What B2B marketers can learn from Asia’s fast-evolving strategies

Business buying may be fairly standardized worldwide, but cultural and environmental differences still shape how B2B marketing gets done. Here’s a roundup of what’s working for business marketers in Asia to offer ideas and inspiration for the rest of the world. (Sneak preview: You’ll notice a lot less reliance on email.)

China’s B2B marketing runs through messaging apps

Chinese B2B marketers use social media for business very differently from us. There is no single platform like LinkedIn that dominates B2B networking in China, according to David Ketchum, CEO of the agency Current Asia, with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. Instead, WeChat is used across the spectrum, seamlessly blending both personal and professional messaging.

Furthermore, email isn’t as widely used in China as it is in other parts of the world. “Contacting someone via WeChat or their mobile number is considered far more valuable than an email address. This cultural difference is why Tencent introduced WeCom, the business-oriented version of WeChat. Many third-party SaaS and CRM platforms have been developed around WeCom, enabling sales teams to connect with customers directly on WeChat under their company’s branding,” Ketchum said.

“WeCom offers advanced tools for B2B marketers, such as customer segmentation, media channel tracking, template messaging and behavior analysis. It even includes a workspace feature tailored for sales teams. Thanks to its affordability and high level of customization, many local companies prefer WeCom CRM, which creates unique challenges for multi-national companies operating in China.”

Dig deeper: How B2B marketing is becoming a strategic growth driver

Ketchum’s colleague Brown Zhang highlights a case from the website of Weiling, a CRM tool integrated with WeCom. Qì Pèi Yún, a cloud-based auto parts sales platform, used Weiling for multichannel lead capture via advertising, content marketing and events.

The team applied Weiling’s functionality to customer profiling and campaign management to track shares, registrations, onsite participation and conversion. The platform also enabled deduplication while giving sales, operations and management teams visibility and access throughout the process.

The results were remarkable: Conversion rates tripled, from 2% to 6%. Qì Pèi Yún was able to move from managing leads in multiple silos to a unified, transparent and automated process. The system’s capabilities, including behavioral tracking, segmentation and tagging, allowed them to differentiate between high- and low-intent leads and allocate them appropriately. No surprise, the sales team quickly embraced the streamlined and highly efficient system. 

Japan’s approach to digitizing business card data for ABM

Business cards, known as meishi, have been in widespread use in Japan for well over a century. While a highly convenient communications tool in the pre-digital age, their major drawback was the tendency for cards to pile up in offices rather than become a companywide data asset. In recent years, business card management software tools have been developed to take advantage of the data on the cards.

Business card management tools, like Sansan and SKYPCE, let users scan cards with their phones and upload the data to a company-level database of contacts and sales history, which is integrated with the firm’s CRM and marketing automation systems.

Ichiro Niwayama, president and founder of Symphony Marketing, Japan’s leading B2B marketing agency, said, “These solutions are expected to play a pivotal role in Japan’s ABM strategies, serving as a powerful source of first-party data.”

In the U.S., the exchange of business cards has declined in recent years. However, gathering data for cross-functional use within the firm remains an important goal.

Dig deeper: Why your B2B strategy should start with a story that builds trust

India’s tech-first market influences B2B engagement

Rajesh Kumar, an experienced marketer based in Delhi, shared a variety of good ideas with me. 

• India has rapidly become a developer hub and the world’s third most active startup community (after the U.S. and China), so insourcing has become an important marketing strategy. Let developers use your software for free and take advantage of meet-ups and user conferences to get the word out organically.
• Founders tend to be digital natives these days. For them, it’s not a job — it’s a calling. Help them gain access and experience with thought leadership through events and showcases to bring their story to the world.
• Keep in mind that Asian business is highly diverse. Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia and Australia/New Zealand are all culturally and historically different, not to mention varied in size and opportunity. No single approach works everywhere.
• In Japan, Korea and India, large family-based conglomerates abound. An industry-driven approach alone doesn’t work with them. Instead, it’s essential to get to the top of the family food chain. Follow the executives as they move around and take a success story in one unit to the others.

Key takeaways from Asia’s evolving B2B landscape

Based on my observations in B2B marketing across various Asian markets, a few additional themes are worth noting.

The power of chat apps

Outside the U.S., chat apps are more likely to be the preferred B2B communication vehicle compared to email and LinkedIn. Apps like WhatsApp, WeChat (in China) and LINE (in Japan and Thailand) now have B2B versions that offer not only messaging but chat analytics and martech stack connectivity, as mentioned above. As WhatsApp grows under Meta’s ownership, U.S. B2B marketers should experiment with it. Be sure to add app buttons as response vehicles to your messaging.

Dig deeper: Conversational marketing: A guide to a key B2B GTM strategy

Privacy precautions

A traditionally trained direct marketer like me may resist, but it’s clear today that consumers and businesspeople alike expect their privacy to be respected, as evidenced by GDPR in Europe. We B2B marketers must adopt tools like a preference center, data subject access request responsiveness and progressive profiling.

Sustainability as a benefit

While a requirement in the Nordics, sustainability is becoming an attractive feature in many markets. Include environmental, social and governance proof points in your product messaging.

I will be reporting on ideas we can glean from B2B marketers in Europe and Latin America in a future article. Stay tuned.

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