7 Case Studies to Make You Rethink Your WeChat Strategy

The capabilities of WeChat are mind-boggling - it often feels like there are new features being added every week. While we can introduce WeChat’s features and give you strategy advice all day long, without concrete examples it is still hard to grasp how these tactics could work for your brand and the types of results they can deliver.

So today we’ve gathered up 7 real life case studies on the topics of WeChat customer journeys, user acquisition, data binding, segmentation and retargeting, customer service and more.

Reaching U.S.-Based Chinese Consumers Through KOLs & Tencent Ads

A leading U.S. luxury department store launched its WeChat Official Account (OA) in late 2019. The challenge - it had a very niche target audience that it wanted to reach and that was local Chinese consumers, particularly college students and young professionals.

ChatLabs suggested running WeChat Moments ads campaigns while simultaneously working with local U.S.-based Chinese KOLs.

While Tencent advertising targeting capabilities aren’t as strong U.S. as they are in Mainland China, WeChat Moments ads are still one of the best means to reach the brand’s target consumer, as most (if not all) young, female, U.S.-based Chinese consumers are active WeChat users. What’s more, Tencent ads are the only type of advertisement which could drive traffic directly to the brand’s WeChat account.

The brand also collaborated with two local Chinese influencers who used links and trackable QR codes in their Instagram posts and Stories to drive traffic back to the brand’s Official Account.

Data Binding for Advanced Segmentation and Retargeting

A premium international cosmetics brand has been using WeChat for many years and has several WeChat Official Accounts to cater to consumers and travelers in various regions throughout the world.

One of their largest accounts outside of their Mainland China account had a solid follower base, but the brand wanted to speed up new user acquisition and improve retention – organically. Even more than that, they wanted to find a way to increase the binding rate for new followers.

Binding a customer’s WeChat ID and personal identifier to their loyalty account would allow the brand to map the customer’s behavior across all of their brand properties on WeChat, and send them targeted information and offers based on their previous purchases and location.

By deploying ChatLabs software, the account dramatically improved its WeChat user binding rate from less than 2% to 33% and increased its new user acquisition rate from less than 100 new users per week to over 1,000.

Organic Offline to Online User Acquisition With Parametric QR Codes

One of the world’s leading hospitality brands, Resorts World Genting, leveraged offline QR codes with targeted offers to organically grow its WeChat account following.

The premise of the campaign was to drive offline to online follower acquisition by offering special coupons and vouchers which could only be obtained by scanning QR codes placed throughout the property and following the resort’s Official Account.

Upon following the account, Chinese travelers received vouchers for discounts and gifts which could be redeemed during their stay. Each location location around the property had a unique, trackable QR code so that followers could be grouped based on which code they used to follow the account. This also helped the brand know which locations were most effective.

Digital Transformation With WeChat as the Core Service Hub

Seeking to grow its presence within the global Chinese investing community, leading financial services provider TD Ameritrade decided to bring its services to WeChat, joining forces with ChatLabs to launch a WeChat Official Service Account and corresponding mini programs.

Together, the Official Account and mini programs deliver WeChat users a comprehensive suite of financial services through a single digital platform. TDA sees WeChat as a service hub, a one-stop-shop for all interactions and processes, whether it be marketing, education, and client communication - to applying for and setting up a TDA account.

In order to optimize the user experience, TD Ameritrade uses the ChatLabs software to help users navigate the account and find the answers they’re looking for more efficiently with a series of automated messages customized to the user based on how they interact with the account. On top of that, a customer service mini program allows users to chat with an automated or live agent and get real-time support at any time of the day.

SMS+WeChat: A Multi-Channel Engagement Strategy

This prominent luxury watch brand uses email as the channel with which to run automated Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) journeys in most markets throughout the world. However, email is ineffective in China and many brands have email open rates of less than 1%.

So instead, the brand wanted to find a way to leverage it’s existing journeys on Salesforce to offer a personalized after sales experience for Chinese customers of all 30 product categories using WeChat.

However, weChat couldn’t be the only solution as there were quite a few customers who hadn't followed the brand’s Official Account and thereby not got their WeChat Open IDs bound to SFMC. Without a bound Open ID there was no way to enter them into a journey. The brand did, however, have these customers' phone numbers, therefore ChatLabs helped the brand set up SFMC journeys for communication on WeChat with customers who are following their Official Account, and SMS for those who haven't.

So far, this multi-channel strategy has proven quite effective, with an average WeChat message click-through rate of 54% and a SMS delivery rate of 89%.

Building Out Autoresponders to Elevate Customer Service

ChatLabs worked with a performance electric vehicle brand to reimagine the car-buying experience, not only moving the entire process online as this brand has done in other parts of the world but moving it entirely onto WeChat. From a digital showroom, to purchasing a vehicle, to after sales support – every step of the car-buying journey now occurs within the WeChat ecosystem.

The car brand has a dedicated customer support team that uses ChatLabs Service to handle customer inquiries, nurture leads and provide after sales support. With a goal of replying to every inquiry in under a minute, and a massive amount of inquiries coming through every day, the brand worked with ChatLabs to create a comprehensive set of nested autoresponders which are triggered by keywords and sent to the user before he or she is routed to 1-to-1 support. These keywords are all tagged, allowing the brand to analyze how many times certain autoresponders are being triggered.

Building a WeChat-Centric Customer Journey Integrated with Salesforce

While in the West customer journeys takes place across a number of channels, in China, WeChat enables brands to guide consumers through all the phases of the customer journey, from awareness to decision, to advocacy, all within the WeChat ecosystem.

This global financial services firm built its entire customer journey flow within WeChat to make the user experience extremely convenient for Chinese consumers.

The firm’s WeChat Official Account and mini programs are integrated with Salesforce Marketing, Service, and Sales Clouds, allowing it to run Salesforce marketing journeys through WeChat and to combine user data from all platforms to reveal a 360 view of its customers.

One example of a journey it is currently running is an online sign-up form drop-off reminder. After a user fails to finish filling out a sign-up form, they will be sent reminders to continue filling out the form or to see if they have any questions that they need answered by a brand representative before they can finish signing up.