Feel free to share the whitepaper and e-books with your friends or colleagues if you find them helpful.

• Marketers’ Guide on Search Engine Marketing 2009 [54 pages]
  • Download (PDF)
• How to Get More Facebook Fans [11 pages]

China Internet Related Whitepapers:

• China Internet Statistics Whitepaper 2009
• China Search Engine Report 2008 Advertisers and Users Behavior Study
• Brief Guide to China Search Marketing with Baidu (Download PDF)

Also read:Consulting

The core of digital marketing is to map out the right strategies for different businesses right at the beginning; and, deploy the right tactics and ALWAYS track the performance to measure the campaign results (ROI, or Return on Investment). Keep improving! Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you find any service below helpful to you.

From a charity organization? I do free digital marketing consultancy for charities. Please contact me and I’ll do the best I can according to my schedule. Contact me here.

Digital Marketing Consultancy. Maximize your digital marketing efforts by deploying the right strategy for the right online channel and integrating different digital marketing media. Contact me here.

Site Audit. Site audit on websites is like having a health check on human beings. It helps you understand what problems your sites currently have so that you can improve it for better attracting search engine traffic and improving usability. Contact me here.

1. Domain information
2. Search Engine Friendly (SEO) Site Audit
3. Broken Links
4. Website Loading Time
5. Browser Compatibility
6. Accessibility
7. Usability
8. Competitive Analysis
9. Social Popularity & Social Presence Check

Paid Search (PPC) Management. Companies who truly understand the power of search have already taken advantage of search as one very important marketing media. Some SMEs get scared of this “Pay Per Click” advertising; well, you won’t if you track the whole campaign and have a clear understanding about the ROI. A performance based PPC management could be provided so that you only pay for what you get. Contact me here. Or, find out more about PPC management.

• Google
• Yahoo
• Bing
• Baidu
• Sogou (Sohu.com)
• Taobao.com

SEO Consultancy. Optimize your website for natural search engine traffic, the kind of traffic you don’t need to pay. Free? Yes. You only need to pay for optimization. Again, performance based. SEO takes longer than PPC; it’s more beneficial if you combine them together. Contact me here.

Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime. –Chinese Proverb

Digital Marketing Training / Consultancy. If you do have people dedicated to digital (on which you are doing the right thing), training can be provided to your team. A kick-off meeting will be arranged to better understand the business to suggest the best fit training modules, which is free.

• Search Engine Optimization
• Paid Search Management (PPC)
• Social Media Marketing
• Web Analytics
• Advanced Google Analytics
• China Internet Briefing
• Integrate Search Marketing with Other Digital Channels
• Integrate Digital with Traditional Media
• Online Offline Marketing Integration Recommendations

If you have a little question regarding digital marketing, feel free to ask me. I won’t charge you anything for that. =) All you need to do is to contact me.

Contact me here; be specific about your business, the goal you expect to achieve, and the kind of services you are interested in. Contact me here.

Also read:SEO Consultancy Service

Also read:China Search Engine Market Report, Sep 2008

Hi there! Welcome to visit my personal website. If you are also in digital marketing industry, you may want to check out the blogs I write:

• Digital Marketing Blog
• China Internet Watch

Do you share a passion in entrepreneurship, Internet, marketing, branding, or business development? Connect with me now:

You can also download digital marketing whitepaper that I wrote. Or, are you looking for digital marketing related service? Getting bored here? Check out my photo album here.

Also read:About

Data from the comScore qSearch service show that Asia-Pacific Region Has Highest Number of Searchers and Searches in the World.

In September, more than 340 million searchers conducted nearly 29 billion searches in the Asia-Pacific region, ranking it as the largest searcher population and search volume total of the five global regions reported by comScore. China had the largest searcher population in the region with more than 149 million searchers, and the greatest number of searches conducted (12.8 billion). Japan ranked second on both measures with more than 61 million searchers and nearly 6 billion searches. Australia exhibited the heaviest search intensity with an average of 115 searches per searcher during the month, followed by South Korea (109 searches per searcher) and Singapore (106 searches per searcher).

