Internet Marketing Strategy
ChinaVit! Internet Marketing Strategy
For the purposes of designing and developing a strategy, ChinaVit! will be employing primarily a business-to-consumer model, which is important when determining the most appropriate manner to brand the company in China. Determining the optimal way to enter the Chinese e-commerce market model is also exceptionally important, and involves the development of a thorough understanding of the overarching, governing marketing principles that are the key features of Chinese society as a whole. It is, of course, important to attract as many customers as possible using this new strategy; however, it should also be recognized that the end goal is not only increased sales in the short run, but also long-term brand awareness and loyalty in China. The Chinese market is only now becoming more mature, and it is easy to see how the development of new technologies has shaped the Chinese marketplace.
The Chinese society seems to enjoy vitamins and healthy supplements immensely. A healthy lifestyle—even if the idea of “healthy” is not fully understood by many—has been embraced by the Chinese people, and there is high demand for vitamins in many places in China. More importantly, however, there is significant demand for vitamins that have been produced elsewhere: Australian vitamins have become particularly popular with many Chinese citizens over recent years. There is some suggestion that Chinese consumers prefer both the security of foreign branding and the prestige of foreign branding. Western companies still face significant legal struggles in the Chinese market. The Chinese government prefers Chinese companies, although the Chinese people feel differently; there are few legal protections for foreign firms operating in the Chinese marketplace, and this is always something that these firms should be aware of when making business decisions.
Background: Sina Weibo, Youku, and the Chinese Internet
Sina Weibo is a microblogging platform. While it is sometimes described as the “Chinese Facebook,” the reality is that the site is quite different from the Facebook that many westerners know and understand. Sina Weibo, which will also be called “Weibo” for discussion purposes, is more of a hybrid service: it does the job of both Twitter and Facebook, and allows users to connect with individuals all over China. The objective, then, for the strategy for Sina Weibo will be to engage with the maximum number of users possible. It is important to understand that vitamins in China, particularly vitamins manufactured outside China are in high demand. It was emphasized that the tourists from China managed to boost this trend by bringing suitcases full of vitamins from Australia. Therefore, it is possible to target the consumers without using a large marketing campaign. The second major strength is absence of well-developed internet sites for selling the Australian vitamins to the Chinese customers. In this way it is possible to provide more convenient experience for the consumers to buy healthy supplements online. At the same time, a weakness of the entire process is the need to translate the entire web site in Chinese as well as to provide Chinese-speaking customer support. Also, one of the weaknesses is the need to maintain a high-quality logistic chain in order to satisfy the customers.
Independently, Youku is slightly different from Weibo—it appears, on its face, to be a video hosting service that is very similar to YouTube. In some ways, it is indeed very similar to YouTube—however, there are key differences in the ways that content is curated and as a result, any foreign company that is trying to use Youku for development must understand the structure of advertising on Youku. The opportunity to use direct marketing to consumers is indeed built into the Youku software—but it is expensive to build a comprehensive advertising platform on Youku. Most brands have opted to utilize Youku and its advertising platform as a way to develop brand advertising and awareness rather than to develop direct marketing strategies.
There are still political restrictions on doing business in China. Many Australian companies are adept with Facebook and Twitter, but Sina Weibo and Youku are two completely different companies; these are different services that require a new and different understanding, which is the fundamental purpose of this discussion. However, the government is also promoting economic growth, which is definitely a boon for companies trying to begin branding in Asia.
Usage of Social Media by Chinese Users
Developing relevance can be difficult using these new and different platforms, but it can also be extremely lucrative. These platforms can even be used for sales: indeed, Xiaomi sold millions of smartphones over this platform in a very short period of time, and this is only one example of the many different ways that this platform can be used to market to the people of China. Although the software platform is different, the user base is also different, and to be successful, a company must begin to develop a thorough understanding of the desires of the user base.
Frankie Fu, the vice president of sales and operations at Youku, notes that a recent advertising campaign designed and implemented by the company—a brief advertising stint at the beginning of an online syndicated show—invited interaction by approximately 9.3% of the viewers. The overall effect of this was an advertising campaign that elicited millions of views and billions of impressions. These services have an immense user base, and that user base is much more willing than a western user base, in many cases, to interact with and utilize social media for direct sales, an interesting and potentially lucrative trend in development.
