China has been at the forefront of fintech growth and is the largest fintech market in the world.
In terms of investments, according to the Accenture analysis, the value of fintech deals in China in 2018 was $25.5 billion. That’s a nine-fold increase over the previous year and accounts for 46% of all fintech investments globally in 2018.
Fintech in China
China’s leadership in fintech is not surprising. The country possesses all the right attributes that boost fintech firms including mostly laissez-faire government policies, a large and underserved online and digitally savvy population as well as an underdeveloped banking sector.
Whereas building a great product is the first step towards capitalizing on the opportunities this industry offers, deploying the right fintech marketing techniques to make it big is often a challenge, especially in a market dominated by a few giant tech companies like China.
This article is dedicated to marketing strategies that fin-tech companies should apply to compete in China in 2019 and on.
1. Know your Fin-tech audience
When it comes to fin-tech marketing, you’re going to first need to identify the market sector you’re going for – this directly impacts your use of digital channels and tactics as well as dictates where the most time and energy should be spent.
Who are you attracting?
What channels are your customers using?
What do they like to read about? Who are your competitors?
Benchmark your competition. How can you capitalize on the weaknesses of your competitors?
…
Rather than trying to reach everyone in the market, appeal to your niche and the value of your product and service will become much clearer to those who need it.
2. Go mobile with your fin-tech marketing initiatives
Everything in China is mobile, and if you’re not basing your marketing initiatives around these precious handheld devices, you’re not gaining the best from your marketing effect to connect with Chinese consumers.
So what does it mean for you as a fin-tech brand?
Ensure that you have a mobile-responsive website. In doing so, you’ll not only rank better and higher in search results but are more likely to create conversions from the visitors you’ll receive.
And with more than 50% of all online searching being done on mobile, it’s important to ensure an optimal digital experience for searchers.
Make sure your website looks and behaves amazingly on mobile before you waste money on ads, traffic, SEO efforts, and more.
A full mobile-based experience doesn’t stop at responsive websites only.
It also means your marketing campaigns should revolve around Chinese’s favorite mobile platforms or apps. They can be social media, e-commerce, or other entertainment apps.
Chinese consumers hardly get on the browser and type in your website. Instead, they may know and access you through their powerful all-in-one apps.
So, work with apps or mobile platforms, which are related to your products for extra exposure and a convenient user experience.
3. Position your business as an authority with quality content
Content is more valuable than ever. Especially in the fintech marketing space!
Except for those graduating from finance-related majors or working in such fields, an average Millennial is often confused or uneducated about the financial situations surrounding themselves and numerous financial services.
They can be left helpless and look rigorously for information to improve their financial status.
A recent study found that 45 percent of Millennials want financial products and services that help them handle their financial situation, but 37 percent said they could not find resources online to educate them on vital financial topics.
That’s not only a shocking statistic, but a great area to step in and be the hero of the day with your fintech content marketing efforts.
Increase brand awareness and credibility
Valuable content builds trust and trust is vital for selling anything, especially a financial product!
By creating content designed to address the specific problems and needs of your ideal customers, you attract qualified prospects and become a trusted expert in their regard.
Drive more traffic
If you build your reputation through valuable content, you will absolutely bring in more business and more success to your company.
Providing keyword-optimized content gets you a 434% chance of ranking higher on search engines, thus being discovered by more buyers. see top article about how to boost your traffic in China
Generate high quality leads
Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13 times more likely to experience positive ROI for their marketing efforts.
4. Social media is the buddy of everyone, including you
The link between social media and financial services is dynamic in China, where 46% of the population, or 640 million people, are active social network users.
Social media has become a core marketing channel for some companies, especially online peer-to-peer lending (P2P lending) companies as well as small business lenders. Large traditional firms are also embracing social media as a way to market their products and services.
Using social media, financial services companies are able to reach their most valuable customers, interact with them, understand them, and turn them into paying customers.
Companies are also able to use data gathered from social media to improve their sales and marketing techniques.
See top Marketing strategies on Social Media in China.
WeChat dominates the Chinese mobile market with 1 billion MAUs (monthly active users), having completely evolved the way Chinese people socialize online, from communication to payments.
According to Tencent, 60% of users open the app more than 10 times a day, with 21% of users opening WeChat more than 50 times per day. In addition, the average daily time spent on the app is more than 66 minutes, with 17% of users spending 4 hours or more per day on the app.
