Many clients have come to us and ask about Chinese digital marketing in the past few years. With the very visible influx of Chinese tourists, international students and immigrants to Canada, it’s becoming a trend that cannot be ignored globally no matter what industry you are active in.

Speak with any business owners, managers, or marketers who have had the experience handling clients from any different culture. The information you learn from them will be extremely valuable and you may even find that these pieces of advice will save you a lot of money and resources.

No matter how foreign or difficult the idea may seem to you, there’s always a start.

The first step of many businesses trying to think about promoting themselves to the Chinese community is often to find out exactly what the whole concept means. The first mistake many makes is to assume that by simply translating texts and marketing messages into the Chinese language will be enough. Try and launch a Chinese targeted campaign through Facebook or Twitter using well written Chinese contents and captivating designs, you will likely find a rather disappointing ROI.

You have to first respect and understand the cultural differences, trends that are unique in their culture, purchasing behavior differences, and more. You might have heard of the app, WeChat, which is almost the number one major tool that you must be aware of in order to even start and think about running any Chinese digital marketing campaigns. WeChat is more than a combination of Whatsapp, Facebook, and Twitter. It is a tool that basically solves and handles many of its user’s daily activities from connecting with people, personal finances, insurance, travel, and more.

Contents are also very important when you plan a Chinese digital marketing campaign. It’s more than just a simple translation of the text. You have to use engaging content, up-to-date and trendy phrases.

WeChat

With over 900 million monthly active users, it is the primary source used by the Chinese community to engage with businesses and brands.

Setting up an official company account on WeChat is an important step. Choosing between whether to use a Subscription Account or a Service Account is important depending on the nature of your business and digital marketing plan.

Weibo

Like a “micro-blog”, it’s more like Facebook than Twitter. This serves a very important function to the Chinese community. Brand engagement is important and rich contents and information can be easily shared on Weibo resulting in high conversion rates.

Advertising

Proper ad placement through Chinese targeted media is important in order for you to maximize your ROI. This requires an understanding of your specific target audience, product/service, and goals. Influencer marketing or KOL (Key Opinion Leader) marketing is a very popular and cost-effective way to reach a high volume of target audience easily when the choice was carefully made.

Chinese Designs

Every culture is different in taste and preferences. Creating captivating designs that work with the Chinese culture is important in order to properly convey your message and to achieve your marketing goals effectively.