Chinese students inject billions of dollars into the Australian economy, but how much do we know about the factors influencing the Chinese student’s international education decisions? How to best reach them during their decision-making process, to influence their final selection?
To reach Chinese students, education institutions need to: Understand, Invest & Adapt.
UNDERSTAND
【1】Who is the decision maker: only 1/3 of the Chinese students decide by themselves, the rest either by joint model or by parents alone.
【2】The importance of ranking, positive reviews and recommendations in the decision process. 80% prefer world top 200 schools.
【3】Which Chinese channels both online and offline are used by parents and students to gather information about education overseas: online channels as Chinese social media (e.g. WeChat marketing), education portals (e.g. EOL and Zinch), and information portals (e.g. Sina and Sohu), and offline channels as education exhibitions and workshops, study agencies are important and impactful channels.
【4】What people say about your brand through social monitoring (across social networks, forums & Q&A sites).
ADAPT & INVEST
【5】Build a localised official Chinese website with rich content (application assistance, academy/course introduction, videos, etc.) and a personalised environment and personalised environment.
【6】Expose contents based on popular programs/topics on right channels: education portal (EOL, Zinch,…), Baikes and Q&A (Baidu Zhidao), community sites (Tieba), and Forums (Tianya).
【7】Promote brand not only in Tier-1 cities, but also Tier 2/3 cities. Consumption power has risen significantly in Tier 2/3 cities in recent years, while the gap between education resources available and the demand is much larger there than in Tier 1.
【8】Run campaigns online and offline in recruiting peak season, eg after Gaokao.
【9】Sign up alumni and current students as advocates for your brand on Chinese social media channels.
【10】Give special offers to incentivise application and acceptance of admission offer such as student loans, assistantship, scholarship, free English class. This is particularly useful when making a decision among schools with similar ranking.
Now is the critical time for Australian schools and universities to introduce changes to the way they do marketing in China to recruit Chinese students with both offline channels and online digital marketing in China.
This is an excerpt from our whitepaper The Learning Dragon, Studying with International Chinese Students. For more information on Chinese international students, please download our two-part free whitepaper.
Chinese students are heading overseas in record numbers to further their education. There is potential to dramatically increase Australian's intake if Australian educational institutions can position themselves as the preferred choice. Our free whitepaper - Studying with international Chinese Students explores the recent trends influencing Chinese international student recruitment.
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