The Best Practices of the digital marketing for Luxury in China

Best Practices of the digital marketing Luxury in China

The Internet is part of Chinese life. Web in China is a tool of entertainment or information, 570 million of Chinese Internet users consume an average of 5 hours per week on the net.
42% of the Chinese population is connected, mainly urban, and with strong earnings.
Chinese are addicted to social networks and spend more than 780 million hours on Weibo. Chinese consumers love to interact online and participate in many forums.
Digital media have a very important role because they allow the brand to sensibilize existing and potential customers.

There would be 70% of consumers of luxury that would search on the Internet for brands, at least one time per month. How to connect this Chinese elite society? Find out here.

Luxury in China.

What are the digital tools that we can find in Luxury in China?

1 – Social media – community management

Social networks are part of Chinese life.
Having a social presence is beneficial for the image and for the development of its reputation.

1.1 – A Weibo account

Having a Weibo account is now required for a luxury brand

Example: Chanel’s Weibo

But not only that …

• An active account, comments, retweets and likes
• For a brand to be really popular, it is needed to talk about it on the net
• Maintaining good relationships with key opinion leaders can increase the interactivity of the account

1.2 – The community management

There are other SNS (Social Networks Site) that can influence users. Forums are places of exchange, and a brand must be informed of what is said about it and answer if it’s necessary.

Another platform, like Mogujie

2 – Control your e-Reputation

Baidu has developed the Baidu Brand Zone, a banner for the brand where they can put the information they want such as photos, videos, website …

For example, here is the Baidu Brand Zone of Louis Vuitton

Concerning the e-reputation on Baidu, a brand also needs to control what is said about it, by :

• An information watch
• Content management
• Crisis management

Control and master his reputation goes through the Public Relation related to SEO on Baidu.

3 – Public Relations

There are 2 different public relations, the first one is Public Relations magazine which is to say traditional press on paper, which is very little read by the comfortable class (unless if these media are distributed in strategic locations, like magazine aircraft).

The other one is e-Public relations. It is important to try to get some articles on online media.
A luxury brand in China must be present in the newspapers,  and it is needed that the media talk about it in a good way!

For example, below you can see several articles about Cartier :

4 – Website

A good website is obligatory for luxury brands. Without a nice design, a good implementation product, and basic information in Chinese about the brand … a luxury brand can’t have credibility.
If we look at the various websites of the major luxury brands, their design is not bad, but doesn’t immerse the visitor in their world like in their store.

To me, only Dior has succeed, I invite you to look at their website.

5 – OtoO (Online to Offline)

The best digital tool on OtoO (Online to Offline) is WeChat with the QR Code after you can send news in push-up (only to people who wish to receive it). We can engage online people and make them come to events. We can also make subscribe to people offline (for example store) at an online account.

Here is an example of events used by the luxury brand in China

– Event with a reminder, to remind event to the participants
– Online event to make some people in the shop
– Stores are digitalized, with big screens, and tabs in order for to visitors can continue to follow the brand.

6 – E-Commerce

The growth of e-commerce is booming in China, which offers new opportunities for luxury brands (see this article)
We can measure 242 million online consumers in 2012. This figure will increase up to 48 million per year. Today, a majority of brands have an e-commerce website.
In China, you can choose if you want to be on Tmall or to possess his own website. It is advised to have both.

e-Commerce is growing in China even in luxury for several reasons :

• Many rich Chinese are living in distant towns so ordering online is more practical
• You are not afraid to have copies of the product
• To be delivered at home is more discreet for many officials who don’t wish to be exposed.
• For the business gift (which represents an important market), orders online can be delivered to the company.

The success or the failure of an e-commerce website in luxury in China (or elsewhere) goes through good visibility online and so when you have qualified traffic. See the key success factors of e-commerce in China.

7 – The video

Chinese still consume more and more videos on the Internet: streaming, buzz videos …
I remind you that in 2012, the two Chinese giants Tudou and Youkou merged, so now when you want to watch a video, the ad has been doubled.
In 2012, more than 95% of Chinese Internet users watched videos online.
In 2012, the majority of video actors on the Internet started to cooperate and the deployment of mobile devices has become the meeting of most video websites.

Video allows luxury brands :

• To show their products
• To tell their story, the Chinese are very sensitive to the stories of European brands
• To allow visitors to immerse themselves in the world of the brand
• Video is a very useful tool for working on the image of the brand

8 – Product Placement

A brand that really wants to consolidate its image and has ambitions to be the leader will use product placement to touch unconsciously potential consumers.
We can influence consumers with this kind of advanced advertising techniques.

If you want to have more information about our offer. Let us know.

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Olivier

Marketingtochina