XIMALAYA FM MARKETING AGENCY
WHAT IS XIMALAYA?
Over 3,000 brands, including famous brands from all over the world, like McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, Durex and L’Oréal have done marketing on Ximalya FM. Here are some reasons for its popularity.
1. It’s the leader in China’s growing paid digital content sector.
Paid digital content services have gained popularity among Chinese consumers in the past few years. In 2020, the sector is expected to grow to 23.5 billion RMB. Ximalaya FM, as the leader in the field, is able to attract consumers with different interests and purchasing power from different geographical locations. According to data released by the platform, over 50% of its users are aged 20-30 and nearly 80% have bachelor’s degrees or above. This means that doing marketing on Ximalaya FM, enables your brand messages to reach young Chinese customers with higher purchasing power.
2. Ximalaya FM’s users are unique.
Research shows that Ximalaya FM users have a low overlap rate with other major social media platforms like Tencent Video, TikTok, iQIYI, Youku and Tencent News. This means that the platform is largely supported by a unique user community. The effectiveness and cost-efficiency of audio ads on Ximalaya FM are higher and will help you reach customers that are unreachable using other platforms.
3. Voice-based content cuts through the noise.
In a digitalized world full of textual and visual content, audio recordings are one of the best alternatives to attract Chinese consumers. On Ximalaya FM, you can promote your products with audio ads from 15-30 seconds. Users, especially those without a membership account, are unlikely to skip ads and the attention for these kinds of ads is usually high.
The iOS version of the Ximalaya FM app fully supports voice commands and has a smart speaker making things even more convenient, especially for those with visual disabilities.
4. You can listen any time, anywhere.
Audio content is unique because people can listen to it while they do other things and in all kinds of situations. They can listen before they go to sleep, during a break at work, while dining, while driving or when they’re waiting for someone. Peak usage times are from 8am to 1pm and 9pm to 10pm, coinciding with commutes, lunchtime and the most relaxed hours in the evening. This strong correlation with one’s daily routines means that audio content is likely to leave a deep impression on its audience, making it a perfect channel for online marketing.
Ximalaya FM is not only available for mobile app users, but also for anyone who has access to the internet with personal computers or tablets. This makes simultaneous promotion to customers with different devices possible.
5. You’ve got promotional flexibility.
Using Ximalaya FM to promote your products is easy and flexible. The platform uses a PUGC (Professional User Generated Content) model which allows brand representatives to be KOLs by recording their own messages and publishing on the platform in any quantity and in any form. This includes audiobooks (有聲書), songs, audio dramas, etc. This gives marketers a high degree of flexibility.
6. The fan economy (粉丝经济).
By creating your own account and opening a channel on Ximalaya FM, your brand can develop itself as an influencer on the platform and create its own fan community. By developing your own fan club, you will strengthen customer loyalty, enhance your long-term competitiveness and gain more control over your customer relationship management. The sponsorship function enables your fans to make direct contributions to your brand KOLs.
WHY SHOULD I USE IT FOR MARKETING?
Mafengwo is a social platform, where its users follow each other and share their journeys, travel guides and recommendations. Users with similar travel interests build tight social networks. Mafengwo has more than 130 million accounts, 100 million monthly active users and 16 million comments. The platform’s large volume of user-generated content means that it’s obtained a huge amount of travel data over the years. By analyzing search histories, sharing, and favorites, Mafengwo’s system can determine the destinations, travel methods and consumption habits of its users, and suggest the best hotels, scenic spots, and restaurants for them and target users quite accurately.
Mafengwo is also a travel-e-commerce platform. After information efficiently reaches users, they can complete transactions in a closed-loop on the platform. This encourages repurchases and helps businesses promote with greater accuracy. The director of a travel agency which makes customized trips to Yunnan and Sanya on Mafengwo mentioned that about 40% of the company’s orders come from this platform, with a monthly turnover of about 500,000 yuan.
Mafengwo’s core competitive advantage is that it integrates user-generated content, tourism data and e-commerce all on one platform. Continuously accumulating and mining this data enables it to integrate global OTAs, hotels, homestays, and local travel agencies and provide high-quality service to hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers.
Find out more about advertising on Mafengwo or account registration on the platform
HOW TO DO MARKETING ON XIMALYA
Marketing on Ximalya FM is done in 4 key ways:
1. Product Placement
Marketing messages and self-made ads can be inserted into your audio recordings. You can also integrate and embed marketing communication and themes directly into your content.
