Getting Over the Great Wall: Marketing Successes and Failures in China

The big secret to a winning marketing plan is to start from the top and gradually work your way down to the details. Ultimately, every strategy serves the strategy above it. Whether it's your company's content or digital strategy serving the annual marketing plan you'll build, which in turn serves the company's business strategy - everything should converge into a workable plan that makes life easier for you and your team. So, as we said, from top to bottom:

1. Start with Clear, Measurable Business Goals:

Begin by defining your business objectives before diving into the details of the marketing plan. Are you aiming to increase sales by 20%? Strengthen your brand? Perhaps enter a new market? Make sure your goals are SMART - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound - so you can track your success throughout the year.

2. Deep Dive into Your Target Audience:

Invest time in thoroughly analyzing your target audience. Leverage data from your CRM, customer surveys, and digital analytics tools like Google Analytics to understand customer needs, pain points, and preferences. Are there new audiences worth targeting? Adjust your messaging and marketing channels based on these insights.

3. Set a Well-Structured Marketing Budget:

Your marketing budget is the backbone of your plan. Break it down by channels, activities, events, and campaigns. Remember to maintain some flexibility for unexpected opportunities or initiatives that might arise during the year.

4. Define Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

KPIs are your compass throughout the year whether it's lead generation, conversion rates, or social media engagement - set clear metrics for each marketing activity and monitor them regularly to make adjustments as needed.

5. Conduct Market and Competitor Analysis

Invest in competitor analysis to understand the strengths and weaknesses of their marketing activities. What are their most successful campaigns? Which channels do they excel in? What sets you apart? These insights will help you build a differentiated, powerful strategy that highlights your company's unique value proposition.

6. Map Out Essential Industry Events:

The B2B industry is heavily influenced by events, conferences, and trade shows. Create an annual calendar including all major events where you need to participate - whether as exhibitors, sponsors, or attendees. These events not only increase your visibility but provide valuable networking opportunities with potential clients, partners, and investors.

7. Integrate Digital Strategy with Physical Events:

When planning physical events, it's crucial to incorporate a digital strategy. Use digital campaigns for audience invitations, live streaming during the event, and social media content sharing. This amplifies your exposure and helps your event remain memorable long after it's over.

8. Develop a Smart, Focused Content Strategy:

Your content strategy should reflect your business objectives and align with each stage of the customer journey. Create a content calendar including blog posts, social media campaigns, webinars, video content, and more, based on keyword research and audience needs. Stay flexible and adjust content in real time based on field insights.

9. Optimize Your CRM System:

Ensure your CRM system is up-to-date and configured to support your marketing plan. Set up sales and marketing automation processes, generate focused insights from existing data, and ensure teams are utilizing it to enhance customer experience. A robust CRM system enables lead tracking, customer retention, and data-driven planning.

10. Finally, Use Project Management Tools to Execute Your Plan!

To maintain organization and efficiency, consider using project management tools like ClickUp, Asana, Wrike, or Monday. These tools allow you to plan detailed workflows, track task performance in real time, and improve team collaboration.   Want to share your marketing plan with us? Have suggestions for improvement? If you're already an Oz client - contact your account manager today, If you're not our client yet - what are you waiting for? :)  

Even the most well-crafted content can sometimes fail to deliver the results you want. As our world gets more digital, it’s not uncommon for businesses to pour money and time into creating high-quality content, blogs, videos, social media posts, and eye-catching designs, only to find that their efforts don’t connect with their target audience or drive results. In most cases, this isn't a reflection of the campaign's quality, but a sign that it simply doesn't align with the company's "big picture" and goals. Consider this: A company puts together an insightful blog post packed with valuable information and engaging visuals or an expert educational webinar. The problem is, if that campaign isn’t aligned with the brand’s broader marketing goals and strategy or tailored to the specific needs and behaviors of its audience, it’s likely to miss the mark. Without a strategic framework guiding planning, production, and distribution, even the best campaign can get lost in the noise of the internet, failing to generate traffic, engagement, or conversions. Your campaign could have all the right elements in place - compelling storytelling, high production values, and a strong call to action, but without the strategic groundwork, it is likely to struggle to achieve meaningful results.

