WeChat Mini Program might not sound familiar to Australians, but WeChat should be no stranger with the adoption of WeChat Pay in stores of CBDs of Australia. WeChat has been a major marketing platform for the Chinese community that majorly spans across Southeast Asia. The signature green social media has immense traffic due to its status as the major digital communication platform that, in turn, offers immense opportunities for marketing.
The Chinese community, despite racially originated from China, has been expanded from China to Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines and more since the 18th century. Many Chinese outsides of the People’s Republic of China has been descendants of previous Chinese migrants who have little to no relationship to China on the terms of nationality.
Still, Chinese continues to be the language that these communities speak among their family member. And WeChat presents as a social media that allow distant family member, no matter their age, to communicate among each other as the original feature that Facebook became popular with.
Targeting the Asian community in 2020 is lesser seen as a method to open a new market but to cope a rising economic power. Asian economies are forecasted to surpass the rest of the world combined in 2020 since the 19th century despite slow-downed growth.
Before many other Australian businesses realize their opportunities, multiple Australian leaders have already adopted WeChat Mini Program as one of their marketing channels.
City of Melbourne
The immense number of Chinese-speaking tourists visiting Melbourne every year has brought equivalently huge capitals and opportunities to the city. For the year ending December 2017, there are 621,600 Chinese visitors to Victoria who spent a total of $2.7 billion Australian dollars. And the figures did not include the Chinese-speaking demographic from countries except China.
In order to make these overseas guests feel more at home, the City of Melbourne has developed a WeChat Mini Program to help these visitors to navigate between the laneways of Melbourne. Named Check-in Melbourne (打卡墨尔本), the Mini Program encourages users to “check-in” at 10 iconic tourist attractions in Melbourne, including the Flinders Street Station.
The mini-program guide tourists with their mother tongue to expose themselves to the authentic multicultural experience of Melbourne. And the users can showcase their time in Melbourne with a digital badge to share on their WeChat Moment (the Facebook content-sharing equivalent) and an Avid Traveller luggage tag.
Queensland State Government
The state that is always sunny is another beloved tourism spot for oversea visitors. In 2017, 503,000 Chinese tourists visited Queensland with expenditure at a record-high $2.8 billion. Current Tourism Industry Development Minister Kate Jones welcomed the news for the $25 billion tourism industry in the state.
The Queensland State Government did not just rejoice from the news but continued with a WeChat Mini Program named CityExperience Mini Program. The Mini Program embeds contents from one of the largest online travel companies in Asia to offer more than just tourism information but instant booking and payment of local tours and accommodations.
Ms Jones mentioned in the media statement “this initiative will help to ensure Queensland is front-of-mind for millions of Chinese tourists looking to book their next holiday.”
And the minister concluded the advantages of using a WeChat Mini Program with her statement “WeChat has a massive audience, more than one billion active monthly users, and we’re bringing Queensland content right to their phones through this new Queensland CityExperience Mini Program.”
AusTrade
AusTrade has been a key facilitator of Australia-China trading for a lengthy time, including the recent 2019 China International Import Expo (that we developed digital marketing solutions for some of the exhibitors). However, back in 2018, AusTrade has already initiated a digital connection between Australia and China with the Austrade Mini Program.
WeChat is the most popular messaging app in China but also features as an all-in-one social media. And the Mini Program from Austrade aims to provide details on “Australian products and services, promotional and trade events, commercial and investment opportunities and industry specific insights” that could extend its benefits to the education and tourism sectors.
The CEO of Austrade, Dr Stephanie Fahey commented “we need to reach out to both business and the consumer. [WeChat Mini Program] is an innovative way of achieving both aims.”
This new marketing channel helps trading between the two countries with ease of access to information and personnel to both countries while notifying on news and registration of Austrade events.
Chadstone – The Fashion Capital
While the tourist shuttle bus service from Chadstone provides the much-needed convenience for tourists to visit the largest shopping complex in the Southern Hemisphere, the service has hit a major obstacle in 2018 when Asian customers who booked the seats were denied from boarding the bus while others Caucasian visitors who failed to show evidences of a booking were allow to board.
This isolated incident has created a huge stir among the Asian, and particularly the Chinese community, as most of the mistreated were Chinese. In hope of resurrecting the disappointment among the community, Chadstone has looked for an alternative to reach the Chinese demographic.
A WeChat Mini Program to book its tourist shuttle bus service was soon developed with accompanying marketing campaigns. The Chadstone Tourist Shuttle Bus Mini Program integrates with the existing backend of the booking system to offer a Chinese interface for easier booking while demonstrating an incentive to accommodate Chinese visitors to Chadstone.
The Mini Program, developed by WeBOOST, gained a wide adoption in a short period of time since launch, contrasting the previous reluctance to visit the shopping complex. Over time, the initiative slowly rebuilds the lost confidence. And, currently, Chinese visitors are back as one of the most common demographics found in Chadstone.
Looking to develop your WeChat Mini Program?
Before you decide on developing a WeChat Mini Program for your brand, learn how WeChat Mini Program is going to work in the Australian context and the overcast launch of WeChat Mini Program and its growth until its success now from our blog.
If you are looking for more affordable and less complicated WeChat marketing, visit our post what’s so fancy about WeChat H5 Page and our dedicated WeChat H5 page development.
