Five Baidu SEM Tips from the Pros
Baidu is one of the most renowned and developed resources among few platforms that are available in China for search engine marketing (SEM) for business. It is therefore essential for any business in China to make its presence on Baidu. Discussed below are some of the characteristics of SEM in China and what can help a business to grow in the Chinese market through digital marketing.
Language and design of the website
Though it is not mandatory but it is obvious to have one’s business website in mandarin when one is planning to reach over 700 million users that speak and read mandarin. The Chinese internet is one of the fastest growing internet markets, and Baidu holds more than 70% of it. No business would like to reach the audience in the language that they do not understand. In addition to the language of the website, the design also matters which needs to be appealing and relevant to the Chinese audience.
Correct and complete documentation
Since the Chinese government supervises Baidu for its every service that it offers to businesses, Baidu SEM needs complete and correct documentation from the businesses. Just like the website, all the documentation needs to be in Chinese language but it is a mandate here, and any document in a foreign language must be provided with the translation. The foreign business is required to submit the following documents; business registration certificate with a hand written statement, screenshot of the website’s homepage showing the URL, screenshot of the website’s information from the local government’s website along with hand written statement, and the bank account statement of the business. Ideally, the registration certificate must have the company’s name, its registered office, and the company’s number. Similarly, the bank account statement must have the name of the bank, account number of the business, and the number, name, and address of the particular branch where the company holds the account.
Online Ads
As opposed to an average internet user across the globe, Chinese people do not mind seeing online ads on the websites that they visit. Where other users from west tend to avoid the websites that do target advertising, Chinese users react differently by believing the brand or the business which is paying for its advertisement online. In fact, if a business is not present on Baidu doing online marketing through various ads, people do not even consider it as a brand. Therefore, online ads are an essential part of Baidu SEM. It is a common Chinese believe that a business who is investing in online advertising must have invested well in its products offering a good range of products for the public.
The speed of the website
This might sound strange, but the internet speed in China is comparatively slower than the internet speed in the west and other Asian countries. It’s not just the firewall but The Great Firewall in China that blocks or eventually slows down the foreign websites and servers specifically the western. Website hosting helps in working the same speed as the internet connectivity in China because the loading speed of the site affects the site verification by Baidu. Also, if a website keeps a user to wait for longer than others, it is
ICP licensing and website hosting
ICP is an Internet Content Provider’s license which is a permit granted by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in China, without which the website of the business may not operate. When a business has its stores or offices in China, it is little easier to get this license, but if the business is international without any local office or store, then some agency or someone in China needs to represent that business. The process of obtaining this license generally takes one to three months of time, but once it is done, it becomes very simple for a business to use Baidu SEM to divert maximum traffic to its website. This is called website hosting in China which is again a mandate from the government because the government does not want its internet users to be diverted to a website which is beyond security controls.
How to Advertise on Weibo
So when you talk about social media advertising in China, it does not mean Facebook or Instagram advertising; it is about Weibo advertising.
Cyberspace laws and regulations in China are quite strict. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Youtube, and Whatsapp are banned in China. It is hard to imagine a world without these platforms, but the Chinese are doing fantastic on their own. They do not need any of these platforms.
With more than 300 million monthly active users, Weibo is one of the most loved social media platforms in China. For western companies who want to reach Chinese netizens, Weibo advertising is one of the best gateways to the Chinese mainland. This platform allows companies to advertise their business in a most interactive way.
How does Weibo advertising work?
To understand this, first, you need to get a brief idea of how this platform works. As per definition, Weibo is a micro-blogging site, but for easy understanding, you can consider it as the Chinese equivalent of Facebook and Twitter. A user can post images, share videos, comment on posts, chat with others, and follow people to read their posts.
Now let’s have an insight into how Weibo advertising works.
Step 1: Account Registration
The first thing you need to do is register your account on Weibo. To do so, you have to login into Weibo’s official website and fill the required details. When you register as a business, you have to provide the business registration documents. Once these documents are verified, a blue icon of ‘V’ will appear on the account. You have to pay the registration fees for the advertising on Weibo.
Step 2: Account Setup
Next step is to customize your account. Fill the most important details of your business. Set up your profile by uploading business logo picture and cover picture, and fills information of the business.
