Insightful Guide to Kickstart your WeChat Marketing Strategy

If you are a marketer, brand, or company and haven’t started your WeChat marketing strategy yet, this guide will provide some insight into how to get started. It goes without saying that the Chinese social media app has an enormous user base of over 1 billion monthly active users. This is why brands should be on WeChat as it’s one of the best ways to reach customers in China. In this blog post, we’ll share a few tips for starting your WeChat marketing strategy from account registration, to promotion and eCommerce. Let’s get started.

WeChat Facts

• Wechat Users: 1.24 billion active users (2021)
• Wechat Mini-program users: 3.2 Million (2021)
• 3.2 million mini-programs which accounted for 1.6 trillion RMB in revenue (2020)
• WeChat Pay Users: 900 Million (2021)
• Wechat Users count about 45% women users for 54% male users (2021).
• Find all these data and more here

Whether you need a multi-purpose social media, messaging app, or payment gateway, WeChat facilitates you by fulfilling your every requirement. With the world’s 10th most prominent social network, it launches under the name of Weixin in 2011. It is pretty similar to WhatsApp messaging app.

WeChat has become the most powerful tool, especially in those countries where other social media platforms like YouTube, Whatsapp, and Facebook are not working correctly. For instance, it is widely used in Mongolia, Hong Kong, and some other Chinese-speaking communities worldwide.

WeChat can function on mobile phones, tablets, the web, or PC. For this purpose, users have to register themselves before its usage.

Some people think that it is a platform for only friends and families to stay connected. But in fact, it is not a reality. It performs multiple tasks simultaneously. To send messages, hail a ride, pay for their groceries, keep fit, book a Covid-19 test, and even access government services like visa applications, you can use WeChat without any difficulty.

What can you do with the WeChat app? 

No doubt, WeChat is an excellent app to accomplish various business tasks aside from social talks with friends and families. The top 10 usages of WeChat are present below, which assist you in understanding the functionalities of this incredible social media marketplace.

1. Message your friends
2. Share on your timeline (like you would on Facebook)
3. Transfer money
4. Top-up your phone
5. Order a cab
6. Buy movie tickets
7. Order your dry cleaner
8. Order food
9. Invest money in a wealth management plan
10. Book a train or plane ticket

By analyzing WeChat services, we can get an idea that we can do everything through this app for growing our business. 

WeChat: A Marketing tool for brands and businesses

Not only Wechat is China’s most popular social media but it also has a plethora of tools and features that can be used by brands and companies to work on their reputation and nurture their target audience, which we will see in more detail later in this post. But let’s get started with why Wechat should be integrated into your social media strategy in China as well as how to get started and choose the right account for your needs.

Why use WeChat Marketing? 

Are you looking for a social media platform to market your brand? Or do you want to drive direct customer engagement in Chinese Speaking countries? Or do you wish to raise your brand awareness among Chinese ex-pats, travelers, and students? 

Although WeChat contains hundreds of features in itself yet, there are three most prominent features of WeChat present below.

A. Wechat has a Gigantic Reach 

As stated earlier, WeChat comprises 1.24 billion active monthly users (2021), so any company cannot deny the importance of WeChat marketing. This efficient app also supports twenty languages.

B. Multidimensional App

It is not just an app for exchanging ideas between friends and family. In fact, it is more than it. WeChat enables you to connect it with 85000 mini-programs and has partnerships with other very successful Chinese apps such as Pinduoduo, Zhihu, or JD. These states show that it has an excellent ecosystem for raising brand awareness.

As a company, you can use the app as a multi-tool going from newsletter to online store and pay subscription management to pure marketing with paid ads or branding with PR and Kols or even video and live-steaming. 

C.    Great Features 

In this technological era, WeChat is constantly evolving and launching new features. For instance, with the help of the shake function, offline businesses can interact with their nearby mobile users. Shake functions work when you and some other person shake your phone physically simultaneously. So this is an excellent way of connecting with others for the marketers.

Types of WeChat Official Account 

WeChat is the largest social media platform that offers you three major accounts for the growth of your business.

1. Subscription Account
2. Service Account
3. Enterprise Account (WeChat Work)

Always keep in mind that overseas companies always require a service account for marketing. On the contrary, subscription and enterprise accounts need registrations from mainland China. A detailed overview of these three accounts presents below.

1. Subscription Account of WeChat 

If you want to build relationships, do communication, and enhance community engagements, a WeChat subscription account is best for this purpose.

With it, a business can publish one to six posts every day. The outstanding feature of this account is that it encourages showing articles at the top according to their publishing time.

On the other hand, the drawback of this account is that users need to go to a separate folder for seeing their subscription accounts. In addition, they do not get any notification when any company publishes new content on WeChat.

2. Service Account of WeChat

For those enterprises or organizations who wish to market their services and products, the service account of WeChat is best for them. It offers you various features, and some of them are given below.

