Nadezhda Robinson, marketing director at Wei-UK Consulting, a luxury PR and marketing agency which helps brands understand Chinese consumers, shares her top tips on how British businesses can successfully engage the Chinese market.

1. Look closer to home 

With Chinese tourists spending a record $164.8bn (£107bn) overseas last year, there is a clear opportunity for British firms. However, though there is a lot of business to be done with Chinese travellers, there is a large affluent student and young professional Chinese community in the UK. Businesses based in university cities like Manchester and Birmingham should focus on more localised campaigns that can be hugely beneficial and potentially provide high returns. This also acts as a good testing ground before heading to mainland China.

2. Be culturally savvy

Don’t lump everyone in China in the same boat. Make sure you break it down into target demographics including age, region and sex. Culturally, there are a lot of differences between age groups in China compared to the UK. In China, people in their 50s are likely to have experienced far more poverty, compared to those in their 20s who have limited experience of austerity and are second generation rich. Young professionals have a bigger disposable income than their British counterparts, because they tend to live with their parents and are generally bought a home when they marry.

3. Take advantage of the Chinese calendar

From our experience of creating Chinese New Year campaigns for a number of British and international brands it is clear that many businesses do not prioritise China on their yearly marketing calenders. Capitalising on significant Chinese festivals is great for business whether in China or the UK. For example, Golden Week, which falls in October, sees the highest number of Chinese travelling internationally. Singles Day in China is the biggest online shopping day in the world, making Black Friday look small in comparison. We have developed the top 10 Chinese consumer festivals calendar to help you plan your marketing activities.

4. Social media engagement is essential

Social media has never been as important as it is now for any business. In China though, western social media sites are banned, and engagement must take place on the country’s available platforms which are Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of Twitter) andWeChat (similar to Whatsapp). Data shows that Weibo has 150m monthly users, primarily between the ages of 20-35. Weibo proves itself to be a cost effective marketing tool for European online retailers to attract the Chinese consumer.

Wei-UK Consulting is behind the UK Chinese Luxury Consumer Survey which is the first of its kind to look at the Chinese consumer in the UK. It will be released on 30 July.

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