Step 3: Start Advertising
Now you are all set to initiate your advertising campaign. Weibo is an open platform of advertising. It offers various advertising options to successfully reach out to your target audience. Developing a solid content strategy is vital for the success of the campaign. You can work with KOLs and use other advertising methods to effectively reach out to your targeted customers.
What are different ways to advertise on Weibo?
Weibo offers three different ways of advertising to engage with a targeted audience.
1. Weibo Search Engine Promotion
2. Display adverts
3. Fan tunnel and Fan Headlines
Weibo Search Engine Promotion
Like Facebook, Weibo also has an inbuilt search option. Weibo search engine promotion includes ranking your account high for the selected keywords.
As Weibo is micro blogging platform, people used its search function a lot. Hence, it gives you the opportunity to increase your followers. You can promote your account for the certain set of selected keywords and improve your brand awareness.
Display Adverts
Old but still effective. Display ads can be placed at the Weibo’s homepage, search page and at a side of the newsfeed. When a user clicks the ad, he is directed to the advertiser’s webpage.
Display ad can be optimized both for mobile and desktop. Cost of this form of Weibo advertising depends on the size, keyword association, and placement of ads.
Fan Tunnel and Fan Headlines
These can be compared to the Facebook sponsored ads. Fan tunnel is used to reach out to new customers. It allows you to place the specific post of your account on the top of the user’s newsfeed. Your post or account will be displayed at the top of the user’s newsfeed. Hence, it can give you instant, new followers. You can choose your targeted audience based on age, demographics, gender, region and device type.
Fan headlines work in the same way as fan tunnel work. The only difference is this time your content will be sponsored to the existing follower base. It encourages your existing followers to re-share the content.
So these are the three different options for Weibo advertising.
The Takeaway
Chinese netizens are more involved and responsive to social media. If you are planning to expand your business cross-border, then investing in Weibo advertising can certainly help you to make most of the opportunities in the Chinese Market.
Why is it Necessary to do Social Media Marketing – SMM?
Born in 2005, Facebook has emerged of being a 9.2 billion company in 2017, proving it the fastest growing digital marketing tools. In the same way, being a prospective marketer in China, you will be simply impressed to know that almost one forth of Chinese population are associated with social channels and this number is increasing at its fastest pace.
Incidentally, all western social media sites from Facebook to You Tube and Twitter to Instagram are banned in China by its national policy. However, you can get a series of sites such as WeChat, Weibo, Youku and others, which are designed homogeneously to help you get higher traffic, increased conversion, high yield, and cost-effectiveness making your social media marketing in China a moneymaking project. Therefore, including SMM as a major part of your digital marketing plan is a must-have marketing strategy to avail its best benefits.
Importance of Social Media Marketing in China
Improved Brand Awareness
When it comes to the need of building brand awareness, social media networks are just beyond compare marketing tool. It has proven its prowess to make your brand recognized, even to global consumers, which is, in essence, the first objective and key to business success. Even though, just signing in the sites enable you to become global, however, when intended to business development, think of hiring expert services that help make your endeavor dynamic, and constructive. Three must-have steps:
• Choose the specific social sites considering your product type and audience;
• Great presentation integrated with visuals, videos, images that appeals your consumers;
• Real time based 2-way communication with potential customers that helps in faster conversion;
Cost Effective Marketing Tool
Opposed to all marketing mediums, social media marketing in china is likely to be a gainful and economic way to present your product in global marketplace. Even though, creating an account in social sites is free, when the objective is business promotion, consider paid ads on the networking platforms, which are extremely affordable and enable you to enjoy much higher ROI on what you invest.
Engage with Potential Consumers
Perhaps one of the best advantages of social media marketing in China is the scope of interacting with potential audience. Face to face, communication helps built customer confidence on your product and services. While talking to them, you can make their confusions clear, suggest product options, as well highlight much better than text message. This helps winning their hearts, transform them as your buyer, and accordingly valued customers.
High Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is the core to thrive in business arena. And, from that viewpoint, the role played by social media marketing in China is immense. Importantly, social media is a great digital tool that brings together your customer and you in a common podium. With this, it offers you the opportunity to perform the role of your company’s ambassador, talk to them directly or through customized messaging. A custom-made communication makes higher impact than off-the-rack programmed message. You can uniformly take the client’s concern right away, which eventually makes your customer satisfied about your product and services.
