b2b china marketing Archives

Douyin for B2B: Unlocking New Growth Opportunities in China

April 11, 2025

As the B2B marketing landscape in China rapidly evolves, staying ahead means understanding where your audience spends their time—and increasingly, that place is Douyin. Once considered primarily a B2C platform, Douyin is now gaining significant traction among B2B marketers looking to connect with China’s next generation of decision-makers.

Why Douyin Is Emerging as a B2B Marketing Powerhouse

With 743 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) and strong penetration in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, Douyin has become the third most-used social media platform by multinational corporations in China, after WeChat and WeChat Channels.

So, what’s fueling this growth?

Changing Buyer Behavior: Millennials—now key B2B decision-makers—prefer self-guided research over sales calls. They seek engaging, short-form content to inform purchasing decisions.
Smart Recommendation Algorithms: Douyin’s algorithm ensures that your content reaches the most relevant users, increasing targeting efficiency and lead quality.
Immense Reach: The platform’s scale and format offer unprecedented brand visibility, especially at the top of the funnel.

Key Benefits of Using Douyin for B2B Marketing

1. Massive Brand Exposure

Your brand can reach millions of professionals—many of whom are actively involved in procurement and decision-making.

2. Highly Engaging Content Format

Douyin’s short-form video format is perfect for showcasing product use cases, customer success stories, or industry trends in a digestible, entertaining way.

3. Two-Way Engagement

Comment sections and DMs allow for direct interaction with prospects—something not easily achieved through traditional B2B channels.

How to Do B2B Marketing Effectively on Douyin

Create Short, Impactful Videos

Focus on content like:

Product demos
Thought leadership insights
Case studies
Behind-the-scenes of your company or product

Tell a Compelling Brand Story

Users connect with stories, not sales pitches. Humanize your brand with:

Founder stories
Team introductions
“A day in the life” at your company

Embrace Creative Formats

Douyin rewards creative content. Try:

Animation and explainer videos
Light-hearted skits or scenarios
Interactive Q&As or challenges

Best Practices for Douyin B2B Campaigns

High-Quality Production: Use professional visuals, crisp audio, and seamless editing to capture attention.
Active Engagement: Respond to user comments and messages promptly to build relationships.
Timely Content: Align content with trending topics, industry news, or product launches to stay relevant.

Case Study: JLL’s Douyin Strategy

Global real estate leader JLL used Douyin to build professional video profiles for their consultants. The result? More human, relatable connections with potential clients—boosting both individual engagement and overall brand perception.

Ready to Leverage Douyin for Your B2B Growth in China?

If your brand wants to tap into a fast-growing, digitally savvy B2B audience in China, Douyin is a powerful tool worth investing in. Contact us today to build a tailored Douyin strategy that drives awareness, engagement, and long-term value for your business.

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5 Key B2B Marketing Predictions for 2025: How to Stay Ahead

February 14, 2025

As we move into 2025, the B2B marketing landscape is set for transformative changes. From the rise of influencers to AI-driven marketing innovations, staying ahead of these trends is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge. In this blog, we’ll explore five key B2B marketing predictions for 2025 and actionable strategies to help businesses adapt and thrive.

1. The Rise of Creators and Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is no longer just a B2C strategy—B2B brands are rapidly embracing creators to build trust and credibility. According to LinkedIn, 61% of B2B leaders plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets. With the Creator Economy projected to reach $500 billion by 2027, now is the time for B2B brands to tap into this growing market.

Actionable Tip: Partner with industry-specific influencers and content creators who align with your brand values. Leverage their reach to engage prospects and generate high-quality leads through authentic storytelling.

2. AI Will Revolutionize B2B Marketing

AI is becoming a game-changer in B2B marketing, with 64% of B2B leaders planning to expand their investment in AI-driven solutions. From automating customer interactions to enhancing content personalization, AI is reshaping the way marketers create and optimize campaigns.

Actionable Tip: Implement AI-powered tools to enhance creative processes, streamline workflows, and generate data-driven insights that improve campaign performance.

3. Short-Form Video Will Dominate Content Strategies

Short-form video continues to gain traction, delivering high engagement and trust. Studies show that 55% of B2B marketers report the highest ROI from short-form social videos, while 63% of B2B buyers rely on video content to inform their purchasing decisions.

Actionable Tip: Invest in short-form video content that features industry experts, customer testimonials, and educational insights. Platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok for Business offer powerful distribution channels for reaching your target audience.

4. Performance Marketing Will Shift Toward Long-Term Impact

While performance marketing remains a priority, brands are shifting focus to measuring long-term effectiveness. Ebiquity’s 2025 Media Budgets Survey highlights that 42% of marketers are increasing their performance marketing budgets, but with a growing emphasis on long-term brand-building.

Actionable Tip: Leverage AI-driven analytics tools to track and optimize campaign performance. Balancing short-term ROI with long-term brand growth ensures sustainable success.

5. Collaborative Problem-Solving Will Be Essential

As B2B marketing becomes more complex, collaboration and human-centric skills are gaining importance. LinkedIn’s Marketing Jobs Outlook Report notes a 138% increase in demand for collaborative problem-solving skills between 2021 and 2023.

Actionable Tip: Build a culture of collaboration within your marketing teams. Invest in training programs that combine creative execution with AI-driven solutions to navigate evolving challenges effectively.

Final Thoughts

Adapting to these key B2B marketing trends in 2025 will be critical for staying ahead of the competition. By leveraging influencer marketing, AI innovations, video content, long-term performance strategies, and collaborative problem-solving, businesses can drive meaningful engagement and growth.

Looking to optimize your B2B marketing strategy for 2025? Contact us today to explore customized solutions tailored to your business needs!