Two graphs below can give you a better view of search in APAC region:

Asia-Pacific Search Overview

Asia-Pacific Search Overview

Also read:Top 10 Search Properties in Asia Pacific in July 2008

Chinese consumers are increasingly wary of untried products and ever more likely to make purchase decisions at the last minute. Recommendations from family and friends remain very influential. And television advertising is still a prerequisite for entering the market, but its punch is weakening. Meanwhile, print ads are losing ground, while sponsorships and the Internet are becoming more influential. Amid the growing din of Chinese marketing, connecting with consumers continues to be difficult and frustrating

McKinsey just released an update on their findings of Chinese consumers research. If you are one of those interested in the world’s biggest market, you should have a read. Here is a summary of the key findings:

The importance of the brands

• On average, Chinese consumers are willing to pay a premium of about 2.5% for a branded product they purchase regularly, compared to 20% in developed markets.
• Rising inflation is making Chinese consumers more price sensitive and less loyal to their preferred brands.
• 63% of the shoppers studied still enter a store with a shortlist of favorite brands or a single preferred one and don’t stray from it when making purchases.
• Only 18% of the respondents indicated that they were always willing to try new packaged foods, compared with 29% two years earlier.
• Once Chinese consumers recognize a brand, they are likely to assume that it offers better quality and are willing to pay a premium for it.
• Brands in China are powered mostly by their functional characteristics, such as quality and taste.
• Chinese consumers are sensitive to value for money and generally have a clear idea of which functional features merit a higher price.
• 30% respondents said they trust only Chinese brands, down sharply from 44% in 2007.
• Chinese consumers don’t always have a clear idea about a brand’s nationality.

Reaching Chinese Consumers

• Recommendations from family and friends is the most popular way Chinese consumers get product information
• Television is indispensable and its impact score is second only to that of word-of-mouth recommendations; the impact of ads on television and in the print media was mixed, while indirect approaches (sponsorships, the Internet, and articles in the print media) are gaining strength.
• Sports and cultural sponsorships can also help build interest.

To build a brand and get connected to Chinese consumers in China, being on TV is a must but not enough. With word of mouth campaigns via Internet, you stand a higher chance.

Also read:Deep Insights Into Behavior of Chinese Online Consumers

comScore today released its ranking of the top search properties in the Asia-Pacific region based on data from the comScore qSearch 2.0 service, revealing that Google Sites continued to lead the region with 33.5% of the more than 27 billion searches conducted in July. Baidu ranked second with 27.4% search share, followed by Yahoo! Sites in third with 19.7% share.

Surprised to see TENCENT and Sohu in the top 10 list. If you are a stranger to them, you should know: Tencent’s search engine is SoSo (“So” in Chinese means “search”) whose paid search is powered by Google; and, Sogou is Sohu’s search engine. Read my previous post about China search engine market survey here.

It may surprise you to see that there is actually a difference between the top countries by searches and the top countries by searches per user.

Top Countries by Searches

Top Countries by Searches per User

To me, the number of searches per user gives a general idea about the maturity of the searchers in the market. The most important lesson is, don’t simply apply your experience to all the markets without enough testing and analysis.

Also read:Asia-Pacific Search Country Breakdown By Country Sep 2008

Finally I’m back blogging! Came across this interesting survey done by CIC, below is a summary of the key findings. In general, Baidu market share slightly slips; surprised to see Sogou’s market share has rised.

China Search Engine Market Share Based on Daily Usage

China IntelliConsulting Corporation (CIC) has published its semi-annual survey report on China search engine market.

Market Share based on Daily Usage

The report shows Baidu has managed its market share increased over the last six months in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the three major cities surveyed. Google saw its market share bounced up slightly, whereas both Yahoo and Sogou have been further marginalized.

I’m surprised to see Sogou has actually managed to rise to 3.1% from 2.2% a year ago. I would definitely test out Sogou when I have a chance. Data from Google Trends seems to verify the finding:

Website Traffic from Google Trends

CIC survey covers 18 cities which are categorized as four major groups:

• National Hub Cities: The three major cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou
• The Coastal Cities: Dalian, Tianjin, Qingdao, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Xiamen, and Shenzhen
• The Central Provincial Capital Cities: Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, and Changsha
• The Western Regional Hub Cities: Chongqing, Chengdu and Xi’an

Search Engine Regional Market Share in China

CIC found, Google has lower brand awareness and accounts for less market share in Central provincial capital cities and Western hub cities than in the three major cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Google’s market share in China’s rural areas is even less than 10%. However, the good news for Google is that, 34.6% believe Google is better than Baidu in terms of search result relevancy, 29.0% believe the opposite.

