As everyone may be aware, WeChat is an effective tool for marketing to consumers, as companies can improve brand awareness through WeChat advertising. How about the effect of B2B marketing on WeChat?
Most China-based workers no longer bring business cards to meetings or social activities but instead, they scan WeChat QR codes. It can be seen that B2B communication on WeChat is just as important as B2C.
WeChat is a convenient and effective business communication tool. On WeChat, enterprises can communicate with customers one-to-one, or carry out one-to-many message transmissions, multimedia communications and data sharing. As a super app, WeChat has a large number of built-in functions, such as online payment, stock trading, short surveys and tutorials. With these WeChat applications, even work-related content becomes interesting. Therefore, every enterprise can use WeChat for B2B marketing.
WHICH WECHAT ACCOUNT IS RIGHT FOR B2B MARKETERS?
To conduct B2B marketing on WeChat, first, you need a WeChat official account, which would be your official company account. The official account is the primary channel for merchants to interact with customers and enhance brand awareness. There are three types of official accounts: subscription account, service account and enterprise account.
Among the three types of official accounts, subscription accounts and service accounts are the most suitable for B2B marketing. Service accounts have exclusive functions, such as CRM, customised menus, payment integration, mini-sites, etc. Enterprises can directly keep in touch with customers through service accounts. As such, service accounts are more suitable for service-oriented enterprises and after-sales departments.
SEVEN FEATURES OF YOUR WECHAT B2B MARKETING ACCOUNT
Transfer files WeChat allows users to send documents, address books, excel sheets, videos, and images to each other. In the process of B2B marketing, companies can quickly contact each other.
Network analysis The interaction of users on your official account is clearly visible in WeChat network analysis. WeChat network analysis can also collect feedback from usersto help companies improve their products or services.
Template message Your official account can send important service notifications to users through template messages, for example, a notification that a purchase is completed, or member points updated
Group message Your official account can group messages according to gender and region . This function can help you send messages to the correct target customers and avoid disturbing other customers who may not be interested in it.
Auto reply When a user follows your official account for the first time, sends messages or keywords, your account can be set to automatically reply. The welcome message when a general official account is added is to introduce the official account, display keywords or promote recent activities. This is the customer's first impression of the company, which is especially important.
Trackable QR code and tagging With WeChat API, we can generate a trackable QR code for different scenarios, for example, we can generate a QR code for "offline event", when a user scans the QR code to follow your official account, and the user profile will be added "offline event" tag.
Custom menu
An official account can add up to three menu categories in the menu bar, and up to 5 sub-menus under each category. Each menu can link to a message, a website or an application. Content-based official accounts usually have at least one menu link history message.
CHALLENGES OF B2B WECHAT MARKETING
Although there are many business opportunities in WeChat marketing, companies also face many challenges
Large number of competitors
According to Chinachannel's survey, WeChat has 10 million official accounts. Imagine a whopping 10 million official accounts running different WeChat marketing activities, the competition this generates can be outrageous.
Lack of user attention
Users often ignore the content pushed because they are not interested in the content or the quality of the push is poor. Another reason may be that there are already a large number of similar posts on WeChat. If the content of the official account is not eye-catching, users will not spend energy to read.
A GUIDE TO WECHAT B2B MARKETING
Official account name The name of the official account represents the enterprise, so be extra cautious when choosing the name of the official account. Users will search for keywords. In order to be searchable by users, the name of the official account should not be too specific or broad. When naming the official account, keep in mind the importance of "Search Engine Optimisation" (SEO) practices.
In addition, the official profile also represents the enterprise. The profile should be professional and up-to-date. It is as important as the name of the official account.
QR code The QR code is indispensable in China. The QR code should appear on every asset related to the company, especially on the product catalog, website, business card and other promotional materials, so that you can have more touch points with China-based customers.
Comprehensive content Content marketing is very important for social media marketing. Therefore, before the official account is released, companies should first understand the target users. The content should be what the target user likes. Only attractive, entertaining and interactive content can attract users' attention, gain more exposure and fans, and no user is willing to spend time on boring content.
WeChat Mini Site Through the WeChat mini-site, you can interact with customers and let them participate in activities, and you can also hold promotional activities or display product vouchers on the mini-site. For a better customer experience, companies can chat with customers in real-time on the WeChat mini-site.
Official account activeness If the official account is not updated frequently, the user will cancel the subscription. Therefore, the official account must be pushed frequently. The timing of the push is also very important. The peak reading on WeChat is from 7am to 9am in the morning and from 8pm to 10pm in the evening. Companies can try to push in various time periods and observe which time period the push is more in line with the company's marketing strategy. If you want to avoid the highly competitive time period, you can post it from 2pm to 5pm.
Suggestion Companies should invest more time and energy in WeChat B2B marketing. Only by pushing high-quality content can they stand out. Market research can help companies understand the audience and find potential customers. In fact, it takes a lot of time, energy and good content marketing to find and cultivate the right customers.
CONCLUSION
All in all, WeChat B2B marketing is a highly effective and purposeful channel for companies to promote products and services to Chinese customers. Make full use of the various functions on WeChat and understand the business opportunities and challenges on the WeChat platform to create the best marketing strategy.