If you’ve planned marketing activity in China, you’ll know by now that the digital landscape is vast, complex and ever-changing. This month we take a look at a new platform that is a huge player in the youth market.
Douyin, another name Tik Tok, is a short-video App with powerful editing capabilities. It enables users to add music and special effects to their videos to make them more interesting and creative. It is now the No.1 free short-form video streaming app in China.
As the cost of acquiring online customers is getting higher and higher, it is becoming harder to to expand the customer base. It is an urgent issue to tangle by offline business to connect with online users and to achieve conversions.
2018 witnessed people’s attention shifting to short video platforms. As a leader in the field, Douyin rises to be a new online traffic hub. How could the businesses catch the bonus of the short video marketing?
On October 30, WeChat Apply representative attended Douyin Blue V Ecosystem Conference in Beijing Hilton Hotel where Douyin introduced its functionality and released a number of case studies of Douyin’s enterprise official account in details. We had some useful take-aways to share with our blog readers. During the conference, Point of Interest (POI) function was referenced to be a sharp tool to help off-line businesses.
POI function enables businesses to obtain exclusive location icon in Douyin video. Click on the icon, users can see all the video content of the account owner. Businesses can recommend products, coupons, shop events to users through their POI pages.
POI page establishes a bridge between offline businesses and online users. While guiding users to browse videos, it helps users get the relevant information about the business. It shortens the time for users to explore. It improves conversion efficiency and effectively guides users to the offline stores. We summarised 3 effective approaches in this blog. Hopefully they would be helpful on your China marketing practice.
Approach 1: POI + DOU Paid Ad: Let more target users see your store
Flowery Courtyard was a local holidy inn in Xishuangbanna, a forest region in South West China, It had no regular customer base and lacked online tractions before they launched their Douyin Campaign.
Flowery Courtyard uses the daily life of a budding pet as an unique video content and uses POI function to publish video with store information. To enhance the exposure, the business also uses DOU paid ad function to amplify the promotion content. The DOU paid ad function was purchased to push recommended content to those interested users selected by Douyin smart big data demographics. During the 3 month period, 23% of new customers were converted via this combination approach.
Tips: The core competence of POI with DOU paid ad function is based on high-quality content relevant to user’s preferences. It has to be accurate targeted and then improves the probability of fans coming to the store to consume. It is a good choice for offline stores to get exposed widely and to find target people quickly and accurately.
Approach 2: POI+ Online Coupons, close the user consumption loop
The Old Wharf is a 17-year-old hot pot restaurant chain in China. It has nearly 100 stores in the country. The chain is proud of its wide brand distribution, high visibility and high frequent customer visits. During the National Day season, the Old Wharf made a good use of the POI function and online coupon function. The campaign led to a significant increase of guests numbers in restaurants nation wide.
The Old Wharf firstly chose a 200k fans base dining related KOL to preheat the campaign. the KOL draw users to to visit their Douyin POI page. Upon arriving at the page, customers can get online coupons to be redeemed at the Old Wharf selected offline stores.
Through the combination of displaying online coupons and POI, the Old Wharf attracted users enter their offline stores repeatedly. the guests were encouraged to shoot and share their own video inside the restaurants. It worked very well on attracting young consumers.
One of the Old Wharf restaurants got more than 13,000 visits in 20 days. The store sales increased rapidly.
Using the combination of “POI + card vouchers”, online traffic is successfully converted offline, stores won by gaining store consumptions and customer won by enjoying discount coupons.
Tips: The core of POI + voucher sits in the display of campaign activities and specific store information, which triggers users’ willingness to purchase. the following case study Black Valley will show you how to riase relevant topics, then integrate businesses’ selling points with your target users’ interest points.
Approach 3: POI+ Topics, Use hot topics to attract user generated content
Black Valley is a tourist attraction in Chongqing, a tire 1 city in China South West. They raised keyword topics such as “heat dissipation”, “red seedlings”, “cooling down” and so on. Users can see the store POI page when they participate in the topics. Users can see the scenic intro, photos, address, business hours, and can call up for inquiries. Black Valley invited local KOL Miss Red Miao to shoot live videos on site and interact with the passing-by tourists. They also encourage tourists to shoot the imitate videos at the same shooting spot where the really hot KOL video was firstly shot. Black Valey gave those participants incentives to share their imitate videos, therefore increasing users creativeness and sharing.
One piecd of user generated video reached 2.5million times. With high participation topics and interesting video content, Black Valley successfully spurred fans’ interest, shortened the communication path and increased online conversions.
Tips: POI+ Topics work well for the brands relevant to hot topics. The hot topics can attract online users to participate, then push up the topics to be an explosive one, therefore gathering high visits and exposure.
Conclusion
Online users’ behavior path is see-attention-interest-search-action. Douyin simplified this process, enabling business to reach users directly. The introduction of the POI function not only shortens the brand marketing path but also improves communication efficiency.
As the short video becoming more popular, Douyin’s commercial ecosystem are closing the loop from marketing to sales, empowering businesses to keep progressing in marketing. Overseas brands should definitely keep a close watch on how Douyin’s commercial value is unfolding.
About WeChat apply
WeChat apply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney. Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.