Entering the Era of Douyin — Tips for NZ Brands to prepare

Behold the new era of Douyin, where your brand can truly shine.

Douyin is a short video app owned by ByteDance and has become the biggest thing to happen to the Chinese retail landscape since the arrival of e-commerce. Douyin is becoming every digital marketer’s favourite platform to reach China’s fast rising affluent class. With over 600 million daily active users, the right time to start marketing on Douyin was yesterday. 

In a world where it’s hard to imagine anything growing faster, we’ve got some news for you: Douyin has been bleeding into this space like nobody’s business. The short-video platform is not the first to tap into social commerce in China — WeChat and Xiaohongshu (Red) have all rolled out their own e-commerce models — but Douyin is, by far, the fastest growing. In fact, it’s estimated that 70% of the growth of social e- commerce in China came from Douyin in 2021!

Chinese consumers are taking the world by storm. In the last two years, China’s social commerce market has grown by nearly $200 billion. And it’s estimated to reach over $1 trillion by 2024.

So why is this happening? Because Chinese consumers have started to embrace new ways of shopping that favour browsing and interaction over targeted product searches.

The key to Douyin’s success is that they are fundamentally social platforms that attract hundreds of millions of regular users for reasons other than just to shop. So called “ Interest ecommerce”. 

The platforms are built around the idea of entertainment, so high-value content on these platforms is highly social and relatable. The newly developed commerce functionality simply offers users the option of making instantaneous, friction-less purchases without changing apps. 

This makes Douyin a much more powerful marketing platform for brands and advertisers. Brands can not only partner with influencers (KOLs) to build awareness; they also get direct sales for their products.

The algorithm at Douyin is more than just a tool for sorting and displaying content. It’s also a way to engage with your audience, know their preferences, and offer them what they want. For instance, if a female user browses several hair care short videos every day but never makes a purchase, Douyin’s algorithm can filter content that reflects her strong interest in hair care—and then when she sees the right product offered for her to purchase inside of the app? Bam! Instant gratification!

For customers, the in-built Douyin store saves the trouble of transferring to a third-party platform. For merchants, Douyin has assured all-rounded support, benefiting you to make the business more successful. The Douyin store provides comprehensive tools for brands to operate their businesses. Functions covering campaigns & promotion, customer service, data analysis, and product management brings efficiency and convenience to your business operation.

Should you take your brand online on Douyin?

Do you have a brand that could benefit from the creative freedom and audience reach that Douyin offers?

If so, you’re probably wondering how to get started. Here is a framework for you to work out the compatibility. And we’re here to help!  You can get in touch with us to walk you through everything. 

Brands should consider the following points when deciding whether and how to engage on Douyin. 

• Objectives： What are your brand objectives?

Awareness,  Engagement, Traffic, Sales

• Selection: Which channel can best achieve your brand objectives?

 User Demographics, Platform marketing capabilities, Budget

• Approach: What is the most effective way to achieve your objectives?

Own account, Own store, KOL, UGC, paid media

• Capability: What capabilities are required to execute your approach? 

Strategy, Creative, Engagement, Analytics

• Measurement: What metrics do you use to measure success against brand objectives?

 SMART measures, ROI, Benchmarking

• Feedback: How do we build in feedback loops for internal team and agency partners? 

 User engagement, Periodic reviews, Post- campaign reviews

 

What do you do when you are already on Douyin?

If you’re on Douyin now, are you ready to take your Douyin game to the next level?

It’s time to assess your Douyin account. How is your content performing? Have you run sales campaigns through the Douyin store? What type of influencers are you working with? How do your efforts compare with your competitors?

We’re here to help!

With the rapid growth of social  e-commerce, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening in the industry and how you can leverage Douyin  for your brand.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Test and try  live streaming: Increase livestream frequency with brand-owned accounts or influencers, to test how many audiences  you can attract to watch your live stream and get a better sense of conversion rates.
2. Experiment  e-commerce integrations: Get a sense of whether your short video game is good enough to encourage  immediate purchase by setting up e-commerce integration on Douyin.
3. Learn to partner with small and medium KOLs: instead of aiming for partnering with the  top guns, brands can start working with many small influencers, giving you broader access to fan bases across the globe.
4. And last but not least… Join Touchpoint CC’s community at community.touchpoint.co.nz, to learn about the latest developments in Douyin e-commerce.

Touchpoint CC’s team has helped several NZ brands start their Douyin game from scratch. We helped AwaRua Organics Milk Powder become the top premium NZ organic dairy brand on Douyin in 10 months with 7-digit sales results. Despite the difficulties posed by the lockdown in many major Chinese cities, our team has nailed the Double 11 promo with exceptional results. The legend  continues!

Dear NZ Brands, if you’re serious about China, you can’t afford to miss Douyin. it’s time to make a splash in the Era of  Douyin! Talk to us now!