Increased Traffic and Higher SEO Ranking
Social media platforms enable you to get increasing traffic to your website. Following a communication through social site, typically to know more about your company profile, products, and services, the potential buyers visit your website. With embedded link of corporate website in social media pages, they simply click on it making it popular in the eyes of search engine too.
Higher SEO Ranking
Undeniably, to secure higher-ranking social media pages have established ideal. Similar to Google, one of the key concerns of Baidu Advertising, the No1. Search engine in China is consistency, integrity, and viability of your website that signals the search engine to uplift rank. When you go for PPC bidding in Baidu, it offers you cost per clip based on your quality score, which embraces your reliability to search engine. In addition to the above, SMM helps by uplifting brand loyalty, enhance market awareness, and make your venturing in China a grand success.
What Is Digital Marketing and How to Use It?
Digital marketing is a cutting age avenue to market products and services online through a series of digital channels like PC, laptop, tablet, android phones etc. Most importantly, with the mounting number of mobile users, reaching the specific audiences for almost all businesses has become instantaneous, much productive, and cost effective.
Digital marketing in China and anywhere in the world is intended to help entrepreneurs to reach their target consumers via the internet, digital tools and digital technologies with their effective use. In addition to corporate business website, tools like PPC marketing, SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing are some of the handy social media tools. It is wise to get expert suggestion to make productive use these innovative mechanisms, based on the type of audience, market, product, and competitors’ activities that help convert your probable audience to customers.
Website Marketing
No denying, the corporate website is the key foundation of one’s digital marketing endeavor. Your website plays the major role of your company representative and offers the impression of your company, products, and services to the target customers. The unique way your website is designed, its responsiveness, easy navigation, presentation through texts, images, videos, engaging contents are all that determine whether it can convince the audience to buy your product or switch to another brand. Understand, the whole idea of digital marketing in China is attracting, engaging, convincing and converting the leads, that it generates which depends how effectively it is being served to your audience.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO in The Woodlands and anywhere in the world is a procedure of optimizing the position of your site by making the site details appealing to major search engines. As in the western world, over 71% consumers prefer making their search queries through Google, the Chinese market reports that Baidu is the top preferred search engine and responding to over 600,000,000 i.e. 70%+ search queries every day.
You need an expert SEO’s help who can assist to make your rank higher on SERP, search engine results page with consistent techniques like choosing the right keywords etc and drive the organic traffic back to your website. Mind here, that SEO’s only task if not bringing more and more traffic but ensuring they are suitable audience to buy your products or services. At this juncture, SEO’s role is immense because they are the experts who makes the things done.
Social Media Marketing
When it comes to digital marketing, unsurprisingly, the social media platforms has earned top acceptance from small business houses to corporate giants. Typically, with the adoption of responsive web pages that can work effectively with all sorts of devices, currently growing number of people spend time in social sites via their mobile devices. Thus, to count more traffic to your website, consistent presence of your company and services in social sites has been vital.
Due to government policies, your well-known social media channels Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram are not allowed in China while you can display your product and services to more than 300 million Chinese consumers who typically expend considerable time in social sites, out of its 700 million internet users. Incidentally, increasing number of inhabitants is joining social sites, which is a great indication that your social media campaign in china is likely to be hit, if properly utilized.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)/ PPC Campaign
In order to ensure optimization of your website as an outcome of search results, you can consider PPC campaign that needs you pay based on every clicking by consumers on your page. It has been proven as an effective digital media-marketing tool known as ‘Pay per click (PPC)’. When you go for PPC model in China, the best destination Baidu search engine is prepared with Baidu Adwords, which is as helpful as Google Adwords. It helps read all buying actions of the traffic that come to your page. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a brilliant way to get more and more prospective traffic to your website that requires you bid for the position.
How to Hire the Right SEO Firm
Ask any digital marketer how to increase the traffic for a website and they will definitely ask you to perform search engine optimization (SEO). Though it sounds technical, SEO is not all technical in nature. It just a bunch of optimization techniques that anybody can follow and abiding by a strict routine/hygiene in terms of content. SEO is organic and takes time. One can use paid ads to assist the optimization efforts, however, on a whole SEO is organic and purely depends on the efforts you put in.
