Targeting Travelers Decision Journey in Mobile Digital Age

traveler

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
Said Lao Tzu.

I personally love traveling and experiencing the culture in another corner of the planet; so do many other people in the world. In fact, 85% of travelers worldwide will sacrifice spending in other ways to fund travel plans according to the latest Tripadvisor survey. When they travel, 95% use various digital resources in the course of travel journeys according to a recent report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG). [Read more...]

Win Customers by Targeting the Decision Journey on Multiple Channels

journey

This is going to sound crazy, but… from the moment I first set eyes on you I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.
—Leigh Fallon, Carrier of the Mark

Whether or not you believe in love at first sight, you can never rely your business’ success on that for your customers. To win over your target audience and get them to finally open their wallet, you must understand the journey they go through before they “fall in love” with you. That journey is the customer decision journey to purchase.

When you develop your digital marketing strategies, it’s important to take each step of your target customer decision journey into consideration. [Read more...]

3 Tips to Increase Retail Sales with Mobile

mobile-shopper

I spoke last week at WTM Vision Shanghai conference and one retail store owner shared his concern that mobile may compete with and hurt his off-line retail business.

People are more comfortable shopping on mobile. Take China mobile market for example, the total mobile shopping transactions in the first quarter has an increase of 207% compared to the same period in the previous year. [Read more...]

How Chinese Communicates Digitally

how-chinese-communication
Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp are the most popular digital communication tools nowadays; but, not in China. So how does 618 million China internet users communicate? This post serves as an introduction for that.

QQ: Communications for both Personal and Business Use

Tencent’s success is built on their instant messenger, QQ. In China, it’s very widely used IM with about 800 million active users; between friends, among strangers, and for business purposes. [Read more...]

A Simplified Framework for Digital Marketing Strategy Development

digital-strategy

Almost all digital marketing proposals include a strategy part which however is often represented by one simple slide and used more than once with little amendment.

A truly working strategy for each company is unique and developed after research, serious analysis and testing. It takes weeks or even months to develop a digital marketing strategy involving complex processes. If you are not experienced developing digital marketing strategy, let me share a simplified framework to help you get started.

Digital Marketing Strategy Definition

A digital marketing strategy is a well thought plan concentrating companies’ resources on the optimal digital channels and tactics in order to generate sales in a self-sustaining manner.

It should include both short-term and long-term plans integrating multiple digital channels, online and offline, to maximize a company’s return on investment. [Read more...]

How to Develop Facebook Contest Strategy

yes

A Facebook contest often naturally comes to marketers’ mind, which can be launched in less than an hour. But, a lack of Facebook contest strategy may lead to poor results.

You may be surprised to know many businesses don’t have clear objective when launching a Facebook contest, many of which simply aim for more fans. You should always have a well defined objective and KPI for measuring the success of your contest at the very beginning of the planning process.

Audience demographics

It’s almost always among the first things to do in developing digital strategies for most digital channels. Without a thorough understanding and analysis of target demographic, the success of digital campaigns is left to chances. [Read more...]

B2B Online Success Secret Revealed

b2b secret

B2B businesses are conventionally harder to market than those selling to consumers, which especially requires strategic planning and phases of digital marketing tactics across channels.

A recent report by RAIN Group shed some light on  factors that separates B2B sales winners from their challengers; bringing something new and valuable to the table is the most important thing that top sales people do differently. [Read more...]

Why is Airbnb Likely to Fail in China?

Airbnb banner ad in China

I chanced upon this Airbnb banner ad in Google’s display network during my business trip in China last month. I clicked on this ad which led me to this landing page:

airbnb landing page

After viewing the landing page, I realized Airbnb is likely to fail in its attempt in expanding into Chinese market; let me tell you why. [Read more...]

What’s Coming at Facebook That Marketers Should Know

Facebook is to launch several premium ads products soon to provide brands more ways to advertise to its audience on Facebook, and changing the current Page design to timeline (by end March). This post briefly discusses the changes on Page and ads marketers should be aware.

Sponsored Story

Facebook Premium Ads

Previously (and right now), the sponsored story appear on the right-hand side. But, it will appear as a sponsored story on the right-hand side and it can also appear in news feed on both desktop and mobile. All of these placements are on Facebook’s homepage. [Read more...]