DOING BUSINESS IN CHINA

When it comes to business and trade, China is the main game on the planet. On almost every measure, it is now bigger than the rest, and getting bigger every year. As such, China can scarcely be ignored by any business looking to expand operations beyond its own domestic market.

WE OFFER MANY SOLUTIONS TO HELP YOU MARKETING IN CHINA

Most of us believe that these days, digital marketing is the only way to get results. While this may be true for a specific target market, some of the best marketing ideas happen offline. Great marketing strategies are those that combine both online and offline ideas seamlessly, in one complete package.

Online Marketing

Website hosting inside Mainland China

It is a common question: Does my Chinese website need to be hosted inside Mainland China?

The answer is: No, you don’t need to. However, we do recommend you host it in Mainland China. Why? Please continue reading.

We recommend you host your website in Mainland China, as website localisation hosting should make your website more accessible to your target users, and avoid the Great Firewall of China, which helps with Chinese SEO. Having dedicated Chinese web pages is a must for any business wanting to sell to China. Your website is the first contact with your prospects. Even if your product is sold offline, consumers will still be looking online to read about your great product and services.

As of September 2015, around 3,000 websites were blocked in mainland China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau) under the country's policy ... Also note that many of the sites listed may be occasionally or even regularly available, depending on the access location or current events ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_China

Chinese website benefits

  1. Become a digital hub for your Chinese marketing campaigns
  2. Website hosting in China makes your website more accessible to your target users
  3. Having a Chinese domain is a distinct identifier for China
  4. Make sure your Chinese website meets the needs of Chinese internet user experience

HOW we help you to build a Chinese website?

  1. Chinese Website Design and Development: We offer website localisation and development service with graphic design. The websites we make are Baidu SEO friendly, easy-to-use, CMS (Content Management System) solutions and tailor-made for you to enter China market, which not only attract your target Chinese audience, but perform well on China search engines. We can also help you to set up specific landing pages if you plan to do Chinese Baidu PPC or social media marketing.
  2. Chinese Website Hosting: We host your Chinese website on robust and resilient cloud server rapidly using BIHE ICP (Internet Content Provider) license.
  3. Makes your website be more accessible to Chinese users: Adopt content delivery network (CDN) to deliver content to users from the nodes that are nearest to them, accelerating the response to user requests and increasing the response rate.

PPC Benefits

  1. Gain rapid exposure and get found by your Chinese target audience on Baidu via paid search
  2. Immediately increase the traffic to your Chinese website
  3. Increase the number of enquiries and drive sales via paid search channel
  4. Improve brand awareness and recognition for your company
  5. Easy to measure stats and data

Just as in the West, a website is not enough. It must be found using search engines. In China, Google is censored however, it has a Chinese equivalent that is Baidu.

Baidu PPC is one of the fastest and cost effective ways to reach people who are actively searching for products in your niche. Since Baidu is the most popular Chinese search engine with the largest market share, it is often the primary venue for running pay-per-click marketing. Moreover, for highly competitive areas, running Baidu ads is often more cost effective than SEO.

Baidu pay-per-click starts generating traffic almost immediately while SEO is a long term process. Although similar to Google in principal, Baidu PPC campaigns differ in several important aspects. First of all, only companies registered in China are allowed to run Baidu ads. This means that opening an account requires documentation and has to go through a manual approval process.

Second, working with Baidu PPC backend can be tricky (this is besides the fact that it is entirely in Chinese). Finally, Baidu ads optimization takes skills and experience. Achieving decent ROI on Baidu PPC campaign is a matter of both strategy and using proper techniques in keyword research, bidding, ads design and testing.

Our service covers the application to open advertising account with Baidu and other engines, all the way through approval and subsequent account setup.

Keyword research is the foundation of a successful pay-per-click campaign and it is the first step that we undertake with every China PPC campaign. Keywords are selected on the basis of search volume vs. competitiveness, which would eventually determine campaign’s cost effectiveness.

Once the ads are up and running, we will continue to constantly adjust the bids, tweak ad copies and visuals, perform A/B split tests in order to optimize CTR (click-through-rate). The results will be clearly shown in our periodic Baidu PPC progress report.

How We help you?

We will manage your PPC account and optimise the performance on a daily basis. You only pay when someone clicks on your ads.

