OceanEngine Local Promotion: How can art education brands acquire customers on Chinese Douyin?

Hope Art Education Leverages Douyin for Breakthrough Customer Acquisition and Brand Growth

Marking its 19th anniversary, Hope Art Education, a leading brand in its sector, embarked on a significant innovative move. By establishing its presence on Douyin (China's TikTok) and leveraging the power of Juliang Local Push (巨量本地推), the brand successfully broke away from traditional customer acquisition methods. Utilizing an integrated approach combining 'store exploration' videos, short-form content, and live streams, it achieved substantial business growth. During the National Day holiday period, this strategy, powered by live streaming and optimized Douyin Advertising, generated nearly ten thousand potential customer leads. The brand's Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) surpassed 100,000 RMB, injecting new momentum into its business.

I. Strategy:

To ensure success on the competitive Douyin platform, Hope Art Education devised a series of innovative strategies, forming a core part of their effective Douyin marketing plan.

1. It initiated a branded hashtag challenge, collaborating with local Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) for school visit and endorsement videos ('store exploration' or 探店). This utilized Douyin's Search Brand Zone (搜索品专) to precisely capture traffic from users searching after viewing content ('search-after-view').
2. Professional hosts were selected for regular product showcases during streams. The brand's co-founder made special appearances in the livestreams to offer exclusive gifts, fostering a closer relationship between the brand and its audience.
3. Juliang Local Push was employed for precise audience targeting, attracting viewer attention and driving efficient conversions.

II. Implementation:

During implementation, Hope Art Education refined its audience strategy, precisely defining its target demographic and analyzing its current business landscape to focus on six key cities. It launched an online anniversary promotion offering gifts city-wide, using 200 free high-end custom painting toolkits as an incentive to attract users. Concurrently, scientific ad placement through Juliang Local Push helped break geographical barriers, directly reaching potential customers to drive conversions. The product strategy was optimized; adjusting offerings to enhance user engagement time, coordinating with multi-branch local KOLs to release school exploration short videos, and introducing a trial class for 9.9 RMB. These tactics captured the target audience's attention, increased customer stickiness, and promoted conversion.

III. Live Streaming Strategy:

The live stream strategy utilized a commercial hashtag challenge to spark interest and gain traffic. Creating the "Hope Good Teacher" commercial topic helped pre-warm the live stream event. Top List challenges and the topic page encouraged widespread interaction, supported by pushing the school exploration video content. Using Douyin's Search Brand Zone ensured efficient capture of 'search-after-view' traffic, rapidly boosting the brand's visibility on Douyin. This approach effectively opened new local marketing and customer acquisition channels, quickly breaking down marketing barriers and igniting interest among the target audience.

During the broadcasts, skilled hosts professionally detailed the offerings, with flexible operational support aiding conversion. Interactive sessions and gift giveaways featuring the brand's co-founder kept users engaged. Extended stream duration increased引流 (traffic diversion). Combining Top List challenges with FeedsLive, and supported by Juliang Local Push for amplified live room traffic, helped drive daily sales conversions. Host scripts and live stream backgrounds were iteratively optimized based on conversion data, achieving low-cost customer acquisition. This successfully established a new pathway where "online traffic empowers offline stores," marking the brand's breakthrough from 0 to 1 online with an effective Chinese social media marketing campaign. For brands looking to navigate this complex landscape, partnering with an experienced China advertising agency can be crucial for success.