Our China Blog
Chinese Social Media Marketing for Business: Infographic
Why Chinese social media marketing is particularly important for doing business here? The new infographic from Go-Globe shows some recent numbers illustrating the spread and reach of various social media platforms in China.
First interesting fact is that approximately 9 out of 10 China’s online users have a social media account.
Qzone remains the largest social media platform and QQ the most popular messenger. No platform, however, can challenge WeChat‘s dominance in mobile. read more…
Baidu Ads with PPC – Tutorial, Part II: Baidu Ad Campaign Setup
This is the second part of Baidu PPC tutorial. Here we are going to cover some basic settings of Baidu ads campaign. In the first part of the tutorial, we have discussed Baidu PPC keywords tool and explained how it works.
Baidu ads PPC: setup the ad campaign
Baidu PPC – Tutorial, Part I: Keyword Planner
With Google’s fading into total irrelevance in China, Baidu remains the primary search engines for millions of Chinese. This makes Baidu PPC the first choice for any business considering SEM in China.
Although, it has some formidable local competitors like QiHu and Sogou, Baidu still holds the largest markets share in search engines. Baidu also dominates the increasingly important mobile search market.
read more…
China Business Opportunities in a Nutshell – Infographic
In this post, we are featuring a new infographic on China by our friends from In Other Words, London based translation and localization agency.
It focuses on the number of China business opportunities as it continues to grow and gain ever increasing share of the global economy. By 2020, China’s online market is predicted to surpass that of USA and Europe combined, making ecommerce is one of the most lucrative investment niches. read more…
China Mobile Ads Explosive Growth
China mobile ads industry growth has been nothing short of explosive. As it was recently reported by eMarketer, mobile ads spend in China is expected to double this year compared to 2014. eMarketer predicts that “spending on display and search ads delivered to mobile internet-connected devices will reach $13.98 billion this year, up from $7.38 billion in 2014, and will account for 45% of all digital spend in the country.”
Overall, digital advertising spending has already surpassed TV in China. In fact, TV ads are gradually falling out of favor with the advertisers, mostly due to huge costs, limited targeting options and complete lack of interactivity. TV ads may still be effective for blanket advertising for products that benefit from maximum reach. Unfortunately, whenever more granular approach is required, they lack flexibility. read more…
Chinese Exports in Figures – Infographic
China continues to dominate worldwide manufacturing market with 30% of country’s vast workforce engaged in the Chinese exports sector, compared to only 8.2% in US. Manufacturing also contributes 30% to China’s GDB which makes it the most important sector of the economy.
According to the latest infographic by Go-Globe that details Chinese exports industry, 25% of manufacturing goes to electronics and 17% to machinery with the rest split between smaller categories such as clothing, furniture, plastics etc. read more…
Marketing on WeChat: Is It Worth It?
Since it’s first launch as a chat app back in 2011, WeChat popularity has been growing by leaps and bounds. Today, it is much more than a chat app but a whole ecosystem of related apps with complex functionality. In the last couple of years, Chinese were increasingly moving away from traditional social media outlets, such as Weibo, towards mobile and more private WeChat.
Also, WeChat has become one of the marketing channels for virtually every type of company or a brand in China. Having an official account and actively marketing on WeChat are becoming important elements for every business that realizes the importance of keeping their customers close and engaged. read more…
Mobile Gaming in China, Infographic
In this post, I’d like to share a recently released infographic by Go-Globe presenting the state of mobile gaming in China. Is figures show, Chinese are avid game players with almost every mobile device having at least one game installed on it.
In fact, playing games is the second most favorite activity after chatting on a phone in China. Chinese gamers already outnumber the American ones by 1.6 to 1 and are estimated to have reached 450 million already.
This also shows that games provide a lucrative business opportunity for foreign game makers, although the market is still dominated by local companies. read more…
Are There Any E-commerce Opportunities Left in China?
In just a few recent years, Chinese e-commerce market have become one of the most developed ones in the world. Well functioning ecosystem of online payment and powerful mobile segment has made this market one of the important components of Chinese economy overall.
According to the most recent data, three quarters of B2C market belong to just two platforms – Tmall and JD, while Taobao enjoys complete dominance of C2C market with 95% market share.
None of the foreign e-commerce players were successful in gaining any meaningful market share: this year Amazon has finally decided to open its branded store on Tmall and Macys and Neiman Marcus decided to shutdown their China online ventures. read more…
What Affects Email Delivery in China? Part 2
I’m continuing with how to avoid email delivery mistakes and improve your campaign delivery results. In the article What Affects Email Delivery in China? Part 1, you were able to read about spam filters, anti-spam policy and spam traps. Let’s move on with in-time delivery, sender reputation and abuse.