If you have a website and looking to gain traffic for the website, you must definitely invest on search engine optimization. You can either do it yourself or hire the best SEO Houston to do it for you, with guaranteed results within a short duration. Here’s how to hire the right firm, step by step.
1. Where to search?
The first thing you must be doing is making a list of SEO firms so that you can approach each of them individually and know what they offer. The best place to search for SEO agencies is search itself. Go to Google and type something like ‘best SEO firm in Houston’. You will get a list of websites that offer SEO services and generally they are the good ones because they have managed to reach the top of the search results for such keywords. Apart from online search, you can also use the referrals from friends, family and colleagues about SEO companies they know or have previously worked with.
2. What to ask?
Once you narrow down your options, it is time to contact these firms and know the services they are offering. SEO services can include a wide range of services including website design/redesign, content creation, guest posting, classified ads, company descriptions etc. Contact SEO firms the range of services they are offering. Once you receive a sample quote from each of these firms, compare the services they are offering and the fees they are demanding in return. Weight the quotes and go with the one that offers the most and charges reasonable prices for the same.
3. What to believe?
As mentioned before, SEO takes time and those who are consistent, and patient win this game. However, not all companies can wait for months before their website starts jumping the ladder to reach higher positions in the search engine results page (SERP). Few SEO firms try to exploit this urgency and offer unrealistic SEO plans to website owners, guaranteeing to achieve higher rankings within a few weeks or a few months. However, don’t fall into the trap of those agencies that offer solutions that are too good to be true. SEO doesn’t work that way.
4. Is there a plan?
SEO is all about persistence and consistency. You need to have a steady plan that is executable and sustainable for months. One needs to plan for months ahead and start working on things like content and creatives even before the plan is launched. The SEO firms in Houston that you shortlisted must give you a sample action plan that will at least include a weekly plan, estimated turnaround time, realistic targets, review timetables etc. To have a clear idea of the turnaround time and believe the SEO firm, you need to demand a plan that is executable, sustainable and realistic.
5. How much to pay?
Lastly, you need to ask the SEO firm about the fees for the services they are offering. Ask the firm to give you a sample quote and compare this quote with quotes of other SEO firms. While a few firms are extremely price sensitive, you might not get the same quality of work in return. Based on the sample action plan and the quote they offer you, decide the SEO firm you want to go with.
The Many Advantages of Omnibus Studies
There are literally thousands of ways to gain access to valuable, well-researched data about companies and people. These can range from small, dedicated studies to large, omnibus studies. And while every kind of research has its benefits and drawbacks, more and more companies are discovering the value in the omnibus studies that are being released by major research groups. These omnibus studies help companies get vital information. All it requires is buying in and the information can be accessed. It’s a progressive way to get your hands on interesting data that could help your business grow.
But first: what are omnibus studies and why are they so popular for many different kinds of businesses, including non-profits, private, startups, and more? An omnibus study is generally an ongoing study conducted by a research group. It usually consists of a number of generalized interviews in which participants are asked the questions that are generally asked in most research situations, including questions related to demographics. These are sometimes mixed in with questions that are submitted by the companies who are buying into the omnibus study. That way, the information is specific and general at the same time, making it higher quality for those who are buying in.
Research groups keep their omnibus studies ongoing so that more companies can buy in and more information can be gathered on an ongoing basis. This makes omnibus studies an excellent resource for many different kinds of businesses because of the cost-effectiveness of accessing omnibus studies and the information available. While the information may be more generalized, omnibus studies make for an excellent investment, especially for companies that are working with limited budgets.
The omnibus studies research company conducts a number of interviews with the target group on a regular basis: these interviews combine a number of the standard questions that are always asked—generally including demographic information (age, sex, occupation) or company classification information for a business survey.
1. Cost
Omnibus studies aggregate multiple clients together for surveys and polling data that overlap with multiple needs, spreading the cost of your market research across multiple clients, too. The result: high-quality data and research that is much, much more affordable than other, dedicated research methods and packages.
2. Time
Omnibus studies are quick. So quick, in fact, that they rarely take you any time at all. This is because omnibus studies are part of a research group’s ongoing data collection. So rather than setting up an independent study and executing a research strategy, buying into an omnibus study gives you access to important research almost immediately.