1. WeChat Pay
2. WeChat Stores
3. Instant customer service
4. Geo-location services
5. HTML 5 campaigns
6. Four publishing times per month (1-6 articles at once) with push notifications
7. WeChat mini-programs
8. Voice recognition
9. URL shortening
10. Multiple QR codes per account

3.WeChat Enterprise Account 

For the registration of corporate customers, WeChat Enterprise or WeChat work is the most suitable account. It has the ability to connect services, customers, and consumers very efficiently. It offers you the following services.

1. Communication Services
2. Official accounts
3. Ability to connect WeChat Ecosystem 

What is the right type of Wechat Business account for me? 

As we have taken a detailed look at every account, the next dilemma faced by companies or individuals is what will be the right account for you. To solve this query, continue reading this article because we are starting to give you a bit of precious advice regarding this problem.

1. If you want to raise your brand’s voice through posts or articles and grab the attention of millions of people toward your company, you can select a subscription account.
2. If you are looking forward to driving direct sales through WeChat, a service account will incredibly work in this way.
3. For office efficiency and internal communication, an enterprise account of WeChat is a way to go for you.

How to set up a WeChat Official Account Profile?

We recommend creating and building an official account on WeChat because it helps attract more customers, escalate brand awareness, send a notification, maintain customer loyalty, and redirect customers or leads to the website or e-commerce page of the company.

1. To register your business profile on WeChat, you have to open the WeChat Official Accounts Platform and press an icon on which “Register Now” has been written.

If you saw this page in Chinese languages and you don’t know this language, do not be sad. To solve this query, open the top-right drop-down menu, which is present near the glob icon, to choose the English language. This will convert Chinese instructions into English for your understanding.

• Now the selection screen for an account will appear. Here you can choose any account type which is best suitable for you.

3. In the next step, add details regarding your company like country, business name, email address, account administrator, etc.
4. Now, in the official account section, pick up the name of your account and write a brief introduction about your business.
5. Last but not least step is verification of your WeChat account. For this purpose, you have to submit documents like a business license, signed and stamped official application letter, national ID copies, mobile phone bill, etc. When your account verifies, you need to pay $99 per year for running your WeChat account for business. 

WeChat Marketing Tools and Features for Brands

WeChat has excellent marketing tools whether you are an individual marketer or work in a company that wishes to increase its brand awareness. Some of the beneficial marketing tools offered by WeChat are explained below.

1. WeChat (Paid) Advertisement 

Ads campaigns are the best way to target your audience and create brand awareness among leads. Remember, your campaign content should be attractive, entertaining, and rewarding. For this purpose, you can launch games, begin quizzes and invite people to vote for different products.

WeChat advertisement mainly consists of three categories.

• WeChat Banner Advertisements
• WeChat Moments Advertisements
• Key Opinion Leader(KOL) Promotion

WeChat Banner Advertisements

Banner advertisement mostly matches website ads. The style of this kind of advertisement usually is classic. The critical point to notice about banner WeChat advertisement is its performance based on pricing. In addition, WeChat users can efficiently utilize it for the entrance of your website.

WeChat Moments Advertisements

Moments Advertisement looks like a Facebook newsfeed. This is a great way for affordable and more accessible advertisement campaigns. The key features of these WeChat moments are elaborate on below.

1. You can post six images and 15seconds videos about your brand or products, or services.
2. You can easily customize text within it.
3. WeChat users can reach the WeChat mini-program or WeChat newsletter through redirecting option.
4. You can also get sentiment analysis about your brand through users’ comments and their likes for a specific post. 

Key Opinion Leader (KOL) Promotion

Key Opinion Leader or KOL plays a crucial role in marketing, especially in China. The fans have an intimate relationship with them, and they help brands enhance their sales with their influence on the massive community in China.

Here the tip is that do not miss the collaboration of KOL while you are marketing your services or products on WeChat.

From August 2020, many companies are utilizing the live streaming function on WeChat. In this way, consumers get direct contact with the organization’s host and immediately receive the answers to their questions regarding this company.

KOLs and Live streaming can exert fruitful results for marketing when they are used together. You can explore benignant KOLS through marketing agencies and WeChat.

WeChat Channels

Are you a WeChat user? Or are you an influencer? Or do you market your brand among a wide variety of people?

If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, the WeChat channels are an innovative feature for you. You can spread short-form content to your audience through media feeds. It is like a Chinese APP, Douyin (Tik Tok). This allows users to see videos posted by their friends, family, brands, and influencers. 

Two types of content are live streams or publish through WeChat channels for gaining more followers.

Regular Content: To keep users engaged with your brand, you publish regular content like try-on, tutorials, and interviews. KOL, influencers, and celebrities play a significant role in boosting customer engagement toward your company.

Event-Based Content: It focuses on the specific content related to particular campaigns. Event-based content intends to increase sales, advertise, offer coupons and sneak peeks at new products or services.

So WeChat channel is the ultimate pathway for the successful marketing of your products or services, and you can get excellent results by using these channels. 

WeChat CRM & Menu

If you want to communicate with your followers or customers, WeChat CRM and Menu is the best tool for you. This tool is a replacement for email marketing or newsletter because most Chinese people ignore emails.

