DouyinE-commerce Mastery: Drive Buzz & Conversions With Product Seeding
For overseas brands venturing into China, pursuing a disjointed or half-hearted marketing approach to test the waters can be wasteful. Instead, it is important to take a holistic approach to identifying potential customers and driving them through each stage of a well-designed conversion funnel.
Product seeding offers a powerful funnel solution, enabling brands to cut through the noise, cultivate brand advocates, and drive sales growth.
In this post, we will explore the value proposition and practical strategies associated with product seeding in combination with Douyin E-commerce, shedding light on its role in boosting ROI, expanding your user base, and fostering brand advocacy.
How product seeding works
As a content marketing strategy, product seeding involves leveraging influential creators and content to nurture user interest. One way brands can achieve this is by offering their products for free or at a discounted rate to influencers, celebrities, or creators with a large social media following.
The goal is to then generate buzz, increase brand awareness, and encourage word-of-mouth marketing among the influencer’s audience. This helps to nurture user interest through increased visibility, credibility, and ultimately, conversions for the brand.
From a marketing perspective, this strategy dramatically improves A3 to A4 conversion (Ask→Act), with product seeding resulting in significantly higher conversions from both organic and paid traffic. A recent Ocean Engine study found that product seeding can boost total ROI by 53% on Douyin, with significant increases in ad traffic across livestream and short video shopping channels, for example.
Data source: “Creator-Boost-Search-Live” Product Seeding & Conversion Insight Report, Ocean Engine, 2023. Note: *GPM = GMV per mille, average GMV generated by 1,000 shopping cart exposure.
How product seeding offers an edge for brands in China
Product seeding presents a powerful opportunity for brands to build a local funnel for the China market, enabling them to achieve 3 different marketing objectives.
- Expand the user base
By seeding products strategically, product seeding serves as a catalyst for attracting new users, breaking through audience barriers, and expanding brand reach starting from a low or modest base in a highly competitive market.
- Elevate interest and conversion
Sparking user interest and channeling high-intent users to livestreams or direct conversions helps to ignite interest on local social apps like Douyin while leveraging the network effect to stimulate e-commerce conversions.
- Enhance ROI across the funnel
By strategically implementing product seeding, you can optimize ROI across the entire funnel. (This aligns with the 5A framework to target and convert potential consumers effectively at each stage of the funnel, taking them from potential consumers to purchased consumers and finally to advocates.)
Product seeding not only diverts traffic into the funnel but also facilitates deep conversions, particularly within the A3 group—the most likely converted audience segment. Specifically, product seeding helps to accumulate A3 users who are primed for engagement and conversion, thereby improving conversions deeper in the funnel.
3 proven product seeding strategies for Douyin E-commerce
As product seeding continues to gain traction on Douyin E-commerce, forward-thinking brands are embracing new, innovative strategies to amplify impact and drive sales to new heights.
Below are 3 approaches you can adopt as part of a targeted product seeding strategy.
- Cultivating A3 audience segments
Leading brands are leveraging product seeding to cultivate targeted A3 (Ask) audience segments, deploying this approach across various touchpoints, including influencer collaborations, content creation, and sales activation campaigns. By nurturing these high-value audience segments, these brands can accumulate valuable user assets and drive sustained engagement, fostering long-term brand loyalty and advocacy.
- Elevating content quality
User-generated content has emerged as a powerful tool in the product seeding arsenal. By incentivizing the creation of high-quality UGC, brands can cultivate a positive brand and product reputation, fostering trust and credibility among potential customers. This strategic approach amplifies purchase intent and positions the brand as a trusted authority.
- Precision-tailored influencer operations
Recognizing the power of influencer marketing, brands are implementing refined influencer operations, collaborating with top-tier influencers within specific verticals or niches. This precision-tailored approach facilitates precise audience targeting and drives user engagement beyond existing audience groups, expanding the brand’s reach and resonating with new, highly relevant consumer segments.
A 3-phase approach for creator collaboration
As China’s most popular video-sharing app, Douyin presents an ideal platform for product seeding. By collaborating with key opinion leaders and creators on Douyin, brands can quickly attract potential customers, keep them engaged, and drive sales.
Below is a sample 3-phase approach for launching a successful product seeding campaign in partnership with Douyin creators and influencers.
Exposure
To kickstart the product seeding process, brands can work with long-tail KOLs or key opinion consumers (KOCs) to generate authentic product testimonials, reviews, and brand-related user-generated content (UGC). This outreach strategy quickly elevates the scale of UGC content, shaping widespread word-of-mouth and creating initial exposure of individual products or entire product lines.
Content seeding
Building on the initial exposure, brands can engage top-tier KOLs within specific verticals or niches. These influencers, known for their strong content production capabilities, can create high-quality unboxing videos, product reviews, creator livestreams, and shoppable videos. This targeted content seeding phase helps further solidify the product’s presence and influence within its relevant audience segments.
Sales
The final phase of product seeding on Douyin involves driving sales through live shopping events or creator livestreams. By engaging top KOLs to make product quality endorsements and leveraging their massive exposure, brands can convert interested viewers into customers.
How to supercharge product seeding using ads
While product seeding has proven to be a powerful strategy on its own, aligning it with complementary advertising products can significantly amplify overall impact and ROI.
Below is a selection of Douyin ad product solutions offered by the Ocean Engine marketing and advertising platform.
Brand Bidding (Product Seeding + Livestream Promotion)
Leveraging product seeding in tandem with livestream promotion creates a potent combination that enhances brand visibility and drives real-time user engagement. By integrating these two strategies, you can capture audience attention, foster a sense of authenticity, and facilitate direct conversions through live shopping experiences.
Content Promote
As an ad format spanning all video content categories, Content Promote allows you to promote native content natively into users’ “For You” feed. This native approach not only delivers more views and boosts interest but also helps you achieve a range of marketing objectives, including product seeding.
Optimal A3 Seeding
Optimal A3 Seeding helps you optimize ad placement with product seeding as the goal. This approach allows you to efficiently target users aware of your brand and nurture users ready to buy (A3).
Mission for All
Engaging users through interactive missions fosters user participation and boosts brand advocacy. By creating gamified experiences around product seeding campaigns, brands can incentivize user involvement, encourage social sharing, and cultivate a loyal community of brand advocates.
Search Brand Zone
Enhancing brand visibility through targeted search placement ensures maximum exposure and drives intent-driven conversions. By optimizing search visibility and leveraging search brand zones, brands can capture high-intent users actively seeking information about their products and drive sales growth.
Why you shouldn’t just focus on transactions
Product seeding, as explored in this post, offers a powerful strategy to maximize ROI across each stage of the funnel and supercharge conversions for your brand.
However, success in China’s e-commerce market isn’t just about short-term transactions—it’s about building relationships. By consistently gaining exposure, seeding interest, and building authority, you are solidifying your position as a trusted brand in China and paving the way for long-term growth within your industry.
To learn more about high-potential Douyin e-commerce marketing strategies for China, be sure to read our in-depth posts on brand livestreaming and the Douyin product venue approach.