Marketing Strategy Analysis
A growing number of individuals in China’s population are on the internet today, but this does not mean that the average Chinese user is the same or performing the same activities online as their Australian counterparts. In fact, the Chinese consumer does perform many of the same activities as the Australian consumer—but due to the restrictive nature of the Chinese government’s internet policies, these consumers have to perform online tasks on different websites using different software. Weibo is a dominant player in the Chinese market, commanding 56% market share for microblogging—and these users tend to be slightly older and more urban than some of the other microblogging communities. It is important to note, however, that Weibo is not Twitter; it does not follow the same marketing rules as Twitter, despite being a microblogging site.
Microblogging is undoubtedly gaining popularity in China. Many large companies, including Disney, are using the microblogging platforms—along with their many features—to attract Chinese consumers to different products. Youku and Youku Tudou, on the other hand, dominate the video hosting market. These companies have western counterparts like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, but they exist in very separate spaces than their western counterparts.
Targeting and Development
Business to consumer marketing in any country is developed through an integration of social media, however, rather than independent strategizing based on the social media options available. Weibo and Youku are two of the most popular sites in China, and integrating the message and the different strategies for product development is fundamentally important for the overall growth of the product niche in China. Chinese consumers do indeed have a drive for overseas products and goods: vitamins are one of the foreign products that are most highly in demand.
ChinaVit! does indeed have a target audience, but the potential audience is so large that it seems almost unwise to use too much targeted marketing on a platform like Youku—direct, targeted marketing can be used on Weibo much more efficiently through the WeChat feature’s advertisement platform. However, Youku offers advertisers a number of different options at every different price point: banner advertisements, for instance, which give a basic overview of the product could be incredibly useful in the drive to develop greater consumer awareness of the product within China as a whole. Typical advertisers on Youku are indeed producers of fast-moving consumer goods. This is logical: producers of consumer goods need to be able to access their consumer base very quickly and with relative ease. As such, the development of a direct audience through the Youku marketing platform is something that many of these companies develop as fully as possible.
Features Used for Advertising Campaigns
The first goal for Sina Weibo is to establish a presence on the site and develop a relationship with key opinion leaders. The goal for the company will be to develop an impression on the users, but the company must also remain distinctly western in its style: this is part of the attraction that many will have to the company, because of the distrust of many Chinese companies. Advertisements will be targeted at the young and urban, and the goal of these advertisements will be to ensure that customers have an understanding of the brand and what the brand stands for. The Chinese audience is large and there are many people who follow trends, so the use of catchy hashtags using simple and modern English is also recommended. Using both Chinese and English to post on the site can be an incredibly powerful marketing tool for a western company that is trying to develop a market image in China.
Tactical Measures of Success
A short-term measure of success for Weibo will be the development of PR, the number of impressions gotten by the site, and the number of promotions developed by the site. PR development will be measured via the number of retweets or responses to any given posts; impressions will be measured using the number of clicks and visits to the site or outside media, and promotions will be measured through the sale of products or potential customer coverage. All of these facets will help build the brand into a more recognizable Chinese brand: it is important to use Weibo to court quality followers by appropriately crafting their message and by targeting the right Weibo users.
Long-term, the goal will be to creatively integrate materials across different blogging platforms to develop a better brand identity within the Chinese community. Chinese consumers are different from Australian users in that they do not use the same microblogging software, but both Youku and Weibo sites are very customizable. Having an attractive site is part of the creative design that must be considered when building a campaign in the Chinese market.
Maintaining Relevance
As with other social media marketing strategies, it is important to maintain both a Weibo page and a Youku account. An account that is rarely or irregularly updated is one that is going to be largely unsuccessful; developing a good product image using these internet marketing strategies requires a regular posting interval and a dedicated team that is required to ensure that the message and the output on the accounts are following the path set forth by the company as a whole. Linking between these two accounts can also be extremely effective—especially if the company is able to develop a Youku video presence based on more than just banner advertising. Creative media marketing in video can help move consumers through to a product placement page where they can purchase items as well.
Discussion and Conclusions
Marketing in China requires creativity and adherence to long-term objectives. The market is still developing in China, and the technology available to the Chinese consumer is still slightly different than that of their western counterpart; this requires an integrated knowledge of the Chinese culture and of the different marketing tools available. Ensuring that different strategies are successful requires careful analysis and attention paid to analytics on both Weibo and Youku; this is incredibly important for the overall development of understanding of the market. Content curation, of course, remains one of the biggest problems for any company that is trying to integrate into the Chinese social media network. Like any culture, the Chinese have their own cultural memes and trends; remaining abreast of these trends requires further integration and collaboration with Chinese professionals on the market. Integrating with Chinese professionals on content is one of the best ways to build a brand name and develop brand awareness in China—especially because prestige in branding still plays such a significant role in the Chinese marketplace.
References
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