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As brands and companies continue to grow, one major public relations and marketing challenges arise: What are the best ways to expand the audience and customer base beyond existing English speakers and into the Chinese market?
With North America serving as a microcosm of the world’s ethnicities, the Chinese market continues to stand out and grow.
About 5% of Canada’s population is of Chinese descent, according to the 2016 census — which equates to 1.8 million people but those numbers have most likely increased over the past five years. Similarly, the United States has 5.4 million citizens of Chinese ancestry, making these two countries the home of one of the fastest-growing market segments.
And there lies a pressing obstacle for North American businesses; figuring out how to reach this significant consumer base through Chinese online platforms, digital marketing, and, more importantly, in a way that reflects Chinese values and interests.
For companies looking to reach the Chinese market, here are five key PR and marketing services that would make an immediate and lasting impact.
Chinese Marketing and Content Strategy
Using marketing strategies to reach English-speaking consumers and audiences in North America is rarely as effective for those of different cultural backgrounds.
According to Harvard Business Review, 72.1% of consumers spend most or all of their time on websites in their language, while 72.4% of consumers are more likely to buy a product with information in their language. Even more crucial to keep in mind is that 56.2% of consumers said that the ability to obtain information in their language is more important than price.
These numbers speak to the need of making sure that consumers in the target market are communicated through their language. But this is just the first aspect of understanding why North American-based brands should develop a detailed marketing and content strategy dedicated to the Chinese consumer.
With values and sentiment in mind, the Chinese culture tends to be more collectivist while North Americans are more individualistic. Generally speaking, this means that the Chinese demographic may look at how their actions affect the group as a whole — whether it be a family, company, etc. — whereas in contrast to North Americans, there is a larger focus on individual needs and to tout own accomplishments.
Although this may seem like an irrelevant detail to include when developing a marketing strategy for Chinese consumers, ignoring these cultural differences could result in marketing trivial, unengaging, or offensive content. Tailoring a brand’s content to your target audience could make or break objectives.
Another key detail in a Chinese marketing strategy is to ensure that the audience is viewing the content, by utilizing the proper digital platforms.
Most English marketing strategies are tailored for mainstream digital platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Regardless of how popular these are, there are other key platforms that the Chinese communities prefer to use.
Chinese Social Media Marketing
While the aforementioned social platforms may be synonymous with everyday life in North America, the Chinese have their own innovative social media tools, including WeChat, Weibo, Baidu, Douyin, and Little Red Book.
WeChat is by far the largest social platform with more than 1.2 billion active users. The platform is innovative in its own right because it combines messaging and social networking while also incorporating its online payment tool, store, video platform, and much more. Chinese users spend about 70 minutes per day on WeChat. Any business hoping to connect and engage with Chinese customers, and improve their global e-commerce presence, would highly benefit from utilizing WeChat.
Weibo is best described as the Chinese version of Twitter. The microblogging platform creates space for brands and individuals to share engaging campaigns, influencer collaborations, and online giveaways. With the ability for brands to link to online storefronts — such as Taobao — consumers can easily buy products.
Baidu serves as an online search engine, often compared to a Chinese version of Google. With it being the most visited website in China and fourth in the world according to Arimetrics, brands looking to increase their searchability and SEO with the Chinese market would want to include Baidu advertising in their marketing strategy.
Douyin is the original version of TikTok, which was created in China. Much like TikTok, Douyin has captured the attention of the younger generations. What makes both Douyin and TikTok such unique platforms is their algorithms that can understand the users’ interests and then curate the content for each individual. To create the most organic content on Douyin, brands will often partner with influencers.
Finally, there’s Little Red Book (or in Chinese, Xiaohongshu), which is similar to Instagram. With a heavy focus on lifestyle content and videos, the platform targets a highly coveted age demographic while tending to skew more towards female users. Often referred to as RED, the social media platform is perfect for influencer collaborations, brand content, and live streaming.
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Chinese Influencer (KOL) Marketing
Influencer marketing has rapidly grown in popularity across the globe, whether in North America, Europe, or China. In 2021, the influencer industry was valued at $14 billion, which is a 42% increase from 2020, according to Shopify.
Chinese influencers also called Key Opinion Leaders or KOLs for short, have built tremendous trust with their followers. When KOL speak about or promotes a product, they put their reputation behind it, which builds confidence with their followers for that product.
Based on a report cited in the Drum Network, more than 80% of Chinese consumers have purchased products endorsed by an influencer, placing the value of the growing Chinese KOL marketing industry at more than 100 billion RMB (USD 14.8 billion). And since there are many active users on Chinese social media, there are active Chinese influencers all around the world as well, including in major cities in North America.
Many influencers share their day-to-day life with their followers, giving them the sense that they are online friends while appearing to be reputable sources. Chinese KOLs are also already leading the game globally when it comes to live streaming.
Since Chinese shoppers flourish via word-of-mouth marketing and referrals, this is a significant opportunity for brands looking to build their reputation in the Chinese market.
Brands need to seize this opportunity to market their products and story using Chinese KOLs, who are active on multiple platforms including WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, and Little Red Book. The one thing to keep in mind, however, is the need to use the proper type and style of influencers, while also diversifying the KOL’s audience.
Chinese Media Buys
When it comes to amplifying a brand for the Chinese market in specific regions of North America or for specific industry audiences, media buys go a long way.
Sponsored content or paid ads in media outlets utilize an organization’s media relations and allow the benefits of being able to tailor the content to promote the brand, products, and services.
Most Chinese media exists on WeChat, where many potential consumers would be reading articles and news. Tapping into the outlet’s existing audience is an important way to increase brand awareness while also maintaining the brand’s presence on Chinese social media platforms.
However, this process is effective if there are strong call-to-actions for the Chinese market, such as driving them to an existing company’s official WeChat account or group chat — which would enhance overall following — or to an external website for product purchases. Rates for media buys vary significantly based on outlet size, target audience, locality, timing, and goals — but digital marketing agencies, are generally provided lower rates for clients.
Cultural Sensitivity and Relevancy Consultation
It’s important to ensure that the content being shared is relevant and not offensive to the target audience. This is where cultural sensitivity comes in.
Even if the platforms are set up and the promotions are finalized, it won’t matter without appropriate messaging. Take, for example, the significance of the Lunar New Year. Western brands have hopped onto the trend of celebrating this important Asian holiday, predominantly directed toward the Chinese audience. According to Forbes, “the key for a successful campaign for Chinese New Year is to connect authentically with the customer on an emotional level with meaningful activations. Dropping celebratory capsule collections of the spirit animal is not enough.”
Companies should invest time and energy into educating themselves on Chinese traditions, symbolism, and cultural norms — and then align this knowledge with tailored marketing campaigns.
Dolce & Gabbana experienced an infamous downfall due to an out-of-touch video released in 2018, which was extremely offensive to their Chinese customers and caused backlash including the burning of their Dolce & Gabbana products. It’s important to heed this as a lesson about the importance of cultural sensitivity and relevance.
Another simple cultural difference to be aware of are the meanings of numbers and colors. Western culture has deemed the number 13 as unlucky whereas China has a similar implication with the number 4 — which phonetically in Mandarin or Cantonese sounds like another word meaning “die”.
As well, language matters, whether to use Simplified or Traditional Chinese depends if the content is tailored for China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, or other parts of Asia.
Marketing to the Chinese audience requires intentional strategy, paired with a deeper understanding of the unique social media platforms, KOL opportunities, media buy initiatives, and cultural sensitivity.