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China Marketing Strategy: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

June 16, 2022

China’s marketing strategy is a minefield. If you want to build a brand in the Chinese market, you need to know how to navigate it.

Entering the Chinese market is not only intimidating for the newcomers but also for existing businesses. Rapidly changing tastes, the market’s vastness, and nuanced preferences of more than 1.4 billion consumers living in very differentiated geographic and socio-cultural environments can be daunting for well-established players as well.

This is especially true for FMCG that are hyper-sensitive to consumers’ evolving tastes. That’s why often there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy in China. Actually having one monolith strategy for China can be more harmful than having no strategy at all.

Brands must develop strategies for localized branding, communication, e-commerce, and traditional distribution in order to build a good business in China. These will necessitate a thorough awareness of consumer patterns and profiles, as well as familiarity with local marketing and operations. Otherwise, they will be unable to respond effectively to consumer desires and needs, increasing the danger of failing.

Why Is It Necessary to Localize?

The main point is that it’s easy for brands to assume that Chinese consumers are one homogeneous group of people with identical tastes and preferences. Also, most brands tend to focus on consumers based in China’s 1st tier cities like Shanghai or Beijing.

The Chinese city tier system is an unofficial hierarchical classification of Chinese cities. Media often use it as a point of reference to illustrate their financial, commercial, and overall business attractiveness. Usually, there are 5 levels of so-called tiers with some outlets adding an additional classification for the most rapidly developing cities. These are called New Tier 1 cities with Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing, and Tianjin among them. Only imagine that there are almost 150 cities in China that are bigger than Berlin (3.5 million).

Every target audience has diverse needs and aspirations, and firms that don’t have a defined marketing plan will waste company resources chasing the incorrect demographics.

It’s a big misconception that consumers in those 2nd or 3rd-tier cities are the same as consumers in Shanghai or Beijing. A lot of reports on Chinese consumers often focus on the population samples from the biggest cities leaving the intricacies and local differences out of sight. People living in different Chinese provinces and locations will show different consumer behaviors and have varied income levels. Very often even the climate or weather patterns can play a big factor in their consumption habits.

Examples of global fast-food chains adapting to local tastes: Mcdonalds’ pickle sandwich, KFC’s egg tarts, and durian pizza from Pizza Hut

Local Nuances

Just to give you an example, and of course, these are just exaggerations. E.g. Chengdu youth scene is famous for being among the most flourishing in China while people from Wuxi, an over 6 million people city near Shanghai, are renowned for their entrepreneurship spirit. Based on deeper research and local knowledge you can find a lot of nuances and specific interests that you can leverage in your brand communication, packaging, and pricing that will ultimately make a difference.

So when you’re trying to figure out how to make your retail experience more Chinese-friendly, the first step is figuring out who exactly you’re trying to attract—and then how best to reach them. Some brands might find success by hiring local employees who speak the dialects of their target market(s) fluently. They can often offer their own personal recommendations; others might do better by partnering with influencers who already have strong followings among those groups of people. Surveys and local focus groups can also be of great help.

Competitors in the biggest Chinese cities are fierce and the market is well saturated with all kinds of goods readily available. Therefore brands now want to expand their reach and deepen their penetration of the Chinese market. Because of a lack of understanding and applying the same strategies that worked in the biggest Chinese coastal cities, foreign brands often fail and are reluctant to continue their expansion which doesn’t need to be the case.

How to Localize – Things to Consider

Because of the local differences, you might rethink:

Brand message – is there some other unique selling point that could be more appealing to the local target audience?
Packaging – is the design and size suitable for local needs? Maybe the locals prefer smaller packages to have a try of the product?
Ingredients – can you add some local ingredients to make your product more appealing to the local palates?
Necessity – is your product adapted or even needed in the targeted location? Promoting stylish rain boots makes sense during the Shanghai rain season. However not so in Beijing where summers are usually hot and dry.
Pricing – is the price too low or too high?
And more to consider.

Strategy for China – Conclusions

Each country, market, demography, and way of life are distinct; it is the marketer’s responsibility to customize messaging and techniques to these diverse local trends. By recognizing these patterns and the economic, social, and technical influences that influence the Chinese customers, brands in China can better prepare for the future and succeed in the present.

➡️Find out more about China’s core target consumer groups – Generation Z and Silver Generation.

If you wish to know more about marketing in China, please contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their network among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact at contact@thewechatagency.com.

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Case Study: AkzoNobel (B2B Management)

June 14, 2022

WHAT IS AKZONOBEL?

International Marine Coating is the flagship trademark of AkzoNobel’s Marine & Protective Coatings division, which employs over 5,500 people in over 60 countries.

THE SCOPE OF WORK

Major shipping firms such as Maersk, COSCO, and CMA CGM are among International Marine’s target customers.

Its main goal in China is to raise brand awareness and equity so that it may be regarded as a major player in the industry.

AkzoNobel – Content Creation

As part of our retainer contract, we deployed a combination of strategic activities, including engaging with industry expert magazines to publish material from the brand on their WeChat account in order to acquire access to relevant audiences and the validation of well-established media in the market.

THE RESULTS

The 2 Magazine articles surpassed by 80% and 125% the brand’s best-performing owned article of the whole year among the relevant target audience.

AkzoNobel – Hot Accounts Collaboration

IMPORTANT TO NOTE

These PR-like collaborations also serve as SEO backlinks, boosting the brand’s ranking in the SERP.

These collaborations have a short-term benefit of raising brand recognition among magazine readers who may not be familiar with the company, and a long-term benefit of improving SERP ranking.

If you wish to know more about WeChat and its various features, please contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their network among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact at contact@thewechatagency.com.

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