4 Steps to maximise WeChat B2B & B2C
marketing impact a business must know
WeChat is arguably the most popular and useful mobile app in China, and most Chinese citizens use it in their personal and professional lives. But it’s not just people so reliant on this increasingly popular app. WeChat has cleverly developed a plethora of ways that companies and brands can use WeChat to help their businesses thrive.
Step 1: Introduction
It is crucial to prepare a clear WeChat introduction for your company. Chinese people love fancy intros, H5 pages, videos, and mini-sites, so these must be considered when building your WeChat account. When your audience sees your WeChat account, they will determine their first impression of your company based on your account page, so it is very important to do this well.
Step 2: Content
Content is the most important part of WeChat marketing. Getting visitors on WeChat can be difficult, so producing high-quality content on a regular basis can help increase your visibility. Content includes helpful tips, market information, special offers, and more that can really help encourage your audience to follow you on WeChat.
Before starting a WeChat project, we usually do a content strategy, which is to assess what a client’s target audience might be interested in, and from there, we create articles around that content.
Another purpose of making good content is that it becomes shareable content. Whether your audience is sharing within a target group, via direct messages, or sharing in their own moments, this can lead to huge visibility for your company. In order to have the best chance of producing shareable content, it generally needs to include.
- A catchy title (make users have to click to read the article)
- An attractive representation (GIFs, photos, embedded videos, etc.).
- Good personalized content
- Most importantly, it needs to be original content
Step 3: Community Management
As mentioned earlier, WeChat is a closed platform, and in the early days, you do need to heavily promote your account and content. It sounds simple, but 95% of companies are not promoting and sharing their content in community groups, forum sites and other media platforms. Some companies also forget to share the QR code of their WeChat account on the website and in emails to customers. If you don’t, your company risks missing out on a huge following. Companies will benefit from having a community manager; someone who will integrate themselves into the target groups, interact with your target audience on a regular basis, and share your content with the group and their moment.
Community management takes time because you first need to determine where your audience is exchanging information. You also need to take the time to find influencers who appeal to your audience and who can also help share and promote your content.
Taking the time to synthesize, communicate and respond to questions with the right information, and build groups of your audience members can take a lot of time initially, but it does pay off in the long run.
Step 4: Customer Service
Having an active customer service base on WeChat is a huge benefit in terms of instant interaction with customers who have questions. This is a great way to provide immediate and direct information and quotes if necessary.
Bot chat is quite popular in China because it helps your team avoid answering the same question over and over again.
Conclusion
After understanding these four steps, many customers will ask “Should I run my WeChat by myself”? In general, the setup requires a combination of design, technology, and a thorough understanding of your target market.
Content – If you have the resources to produce high-quality content, then yes, write it yourself. It can be difficult for agency copywriters to understand especially if they have not had real life experience of your destination, hotels or travel experience. An agency can help you simplify your content or make it more engaging.
Community Management – Often Chinese marketers can advise on how to identify groups, how to share content, etc., but once you have an understanding of WeChat, it can be a simple internal job for your company.
Customer Service – It’s even better if someone of your staff can answer questions and make quotes, as they should have a very thorough understanding of your products and services.