Why is Content Marketing Essential in China?

Content marketing in China is vital: it provides opportunities to connect with customers and lets you communicate your business expertise and skills.

Creating good content is very different from creating excellent content; people who read your article will see how professional your company is and the advantages they receive from working with you.

Great content marketing requires a lot of energy, dedication, and effort. However, it will result, ideally, in an increase of traffic to your website or even leads!

China has a growing appetite for digital marketing and it’s not a surprise. Half a billion of China’s population spends most of their free time on the internet, connected to social networks where trends are made and forgotten. Marketers in China are all struggling to use the best strategies to attract Internet users, and it seems that one of the most important strategies is to create quality content marketing.

What’s content marketing?

Content marketing is an approach focused on creating and promoting relevant and valuable content to attract and retain a specific target. Content marketing takes commitment for sure, but what you’re looking for is a positive ROI (Return On Investment).

It’s not an easy task though, content marketing has to be promoted and focused on creating and nurturing a relationship with the reader.

Reaching the right audience is the key in China!

As obvious it may seem, you need to define what you’re going to write about and your target market.

Many marketers ignore this fact and neglect this step. Writing a piece of content takes effort, and if you don’t know who you are writing to, you could waste your precious time!

You cannot possibly write great content without first understanding your audience.

The first step is to segment your audience into 4 categories :

• Leads: Those here to do business with you and buy from you.
• Sharers: People who’ll share your content and spread it for you (as long as you have done a good job…)
• Bloggers: They read your article to learn or get new ideas, if they’re nice enough, they could link to your work.
• The KOL: the Key Opinion Leaders or celebrities. They’re respected voices and popular among their community.

These 4 categories are the main audience who will read your articles. You need to define your strategy by adapting your content to the right audience to maximize your reach.

Etnicraft in China, a furniture design shop has created very good content and Sohu (number 2 media in China) opened a contributor space to this brand.

Create original content

Original content will connect with your audience and facilitate authentic engagement and interest. Unfortunately, creating original content is time demanding but the advantages are great! People reading your content will become loyal, and original content can also create leads for your business. Original content can also reflect the professionalism of your company.

Another reason to create original content is for it to be promoted on social media. If you spend time trying to share your ideas and point of view, you want your content to be seen as much as possible, right ?

Coslys a French Cosmetics Brand has invested in quality content and a nice design on Wechat. Results are great, a lot of visitors want to know more about this niche organic brand. Here’s an example post

How to spread your content in China

Baidu is the most important search engine in China. If you wish to boost your ranking, you should think about an SEO strategy on Baidu. By writing original content, Baidu rewards you with a high ranking result when users search for information related to your business or industry.

Of course, there’s a lot more to consider for your Baidu SEO strategy but original content marketing will make you more visible on Baidu.

If your content is on Wechat, you have a limited amount of SEO and you have to promote your content via other user, channels, and on different platforms.

Other Social Networks are also a nice way to promote your content.

Why is that so important in China?

The Chinese are really sensitive to the internet industry and especially with social media. Due to government regulations and laws, the Chinese have created their own networks. On those sites, because of the increasing number of its users, companies from the world around are fighting to penetrate the Chinese market via those platforms. Being on social networks is mandatory for your business!

Promoting your content marketing is essential if you want to succeed in China. It’s a very efficient way to attract leads at a very low cost!

Content marketing is crucial in China because Chinese consumers are really open to them ; constantly following the new trends on the internet, Chinese people like to get some relevant information online and content marketing is a great strategy for companies to attract their audience attention.

Video: a new generation of content

In China, the best content is interactive like videos.

SKII this brand has created a great campaign involving the “leftover” women topic.

AirBnB invested in nice video content.

You’re trying to create a community around your post, by giving them interesting, relevant and accurate information. In order to do so, you clearly need to outline a specific strategy, detailing what you want to achieve with your content marketing.