Also read:China Search Engine Survey Report 2007 Released

Search Engine Marketing

• Google XML Sitemaps : Essential FAQ [Search Engine Journal]
• Plotting the Effects of your PPC Changes [Apple Pie & Custard]
  Imagine you could plot the effects of every single change to your PPC campaign on a graph. You’d be able to view instantly whether that bid your raised on Friday evening before leaving the office has paid off
• Google AdWords Insertion Tag List [Search Engine Roundtable]
• Landing page load time now affects keywords’ Quality Scores [Google]
  “Keywords with landing pages that load slowly may get lower Quality Scores (and thus higher minimum bids). Conversely, keywords with landing pages that load very quickly may get higher Quality Scores and lower minimum bids.”
• Google Leads in Mobile Search [Marketing Charts]
  “Google leads in mobile internet search provider share (61% in the first quarter of 2008), followed by Yahoo (18%) and MSN (5%), according to Nielsen Mobile, which also released data on commerce conducted via mobile devices.”

Social Media Marketing / WOM / Viral Marketing

• The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II by Dave Balter [via How To Change the World]
  FREE PDF version
• Measuring social media – a minefield without metrics [E-Consultancy]
  “Marketers need to establish industry-wide best practices first and understand what they want to achieve, before tying down the metrics. “
• Growing Experiment in Interactive TV Advertising [NT Times]
  The test offers viewers programs — and ads — they can respond to by using remote controls to click on icons they see on their screens.
• 100 Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media [ChrisBrogan]

Email Marketing

• ABCs of Email Rendering [MediaPost]

Display Advertising

• Interactive Banner Advertising Converts to Leads [Zac Johnson]
  “The concept of this banner was to have the visitor answer a question (check box) from within the banner, then walk them through a couple extra questions, while the offers would pop open in a new browser. “

Marketing Research

• Online Travel Query Content is Changing [Hitwise]
  “The largest chunk of branded searches were searches for inventory owners, such as airlines and hotels, and map websites, such as MapQuest and Google Maps.”
• 1.2 Billion Mobile Subscribers! [eMarketer]
  eMarketer estimates that BRIC will account for nearly 1.2 billion mobile phone subscribers this year.
• Internet marketing boosts traditional routes [BizReport]
  Thirty-three percent of consumers surveyed by the DMA were found to respond positively to email and 44% expressed similar feelings about direct mail marketing.

China Internet

• Chinese Bloggers Really Are Edgy [WSJ]
  “Western journalists often write about the ability of Chinese bloggers to challenge authority and provide an alternative voice to the propaganda that often fills China’s official news media. How accurate is that description across China’s vast blogosphere?”
• 160 million Online Video Users in China [China Web2.0]
  According to the report, there are already 160 million online video users in China by the end of 2007.

Also read:Digital Marketing: Must Read for Week July-21

Pearl Research released a comprehensive lifestyle study (paid) focused on Chinese consumers ages 16 to 30, “The Phoenix Generation: Insights into Chinese Consumers“. Key findings include:

• Popular Trends: Street basketball, the National Basketball Association (NBA) and hip-hop have grown in popularity as Chinese consumers embrace new cultural experiences. Brands such as Nike, Adidas and Li Ning have benefited from this as Chinese youth aspire to look like their favorite sports stars.
• Internet and Online Games Trends – China has more than 210 million internet users making it the largest Internet population worldwide. However, Internet usage in China tends to differ as 100 million of theses users are under the age of 25, thus are more likely to seek out entertainment content. Online gaming (60%) and chatting (65%) were cited as top reasons to go online. Approximately 51% of the studied enjoyed playing multi-player online games while casual games were equally popular at 44%.
• Consumer Segmentation – Urban incomes have reached $5,000 in first-tier cities such as Shanghai and Beijing.
• Unique Websites: These sites were selected based on their popularity and growth potential. Sites included: Xiaonei.com, Blogchina.com, Sky-fire.com, and Dangdang.com

Also read:Deep Insights Into Behavior of Chinese Online Consumers

Here is an example of how Google leverage its China’s competitor Baidu’s advantage: mp3 search.

Baidu has over 60% total market share while Google has less than 30%. Baidu’s disputed MP3 search is a good weapon that Google itself can’t simply provide due to copyright concerns. Imagine an Internet user who find it much easier to get mp3 songs via search in Baidu over Google, he would probably seldom come back to Google again.