  1. Keyword Research
    We will provide a keyword proposal by using Baidu PPC keyword planner tool. We highly recommend you NOT directly translate the keywords from English, as the keywords on Baidu are different from Google.
  2. Daily Management
    We will monitor the performance and keep optimising the keywords, ad copies and bids etc.
  3. Data Analytics
    We will analyse the PPC performance data by using Baidu Tongji (Analytics), so that we can see the trends and optimise the conversion rate.
  4. Monthly Reports
    Based on data analytics, we will report weekly/monthly on work completed, results achieved against objectives and recommendations to optimise your account. Reports are customised to meet your marketing needs.

Other Search Engines in China

We specialize in running PPC with Baidu, Qihoo or Sogou – the three major Chinese search engines. While Baidu offers the largest reach, especially on mobile, advertising with the other platforms can be considered as another option.

SEO Benefits

  1. Be found by your Chinese target audience on Baidu via organic search
  2. Improve the Chinese keyword ranking on Baidu
  3. Improve the Baidu Rank
  4. Increase the organic search traffic to your Chinese website
  5. Increase the webpages indexed by Baidu
  6. Increase the number of enquiries and sales

We will listen to you, keep focused on your needs and your Chinese target audience, review current analytics if available, do competitor research, discuss project timeline and develop a tailored SEO strategic plan for you.

Because your Chinese potential customers are on Baidu, the largest search engine in China.

Although Baidu learns from Google, compared to Google SEO, Baidu SEO has a few different tactics because Chinese internet users have their unique behaviours. Our Baidu SEO service will focus on your target audience to provide a bespoke Baidu SEO strategy and package for your business and value to your target audience, allowing you to build long-term success in Chinese SEO, and to improve the profitability of your business.

On-site Search Engine Optimisation

We work with you to analyse your website and discover the aspects to enhance the Chinese user experience which is different from Western, and also make it easier for China’s biggest search engine Baidu to index your Chinese website.

The key on-site aspects we research are: website submission to Baidu, website structure, keyword structure, meta tags (title/keyword/description), header tags, internal links, organic content creation integrated with the target keywords, on-site image / video optimisation, broken links fixed and various other aspects which make your site SEO friendly in China.

Baidu Off-site Search Engine Optimisation

Link building is a powerful method for off-site SEO and relevance is its key. Market Me China will create backlinks and drive target traffic to your website and generate conversions to your business.

Our Baidu Off-site SEO can also help you to improve your PR especially reputation management on the biggest search engine in China? In another word, we call it Search Engine Reputation, which we can help you create and publish branded posts / articles on third-party platforms, optimise the rankings of published content on Baidu, as well as optimise the drop-down box on Baidu search bar, i.e. if you are a wine brand, when a user search 进口红酒 (Imported Wine) and 红酒 (Wine), the drop-down box on Baidu search bar will recommend your brand.

Performance Tracking, Ongoing Reporting and Improvement

Performance tracking is essential for your business, not only does it allow us to show you where we have been, but set goals for the future. We use Baidu Tongji (Analytics), a powerful tracking system, to analyse the most up-to-date and reliable data, so that we can understand the trends and take actions to continually improve the performance.

Based on the performance tracking, we will provide you with customised weekly/monthly reports, including information about overall website traffic and trends, landing page stats, rankings for target keywords, Baidu Integrated Marketing performance, target Chinese audience engagement etc.

China Social Media Marketing Benefits

  1. Improve brand awareness and reputation for your company
  2. Build the trust and the relationship with your followers / customers
  3. Drive traffic to your website
  4. Generate conversions and drive sales
  5. Improve customer service and brand loyalty

Chinese Social Media Platforms

You might think of Facebook and Twitter as being the key platforms worldwide to market your products or services, unfortunately in China they are blocked.

Chinese internet users use their own Social Media platforms in China, such as Tencent Wechat (#1 mobile communication and private social networking app in China), Weibo (equivalent of Facebook and Twitter in China), Youku & Tudou (equivalent of YouTube in China), Xiaohongshu (also known as Little Red Book, a content sharing social platform where users can post product photos with reviews and tips for other users), DouYin (Chinese version of Tik Tok, short video sharing platform) and more.

