Double Seventh Day matters to brands because it’s a huge driver of sales, particularly in the luxury goods market. According to the Gartner Group, the festival now drives even greater sales than Singles Day and it’s growing in significance. Taobao and Tmall both reported Qixi sales boosts of 120% in 2021 compared to 2020. Research suggests that luxury imported handbags and jewellery are particularly important and high-end cosmetics have become particularly popular in lower-tier cities. Other interesting categories that have seen a rise in Qixi sales include imported steaks and red wines.

Qixi Festival opportunities for Western brands

Double Seventh Day gives Western brands a great opportunity to build connections with Chinese customers, grow their brand awareness and drive conversions, whilst sharing some love and joy at a key time in the Chinese calendar. After all, Chinese customers appreciate Western brands that show cultural awareness and respect towards their key festivals.

Case studies for Qixi festival marketing

It’s important to plan Qixi festival marketing carefully as even big brands can get it wrong sometimes.

Prada won hearts and minds with its ‘Modern Tale’ campaign which retold the Qixi legend in a modern way, whilst paying homage to the traditional story. The brand used the occasion to launch an exclusive line of women’s and men’s items, which they incorporated into the character’s journeys. Prada’s campaign worked well by upholding the traditions and sentiments of the traditional holiday, whilst bringing a fresh feel and digital storytelling to engage young and on-trend customers.

Similarly, Gucci released a limited-edition range with a fresh print of interlocking ‘G’ apples. It drew on the idea of the Garden of Eden’s forbidden fruit and the phrase ‘apple of my eye’. the limited edition range included shoes, accessories, small leather goods and handbags which Gucci sold in its boutiques, via its website and through WeChat mini-programs, boosted by a #GucciQixi selfie competition that garnered more than 400 million Weibo impressions. This is a great example of how brands can get it right by having the right local knowledge, planning carefully and integrating marketing activities to maximise results.

How Western brands can get it right

The good news is that your brand can enjoy success for Double Seventh Day if it plans ahead and makes use of expert help. Here are some steps for success:

1. Release a line of limited-edition products – but carefully

Chinese customers like special Qixi products that are well and thoughtfully designed, with quality and luxury details. Show that you understand local Chinese culture and respect the ancient traditions of this beautiful romantic festival. Don’t attempt to broaden the appeal of Qixi by introducing marketing campaigns directed towards friends (as Dolce & Gabbana tried to with its female Qixi avatars). This is a festival to respect and celebrate, not an opportunity to try to change tradition in a bid to sell more. It’s also important to emphasise brand hallmarks of quality, exclusivity, authenticity and luxury as these are all attributes that matter to customers buying romantic gifts for their partners.

2. Engage with KOLs

Brands vie for attention at this time so the right choice of KOL can help you cut through the marketing noise and reach your target customers. A Chinese marketing agency can help you to find the right KOLs for your campaign and organise the necessary promotion or sponsorship activities that you need.

3. Incentivise user-generated content

Competitions or discount codes can help to encourage user-generated content. For example, you could ask followers to tag five friends to get a chance to win a prize. This can build awareness and push impressions. If you resource your social media well with native Chinese language speakers, this also provides an opportunity to answer questions, comment, and generally engage to drive referral traffic to your landing page.

4. Create a Qixi landing page

The Qixi festival is a great chance to add some beautiful themes and graphics to your website, either on the homepage or perhaps on a special campaign landing page if you are running a competition or special promotion for the festival, such as a limited edition product line. Check that your landing pages are optimised for mobile, locally hosted and operate smoothly and quickly to minimise the bounce rate.

5. Use WeChat mini-programs

Whether you want to create a beautifully designed store or mini-program with attractive Double Seventh Day graphics for Chinese Valentine’s Day or create a fun digital game with great sharing potential, WeChat offers a great opportunity to target your customers with localised, top-quality content that your target audience will love, share and engage with to make a purchase. Again, a Chinese marketing agency can help you to create the graphics, stores, digital assets and other digital elements that you need to create a successful campaign that yields real results.

Get in touch

Market Me China is here to help your brand get the most from Chinese Valentine’s Day! Our team of digital professionals have native Chinese language skills and are highly adept at creating impactful, engaging digital marketing campaigns that deliver the desired level of ROI for our clients. Whether your business operates in luxury goods, e-commerce, travel or another industry altogether, we can help you maximise your marketing opportunities and delight your customers for the Qixi Festival. Please contact us to find out more and to discuss your needs.

The post Prepare now for Double Seventh Day: how to market for China’s Valentine’s Day appeared first on Market Me China®.

There’s still time!

Valentine’s Day may just be around the corner, but with a swift and well-thought-out campaign, you still have time to launch targeted, effective digital marketing activities in China – especially with the assistance of a Chinese marketing agency to accelerate the process.

