How to Perform Effective Mobile Marketing in China

Mobile Internet access and smartphones in China continue to grow rapidly. A total of 580 million smartphones were produced during 2013 with an increase of 60.3 percent over the previous 12 months. The penetration of smartphones into the market is similar to the rest of the world, but many more Chinese prefer to use their smartphones to access Internet services, instead of using PCs or tablets.

According to the data of EnfoDesk, in 2017, total transaction value of China mobile marketing market will exceed RMB188.19 billion (US$30.57 billion). After the early stage from 2013 to 2014, China mobile marketing market is showing good trend and advertisers will invest more in mobile marketing.

Since Chinese mobile marketing has shown such significant potential in the future digital marketing market in China, global marketers may have interests in following approaches:

First, understand your mobile audiences’ complicated mobile behaviors. Forrester created the Mobile Mind Shift Index to measure mobile engagement, and one of the key components is the Mobile Intensity Score, which measures how immersed people are in their mobile lifestyle. There are four segments in the mobile intensity scale of users: disconnected (the least sophisticated mobile users), unshifted, transitional, and shifted (the most sophisticated). Consumers in metropolitan of China are transitional but not shifted, which means the mobile audience market has great potentials.

Second, determine the relationship you want to have with your customers. Marketers need to remember the extremely intimate nature of mobile devices as they define their mobile marketing objectives. Based on different levels of customer engagement, there are four main objectives in order to interact with consumers via the mobile channel: acquaintanceship, friendship, camaraderie and commitment.

Third, use immediacy, simplicity and context. Ask the tough questions about reach, roadblocks and budget.

For cross-border marketers who are approaching the Chinese market, the key mainly lies on the creative side. Integrating great ideas into the channels is more important now, as there is so much competition for attention.

By maximizing interaction and community base throughout mobile and social channels, brands can take advantage of more opportunities to tell their stories. We can say that all of these finally come down to the content created for sharing and interaction. Online video channels are using a mix of international content and more in-depth materials about Chinese programs to attract audiences and make themselves stand out from the crowd in the market.

Lastly, choose technologies and media channels that enhance the consumer relationship you want. As a final step, choose technologies and tactics that could best meet your needs. Different technologies are better matched with different mobile marketing objectives.

Locally in China, Mengniu Dairy promoted seven of its brands in a joint campaign that touched 180 million people during 2014 Spring Festival. This was realized through the lead of social channels, Internet and mobile channels and was supplemented by traditional outdoor and TV advertising.