10 Chinese Moon Festival Marketing Tips
If you just missed the business opportunity on Chinese Valentines Day, then don’t miss that on Chinese Moon Festival. Next to Chinese New Year, it’s the second most important traditional festival to Chinese.
It’s also called Mid-Autumn Festival, which used to celebrate the harvest and the family reunion. In terms of that, it’s similar to Thanksgiving Day in North America. People usually have dinner together with families and present gifts to each other.
The festival is held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar with full moon at night. In 2017, it’s on October 4th.
Businesses can take a big advantage over the festival, because you can not only get the attention from local ethnic group, but also travellers from China since it’s also the long holidays of National Day in China.
Here are 10 tips for businesses to make your Chinese Moon Festival Marketing Plan.
- Prepare your message. Let Chinese ethnic group know you know about them and care about them. Give a them a kind remind that the festival is coming. For those who have settled their families in Canada, you would like to help them give their families an unforgettable night. For those who have to left their families behind, you would like to celebrate the day with them as a family.
- Prepare a special family package. It’s a big day for the reunion. You need something resonated with it. If you are running a restaurant, you can have a special set dinner for the day. If you are a resort owner, plan something for the family to play, stay and dinning. If you are a grocery owner, food platters are good. Retailers can do gift packages as well.
- Prepare gifts for valued clients or prospects. Moon cakes, Chinese tea or paper lanterns are very good choices. The small gifts will get them closer to your business, especially when you are in businesses like banking, wealth management, insurance, auto sales, real estate, etc. .
- Host an event. Since it’s day for the reunion of the family, why don’t you take the chance to reunite with your customers? Invite Chinese customers to your showroom or a special venue to celebrate the day together. You can also invite other ethnic groups to the event to feel the festival as well. Make it a big day for networking.
- Run a contest. Solving riddles is one of traditional customs in Moon Festival and Lantern Festival. Google Chinese Riddles, you can find a lot. Then, you can make something creative and run a contest.
- Use RED and GOLD as your major visual. The two colors are most often used color for the celebration and can easily have the attention of Chinese customers. It could be used in your invitation letter, in-store banners, flyers, or other contents.
- Do a teaser campaign. Get your message out before the market becomes noisy. Let customers know clearly what you are going to offer and have them hooked.
- Don’t mess it up. Use a professional do understand Chinese culture to help you make your plan and get it done. In Chinese New Year this year, it embarrassed No Frills when they put banners and stickers for Moon Festival in some of their stores.
- Use Chinese Social media to get message out. Most Chinese prefer to the social media in their mother tongue language. Both Sina Weibo and WeChat are good to spread words out. They are two most popular Chinese social media used. You can either find influencers or use your Chinese staff to make it.
- Start preparation early. Don’t wait till the last-minute and find yourself in a awkward.
If you need more tips, please feel free to contact us by email to social@uwex.co.