The Story
Though globally renowned, Yonex, a leading badminton brand, wanted to further expand its brand awareness in China. The brand realised there was much potential for improvement in how it positioned and promoted itself on digital channels.
Challenge
Yonex aimed at supporting its entry into China with increased brand exposure and a higher digital profile. An increase of both the traffic and stature of the brand’s newly revamped website is also needed. By using Baidu Brand Zone and search engine optimisation (SEO) effectively, traffic to the Yonex China website could be increased, increasing the number of potential customers familiarising themselves with Yonex and boosting the brand’s online exposure.
Baidu Brand Zone service
Mission
The brand decided to use the Baidu Brand Zone* to enhance its brand exposure while conveying news and messages about its products, market trends, matches and promoting distributors’ offline stores. The Baidu Brand Zone* updates its content on monthly basis to convey messages to target audience as quickly and comprehensively as possible.
Execution by PLUS Communications
The team helped Yonex launch its very first digital media promotion on the Baidu Brand Zone*. The Brand Zone displays products promotion within a highly branded environment created by the team.
The Results
- Yonex’s brand image in China received a rapid boost from the Baidu Brand Zone*, generating 150,000 times more exposure in just two months. Traffic to the Yonex website was also increased by 60%
- Yonex realised dramatic benefits of website traffic from its consistent participation in the Baidu Brand Zone* during 2016 and 2017, with more domains promoting its product message, competitions, and other brand-related topics. The number of Yonex distributors in China is rising commensurately, paving the way for increased sales
SEO service
Mission
During four months of SEO implementation, PLUS Communications targeted to sift out 20 keywords strategically so as to attract more visitors to yonex.cn and get a higher ranking on Alexa.
Execution by PLUS Communications
As well as selecting keywords from yonex.cn to use in SEO, the team chose a further 20 from the Baidu keyword list. Subsequently the keywords were fine-tuned from month to month to maintain their effectiveness in guiding web-users to yonex.cn.
The Results
- Page views of yonex.cn increased to more than 8,000 per day in the month after optimisation
- During four months of SEO implementation, the traffic on the Yonex website reached 550,000 per month – 10% more than the previous year
*Baidu Brand Zone is located in the top left corner of Baidu search engine results. It helps promote brand image with its eye-catching location and reduces the gap between brand messages, making it a very convenient way to boost sales.