Why Often Misses the Mark?

Creating digital content that truly connects with your audience is no small feat. The landscape is crowded, the competition is intense, and audiences are more critical than ever. While many businesses pour resources into content creation, they find that their efforts do not translate into engagement or conversions. Most of the time, it's just a lack of alignment between content and the organization's overall business goals. Without a clear, strategic framework, content can become scattered, inconsistent, and ultimately ineffective. This is exactly why companies should consider stepping back to take a broader view. Rather than rushing ahead with the next campaign or content piece, a strategic pause to reassess and realign can be incredibly valuable. This is the essence of the discovery and study processes, a strategic approach that will build a solid foundation for your digital marketing campaign.  

Understanding the Study Process

The primary aim of the Study process is to provide a focused analysis of your current digital marketing efforts. It’s about taking a step back and evaluating what’s working and what isn’t, allowing for strategic adjustments that enhance performance. This process is ideal for annual strategy reviews, specific campaign assessments, or when there’s a need to refresh the approach to your digital marketing.

What It Achieves?

The Study process delivers actionable insights that help fine-tune your digital strategy. By concentrating on specific areas, such as target audience engagement, campaign effectiveness, or digital content performance, the Study process allows businesses to make data-driven decisions that improve ROI. It helps you understand where your content may be falling short and offers concrete steps to address these issues.

How It’s Done?

• Initial Consultation: In-depth session to clarify your business’s current digital marketing objectives and identify the key areas that require attention.
• Targeted Research: Assessing the performance of specific campaigns, audience engagement metrics, and the effectiveness of your content in driving desired outcomes.
• Strategy Refinement: Adjust and optimize existing strategies based on findings.
• Implementation and Monitoring: Monitoring and tweaking the revised strategy as needed.

Example: A company uses the Study process for an annual strategy review, identifying gaps in campaign performance and refining their approach to improve results.

Exploring the Discovery Process

The Discovery process offers a broader, more comprehensive approach to digital strategy development. It’s designed for businesses that are launching new brands, undergoing a rebrand, or expanding into new markets. The Discovery process is about building a solid strategy that aligns with long-term business goals and keeps consistency across all digital channels. The Discovery process offers a deep dive into your brand’s identity, your market, and your audience. It provides a holistic understanding of your brand’s digital landscape. It uncovers opportunities for differentiation, identifies potential challenges, and sets a strategic direction that makes sure all digital efforts are aligned with your overarching business goals. One of the unique offerings of the Discovery process is the development of a visual language for your digital activities. This component ensures that your brand communicates consistently and effectively across all platforms, enhancing brand recognition and coherence, which is not typically included in the Study process. The goal is to develop a strategy that meets immediate needs as well as positions your brand for long-term success. This process is particularly beneficial for companies preparing for major changes, such as a new brand launch or market expansion.

How It’s Done?

• Kick-off Meeting: Clarify goals and challenges.
• Comprehensive Research and Analysis: A thorough examination of the market, competitors, and internal capabilities. Key activities include identifying Buyer Personas, conducting a Competitive Digital Analysis, and performing a detailed SEO review.
• Digital Strategy Development: Based on the research insights, a full-scale digital strategy is formulated. This includes defining content pillars, creating a media plan, and developing creative visual guidelines that ensure brand consistency across all platforms.
• Presentation and Implementation: Once approved, the strategy is implemented, with ongoing support to ensure its success.

Example: A company undergoing rebranding uses Discovery to align its digital presence with its new identity, resulting in a cohesive and impactful digital strategy.

Why Discovery Is the Better Choice?