After setting up WeChat CRM perfectly, you can answer your followers’ questions automatically, welcome new users, and propose special discounts for them.

The first support of this CRM is that it will help you utilize your time efficiently on marketing. Secondly, it will build the trust of your customers in your brand.

WeChat Group Marketing 

This group marketing is the easiest way to spread your content to various users. When you publish and distribute content within different WeChat groups, your brand starts to grow instantly, especially if someone trusts your brand and shares thoughts about your brand on these groups.

Businesses can utilize these groups as forums to address the queries of their followers. The free tip here is that you should post some content regularly at peak times. It will develop a fantastic relationship with your potential clients.

WeChat Mini Program

In 2017, Mini-program by WeChat came into existence. Without installing any application on your smartphone, you can utilize this trendy program having 600 million active users.

This mini-program provides support to businesses to make their mini-website. There are 20000 program uploads daily and grasp the attention of WeChat users. Some of the essential tips for the growth of your company present below.

1. First of all, fulfilling aesthetic needs because it is the most crucial point on which people decide whether they will see or leave.
2. Secondly, take mini-program as CRM and always serve your consumers on a priority basis.
3. Thirdly, be social because socialization is the key to winning your potential customers’ hearts and staying connected with yourself.
4. Fourthly, do not forget to entertain your customers with your brand. For instance, Louis Vuitton introduces mini-games, Trunk in the Sand. It shows the entire history of this company. Therefore users enjoy this game and also keep in touch with the identity of a specific brand.

WeChat H5 Brochure

Whether you want a product listing or a company introduction, WeChat Brochure is an eminent way for online as well as offline marketing. Some of the major benefits of the WeChat H5 Brochure explain below to give you an idea about its advantages.

1. You can easily share these brochures because of their lightweight.
2. It is very interactive for grabbing clients.
3. It does not require much money for the distribution of pamphlets.
4. You can bring a QR code to every point instead to print its flyer.
5. It also gives freedom to send heavy PDF files with unsuccessful mass mailing.
6. It exerts influence on your competitors or partners that you know powerful business strategies in China.

Tips to Promote your Brand on WeChat

If you live in China and want to do business, there is no best way for promoting your brand except WeChat. The top five tips for the brand’s promotion on the WeChat market place presented below that will surely help you.

A.Always Present Quality Content 

As a businessman, you have to present quality content with creativity. Many individuals utilize their profiles for the marketing of your business. But we suggest that always build a verified business profile on WeChat and share quality content like audio messages, videos, photos, and text. People attract by these verified account content easily as compared to unverified accounts.

B. Loyalty Programs

With the assistance of Geological locations, you can set a marketing strategy by creating loyalty programs. You can give diverse offers to your consumers. For example, offer VIP cards, and send promotions and e-coupons for shopping. Watsons is a Chinese store that uses the loyalty program of WeChat to gain more revenue and its brand’s reputation. 

C. QR Code

For grabbing more followers and sharing content, you have to embed it on your products or banners. By scanning this code, a person will become a member or follower and see all your posts included on WeChat. Promotions, discounts, lucky draws, souvenirs, or a WiFi pass are basic enticing objects for consumers. 

D. WeChat KOLs

These are exciting influencers in China. Without KOLs, you cannot run your business successfully. You can hire multiple KOLs on WeChat. They will share their experience with your products or services. With their vast fans numbers, your brand will automatically start to grow.

WeChat eCommerce

Like many other eCommerce stores such as Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, etc., you can also build WeChat shops. Firstly, you have to get started with a fast and cheap store. After it, you can enable some features and customize your store to some extent. 

There are some eCommerce shop platforms in WeChat. A brief introduction of the leading three players has been described here.

 Youzan (有赞)

In the WeChat market store, Youzan is the most extensive program. According to an estimation, many brands are getting millions of USD by selling products. It has options of WeChat payment, credit cards, debit cards, CRM, mini-games, and coupons. It also charges 4,800 RMB per year (720 USD) for its service.

Weidian (微店)

It is similar to Youzan. Although it is not much popular yet, it is free to use unlikely paid Youzan. Many brands use it for building an e-commerce store.

LeWaiMai (乐外卖)

It is purely made for food delivery. There are many customization options, from selecting a food item to adding it to a cart.

Final Thoughts on Wechat Marketing

In sum, we can say that WeChat is an important place for marketing your business, especially if you are living in China. In this article, we have provided a complete guide on WeChat marketing, its set-up method, and tips for promotion through it. We hope you have understood WeChat now and no more questions you have now.

Start your Wechat Journey with GMA

The Chinese market is an appealing marketing prospect: it’s full of opportunities at every turn… With careful planning, though there are many ways, a brand new into the Chinese marketplace might avoid costly mistakes. Our agency has developed strategies so successful they have helped over 800 brands since 2012! You can contact us here to receive our Case Studies on how we’ve dealt with these challenges from other companies just like yours on Wechat and more!