DIGITAL MARKETING IN THE WORLD VS CHINA

China is a digital giant and the main competitor for many countries to capture the market. The research conducted by Exane BNP Paribas and customer engagement specialists Contactlab showed that Chinese shoppers are going to spend on luxury brands in China rathen than overseas. What special digital marketing strategies are implemented in China to make people buy products and services? Why Europe is not that successful? Let’s take a look and make a difference between digital marketing in China and Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

Without doubt, the key tools in Chinese digital marketing are a mobile and fast delivery which is already a standard. In China, number of people using social networks is significantly more than Western countries with 300 million Chinese users, that is the equivalent to the total population of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK all combined.

On the contrary, some European brands are too reliable on e-mail communication, which is ,in my opinion, is going to be outdated.

“The expectations of Chinese consumers include online chat assistance and social elements such as brand and product reviews, as well as the option to pay via WeChat. These elements are supported by most Chinese e-commerce operators, but European brands are not supporting these features yet,” said the report.

	China	Europe
Webpage content	The pages are extremely long: home page, category page, product page, a lot of pictures, videos… However, you can tag and save the products, as well as the stores.	Clean and clear. There may be a need for more research about a product or service to make a final decision.
Popular digital approach	Social media, online banners (a lot of flashy ones), email marketing. Chinese use accounts mostly connected with major third party social media accounts (Weibo, WeChat, QQ), telephone number, or payment account (Alipay).	SEO/SEA, affiliate, social media and email marketing.
Social media and messenger	Weibo,  WeChat,  Youku Tudou (use more than PC or laptop)	Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube
SEO and SEA	Baidu	Google
Affiliate Marketing	The affiliate banners and links. But there is almost no pure price comparison site because there are a lot of shopping platforms allowing business building their complete online stores with independent store views and promotions, also with the in-system checkout process. However, there are quite some white label stores/platforms in China, which you can barely find out it is an affiliate business. Sometimes you can trace the while label business from the alleged “distribution platform”.	The advertisers are mostly price comparison sites or regular websites showing affiliate banners or links.
Brand awareness and consumer behavior	«Word of mouth», blogs with stories, KOL. Chinese love to buy same products because that brings them trusted feeling according to already existed experience.	European consumers are rather loyal to their trusted brands. Europeans dislike especially wearing same product as everybody else does.
Digital Payments	Alipay (from Alibaba) and WeChat Wallet (from Tencent WeChat)	Safety concern has been one of Europeans’ biggest worry for online payments. Various regulations haven’t been speeding up digital payment development to some extent.

Comparison in terms of “Web Content”

To sum up, digital marketing in China is growing rapidly as more companies are looking for methods for marketing, branding, and communication that is relevant to connect suppliers and consumers. Chinese people are really digital people, they like to interact with the latest technology, so I think Western countries should react to the trends and consider to take advantage of Chinese approaches.

Advertisement