Chinese B2B marketing is through messaging apps
Chinese B2B marketers use social media for business very differently than we do. According to him, there is no single platform like LinkedIn that dominates B2B networks in China David KetchumCEO of the agency Current Asia, with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. Instead, WeChat is used across the spectrum, seamlessly blending both personal and professional messages.
Furthermore, email is not as widely used in China as in other parts of the world. “Contacting someone via WeChat or their mobile number is considered much more valuable than an email address. This cultural difference is why Tencent introduced WeCom, the business-oriented version of WeChat. Many third-party SaaS and CRM platforms have been built around WeCom, allowing sales teams to connect with customers directly on WeChat under their company’s brand,” Ketchum said.
“WeCom offers advanced tools for B2B marketers, such as customer segmentation, media channel tracking, templated messages and behavioral analytics. It even includes a workspace feature tailored to sales teams. Thanks to its affordability and high level of customization, many local companies prefer WeCom CRM, which creates unique challenges for multinational companies operating in China.”
Dig Deeper: How B2B Marketing Is Becoming a Strategic Growth Engine
Ketchum’s colleague Brown Zhang highlights a case from Weiling’s website, a CRM tool integrated with WeCom. Qì Pèi Yún, a cloud-based auto parts sales platform, used Weiling to capture multi-channel leads through advertising, content marketing and events.
The team applied Weiling’s functionality to customer profiling and campaign management to track shares, registrations, on-site participation and conversion. The platform also enabled deduplication while giving sales, operations and management teams visibility and access throughout the process.
The results were remarkable: conversion rates tripled, from 2% to 6%. Qì Pèi Yún was able to move from managing leads in multiple silos to a unified, transparent and automated process. The system’s capabilities, including behavior tracking, segmentation and tagging, allowed them to distinguish between high- and low-intent leads and allocate them appropriately. No surprise that the sales team quickly embraced the streamlined and highly efficient system.
Japanese approach to digitizing business card data for ABM
Business cards, known as meishi, have been in widespread use in Japan for over a century. While they were a very useful communication tool in the pre-digital age, their biggest drawback was the tendency for cards to pile up in offices rather than becoming an enterprise-wide data asset. In recent years, business card management software tools have been developed to take advantage of the data on the cards.
Business card management tools such as Sansan and SKYPCE allow users to scan cards with their phone and upload the data to an enterprise-level database of contacts and sales history, which is integrated with the company’s CRM and marketing automation systems.
Ichiro Niwayamapresident and founder of Symphony Marketing, Japan’s leading B2B marketing agency, said: “These solutions are expected to play a critical role in Japan’s ABM strategies and serve as a powerful source of first-party data.”
In the US, business card exchanges have declined in recent years. However, collecting data for cross-functional use within the company remains an important goal.
Dig deeper: why your B2B strategy should start with a story that builds trust
India’s tech-first market is influencing B2B engagement
Rajesh Kumar, an experienced marketer from Delhi, shared several good ideas with me.
- India has quickly become a developer hub and the third most active startup community in the world (after the US and China), so insourcing has become an important marketing strategy. Let developers use your software for free and take advantage of meetups and user conferences to spread the word organically.
- Founders today are usually digital natives. For them it is not a job, but a calling. Help them access and experience thought leadership through events and showcases to bring their story to the world.
- Keep in mind that the Asian business community is very diverse. Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia/New Zealand are all culturally and historically distinct, not to mention varied in size and capabilities. No single approach works everywhere.
- Large family conglomerates abound in Japan, Korea and India. A sector-driven approach alone does not work for them. Instead, reaching the top of the family food chain is essential. Follow the leaders as they move and bring a success story from one unit to another.
Key insights from Asia’s evolving B2B landscape
Based on my observations in B2B marketing in various Asian markets, a few additional themes are worth mentioning.
The power of chat apps
Outside the US, chat apps are likely the preferred B2B communication tool compared to email and LinkedIn. Apps like WhatsApp, WeChat (in China) and LINE (in Japan and Thailand) now have B2B versions that offer not only messaging, but also chat analytics and martech stack connectivity, as mentioned above. As WhatsApp grows under Meta’s ownership, US B2B marketers should experiment with it. Make sure to add app buttons as reply vehicles to your messages.
Dig Deeper: Conversational Marketing: A Guide to a Key B2B GTM Strategy
Privacy Precautions
A traditionally trained direct marketer like me might resist this, but it is clear today that both consumers and business people expect their privacy to be respected, as evidenced by the GDPR in Europe. We B2B marketers need to adopt tools like a preference center, responsiveness to data subject access requests, and progressive profiling.
Sustainability as an advantage
While sustainability is a requirement in the Nordic countries, it is becoming an attractive feature in many markets. Include environmental, social and governance evidence points in your product messages.
In a future article I will report on the ideas we can get from B2B marketers in Europe and Latin America. Stay informed.
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