Campaign Strategies for Chinese Customer

By Cyril Chen，Emma Li
23 March 2018

Target China, ConnectX and Latipay jointly organised a Chinese New Year Opportunities event on 21 February. Target China is a professional marketing firm that specialises in assisting clients from Australia and other locations expand into the Chinese market. ConnectX provides media solutions to link advertisers with Chinese clients throughout Australia and China. Latipay is a global online financial technology solution focusing on enterprise-level clients; its platform allows Chinese clients payers to make payments in RMB yuan through online banks or their WeChat or Baidu wallets, while the relevant Australian or New Zealand business receives full payment directly in their home currency in real time, at no cost to the business.

In the Opportunities event, Target China, ConnectX and LatiPay expressed their views on marketing in China; Chinese tourists as consumers; and the e-payment market among ethnic Chinese people living in Australia.  Target China addressed the question of how non-Chinese enterprises—especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs)—enter the Chinese market. This set off a discussion involving the whole audience.

Target China’s General Manager Jane Li identified cultural barriers, platform barriers and regulatory barriers preventing overseas enterprises from entering the Chinese market: ‘The Chinese market is very attractive to foreign SMEs, but when they prepare to enter the market or launch marketing campaigns, the majority of foreign SMEs enterprises find these hurdles very difficult to really overcome.’ Target China Director Kevin Wang explained that identifying these three barriers to entry came out of extensive research and reviews of Australian enterprises in the context of the Chinese market. ‘We have found that when overseas enterprises undertake promotions in the Chinese market, their efforts just don’t translate into the desired outcomes. This is where we come in. Target China’s mission is to provide an optimal solution for each SME that consults us.’

In the Questions and Answers session, Target China staff responded to particular concerns by participants. One such question was from the marketing manager of an Australian wine producing company, who wanted to know how to register a business account on Chinese social media platforms. How to do this was explained in detail. While identifying difficulties, the Chinese New Year Opportunities event was successful in showing participants how Target China’s expertise can provide a tailored solution for a company that is prepared to   work together with Target China as well as with ConnectX  or Latipay as relevant.

At this time, China is opening up on an unprecedented scale, welcoming investment and trade with companies from all over the world. But this does not mean that it’s just plain sailing. Apart from cultural barriers, platform barriers and regulatory barriers, we have found that there are still many constraints in getting into the Chinese market and operating successfully in that market. The goal of Target China’s long-term commitment to trade with China is, in precise terms, to understand and overcome such constraints.