As one of the valuable tools for Baidu SEO (Search Engine Optimization for Baidu) and an important department of Baidu for online marketing, Baidu Index recently published a data report on marketing of dairy products for Chinese market.
The report is said to combine consumers’ purchase data and Baidu Index’s search data and reveal consumption status and marketing trend of dairy products in China with the help of big data.
Questions raised and answered in the report include:
- What are the opportunities of marketing for rapid growth of dairy products in China?
- What’s the product trend of China’s dairy products industry? How to find marketing chances based on product trends?
- What are the effective marketing modes for milk products in the new era? What are the effects and differences among those different marketing modes?
Search data connected with consumption data
- Search data
According to Baidu Index, daily search index of dairy products exceeds 1,800,000, and it increases at a rate as high as 29.5%. In 2017, growth of searches for dairy products at low tier cities reached 38% and increases in sales at them contributed a proportion as high as 52%.
- Consumption data
According to Nielsen’s consumption data, share of dairy products among all FMCGs reaches 21%, and among top 3 sales of FMCGs in China, two are milk product enterprises. In 2017, omni-channel sales of dairy products in China were over 350.9 million yuan.
All major brands of dairy products launched various marketing campaigns to keep their competitiveness.
To seize consumption upgrade and create new demands
According to Baidu Index, searches of rowing machines and weight-losing products increased by 82% and 51% in 2017. Meanwhile, searches of smart stereo and facial cleaning increased by 501% and 204%, showing rapid demand upgrade of consumers in respects of healthy and quality lifestyles.
The report on marketing and trends of Chinese dairy products points out that, the major marketing opportunities of dairy products are pursuits of health, enjoyment and diversified consumption scenes.
- Healthy dairy products
For example, according to Nielsen’s retailing data, sales of cereal yogurts increased by 49% in 2016 and 51% in 2017. Accordingly, searches of cereal additives grew by 141% in 2017, based on data from Baidu Index.
- Premium dairy products
Furthermore, high-end dairy products have become a new trend, along with consumption upgrade. Nielsen’s retailing data shows that premium yogurts (priced 20% over average prices of yogurts) contributed 40% of total sales in 2016, and this figure rose to 45% in 2017.
According to Baidu Index’s report, relevant keywords of premium yogurts include: high protein, homemade, fresh, organic, probiotics, etc.
Among them, searches of raw milk and probiotics increased by 62% and 59%.
And the popularity of premium dairy products has become especially obvious in the central, western and northeastern areas of China. Provinces including Xinjiang, Qinghai and Liaoning witnessed an increase over 60% in searches for premium dairy products, showing great potentials of such products in the areas.
- Diversified consumption scenes
The report on marketing and trends of dairy products in China also reveals that another chance of marketing lies in exploring consumption scenes and creating new demands. Utilizing demands of presents during the Spring Festival and creating emerging consumptions like DIY yogurts are both emerging trends in purchase of dairy products.
To select marketing channels based on branding goals
The report shows that searches of top 6 factories of dairy products in China accounted for 82% of the overall search index. And the top 6 factories took 4 major approaches of content marketing in 2017: variety show title sponsorship and ad planting, sports event sponsorship, movie and TV series ad planting, as well as star promotion.
And the four kinds of content marketing created different effects in Baidu indexes. According to data of searching popularity, variety show title sponsorship and ad planting had an effect of 74%, sports event 13%, movie and TV series 7%, and star promotion 6%.
As for marketing on festivals, those major brands of dairy usually take two strategies: to use festivals with high involvement like the Spring Festival and promote their products by all channels, and to create widely spread high-profile incidents and resort to web celebrities, to trigger high traffic.
In a word, China’s dairy industry is in a stage of rapid development, opportunities and challenges coexist in combining data and true demands of consumers, grasping market trends and creating more consumption scenes.