How to Seize Future Opportunities with Your Holiday Campaigns in Asia Tips and Tricks for Creating Compelling Social Commerce Strategies That Sell

How to seize future opportunities with your holiday campaigns in Asia Tips and tricks for creating compelling social commerce strategies that sell 1 Seize new opportunities with your holiday campaigns How can marketers create relevant experiences across Asia during the holidays? Social commerce is here to stay, and if there’s one thing marketers agree on, it’s that social commerce will only become more important. In fact, 95% of marketers surveyed in the “The State of Social Commerce in Southeast Asia” agreed that social commerce will become increasingly important over the next five years.1 However, there are a number of challenges associated with social commerce and marketing. One question that marketers find particularly critical is how to create strategies that are relevant and unique to the diverse regions and markets across Asia. Many marketing teams that are new to the region — or expanding across the region — make the mistake of using a single marketing strategy and identical campaigns for each country. It may feel convenient in the short term, but it will cost your company in the long run. Festive seasons are an especially important time for culture and for selling, so holiday campaign planning is a great point in time to re-evaluate your social commerce strategy to create suitable and relevant campaigns across the region. To help you, we’ll share telling data from this year’s Lunar New Year, as well as tips and best practices to help you create suitable social commerce strategies for each market you’re selling to for the next holiday season. 1 Econsultancy, Hootsuite, Magento, “The State of Social Commerce in Southeast Asia” 2 Social conversations really start picking up during major holidays because traffic, purchase, and consumer discussions increase dramatically during this time. This spike in activity begins rising quickly during the days leading up to the holiday, then drops sharply immediately after the holiday (Figure 1). But once you dive deeper, the type of social activity, attitudes, and interests are far from uniform in countries across Asia, which highlights the need to approach each country separately. So let’s take a closer look at marketing best practices we gleaned from social listening data captured across Asia for your next holiday season campaign. Figure 1. Topic mentions related to Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year across Asia, Feb 2021, Talkwalker. Results over time 64.2k Results 20 16 12 8 4 1 Feb 8 Feb 15 Feb 22 Feb 1 Mar Chinese New Year This graph from Talkwalker analytics shows the mentions of topics related to Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year across Asia in February 2021. You can see the activity build up for several days then drop sharply after the 1st day of the Lunar New Year. Face your marketing challenges head-on with a fresh approach for the holidays Best practice indicates that companies should spend extra time getting to know their customers and researching their individual target markets to ensure messaging is right on target. To help guide you — and highlight the importance of treating each market individually — we’ll also share insightful social commerce data from several countries in the region. 3 Get to know your customers better, so you can meet their expectations If you don’t have a wealth of data about your current customers, ensure you invest in the technology and strategies that will help you get to know them better well before the next holiday season. Get to know your customers using: Surveys Ask your most loyal customers what they want to see directly in an invitation-only survey. Social listening By staying on top of local conversations happening online, you can get a better idea of the products customers are interested in, how they’re using them, how they feel about your brand and your competitors, and more. Incentivised profile completion and AI Give customers a reward for completing a series of questions (age range, gender, brand preferences, etc.), which your AI and machine learning tools can use in combination with transactional data to create a more personalised experience, including more relevant product suggestions. Preference Quizzes Entertain shoppers and get to know them better at the same time with simple questions and captivating visuals. Shopee’s Story Quiz and Voting Stickers are tools that help engage their shoppers, but also allow the marketplace to better understand their audience.2 Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach We know it’s a mistake to create one campaign and recycle it across multiple countries in Asia, but once you’re ready to personalise, how can you know if you’re headed in the right direction with your targeted campaigns? We’ve gathered some social commerce trends from several countries across the region to help inform your campaigns. Combined with the power of social listening and conversational intelligence3, you’ll have everything you need to create messaging that resonates. 