Internet today in China is still more for entertainment purpose, which makes search engine’s ability to get users mp3 very important to gain more market share. Since Google can’t just index all the illegal mp3 and provide relevant links for users to download, what can it do?

I searched for an old song “海阔天空“, you can see in the above screenshot, the 3rd and 4th position are both occupied by Baidu MP3. What a smart strategy! Users can also get mp3 searching in Google and Google is not violating the copyright laws.

Also read:China Multiplayer Online Game Market

It’s very hard for an Internet company to extend its success into China, even a giant like eBay. Building a strong Internet brand and enriching user experience seem Google’s bet in China.

The death toll from the Sichuan earthquake in China was raised to more than 34,000 on Monday, while the direct economic losses in Sichuan alone were put at about 67bn yuan ($9.6bn).

Responding to an announcement from the State Council about the three days of official mourning for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake starting today (May 19), all Chinese newspapers nationwide all are printed only using black ink on the front pages today. Most big Chinese websites including Sina, Sohu, Tudou… have also removed color from their logos and home pages.

Google has attempted lots of efforts to help the disastrous Sichuan earthquake relief in China. Taking a look at Google, a foreign Internet giant in China, changed its logo to black and white as well, for the very first time:

FYI: The first line of the black banner on Google China’s homepage shows the time the sichuan earthquake happened, “14:28, May 12, 2008″; and, the second line says, “let’s remember this moment for ever; may the past rest in peace, may the people alive be strong.”

Also read:Google China Zeitgeist For Travel

• 12 Trends for the Next 3 Years for Internet Marketing
  The 12 trends below represent what Larry Chase thinks you need to keep an eye on in the foreseeable future.
  (tags: trends internet marketing)
• comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for April
  April saw Google Sites attain the number one spot in the Top 50 U.S. Properties ranking for the first time in its history with a total audience of more than 141 million visitors.
  (tags: comscore media us google)
• China Search Marketing With Baidu Whitepaper
  It definitely gives you some idea how Baidu makes money in China from online advertising and how you can make use of it. Here is the list of contents.
  (tags: china search marketing baidu whitepaper)

Also read:China Search Marketing With Baidu Whitepaper

On April 25, 2008 China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) issued the Research Report of China Youth Internet Behaviors. The data illustrates that up to December 31, 2007，the number of young netizens who under the age of 25 has reached 107 million, holding for a half of the overall size of Internet users. This is the largest age group among Internet users in China which reflected a good potential for growth and development. Here are the key takeaways:

• The number of China’s youth Internet users (or netizens) has achieved 107 million,which is half of China’s total internet users. See the difference across west, middle, and west area:
  
• Among all youth netizens, there are 46.71 million non-student Internet users, 43.8% of total youth netizens.46.2% of them have received senior high school education.
• The internet penetration rate among the youth netizens is 24.2%, far higher than the overall 16%.
• There are 10% more male netizens than female ones, which is 10.7 million.
  
• Almost 60% youth netizens surf Internet at home while almost half (47.8%) surf at Internet Cafe.
  
• The average total Internet surfing time among youth internet users is 12.7 hours per week below the total average of 16.2 hours per week.
• On average, each youth netizen users 7.4 web applications, above the domestic average (6.5).
• 90% of youth netizens use instant messenger, 10% above the domestic average. Most have the desire to make friends online.
  
• They are not interested in news and polytics but entertainment, sports, celebrities, food, travel and etc. Top 3 entertainment applications: online music, online movies, online games. This graph should seem a bit scary to the government:
  
• Almost 30% of youth Internet users tend to addict.
• 33% of youth netizens updated their blog within 6 months and over half made friends online.
• 31% used cell phones to surf Internet within 6 months. 40% of university students surf online with their mobile phones.

Now you know.

Also read:How Many Internet Users In China?

Baidu is the most widely used search engine in China, having more than 60% of the total search market. However, on branding, it doesn’t seem to have an obvious advantage over Google. Interestingly, the less developed a city is, the more popular Baidu is, and the less popular Google is.