In-time Email Delivery
There are several reasons why email delivery can be delayed. read more…
What Affects Email Delivery in China? Part 1
There are many email marketing platforms to choose from that are effective and inexpensive. However, when it comes to Chinese market, the choice remains fairly limited.
All the most well-known email marketing platforms in the West, such as MailChimp or ConstantContact, haven’t adapted their platforms for Chinese market and, as a result, email deliverability with those platforms remains quite low in the Mainland. read more…
Infographic: China’s E-learning and Online Education Market
Internet is transforming classrooms worldwide and China is no exception. New technologies and faster internet make online education more convenient and affordable while traditional methods have no choice but to adapt.
I this post, I’d like to share infographic by Edufraction.com that illustrates this trend with some solid data.
In online education, new Chinese start-ups like GenShuiXue.com, which literally means a question “Study With Whom?”, has been offering numerous online courses since only last year. Another company called 17zuoye.com (numbers 1 and 7 sound like the word “together” and “zuo ye” means “homework”) claims to serve more than 7 million students. It has recently raised $100M in series D round reaching reported total valuation of $600M. read more…
Infographic: Integrated Marketing Plan for Chinese Market
Do you have a product or service that you would like to promote in China but are not sure how to go about it? How do you start? What tools should you use? How to integrate all of those channels into one cohesive and effective marketing strategy?
Although the digital landscape in China continues changing, it is safe to assume that the main elements, such as current dominant platforms and leading services, will remain more or less the same for the next 2-3 years. In any case, the following infographic by Sampi Marketing, reflects the present state as of mid 2015. read more…
12 Tips on How to Succeed Selling on Taobao
Chinese have a saying: if you are looking for a solution to a problem – go to Taobao and you’ll find it.
This giant virtual shopping mall has become a staple of modern Chinese culture, a place where one can find practically anything and have it delivered straight to the door in just a day or two.
Taobao has also enabled millions of people in China to supplement their income by selling goods online. Large percentage of those sellers were even able to leave their day jobs to focus entirely on running their online outlets.
Presently, western brands in China primarily sell their products on another Alibaba’s shopping platform called Tmall. Although, similar to Taobao, it is a sort of upscale department store, as opposed to bazaar-style Taobao market. Tmall has been designed to attract buyers who are looking for genuine branded products and are prepared to pay premium for top quality. read more…
Online Payments in China
Chinese ecommerce market has been growing impressively in the last 3-4 years and is expected to reach an astonishing $1 trillion by 2020. In this blog, I wrote extensively on the state of Chinese ecommerce, its unique features and its potential. This time, I would like to share a new infographic by Go-Globe.com, visualizing some figures and trends related to online payment systems that are popular in China.
Presently, none of the common Western online payment solutions, particularly PayPal, managed to achieve any significant presence in China. In addition, Chinese skipped credit cards era almost entirely and jumped straight to online cash. This means that credit cards are not nearly as popular as in the West and are rarely used for online transactions, especially for local purchases. read more…
Marketing on Chinese Financial News Portals in China
In the last few years and thanks to booming economy, Chinese have become enthusiastic consumers of financial news. Most recently, this trend was further stimulated by high stock market returns with even more potential investors looking to take advantage of the stocks rally.
This situation also presents an opportunity to overseas firms offering various financial solutions which could range from personal finance management software to books and videos on investments.
Not surprisingly, most action is taking place online and increasingly on mobile. However, foreign firms are often unaware of major sites and financial news portals that are popular in China. read more…
Mobile Internet in China: 2015 Trends
Here is another look into mobile usage in China from 2015 report by WeAreSocial. There is a clear trend for mobile based internet to increase in size and importance for marketers focusing in Chinese market. Proliferation of cheaper Android handsets and innovations in mobile space have ushered a new digital era in China.
Companies like Tencent in software and Xiaomi in hardware are spearheading the mobile revolution in China with many more companies following their lead. read more…
China’s Digital, Social and Mobile, 2015 Trends
In this post, I’d like to share some new data from the report by WeAreSocial on the state and trends of Chinese digital, social and mobile space.
Overall, all signs indicate that China’s online population will continue growing in both size and complexity throughout 2015. Mobile is becoming the primary way of getting online and platofrms like WeChat, define how people communicate and connect with each other as well as with businesses. read more…
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