Who doesn’t love to travel and surround themselves with other cultures. To see how other nationalities devise marketing campaigns. So, last week I traveled to Castilian Barcelona for the International Search Summit. In addition to meet up with our Spanish partner, there were many interesting issues discussed during the International Search Summit. Of course I would like to share those key takeaways with you. Our next destination: China

China

A very interesting country for marketing outside of Europe is China. That is what Christina Xu of Webcertain showed us at the International Search Summit. And she is absolutely right about that. I understand that a huge population of 1.3 billion, of which 730 million people are connected online, sounds very interesting to many entrepreneurs. But everything that works in other markets does not work in China. All platforms and channels that you use as an online consumer, are not being used by the Chinese. If you want to successfully enter the Chinese market, you need to be able to change.

China is absolutely not an easy target group and no easy country to sell your products.

• What language do the speak?
  • China knows more than 56 ethnic groups and over 80 different languages.
• Where do you start?
  • China has 34 different regions. Those regions are so different that they should be treated as separate countries.
  • China has 142 cities with more than 1 million inhabitants (In 2025 there will be 221, according to Christina).
  • The Chinese population represents over 18% of the total world population.

So, think in regions, think in cities and think local.

Tip 1: Host your website in China

Local hosting speeds up the loading time. It takes 32,12 seconds for a visitor from China to load a website that is hosted in the UK. A characteristic of the average visitor is that they are impatient. The Chinese will not wait for a website to load this long and your competitor is only one click away. However, hosting your website in China is complicated. You need permission from the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology through a ICP license (ICP 备案 ).

Tip 2: Fill your website with lots of content

The Chinese use more content on the pages than we are used to. Take this into account when setting up your website in China.

Amazon in the Netherlands versus Taobao (The Chinese counterpart of Amazon).

The Chinese want to know more about the brand. The more content, the longer they stick to the website and the faster they return. Also in China: The more content there is on the website, the more backlinks they get to their website.

Chinese people are used to busy environments online. In real life they are also accustomed to that hustle and bustle.

Tip 3: Increase your visibility on Baidu

Google is blocked in China and therefore the Chinese use other search engines.

• Baidu -> by far the most used search engine in China (76%)
• 360 Search -> Baidu’s biggest competitor (8%)
• Shenma -> mobile search engine (9%)

* April 2017

Companies must be visible on Baidu. But search engine optimization (SEO) is not an optimal strategy for the short term. It is a gigantic country and you can’t just target the whole of Europe at the same time. Advertising in the paid search results is, according to Christina, the most effective way for better findability.

Tip 4: Go mobile

90% of the Chinese citizens has access to the internet through their mobile phones. You simply can’t ignore mobile if you want to reach the online Chinese people. A good accessible website for a mobile device is not a choice, but a must.

Tip 5: Sell your brand

In China, you have to start from scratch. You cannot take advantage of the reputation you have already built up in Europe. So you have to think carefully about the best strategy to trigger citizens of this East Asian country for your products. The Chinese are obsessed by ‘brands’. They don’t buy products, they buy brands. So make sure you sell your brand.

Tip 6: Go Social

The Chinese are the world’s largest socially active online population. The Western social media channels that we know and frequently use are blocked in China, so they have their own social channels. Not Facebook, but WeChat. Not YouTube, but Youku. Not Twitter, but Weibo.

The biggest social media platform in China is WeChat. WeChat is the super app that is interwoven into the daily life of the Chinese. It’s important to be active and to engage with your target group on WeChat. WeChat has 768 million active users every day. If you want to do business in China, you can’t ignore this medium.

Tip 7: THINK LOCAL

So what are you waiting for?
Your competitors have certainly already spotted the Chinese opportunities and found their way to China. So get started and find your target group 8.000 km away. If you don’t have Chinese marketing expertise in-house, make sure you work with people who do have this expertise. You only have one chance to make a good first impression in China.

If you have any questions about the Chinese market, please check our page and contact me.