WeChat users value personalised forms of marketing contact above any other buyer experience. As an overseas vendor, you'll need to consistently provide these experiences in order to stay competitive in the Chinese marketplace.
The solution to a highly personalised and engaging marketing strategy? Employing your own WeChat Mini Program, to provide frictionless, high-value customer experiences.
With a Mini Program, you can optimise buyer journeys, converting visitors into paying customers, by enabling them to complete clear actions (from form-filling to appointment bookings.)
Once employed, WeChat Mini Program Analytics can empower your team with rich consumer data tracking, giving you the ability to make the most impactful marketing decisions at every step.WeChat Mini Program Analytics
Here are our top tips to get the most from your Mini Program:
1. Offer your Mini Program as a ‘Stripped-Down’ Version of Your Native App or Website.
It’s important to remember that Mini Programs are incredibly lightweight - only 10 megabytes can be allocated to Mini Programs.
If your brand already has a native app, consider constructing your Mini Program as a stripped-down version. This gives you the benefits of a super-fast and sleek engagement experience, on a platform that they’re already engaged with multiple times a day.
2. Design your Mini Program to Perform Core Tasks.
Your Mini Program should solve your ideal customers’ core pain points efficiently. When set up correctly, users can be smoothly funnelled through your Mini Program as it caters to their preferences and requirements, getting them the answers or results that they’re seeking.
Suppose your ideal customers are students searching for overseas accommodation – your Mini Program could provide everything from a top of funnel accommodation catalogue, offering filterable options within their budget and preferred locations, through to mid-funnel virtual tours and student reviews, down to enquiry forms, appointment scheduling and paperwork signing options.
3. Decide Which Functions To Embed in Your Mini Program.
You’ll need to dial in on a few functions from which your ideal customer will benefit most. Deciding which features to include will depend on which steps your ideal customers need to take to convert.
Here is a list of common functions we include in Mini Programs developed by VIVA CITY:
- Service Catalogue with filters and search
- Integrated, dynamic data - such as live property availability and pricing
- Geo-location based results
- Online Form Builder - integrated to CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot
- Campaign & Marketing Analytics
- Virtual Tour / Live Streaming
- eCommerce features
- Offline to Online Commerce
- Notifications
- WeChat Pay
4. Consider Using Your Mini Program as A Primary Contact Channel.
Thanks to the ability to embed a wide range of consumer-facing functionality, Mini Programs have massive lead qualification & sales potential. To get the most out of a Mini Program, utilise your Chinese content marketing to push your audience into closer, more personalised contact with your brand.
This will incentivise the regular use of your Mini Program, offering customers the power to contact your brand directly, friction-free.
Once an audience values your Mini Program, increased usage allows you to track your customer data and centralise buyer-related queries.
5. Incorporate Key Integrations To Optimise Customer Service.
When designing your Mini Program, you’ll be able incorporate a range of powerful integrations, giving you the ability to maintain and update your Mini Program automatically.
With integrations, service-oriented brands can automatically update information like booking availability, catalogue updates, and pricing in real-time.
CRM integrations allow your team to transfer enquiries to your preferred CRM automatically. VIVA CITY offers integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce and other popular CRM systems.
6. Optimise Your Mini Program to Current Screen Variations.
Setting up your Mini Program for maximum screen compatibility is crucial.
By working with Viva City you can be sure your Mini Program will be optimised for various screen layouts of mobile devices from the most used brands in China, working well on Iphone, Huawei, Android and more.
7. Gamify Your Mini Program.
The Chinese market routinely prefers marketing contact in unique ways. As many of the WeChat user base regularly uses gamified Mini Programs, consider designing yours with this functionality in mind.
Your Chinese audience needs a reason to retain and stay engaged with your Mini Program, and gamification offers a proven strategy to keep your visitors coming back for more.
8. Synergise Your Official Account with Your Mini Program.
Official Accounts and Mini Programs have various advantages and some limitations – and in many cases, the most effective marketing strategies on WeChat will leverage both tools in tandem, playing to their complementary strengths to build effective and impactful customer experiences.
9. Take Advantage of WeChat’s Other Advertising Channels to Drive Visitors To Your Brand’s Mini Program.
Your audience pool increases by tapping into as many of WeChat’s marketing channels as possible, allowing your team to grow your audience while simultaneously generating valuable user data rapidly. VIVA CITY’s customers benefit hugely from organic user acquisition - WeChat moment posting, WeChat group sharing & WeChat search are popular organic channels.
10. Leverage Your Mini Program To Escape The Cost Of Running A Chinese Website
Running a Chinese website can be complex and costly – and even with the investment of time and money, you may still find performance suffers. A Mini Program offers the converting power of a sale website, at a fraction of the cost, and with a much more user-friendly content management experience. Take control and side-step the need for a full-blown website.
VIVA CITY: The Mini Program Experts
Mini Programs can bolster your brand's WeChat conversion capabilities and, as a result, provide significant opportunities when building effective sales funnels on the platform.
We help brands quickly develop and employ impactful WeChat marketing strategies for Chinese audiences.
VIVA CITY will help you develop your own personalised Mini Program and provide the tools to generate sales results.
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