1. Make use of your KOLs

Valentine’s Day is a gift for influencer relationships as it’s such a fun, meaningful celebration – and one that ties in beautifully with giveaways. Luxury brands such as Burberry, Dior and Gucci have all used Valentine’s Day to release limited edition red bags in China, and your KOLs can use this festival to launch a special giveaway, love-themed offer or competition.

2. Update your digital assets

The Chinese love beautiful graphics, so now is a great time to refresh your Chinese website and app with a shower of falling hearts, sweet ‘love’ emojis or illustrated flowers to show love for your customers! Consider creating stickers, banners or filters for your social media feeds too – brands such as Starbuck’s have used ‘show your love’ filters for short-video sharing competitions on social media, and these are particularly popular with their younger audience.

3. Look at your mini store

Why not create a WeChat mini store, branded for Valentine’s Day and with products that could make excellent gifting for the occasion? Throw in pretty red and pink tissue, Valentine’s wrap and appreciation cards for your recipients too, and your ‘unwrapping’ videos could make it onto social media for likes and shares. Maybe every 50th customer could receive a special gift in their package, or you might add complimentary samples to ‘show your love’? Consider offering gift options for a range of budgets too – with plenty of premium options, as Chinese customers spent heavily on imported luxury goods last year for Valentine’s Day and this trend looks set to grow.

4. Gamify!

Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity for gamification and the Chinese absolutely adore online gaming. Produce a love-themed digital game and encourage score sharing, with special offers for those players who complete the game and leaderboards to encourage plenty of visibility and competition!

5. Offer digital cards

Create branded digital cards for your followers to share with loved ones of all kinds – from their friends and partner to their family and even co-workers. These cards could unlock a special offer or discount and they will help to increase your reach and to build brand awareness.

6. Tell a story

The Chinese love stories about star-crossed lovers, and the warm feelings of love that they share with family and friends. If you can weave a story across your digital assets – one filled with warm messaging, culturally meaningful messages and a happy ending – your customers will engage with your brand in an emotive way, and you’ll build ‘stickiness’ across your channels.

7. Think creatively

In the West, Valentine’s Day is traditionally about romantic love, but in China, smart marketers can extend these campaign messages to include all kinds of loved ones – including oneself! In fact, last year, around 15% of Chinese shoppers said that they planned to buy something for themselves, and Niluu – the manufacturer of vegan kimonos and better sleep products – used this to create a ‘fall in love with you’ campaign, featuring a beautiful marketing video, special product and an integrated social media campaign. Think creatively and broadly to maximise your opportunities.

8. Don’t be daunted!

It can be daunting sometimes to consider your Chinese marketing campaign in such a saturated, tech-savvy market – but the key thing is to begin your work, measure it over time and refine your results as you gain data. Worried about creating a professional art-directed video or bespoke product lines? Don’t worry – there are plenty of ways to offer instant quirky benefits to customers. Why not offer free delivery on all orders for Valentine’s Day? Or make a simple video of your staff warmly wishing your customers a happy Valentine’s Day and showing your decorated office? Often it’s the thought behind the gesture that resonates most with Chinese customers – much like Valentine’s Day itself!

9. Test, test, test…

Add some time into your campaign rollout to test your digital assets very carefully pre-launch so that the experience is seamless – from your Baidu PPC campaign and social media online advertising through to your KOL messaging, WeChat mini store, campaign app or website and digital games, stickers, filters or other shareables. Your Chinese audience should be able to seamlessly move through your branded digital ecosystem without a hitch – and from their smartphones.

10. Plan ahead…with help

A Chinese marketing agency such as Market Me China can help you to organise and deliver your annual calendar of digital marketing in China, encompassing all of the superb shopping festivals that Chinese customers adore! China’s marketing landscape is as vast as its market – with a huge array of digital and marketing platforms, innovative technologies and rich opportunities – but placed against a highly competitive landscape, with cultural, contextual and language barriers to overcome.

By choosing Market Me China to assist you with your Valentine’s Day campaign you can accelerate your speed to market and improve your results. Our native Chinese language-speaking digital marketing professionals work flexibly with your business to achieve your goals, and we evidence our results at every turn.

Remember, the work you put in now to create your Valentine’s Day marketing campaign in China – from content to creative – can be repurposed later in the year for the Chinese equivalent festivals of Qixi and 520 day, further multiplying your efforts and gaining that all-important brand recognition, reputation and conversions.

Contact us

To find out more about how Market Me China can help you to achieve success with your digital marketing in China, please contact our team today for a no-obligation chat about your goals and needs.

The post Chinese digital marketing tactics for Valentine’s Day appeared first on Market Me China®.

