In a previous article we learnt about the detailed SWOT analysis of Baidu. In this article, we will explain the marketing strategy of Baidu – one of China’s biggest internet companies.
The objective is to give you an insight into how Baidu was born and raised to become one of the world’s biggest Internet and AI companies.
Marketing is a part of a company’s DNA that can decide its fortunes. As users across the world are going increasingly digital, marketing has followed suit and entered the digital realm as well. If you are keen to learn new-age digital marketing, then you should check out IIDE’s Free MasterClass on Digital Marketing 101 by our CEO and Founder, Karan Shah.
We will fully cover the marketing strategy of Baidu in this blog. But before diving deep into it, let’s start by learning about the company’s story, target audience and digital presence.
About Baidu – Company Overview
The third-largest search engine in the world – Chinese technology company Baidu means ‘hundred times’ in English. Located in the Haidian District of Beijing, Baidu specialised in Internet products, services, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Robin Li and Eric Xu founded Baidu on January 18, 2000; in 2001, Baidu began offering advertisers the option of bidding for ad space and then making payments every time a customer clicked on an ad, following the Google approach.
In 2003, Baidu launched a news search engine and picture search engine, introducing a technology that made it possible for the company to launch services for the community, such as a search engine for articles, a cloud storage service, and an encyclopaedia for identifying articles and grouping them. Currently, Baidu owns over 85% of the Chinese search engine market, and the market is growing rapidly.
| CEO | Robin Li |
|---|---|
| CMO | Rong Luo |
| Area Served | Worldwide |
| Industry | Internet, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing |
| Market Share/ Revenue | $18.5 Billion (2021) |
| Vision | To make the complicated world simpler through technology. |
| Tagline | Search in need, Browse in leisure |
Marketing Strategy of Baidu
Let’s learn about the marketing strategy of Baidu. And how they carry out their marketing campaigns etc.
Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning
Today everyone uses the internet. Hence their target audience is all age groups ie, 15-60+. Everyone can easily access the internet today and use it for homework, work commitments, or even random search.
A differentiated targeting strategy is formed by Baidu for providing every user with a customised experience according to his/her needs through its search analytics platform, based upon their search patterns, location etc.
The Baidu website caters to all consumer segments. Users can shoot small videos with simple operations. This feature can be quite useful for vloggers and content creators. You get the latest news updates, which are quite useful for working-class people. They also provide comics and novels as a feature on the website catering to the young adults and teenage segment.
Baidu has positioned itself as an internet company that seeks to provide innovative solutions to real-world problems through its expertise in AI. Besides being a search engine, it is also collaborating with companies for AI-driven cars. Further, it is also looking forward to entering the social networking space.
Marketing Campaigns
The Baidu CNY Campaign was a unique marketing initiative in which they partnered with CCTV (a state-owned broadcaster) to reach 300 million people for the Chinese New Year. In this event, Baidu offered $133 million worth of prizes to people who downloaded its mobile app and followed the instructions inside. Around 100 million people then received red envelopes (pictured above) that contained cash prizes. This campaign led to a huge increase in Baidu app users.
In another campaign, Baidu partnered with Paramount Pictures, the makers of the popular Transformer movie series, and brought its interactive messaging features to fans, right before the Bumblebee movie was set to release. Users who downloaded Baidu’s mobile keyboard apps were able to send fun emoticons and digital stickers (pictured above) containing the famous yellow transformer, Bumblebee.
The ABC Inspire Summit is organized to discuss new and important technologies such as AI, cloud computing, and the application of smart internet of things (IoT) tech. Attendees of the event got to hear keynote speeches from industry leaders and also saw exciting new products in action. Baidu used the summit to educate the audience and also to showcase its latest products and services.
Social Media Marketing
Baidu is active on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Of these three platforms it has the highest following on LinkedIn, followed by Twitter, and then Facebook. It has about 278,000 followers on LinkedIn, nearly 88,700 followers on Twitter and almost 11,000 followers on Facebook.
The posts contain mostly promotional and informational content along with some posts related to their new product launch.
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SEO Strategies
The Baidu website along with other Chinese websites is banned in India.
Influencer Marketing
The process of identifying, engaging, and supporting individuals who initiate conversations with a brand’s customers is known as influencer marketing. It is a growing trend used in public relations campaigns. In recent years, this strategy has become increasingly focused on social media, allowing brands to market through social media influencers. Influencer marketing will also be a big trend in 2022 and beyond.
Influencer marketing, which mixes brands and influencers working together, maybe a strong strategy that may help businesses develop. It is a marketing approach that’s been employed successfully by thousands of organisations and brands for over a decade and is still growing.
Baidu has collaborated with YouTube Gamers and Content Creators through its apps DU Recorder and Facemoji. YouTube gamers playing games from Supercell like Clash Royale, were targeted to use and promote DU Recorder. Similarly, creative content creators were targeted to promote the app Facemoji.
E-Commerce Strategies
Being an Internet company, Baidu promotes and sells most of its products from its website. Furthermore, Baidu owns several apps and platforms as well. They have a section of services on their website that give descriptions of their services.
Mobile Apps
The Baidu mobile app is used by over 700 million users. The app allows users to search for information, text, images and also for videos and sounds. It also allows a feature to read books and novels. The app has an advanced speech recognition system, claimed by the company to be 98% accurate.
Content Marketing Strategies
Baidu utilises Facebook and Twitter for its content marketing. Their post content focuses on their products and services like their self-driven smart cars and how they use AI to change the world. Baidu posts about their Apollo RoboTaxi and several other AI-related products through fun videos, podcasts and animations.
We know you also want to attract and engage your desired target audience without forcing them to make purchases. Well, for that, you’ll need to muster a basic understanding of how to create a holistic content marketing strategy to ultimately convert them into paying customers without insisting they pay.
This ends the elaborative marketing strategy of Baidu. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of Baidu.
Conclusion – What’s Unique in Baidu Marketing?
In Baidu’s marketing strategies we see that they are trying to become the world’s biggest internet company, giving a solid challenge to Google. The Baidu website and its app has many unique features that can help them push forward in achieving this aim. Baidu has also shown eagerness in developing new technologies like AI and using them in automobiles. It also owns other apps in sectors like video editing, news, social media etc.
The marketing strategies applied by Baidu are very diverse yet efficient. They market their product through all key channels like online, social media, events and promotions. This has helped them achieve control over the majority of the Chinese market and they are the most popular and most used browser in China.
With the growing potential of digital marketing, it’s critical to educate yourself on the subject.
Check our Online Digital Marketing Course if you want to learn more and improve your marketing skills. Alternatively, you can enrol in one of our free online masterclasses led by IIDE’s CEO, Karan Shah, to gain insight into the field of digital marketing.
We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of Baidu has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.
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