Reporter | Zhou Fangying
Edit | Lou Shuqin
1
The outbreak of the online economy in 2020 has led to a boom in the rise of domestic beauty. Nowadays, with the intensification of competition in the domestic beauty market, going to sea has become a popular way for domestic beauty to find an increment.
The soaring demand for overseas cross-border has also brought opportunities for some overseas e-commerce marketing companies. According to the news of the investment community, the brand overseas marketing company Wotu Network announced that it had obtained tens of millions of A-round investments from Junpin Capital and Yunxiang Technology.
Founded in 2015, Wotu Network has a database covering 3 million global influencers and has served more than 2,000 brands. This round of funding will also be used to expand the number of online celebrity signings, with a particular focus on vertical talents. In addition to overseas influencer resources, Wotu network has also established a WOTOKOL overseas celebrity data analysis platform, which can help brands make decisions, evaluate the effectiveness of delivery, and analyze industry trends to provide localized strategic marketing solutions.
It is worth mentioning that the success cases listed on the official website of Wotu Network include perfect diary, Huaxizi, Mao Geping and domestic beauty brands that have accumulated a certain amount of voice in China.
The common denominator of these cases lies in the fact that domestic beauty brands use wotu network to find local KOLs and KOCs in overseas markets for marketing cooperation. These influencers will publish beauty reviews and other promotional content on overseas social media such as Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc., similar to kol marketing on domestic Little Red Book and Weibo.
Image source: Wotu Network
In fact, internet celebrity marketing is only one part of the domestic beauty brand going overseas. The hidden marketing link of advertising on sites such as Google Ads is also the cost that domestic brands need to invest in third-party platforms.
In addition to landing on third-party cross-border shopping websites such as Amazon and Shopee, many domestic beauty brands have also established their own overseas independent stations. For these brands that have already made a name for themselves in the Chinese market, the focus of the official website is not on sales, but on the output of the complete image of the brand.
In 2020, Perfect Diary chose the Southeast Asian market as the starting point for overseas business. Shortly after the start of its overseas business, Perfect Diary topped Shopee's makeup sales in Vietnam and Singapore. In order to increase the brand's influence in the local area, Perfect Diary has also hired Vietnamese pop singer AMEE as an ambassador for the Vietnamese lip makeup brand, as well as cooperated with Malaysian local star Choi Cheuk Yan to promote the koi series.
Image source: pinterest
But in addition to this, Perfect Diary has also established its own official websites for Asia and Japan, and customized the dissemination of content according to regional markets. On the perfect diary website of Japan, the brand also published a Japanese advertisement through Youtube.
In fact, the Southeast Asian market represented by Japan is similar to China in terms of geography and cultural aesthetics, so they are often the first choice for domestic beauty brands across borders.
Interface Fashion has reported that Focallure, a domestic makeup brand that won a round of financing in September 2021, is one of the well-known cases of cross-border domestic makeup. Since 2016, Fei Luer has entered overseas markets such as North America, Southeast Asia and Russia through cross-border e-commerce such as Shoppee, Lazada, AliExpress and Amazon.
At the beginning of 2021, Fei Luer also signed a contract with Japanese cosmetics retailer Lifestyle Company as its agent in the Japanese market to deepen the Japanese market. The popularity of the "China Makeup" trend (Chiborg Boom) on Japanese social media also proves the far-reaching impact of the wave of domestic beauty brands going to sea.
Coincidentally, Hanashiko also chose the Japanese market as a breakthrough in overseas business. According to the surging news report, in March 2021, Huaxizi opened the road to the sea from Japan, and its star product Concentric Lock Lipstick entered the top three of the Japanese Amazon Lipstick Sales List hourly list on the first day of its launch, and honey powder and highlight products also squeezed into the top ten of the Amazon Sales List Hourly List.
But for Hua Xizi, the difficulty of overseas promotion lies in how to simultaneously convey the "oriental culture" behind the brand. Hua Xizi once made an animation of the story of "Zhang Open Thrush" behind the eyebrow chalk product, translated it into English and uploaded it to YouTube, and formed a linkage with its overseas official website. In addition to the anime, Hanaiko also uploaded five international language versions of the brand's eponymous song.
However, judging from Huaxizi's recent marketing actions, localization marketing has become the focus. Recently, Huaxizi set up an additional official account "cmakeupby florasis" on Instagram, showing the makeup effects of European and American models using Huaxizi products.
Image source: Instagram
It is undeniable that the rise of domestic beauty in the local market confirms its development potential, and the march to overseas markets is also actively exploring new growth space.
However, the once popular international big-name makeup still firmly occupies the mainstream of the Chinese market, and this is even more so in overseas markets. If domestic makeup wants to go on in the global market for a long time, it is not only at the marketing level, but also in product research and development, market price, supply chain and other aspects.