Valentine’s Day brightens up an otherwise quiet event calendar in the West. However, in China, it sits within a busy New Year period and is just one love-themed event on the calendar for festival-loving Chinese, with Qixi and ‘520 Day’ making up the romance event trio! So the work that you put in now for Feb 14th could stand you in good stead for May and August too…

Digital campaigns for Valentine’s Day

With this savvy and connected audience of luxury-loving Chinese consumers, Western brands need to be innovative, smart, insightful and quick to act. A great digital marketing campaign can be crafted and delivered in time for Valentine’s Day, especially with the help of a Chinese marketing agency to smooth the path and speed up the process.

A Valentine’s Day campaign case study

Gucci, Dior and other big brands have used KOLs – or Key Opinion Leaders – to launch Valentine’s Day and Qixi special edition luxury goods. For example, Burberry fans had the chance to take part in an online ‘just for fun’ romance quiz which gave them insights into their relationship style, before receiving a special offer on a Qixi-edition bag. Dior also launched its special ‘Dior Amour’ bag to female customers with a lead-up social media campaign to create serious hype about the limited edition release (it sold out within seconds!) Michael Kors partnered with Yang Mi, its KOL partner, to co-design a special line of red bags which were equally popular.

Creative campaigns work for non-luxury brands too. For example, Starbucks used Weishi, the short video app, to launch the ‘Show Your Love’ campaign. They created special filters available to customise and theme each short vid, with prizes available to posted videos that gained a certain number of likes. The campaign sat particularly well with the younger Chinese audience, who love short video as a means to be expressive, individual and creative.

So what does this mean for Western brands?

There are plenty of digital marketing tactics that Western brands can blend together to make an effective Valentine’s Day campaign. For example, Western brands could:

– Create a WeChat mini store, branded and illustrated with fun Valentine’s Day graphics.
– Produce a fun digital game which will ideally have viral appeal and encourage users to share their scores. This could result in a special offer for the user.
– Release digital Valentine’s Day cards for Chinese customers to share; again with a link to a conversion incentive such as a discount.
– Work with a KOL within a brand sponsorship/partnership arrangement, to promote your offering to their audience and to grow your reach and customer base.
– Create a special product for Valentine’s Day itself as part of a limited release line, to create desirability and to help Chinese buyers delight their loved ones with something exclusive.
– Consider hosting an offline store to drive interested buyers to experience your products in person and to drive forward conversions.
– Craft a beautiful, compelling and aspirational social media campaign that works across different platforms, such as Weibo, Weibo, and which resonate with your target audience through story-telling, heart-warming imagery and meaningful messages.
– Launch an accompanying Baidu PPC campaign to ensure your adverts place on the right platforms.

Things to bear in mind:

1. China is a vast and complex market, with sophisticated buyers who sit in distinct consumer segments. Western brands must ensure that they deliver the right experience by creating digital marketing campaigns that genuinely resonate with their target audience/s. This means really understanding Chinese consumers and getting to the heart of what matters to them. Local research and contextual understanding are essential to create user personas and expert targeting of campaign materials.

2. Websites must be optimised for mobile and translated into Chinese as a minimum. However, many Western brands will want to maximise their ROI by setting up bespoke social media stores, creating apps and producing digital assets that are made entirely for the Chinese market. Investment in this lucrative and middle-classed market will reap rewards, but only if it is expertly deployed in order to stand out from the competition.

3. Content is key and ideally, it should be fresh and targeted. Once social media campaigns go live, you should have Chinese-speaking brand representatives on-hand to answer questions, support buyers, engage with audiences and monitor the progress of the campaign itself.

4. Targeted online advertising can be complex to manage in a country as big as China and with so many leading internet platforms offering promotional space. An automated system can facilitate this process and provide conversion tracking and intra-campaign results for adjustment as needed.

5. All activity must be measured and evaluated against original goals to quantify success. Lessons learned then be applied to the next big event and digital marketing campaign for even stronger results and ROI!

6. The administration involved to set up accounts for platforms such as Baidu PPC, WeChat official account, Weibo verified account, can be onerous and time-consuming to say in the least, with complex processes to follow and no use of English!

In all instances, Market Me China can assist you.

Working with a Chinese marketing agency

From superstition around numbers and luck through to the concept of ‘saving face’ and the importance of relationships in business, there is much to learn – and many Western brands simply don’t have time or resources to acquire this expertise in-house.

Your Chinese marketing partners

Market Me China can provide that vital partnership of insight, experience and knowledge that you need to gain a valuable ROI on your Chinese Valentine’s Day marketing campaign. From expert local content creation and liaison with Chinese partners through to campaign delivery that nets those all-important conversions, our track record speaks for itself. We act as strategic marketing partners to Western brands in all stages of their Chinese business journey, from new entrants looking to break into their market through to more established brands looking to consolidate and grow their presence and sales.

Contact the team at Market Me China to find out how we can help you to enjoy a successful marketing campaign for Valentine’s Day in China this year!

The post Chinese digital marketing tips on Valentine’s Day appeared first on Market Me China®.