19 June 2019 at 9:00 am
Creating a China-first digital ecosystem
A China-hosted version of the Study in New Zealand website is the latest milestone in ENZ’s three-year journey to increase its digital presence in China.
Western websites and social media platforms have issues with accessibility, performance and loading speed in China, so ENZ has had to create bespoke digital technology to share the New Zealand education story with Chinese students.
ENZ carried out focus groups with Chinese international students to gather insights while designing the website to ensure it met the needs of a Chinese audience.
Its new website has a China domain name (.cn), has been search engine-optimised and is tracked with Baidu analytics (China’s equivalent of Google).
The site has also been integrated with ENZ’s database marketing system, enabling ENZ to follow up leads and capture marketing data. Having a .cn domain name enables ENZ to run a marketing campaign to boost its search rankings in Baidu.
The site works strategically with ENZ’s account on WeChat, China’s most popular social media app with more than one billion users.
ENZ has had an account on WeChat since 2014, and now has more than 53,000 followers.
In October last year, ENZ brought My StudyNZ to WeChat. My StudyNZ provides personalised study matches for international students exploring study in New Zealand.
Three-quarters of people using My StudyNZ on WeChat browse their study matches for almost two minutes, which is a good level of engagement.
Students using My StudyNZ in China are more likely to fund their own studies than students globally (76% compared to 33%) and more likely to have tuition budgets of more than $30,000 (30% compared to 15%). Ten percent are interested in studying at a school, compared to 3% of students globally, which illustrates the high value of this market.
ENZ’s International Social Engagement Specialist, Nicole Baird, said ENZ has a frequent calendar of social media posts to engage with its WeChat audience.
“We are also increasing our capabilities to segment our WeChat audience to direct content specific to each follower’s needs,” Nicole said.
ENZ’s Digital Programme Manager, Lucia Alarcon, said ENZ’s bigger and more robust ecosystem offers useful insights to help inform its marketing strategy.
“We are able to strengthen and increase our data capabilities and gain insights to inform our marketing decisions.”
Visit the China site here. Read more about My StudyNZ on WeChat here, or take a look at it by searching for its official Chinese name on WeChat (新西兰留学规划) or by scanning this QR code:
