With more and more Chinese students going abroad to study, many brands in study abroad sector are investing much more in Chinese marketing. They include universities, study visa, international student insurance, language training, student accommodation, etc. However, some of them are not going the right direction and the return is far from expectation.
Based on our past experiences and observations, we have concluded some typical mistakes in Chinese marketing strategies.
Inappropriate use of Chinese media platforms
Some brands establish presence on Chinese media platforms just because of the large user base. However, some platforms don’t have the correct user base. And they also lack reasonable combination of media platforms and correct content strategy. Let’s see where they go wrong:
-A university to promote engineering programs on Little Red Book (70% are female users)
-A language training brand to launch Baidu PPC to drive traffic without proper building of brand awareness
-A student accommodation service provider to cover nearly all major Chinese media platforms with the same operation and content strategy.
In the end, they spend much time and money but get little in return.
Inappropriate messages to the Chinese target audience
It’s very important for brands to deliver key messages to target audience. However, some brands in study abroad sector forget to localize these messages for the Chinese market. Sometimes they look like these:
-A study insurance brand to mention cost-effectiveness as its USP. However, all its competitors in the Chinese market provide cost-effective services.
-A university emphasizes on how advanced its programs are. However, Chinese students pay more attention to the rankings and career development.
Sometimes their unique selling points (USP) in other countries might not be advantages in China considering a different competitive situation.
Inappropriate sense of brand reputation in China for study abroad sector
In terms of branding, brand reputation is as important as brand awareness. Some brands invest much on brand awareness however few on reputation. Customers will have second thoughts working with them especially when other brands have a better reputation.
Now that we are aware of the typical mistakes and the reasons behind, let’s try to avoid those. If you were doing it wrong, let’s fix it and do it right. Contact Deep Digital China and we will help you make a solid strategy.