Chinese Social Media Marketing

China Social Media Marketing (SMM) has become popular for most online marketing campaigns. Our SMM service enables your business to communicate with your Chinese audience in a way that is sensitive to Chinese culture.

An effective social media marketing campaign develops a relationship between you and your customers by engaging them directly in promoting your products or services.

We understand that in China, it is extremely important to build a good relationship (“guanxi”) with your current and potential customers, as well as the value of online PR activities.

We are here to work with you to develop your Chinese social media strategy and manage your social media accounts in China.

How can we help you with China SMM?

  1. China social media strategy creation: platform selection, objective analyse and content strategy.
  2. China social media setup: WeChat official account, Weibo official account, Youku channel etc based on your needs; suggestions on branded profiles in Chinese.
  3. Chinese post creation: create daily / weekly posts on WeChat or Weibo.
  4. Chinese subtitling for your video, or Chinese video creation by our professional filming associates.
  5. Followers building and communication with followers using the right tone.
  6. Create marketing campaigns (i.e.KOL campaigns) to build more followers and drive more sales.
  7. Monthly consulting and reports.

Offline Marketing

Trade shows are an important part of business and can be ideal venues to unveil new products, network with other professionals in your industry, and buy or sell products for your business. These professional conventions can attract thousands of exhibitors and tens of thousands of registered media, analysts, and potential customers. Exhibiting at a high-profile trade show can bring accolades and attention to your business. If you think your business is ready to exhibit at a trade show, we can help you got everything properly jacked up.

HOW CAN WE HELP YOU attend shows in CHINA?

1. locate the appropriate shows for your business

Every industry has at least one trade show, and it’s not uncommon to see multiple groups catering to one sector. We maintains lists of every major trade show in China, including its exhibitors, participants in previous year. We help you select the appropriate shows relevant to your business according to your target market and audience.

2. Analyze Your Marketing Budget

It’ll cost a minimum of $5,000 to put on an exhibit that attracts attention. Skimping at a trade show isn’t a good idea. Smaller companies were in the back corner of a separate room from the main exhibits, cutting their foot traffic dramatically.

If you have enough budget, we can book one or more individual booth for you. You can also share booth with other organizations that are our members,  a simple display of your products will do. If you can’t afford all of this finally, we can still help you attending rather than exhibiting.

3. Register and Book

Trade show registration often opens up months in advance. The best spots always fill up fast, and even if you do register early, you’re not always guaranteed the spot you want. Trade show organizers are notorious for last-minute booth changes.

We help you can choose a prime space within the event hall. Location really does make a huge difference, so don’t run the risk of being shoved into a dark corner at the back. We know how to get things done you wouldn’t have thought about.

5. Identify and Contact Attendees

We’ll review attendees early to identify “who’s who” for the show. We can send out email or make a phone call to set up appointments with attendees to stop by your booth, especially attendees from industry benchmarking enterprise.

6. Prepare Your Booth and Products

We provide logistical support before, during, and after the event,  pack and ship displays and promotional items to the event location. At the event, we complete registration and setup of the booth. When the event is complete we re-pack everything and ship it back to the you.

We also help you order any materials needed for your booth in advance. This includes banners, business cards, brochures, all in Chinese. Remember your competition will be prepared whether you are or not, and they’ll gain valuable traction over you.

7. represent your business

If you can not attend the show, we can represent your business and your brand at the event. Our team will give all your target audience members their first real insight into who you are and what you do.

8. Always Follow Up

After the show is over, we will provide you with all contacts from the trade show with business cards. We will also send an email to follow up with anyone who visited your booth, thanking them for visiting, providing additional information, and offering a follow-up meeting or demo sample.

 

Over the last 10 years or so, “print” has become something of a nasty word among those advertisers clamoring to be a part of the digital land rush. Lost in the hype about social media buys and online presence, though, is the fact that old-fashioned magazine advertising still works. Below are reasons magazine advertising should still matter to your business:

  1. More targeted: specific magazine titles appeal to specific target groups more so than a newspaper advert.
  2. Long Life: magazines have a longer “life” than newspapers, they sit about in doctor’s waiting rooms, magazine racks and with collectors.
  3. Pass-on readership – people may pass magazines on to their friends and family which will increase exposure of your advert
  4. Status – some magazine titles are well respected in their field, so an advertisement in these will increase your product/service’s prestige by association.