2. Channel Building
A good way to expand marketing for your company is to open a brand account on Ximalaya FM. Become an active member of the community by building your brand’s media channel. Your account can fulfill some roles of a KOL by building a reputation for quality content or engage in CRM activities. With the creation of a clear style and defined brand positioning, you can effectively increase customer loyalty.
3. KOL Cooperations
KOLs on Ximalaya can act as partners for your marketing campaigns. Many of them have thousands of followers. Online and offline, KOL marketing will expose your products to their fan communities, expanding the customer scope of your brand.
4. Paid Content
Chinese podcast listeners believe that paid content is better quality and more professional. If your free content can get an audience, why not produce paid content? It can be offered to brand club members on an exclusive basis and encourage fans to join the brand’s membership plan. This in turn can help the brand engage in more sophisticated CRM or establish private traffic pools.
Paid content can come in many forms: a direct purchase of exclusive content, a paid subscription, paid courses with professional speakers, etc. All of these will increase the diversity of your content and bring additional revenue to the brand.
CASE STUDIES
Below are two examples of successful marketing campaigns by well-known corporations with Ximalaya FM:
Case 1: Ping An Insurance (中國平安) x Ximalaya FM
On Christmas Eve in 2018, PAI, in cooperation with Ximalaya FM, organized a “cultural feast” on mental wealth. PAI invited well-known speakers from various fields such as finance, culture, art and psychology to share their insights and knowledge. Comprehensive discussions and interactions were conducted during the event.
PAI has also developed its own brand channel on Ximalaya FM: Under the category of “Understanding wealth is about knowing yourself”, the PAI channel provides content created by professionals from different sectors to answer questions from its subscribers on financial topics.
Case 2: KFC x Ximalaya FM
KFC worked with Ximalaya FM to do a 24-hour live podcast to promote its new product: KFC Fresh Ground Coffee. The event was carefully designed. It combined the leisurely pace of coffee culture and the lightness of audio listening. Customers were invited to visit the three live podcast locations in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, where customers were offered a cup of the new coffee by KOLs. This created a relaxed, enjoyable, novel environment for customers to try the brand’s new product, which in turn increased its popularity.
The event was a huge success. At its peak, there were more than 65,000 simultaneous listeners and the broadcasts generated 46,000 comments, boosting public awareness of the product.
HOW CAN ALARICE HELP YOU DO YOUR XIMALAYA MARKETING?
Marketing on Ximalaya FM may seem straightforward and simple, but it can get complicated when it’s time to execute your strategy. Our agency will help you in the following ways:
1. Account management and cost control
Our experts are experienced at setting up social media accounts and acquainted with the Ximalaya FM team. We know the requirements and the secrets to keeping costs low. We’ll help you understand all the statistics from your brand channel that you need to determine the popularity of your brand in the Chinese market and the success of your marketing efforts.
2. Copywriting and production
We know what to publish and when for maximum effect. It’s also essential to select the best keywords for your brand channel so that it’ll reach your target audience.
3. KOL matching and auditing
Choosing the right KOLs, who have authentic followings and align with your brand, is key. Our agency will help you choose the right influencers who can bring real results.
4. Market analysis
Seeing the whole picture is essential. We’ll give you an overview of the market, and can study the online marketing strategies of your competitors to help you stay ahead of the competition.
Get in touch with our experts to find out more about the account management and digital marketing on Ximalaya.
YOUR XIMALAYA MARKETING AGENCY
Audio content marketing is on the rise in China and Ximalaya FM is a great opportunity to reach out to 200 million Chinese consumers. By working with our agency, you can be sure that:
- Alarice tracks the most recent trends and consumer insights on Ximalaya in order to help your brand create the most engaging content and launch effective campaigns.
- As a Ximalaya agency, we work closely with the Ximalaya’s internal team and often know of new functions and updates first.
- We will assign a personal account manager who will explain each step of the process. We deliver genuine, verifiable results and help you to become China marketing experts yourselves.
Find out more about our social media marketing services in China.
FAQ
It’s an opportunity to deliver messages about your brand in a way that the majority of the population can understand. A good name in Chinese also helps to show a connection with the local market, culture and people.
Our team will come up with several options which not only sound good but also be positive, rich in meaning and communicate your origin and mission with potential customers.
In China the first company to register a name has the top priority to use it. Before suggesting any options to you, our team will check the names that have already been registered by another company and inform you of the ones that have already been registered.