To put it simply, WeChat is a super app, commonly referred to as ‘The App for Everything’.
Users can perform a wide range of activities through its broad ecosystem:
-Making payments
-Scheduling doctor appointments
-Paying traffic fines
-Bike sharing (Mobike)
-Managing Credit Cards
-Booking transportation
-Checking crowd density
-Searching for online trends
-Making contributions (‘Donate Your Step’)
-Business communication and tracking
-Calling landlines or other mobile devices
-Virtual Reality
-Purchasing insurances
Since Wechat is multifunctional, fin-tech brands need to understand which aspect of Wechat should be utilized for branding and marketing.
- As a social media platform
Wechat is a very unique social media which is both similar and different compared to Facebook.
From this perspective, marketing on Wechat also involves having an official account where brands can push messages to their followers, run advertisements on newsfeeds as well as organize creative interactive activities to engage followers.
Check here for more information about Wechat marketing.
- Wechat as a trading platform
WeChat is showing that messaging channels, at least in China, are where people like making financial transactions?
Its parent company, Tencent, now has a license that allows it to sell mutual funds on WeChat and give users more options to buy funds sold on the platform.
Chinese people love texting — text is disrupting the telephone and becoming the primary way to communicate not just socially but also in a business context.
It makes sense to use conversation as a platform on which businesses are transacted.
- Wechat for Customer service
A growing number of customers expect real-time responses from their service providers.
When customers are not happy with the service they are receiving and want to vent their frustration, they increasingly turn to public channels, aware that no company wants negative publicity.
Thus more and more banks and insurance companies are adding social media as a permanent channel for retail customer interaction, fully integrated into Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems.
Top article about WeChat Marketing
5. Influencers in China are more powerful than you think
Influencers seem to be a must when it comes to marketing techniques in China, and fin-tech companies are under-using them.
In fact, very few financial companies are tapping into the potential of using social influencers to market and promote their product.
Influencers are valuable in that they already have the attention and a loyal fanbase who trust and follow their advice. For critical decisions like those related to finance, advice and suggestion are even more important.
Let experts or well-known speakers in your field discuss you and show their fans how your products are advantageous.
With countless social stars available on social media who can own up to millions of followers – it’s a great strategy that instantly generates awareness of your products.
Carefully select influencers that attract your target customers and reflect the image your brand wants to portray. Not all KOLs can represent effectively financial services.
Besides the numbers, you should also look at the quality of the influencers you’re working with especially when China is famous for faking the following issue.
6. Videos – short form or long form?
Short-form videos and their platforms are getting huge attention from marketers, media, and experts. However, consider how your financial products can fit in with this form of content.
Meanwhile, long-form content is better to provide knowledge in depth.
Finance-related information can be boring to read. However, there are always ways to make it more interesting and interactive through videos.
The motion picture is one of the true forms of content where the focus of the consumer is fully directed and concentrated on the media in front of them. And that’s a very powerful marketing tool.
Co-producing videos with influencers are double effect. This is a great way to generate awareness for your product.
OUR CASE STUDY
FenixMarkets is a Forex trading firm in Australia that wanted to target Chinese Private investors.
GMA has helped this finance Firm to develop their data base of Chinese prospects
CAMPAIGN OVERVIEW
- Maximize the Chinese new user registrations
- Acquire high-quality Prospects
- Create from scratch the brand awareness and the Reputation
TARGET AUDIENCE
Chinese Private White collar interested in financial products.
CAMPAIGN STRATEGIES
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Lookalike
Build a lookalike audience Business strategy
- Re-targeting + display of Site Ads
- Re-marketing leads to bringing them back into the conversion funnel
- Re-target Cold Traffic
WHO WE ARE: A PURE DIGITAL PLAYER FOCUS ON RESULTS
We are a digital marketing agency specializing in lead generation, and we know quite well the finance industry in China.
- If you have a project in mind, don’t hesitate to contact us for an in-depth discussion with our Specialist
- 30min of free consulting and One Coffee if you come to meet us in Shanghai
- Feel free to ask about our case studies & credential (you will be surprised!)
- We do not have Standard Pricing, we create tailor-made quotations according to our client’s target & Plan