I did a presentation internally last Month about search marketing in China and talked a lot about Baidu; just made it into a whitepaper; it’s far from being a comprehensive guide to search marketing in China or Baidu. However, it definitely gives you some idea how Baidu makes money in China from online advertising and how you can make use of it. Here is the list of contents:

• Search Engine Preference In China (popularity)
• Top Search Engine Brands (brand image)
• Different Search Engine Preference In Cities
• Chinese Search Engagement
• Baidu User Interface
• Baidu Pay-Per-Click
• Baidu Pay-Per-Year Advertising
• Baidu Brand Advertising
• Baidu Content Network
• Baidu Complete Traffic Advertising
• Baidu Video Advertising
• Search Operation in Baidu
• Baidu Agency
• Baidu Customer Support
• Baidu’s Plan

Download the whitepaper (PDF):
Brief Guide to China Search Marketing with Baidu

Update (May 7 2008): Chanced upon a user experience analysis on Baidu and Google by Jason Yu via blogoscoped, you may want to read it.

Also read:Links: 12 Internet Marketing Trends, Top 50 US Web Properties, Baidu Whitepaper

Taobao.com, C2C branch of Alibaba Group, achieved 43.3 billion yuan (over US$6 billion) total online sales in year 2007; it has recently launched its B2C section: Taobao Mall, giving numerous well-known brands such as Nokia, Lancome, Chivas…an online channel to reach more customers. Its objective is to build a 24-hour open online mall selling all brand products you can get in Wal-Mart.

What’s in there for customers? 7 days money back guarantee, no question asked; more broad and cheaper selection of brand products. No worries of buying a fake products. It already has over 100 brands who have opened and started selling.

In China, not many company, even the well known local brands, has a well built eCommerce website; not to mention the lack of online marketing efforts. Taobao.com’s B2C online mall would definitely be a boost to those business with Taobao’s huge no. of users (53 million users by year 2007) and well recognized brand of online market place.

Also read:eBay China’s Yesterday And Tomorrow

From RedlineChina:

The alliance will provide technology solutions to allow international companies to access advertising resources on China’s most popular search engine. Pearl Research believes the partnership will help Baidu to increase its visibility to western clients and increase its ad sales while diversifying its revenue streams.

Baidu is famous for its less transparent algorithm compared with Google; it doesn’t provide search API either. (actually so far as I know, it does have API and one agency claims they are the only one who has the API though it’s not good.) I believe the partnership would boost Baidu’s sales as well as giving Omniture another sword in the market.

You can read the press release from Omniture here.

Also read:Baidu Launched Baidu 2008 For Olympics 2008

Some interesting figures from a research firm Netpop:

• Internet as a tool for research or purchase products: 73% Products in US versus 93% in China
• UGC (User Generated Content) is an influence for 19% of respondents in the US versus 58% in China.
• 58% of the population in US has broadband (74 million) versus 10% in China (70 million)

Source: How Online Shopping Behaviors Compare in U.S., China [Clickz]

Also read:How Many Internet Users In China?

I’m not kidding! Of course, that’s not generosity from Dell.

The “offer” was from Dell China’s website on Feb 15. Due to some error of its system error, this awesome 27″ UltraSharp Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor was priced at RMB2515 yuan (about US$350), which was originally priced at RMB7599 yuan (about US$1064). And, this monitors were crazily “robbed” by the consumers.

On Feb 18, Dell removed the link to the product and told that the products can’t be delivered at the wrong price. Yesterday, Dell made a statement about its pricing mistakes and decided to deliver the products at the wrong price.

When you do something wrong and your customers feel bad about it, you have to “pay” to make things right.

Also read:26+2 Tools To Monitor Buzz

Today is my birthday! And, it happens to be a holiday in China too, “Yuanxiao Festival” or “Lantern Festival”:

Yuanxiao Festival or the Lantern Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, fourteen days after Chinese New Year’s Day (around the end of January and the beginning of February). In the country and town, people celebrate it heartily. For some reason, there is often a bigger celebration in the rural areas, especially in the North.

Find out more about Yuanxiao Festival here. Google is doing something special today.

Give you some background information first. In China, every holiday or festival, there are many people sending (many are actually forwarding) SMS greeting one another and many people would search for short greeting messages on the Internet.

Let me walk you through what happens in Google if you search for “Yuanxiao Festival SMS” or related in Google China, you would see Google’s greeting on top of search results:

Let me do a translation using Google’s own Toolbar Translate:

By clicking on the link, you would land on the SMS Hot List page:

Clicking on one greeting would have it displayed to the right in red. The user needs to enter his or her mobile number first and then the verification code (sent to the mobile mobile) to send the greeting SMS. The next month I get back to China, I would definitely try this.

Also read:Google China Launched Bus Search