Potential lessons from Chinese businesses and platforms for online networking and marketing: An exploratory study

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the potential for improving New Zealand small-and-medium sized enterprises’ (SMEs) digital marketing strategies by learning the different approaches from their Chinese counterparts. Digital marketing is an important topic, especially after the pandemic of the last two years, as online shopping has gained further ground. On the other hand, original digital marketing practices in a dynamic and large market such as China still has not received enough attention within academic literature. Therefore, this study is seeking to answer the following two research questions: 1) How are SMEs in China adopting digital marketing strategies and platforms? 2) Can local SMEs learn from Chinese SMEs’ adoption of digital marketing for SMEs in New Zealand? Survey and semi-structured interviews were conducted with Chinese participants to gain insights of digital marketing applications by Chinese SMEs. After acquiring data from Chinese participants and building the framework of online marketing strategies and platforms in China based on data analysis, semi-structured interview questions were designed and conducted with New Zealand experts. Findings from this study reveals that Chinese SMEs increase their online customer traffic through three main sources: e-commerce platform, social media, and private traffic, which is a controllable traffic pool of loyal customers or the brands’ social media followers. In addition, digital marketing technologies from China have the potential of being transferred to New Zealand. However, the process can be long-term, due to cultural and attitude barriers. This study also suggests a tentative model examining the likelihood of transferring (LOT) based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). • Existing literature does not cover the most recent Chinese digital marketing approaches. • This study explores western businesses' attitudes towards learning from an emerging market. • For greater e-commerce success in the future, live-streaming, short videos, customer reviews, and private traffic management are recommended focus areas. • Developing online media collaborations will help businesses with their international trade.