising in the run-up to the day. Big brands feature highly and key product sales categories include fashion, beauty, electricals and homeware.

Know what you’re doing!

Work with a Chinese Marketing Agency if you want to get your marketing campaign in this vast and complex country right. For example, discounts which feature the number 4 are best avoided, as the number has unlucky connotations in China. However, good fortune is signified by the number 8 and you could factor this into your pricing and promotion to ramp up your ‘feelgood’ factor and encourage those online conversions.

Target, Target, Target

Chinese Singles Day is such a vast event that it pays for Western brands to really pin down their targeting before they begin to launch their marketing campaign. For example, female consumers are rising in China and this is changing the product categories that sell the most – with beauty, clothing, health and nutrition and baby items growing in prominence. Female Chinese shoppers are also shown to be detailed in their research and more inclined to use online buyer guides and social media to compare prices and to read reviews. As an example, Charlotte Tilbury was successfully launched as a new brand in China by Feelunique. The previously unknown make-up brand was brought to market via a social media education campaign and partnership with a KOL to deliver brand exposure and help to create trust, using Weibo and WeChat accounts.

Choose your platforms

The platform that leads Chinese Singles Day sales is Alibaba, and last year around 60,000 global brands joined the rush, helping to list over 15 million products on Tmall. JD.com, Amazon and other growing e-commerce platforms are also competing hard to win custom during the event. [Source: www.forbes.com]. However, because these online marketplaces are crowded and tend towards deep-discounting over the holiday, some overseas brands may prefer to focus instead on their own Chinese website. By doing this, they can better target niche audiences and offer service and quality as key differentiators. Examples of companies already doing this include GetTheLabel and Burberry. [Source: www.netimperative.com]

Focus on mobile

Remember that e-commerce is now heavily led by mobile devices, with 80% of Chinese shoppers choosing to buy using their smartphones. Phones are easy and quick and online buyers are digitally savvy and often young. With that in mind, make sure you offer a recognised payment system such as Union Pay, AliPay or WeChat Pay. Remember too that these platforms offer digital marketing opportunities too. Post-purchase, you can encourage your customers to follow your brand on social media and offer special deals or promotions for additional or later purchases.

Integrate your campaign

The digital e-commerce platforms of choice for China’s Singles Day offer plenty of scope for creative marketing. For example, if you set up a TMall merchant web page, you can stream content to your customers, leverage the value of Chinese Key Opinion Leaders (KOL) and their social media feed recommendations and integrate with the live countdown event to get your customers excited and ready to buy. A multi-channel approach is best for cross-fertilisation of your messaging and content, and if your budget and tech allow it, activities such as live streaming are extremely and worth pursuing in the run-up to the big day itself.

Baidu PPC

As China’s equivalent to Google, you must place and target Baidu PPC adverts carefully in order to differentiate yourself from the competition. Make sure your website landing pages are optimised – if you haven’t created a dedicated Chinese website – set up your Baidu PPC account (using help from your Chinese Marketing agency ideally to speed up the process), run your Chinese language adverts and measure the results on Baidu Tongji (Analytics). Again, your Chinese marketing agency can deliver this service for you to optimise your results and ROI.

Chinese Social media

Start the buzz now in the run-up to China’s Singles Day, using KOLs where you have identified a beneficial partnership opportunity. Teaser campaigns showcasing the product lines you will be promoting at discount for Chinese Singles Day help your Chinese customers to research your product and make a decision to buy in advance. Remember, they only have 24 hours to take advantage of those offers, so make it as easy as possible for them to choose yours by providing the information that they need beforehand. Use a mix of video content, images, news and promos to build your brand presence and relationships with your followers. Remember too that this market loves quirky content, so gamification is another good strategy to follow. Again, you have the social media giants such as WeChat, Weibo and YouKu, but there are also other smaller platforms which may be relevant to your niche.

Targeted online advertising in China

Click volumes tend to increase in the week running up to Chinese Singles Day as shoppers carry out their research online, but conversions remain relatively low until the actual day. Plan your targeted online advertising in line with these trends, offering links to content which raises awareness of your brand, your product range and your key messages. Get your rich media advertising and targeting strategy right and your target audience will find you quickly.

Ready to find out more?

If you’re keen to make the most of Chinese Singles Day, Market Me China is here to help. Our team of marketing experts offer a full suite of professional digital marketing services, which we deliver in partnership with our clients to ensure measurable ROI and results. Contact us to find out more.

The post How to boost your sales on Singles day in China appeared first on Market Me China®.