While both the Study and Discovery processes offer valuable insights and strategic direction, the Discovery process stands out as the more comprehensive and long-term solution. Here’s why Discovery might be the better choice for most businesses: Long-Term Strategic Value Discover aims to build a digital strategy that will serve your business for years to come, not just address immediate needs. By conducting thorough research and analysis, the Discovery process helps you create a strong, adaptable strategy that can evolve with your business. This long-term focus is particularly valuable in today’s fast-paced digital environment, where trends and technologies are constantly changing. Comprehensive Insights Unlike the Study process, which offers a more focused review, the Discovery process provides a holistic view of your digital strategy. This includes everything from a detailed SEO review to the development of creative visual language guidelines. These insights are crucial for making sure that all aspects of your digital presence. From content to design, everything is aligned with your brand's goals. Flexibility and Customization One of the key benefits of the Discovery process is its flexibility. The process can be adjusted to your specific needs - whether you’re launching a new product line, rebranding, entering a new market, or looking to create a unified visual identity for your campaigns. This customization helps make sure that your digital program is relevant, consistent, and effective.     With the digital marketing arena being so fast-paced, it’s easy to get caught up in the rush to produce content and launch campaigns. Taking the time to reassess your digital strategy allows you to see what’s really working and where you might need to adjust course. It’s not simply about tweaking a campaign here or there, but rather making sure that every piece of content you create is connected to your broader goals and truly resonates with your audience. Whether you’re considering the focused approach of the Study process or the more comprehensive Discovery process, this strategic pause is crucial so your content doesn’t just reach your audience—it makes an impact.    

Imagine a ballerina trying to dance with one hand tied behind her back. That’s how it often feels during a branding process at a medical company. The marketing team wants to fly high, while the regulatory team wants to keep your feet firmly on the ground, ensuring you comply with every sentence, word, and letter. There are no good guys or bad guys in this story. It’s simply about complexities of a different magnitude that your brand needs to successfully navigate. It's a story about a road not yet taken.  

When the journey takes an unexpected turn

During branding strategy kick-off meetings, we take a deep dive into your product, technology, and service.  We’re looking for a fresh perspective, a promise not yet made, a story yet to be told. At this point, we get excited as we hear about groundbreaking technologies, solutions, and life-enhancing, life-prolonging products. Our jaws drop. With this WOW feeling, we continue the learning process in which we talk to customers, analyze the competition, and create a multi-participant meeting within the company to fine-tune its significant and differentiated strengths and generate outstanding benefits for its customers. As the process continues, we begin to understand the regulatory limitations. Suddenly, “Cinderella”, your extraordinary technology is being held back by regulatory limitations and is covered with “soot”.  

Understanding limitations and optimizing capabilities

During the process, we’ve heard “It’s a given” or “It's powerful, but I can't confirm it" more times than we can count. Responses like these made us understand there must be a better way.  That’s how our new module was born. It’s placed right at the beginning of the branding strategy process, which sets the stage for an open and guided dialogue between marketing and regulatory early on.

Challenging the norms

This dialogue is about helping the marketing team to understand the limitations in depth, and for the regulatory team to delve into the marketing team’s needs. It’s an authentic dialogue that creates a space to carry out activities that weren’t possible before. Understanding the precise needs opens up new perspectives and enables solutions within the boundaries of regulations. We understand the importance of compliance, but our experience shows that there are many degrees of freedom that are not being tested.

It’s not about overstepping the bounds of the approved claims, but we also don’t want to take a step backward in the name of conservatism.

Sometimes it's a matter of overall wording, sometimes it's just changing one word. It's the little things that make a big difference. Stopping to ask questions often gives you a competitive advantage. Sometimes, there won’t be any flexibility in the claims you make, but at least you’ll know that you’ve turned over every stone.  

Structured and managed conflicts are an opportunity

Remember, whoever sits at the decision-making table wants the company to succeed and do the best they can. Inherently, conflict is not a negative; it can also be an opportunity. Don't let emotions run the process. As we often say, “Don’t be right, be smart!” As with every relationship where there’s an inherent conflict, there’s great value in professional guidance to create the conditions for a productive dialogue. To meet this need, we’ve created a special collaboration between OZ Global B2B and Leap, led by Moran Faibish, who has extensive experience in leading marketing in global medical companies. Moran has hands-on experience in bridging the gap between marketing and regulations to create deep and unique brand promises — promises that aren’t possible without providing an informed and professional framework that enables constructive communication.

Play smart

The more we play smart within the regulatory limits to make the most of your claims, the more we can create a differentiated value proposition that more accurately reflects your breakthrough technology. This is how your brand will shine. We’ll be there every step of the way to guide the process, refine the messaging, and make sure your “WOW” comes through loud and clear. If you’ve nodded your head while reading this, it’s time for us to talk.