Zhihu is a Chinese platform positioned as a “question and answer community,” where users can ask questions, provide answers, and engage in extensive discussions and knowledge sharing. Since the introduction of advertising in 2014, Zhihu’s advertising development is still in its early stages, but it has demonstrated significant advertising value, serving as a crucial marketing channel for overseas clients seeking to reach Chinese audiences. So, how can international brands maximize advertising revenue on this platform?
Define Positioning Clearly, Build Core Advantages:
Firstly, the key to successful Zhihu advertising lies in defining clear positioning and building core communication advantages tailored to specific industries or products.
As Zhihu’s audience mainly consists of urban elites with strong purchasing power and consumer desires, emphasizing brand consumption, fashion, and lifestyle. Collaborating with Zhihu often involves high-end advertisers within the same industry, leveraging their excellent quality to initiate word-of-mouth promotion for optimal advertising results.
For instance, consider Jaeger-LeCoultre, a luxury global brand that positions itself towards independent elite individuals. Therefore, in Zhihu’s advertising, Jaeger-LeCoultre actively conveys a sense of brand prestige to the audience, not only effectively enhancing the brand awareness of Jaeger-LeCoultre on Zhihu but also further stimulating the purchasing desire of the target audience.
Utilize Zhihu Ads Formats:
Choose advertising formats that suit the product characteristics, such as hard and soft advertisements, and adopt a flexible combination of communication.
For exampe, hard advertisements can effectively convey selling points and enhance visual effects, while soft advertisements can initiate discussions among the audience through word-of-mouth. For example, the French luxury brand Chanel employs hard advertising on Zhihu while simultaneously creating topics to encourage users to share and discuss products, achieving comprehensive promotional effects.
Personalized Online Marketing for Zhihu Ads:
On the one hand, utilize big data and user behavior analysis for personalized online marketing. By understanding user browsing records and intelligently recommending relevant products, increase the level of advertising personalization and enhance user attention, thereby reducing advertising costs and improving advertising marketing effectiveness. For instance, Taobao, based on user browsing records, intelligently recommends related products, increasing the level of advertising personalization and easily capturing user attention and interest.
On the other hand, by understanding the actual needs of the audience, targeted advertising communication is initiated, which often captures audience attention more easily. Through precision targeting, understanding audience purchasing trends can comprehensively improves advertising marketing effectiveness. For instance, for an audience with a passion for photography, after showing interest in related topics, Zhihu regularly pushes advertisements for photography products and photo editing software. The seamless integration between advertising and content sparks audiences’ consumption desires, enhancing brand stickiness.
Cultivating a Unique Style to Cater to Audience Tastes:
Currently, Zhihu actively fosters a rational and serious cultural ambiance while catering to audience tastes within this atmosphere, deploying creative advertising marketing to establish a unique advertising style that has yielded favorable results. Building a rational appeal in advertising involves highlighting the practical benefits of a product to objectively and authentically stimulate consumer desires. With urban elites as its target audience, Zhihu advocates a rational and serious culture, and although some content also possesses emotional and humorous traits, rationality and seriousness remain its primary value proposition for the entire Zhihu community. In Zhihu’s advertising marketing, the platform tightly revolves around rational and serious value propositions, crafting a distinctive advertising style that effectively drives its sustainable development.
In the Chinese market, Zhihu ads with its large user base and unique social characteristics, provides overseas clients with unparalleled advertising marketing opportunities. Through precise positioning and personalized marketing strategies, advertising on Zhihu for overseas clients is more likely to achieve desired results, facilitating successful expansion into the Chinese market.Just contact Deep Digital China if you need our help on Zhihu.