2 Shopee Seller Education Hub 3 “How to drive growth with conversation intelligence” Talkwalker, Sep 2020 4 Spotlight on social shopping and selling trends across Asia Let’s take a journey across the region and dive deeper into the mobile trends and social commerce tendencies in each market. Here we’ll explore why developing and delivering a unique marketing strategy for each country is worth your time. Malaysia E-commerce This is a strong country for e-commerce — when surveyed, 82% of internet users had bought something from e-commerce stores during the specified time period.4 Between 2019 and 2020 the biggest lift in dollars spent was in the fashion/beauty category (43.7%), followed by food/personal care (35.1%).5 Social media Malaysia has 26 million active social media users. 99% of them use their mobile devices for social media. 59.5% of users use social media as a main source when researching.5 Chat is king Malaysia is a country that believes in the power of chat! When it comes to c-commerce (conversational commerce), 31% of Malaysian shoppers say they chat with companies to help determine whether they are trustworthy.6 Among those customers who engage in c-commerce via social or messaging platforms, 88% do so using Facebook products.4 Payment preferences In terms of preferred payment methods, according to “Digital 2021 Malaysia”, 85% of the population aged 15 and over have a bank account but only 21% has a credit card and only 11% has a mobile wallet. 5 4 “The Top Social Commerce Platforms in Southeast Asia”, J&T Express, 21 Jul, 2020 5 “Digital 2021 Malaysia”, Data Reportal 6 “Insights To Go”, Facebook IQ 5 Philippines E-commerce From 2019 to 2020, the biggest jump year over year, in dollars spent, was in the food/personal care category (64.3%), followed by the toys, DIY, and hobbies category (47.8%).7 Social media As the so-called Social Media Capital of the World, 99% of the country’s internet users have registered on at least one social media platform. And they spend approximately four hours online via mobile devices. 65.4% of users are using social media as a main source when researching.8 Social commerce is everywhere Facebook (94%), Facebook Messenger (84%), Instagram (56%), and WhatsApp (21%) are the top platforms for transactions. In light of these facts, it should come as no surprise that 69% of merchants in the Philippines that are not already doing social commerce are looking to start. Payment preferences 34.5% of the population aged 15 and over have a bank account. However, only 1.9% have a credit card and only 4.5% has a mobile wallet. This may indicate a preference for cash among Filipinos.7 Indonesia E-commerce Indonesians spend up to four hours a day on their mobile phones, like their Filipino and Malaysian counterparts. But they are not just browsing — they’re shopping.8 Year over year, between 2019 and 2020, the largest uplift in dollars spent were inthe Toys, DIY, hobbies (51.5%), followed by fashion and beauty (50.7%).9 Social media When it comes to social media, 65% of Indonesians use this as a main source for research. Ten million Indonesians buy only via social commerce, while another ten million also buy through marketplaces or e-tailing. Facebook, Instagram, LINE, and WhatsApp are the preferred platforms, while Tokopedia is the top-performing marketplace in the country.8 Strategies that involve ephemeral content such as Instagram Stories, Facebook Messenger’s My Day, and Snapchat Stories have been received positively by the Indonesian audience. Payment preferences 48.9% of the population aged 15 and over have a bank account, but only 2.4% have a credit card. Only 3.1% have a mobile wallet.9 7 “Digital 2021 the Philippines”, Data Reportal 8 “The Top Social Commerce Platforms in Southeast Asia”, J&T Express, 21 Jul, 2020 9 “Digital 2021 Indonesia”, Data Reportal 6 Singapore E-commerce A striking 81.5% of internet users in Singapore regularly use shopping apps on their phone10 Since 2019, we have seen more Singapore shoppers spend money in the digital music category with YoY lift in spend at 39.7%, followed by food and personal care (YoY lift in spend of 37%)10. Social media Though social selling is popular in many countries across the region, only 63% of merchants in Singapore are doing social selling. Consumers, too, are slower to adopt social media in their purchase journey, as only 42.5% of users are using social media as a main source when researching. With that said, Singapore shoppers spend an average of US$785 annually on consumer goods online, spending much more than their neighbours in the region.10 Payment preferences 97.9% of the population aged 15 and over have a bank account and 48.9% have a credit card.

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