3. Timeliness
Given their usually-ongoing nature, the information that is revealed in omnibus studies tends to be very up-to-the-minute. So instead of getting research that is a few years, or even decades, old, you can buy into omnibus studies that have correlated and gathered data from whenever it started right up until today. With the latest data, you will have the most accurate information that remains relevant to your needs, and that can help your company look to the future with the confidence that you have the most recent information available.
4. Data Variation
Because omnibus studies are an ongoing, shared cost form of research, the data collected is often varied and, therefore, more comprehensive and accurate. Rather than relying on just one method of data collection, be it phone, email, or focus groups, omnibus studies often employ multiple kinds of data collection to reach more people.
Omnibus studies are just one of the many ways to gather important data and information for your business, non-profit, or startup. It comes with numerous advantages, including how quickly you can access the data, how recent that data is, and the overall affordability of the omnibus study (especially for how much information is included). Armed with the information you’ve gained from an omnibus study, you can start to make positive improvements to your business and get a better idea of the kind of information you require from more dedicated studies.
If you are looking for quality omnibus studies and dedicated research, be sure to contact a reputable, established company that has the omnibus studies that you want. Then, you can see if you would like to expand your research based on the information you gained from the omnibus study—and in turn help your company into the next phase of its success.
Five Steps for Finding the Best Film Production Company
Videos are easy to assimilate and understand as they are detailed and visually pleasing. Videos also offer higher retention rates when compared to blogs, white papers or any other written marketing collateral. Every business should consider the power of video when putting together their PR & marketing plans as brand films can be a great way to communicate value propositions and key messages. In today’s competitive environment, a business that ignores video may be missing out on opportunities to connect with customers.
Now that we have established that videos are an integral element of sales and marketing, we should also know that the success and failure of these videos strongly depends on the production quality that goes behind the making of these videos. You can expect quality filming standards only when an experienced and talented film production company is making your brand film or marketing video. No matter how good your product/service is and no matter how enticing your offerings are, if the film quality is bad the audience will not interpret your message the way it was intended to be. Hence, the selection of the film production company becomes a very important aspect to consider as you plan how to utilize and implement a video strategy. Here are five steps to find the best film production company to fulfill your video production requirements.
1. Know What You Want
The first thing to do when you want to hire a video production service Miami is define your requirements and share them with the film production company in the form of a creative brief. Based on your requirements, type of content and format and other creative elements involved, the kind of video production company you require will vary. Hence, having a creative brief ready will not only lay a strong foundation to your marketing initiatives, but also help you in your search for the best film production company.
2. Online Research and Referrals
Once you have a creative brief, it is easy to determine the type of production company you need. Suppose you think a cinematic representation will best portray your organization, you can approach a production company that has expertise in the production of cinematic corporate videos. The best way to explore the film production companies in your vicinity is by doing a simple internet search and going through the websites of various production companies. Apart from online research, you can also count on the referrals you get from families, friends and influencers in your industry. The referrals you get from these people are genuine as they have already dealt with the video production companies in the past and can give you a realistic picture of what to expect.
3. Previous Clients and Testimonials
When you’re doing your homework pay attention to the previous clients of the film production company, samples of their past work, and testimonials from previous clients. Checking out the previous work of the video production company will give you a great deal of insight on their creative outlook, approach towards problem solving, shooting style, etc. Based on this, you can judge whether the film production company is good fit to help you executive your creative brief. When you compare the previous work and testimonials of various companies, you can make a shortlist of the best film production companies in NYC.
4. Request a Quote
Once you have made a shortlist of all the video production companies that you would want to approach, you should reach out to these companies and start a dialogue which can result in a quote from each, which will allow you to compare and fully understand each organization’s approach to the film/video production process. Through this conversation you’ll get a sense as to how they approach each project, how they handle customer service, and how they structure their rates to produce corporate video or brand films. While these quotes will provide you with a lot of information they’ll also help guide you in the selection of a film production company and allow you to ask the right follow-up questions as you make your final selection on the right film production company for your video production project.
5. Schedule a Meeting
Once you have narrowed down your shortlist to just one or two film production companies based on the quotes you received, you should schedule a meeting with these companies and have a face to face meeting with each of them. The face to face interaction will allow you the opportunity to further discuss the project at hand, answer questions you may have about the production process, learn about the film production companies and how they work, and determine who has a pleasant disposition and who you can envision working with to bring your film production to fruition.
