DECEMBER 2011 |
www.opp.org.uk
OPP DIGITAL
sales training and experience to adjust your approach accordingly. However, everyone, Chinese female or otherwise, appreciates plenty of pictures when shopping online. Yet time and again, Chinese real estate sites ignore the obvious and post small, grainy, low-res pics of properties, perhaps bargaining that they can easily show the place to impress. You don’t have that option, therefore hi-res is a must, at least to distinguish yourself from the competition. Extra shots of the kitchen and bathroom are highly recommended, because in terms of space and modernity, your western properties should easily outstrip the standard set-ups in China, where bathtubs and ovens are rarer than hen’s teeth.
In fact, keeping the “buying a new life, not a new house” theme in mind, pictures of the adjoining street and neighbourhood are highly advisable, as well. You’re well ahead if you’ve deduced that these pictures should be on a site accompanied by Mandarin descriptions. In fact, all the advice in the world about what kind of information Chinese
buyers of overseas property want is academic without a discussion of how to get it to them, so let’s take your marketing approach in that context. In our previous article, we told you that your most effi cient, effective strategy for reaching Chinese prospects was a comprehensive presence on the Chinese internet.
That presence should comprise a well-localised site, search engine optimisation so that you are easily found by the right prospect, and a social media campaign to draw interested parties and get them talking about you. Well-localised means that your information is translated into Mandarin not just for accuracy, but also for impact. But let’s explore what else will make your site stand out and convince a Chinese prospect to initiate the communication that will hopefully lead to a closed sale. Besides the aforementioned photos of the property and neighbourhood, a host of well-organized information, both related and not-immediately-germane to buying property, will more than justify the effort of collection and translation,
Developer profi le
by convincing a Chinese prospect that your organization is accessible, reliable, and 100% committed to helping her make the right choice. A page listing local facilities, with brief descriptions and links, is highly advisable. Let them know that the local public high school sends 60% of its students to top-rated colleges. That the local mega-mall has over 50 different
“The Chinese love detail and the sort of mundania that leaves your average western consumer bored”
restaurants. That the nearest Chinese supermarket is only a twenty-minute drive away. It’s a matter of staying true to the
principle of show, rather than tell, to be succinct. Don’t tell your Chinese prospect that
you offer a truly hands-off management service, show them a copy of the management contract, and include fi ve different anecdotal scenarios. Then mention fi fty different things that could
MARKETING TO CHINA | 63
go wrong with their property and how you have them covered.
This is a key point: the Chinese love nitty gritty, the sort of mundania that leaves your average western consumer blinking tiredly.
The consumer landscape is much more dangerous in China, with cut- throat agents and missing fi ne print the rule rather than the exception, and little legal recourse for the cheated. As a result, Chinese prospects want to explore all pertinent rules and regulations, and all possible pitfalls, assuming that if something can possibly go wrong, it will. Going to the effort of posting all this advice and other relevant information will have the added benefi t of boosting your rankings on Baidu, Chinese emperor of search engines. Your competition is well versed in meta-tagging; quality content is the only way to the top now.
Looking to the future, and further
synergizing your prospect conversion and SEO efforts, post video content: fi ve-minute tours of a premier property, spliced up shots of the surrounding neighbourhood or nearby city centre. It’s worth remembering that we’re rapidly approaching a post-literate society here in China, too. Moving pictures pull and hold interest like no other medium; both Google and Baidu’s search engine algorithms are beginning to reflect this reality, and will weigh video content even more heavily in the future. Plus, no content goes viral like
video content. One video of cute kids on bicycles riding around your deluxe development could pull more Chinese people to your site in a week than a year’s worth of promotional slogans. If all the foregoing sounds somewhat overwhelming, keep the big picture in mind: the Chinese represent the biggest overseas property-buying market for the foreseeable future, and are yearning for but not getting quality information online.
The tactics outlined above are not Picture | the scene: graphics and moving images are becoming the best way to get noticed in the crowded Chinese market
easy, but eminently achievable if planned out, taken step-by-step, and carried out with a good China web- marketing partner. The world really is your oyster.
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