Why Red is perfect for sports fashion brands

Red is the perfect intersection for brands between sports and fashion. It has 200 million Monthly Active Users, and more than 70% are female users. People are actively talking about fashion, fitness, lifestyle, beauty, etc, and looking for brands offering good quality products that can wear as daily fashion items.

Lululemon is still the No.1 yoga brand, while Maia Active tries hard to narrow the gap

Lululemon is still the unchallengeable No.1 brand in the yoga category. Even the well-funded Chinese brand Maia Active, which triples its sales revenue in 2 years, still has a long way to catch up with Canadian brand Lululemon. Why is Lululemon so successful?

Lululemon has a more solid grass-root foundation than Maia Active

We looked into Red posts mentioning Lululemon and Maia Active in the recent 90 days (September to December).

74% of Lululemon’s mentions come from ordinary users and KOCs (MAIA Active only 48%), indicating more popularity and grass-root organic sharing. In China, Lululemon is known as “the Hermès of Yoga.” The elevated brand positioning and a strong sense of community make consumers eager to share reviews on social media.

Maia Active is betting on primary and mid-tier KOL with follower numbers between 10k to 500k. Red KOLs of this follower range can produce quality content while still not too expensive like the top KOLs, so they are a cost-effective choice for brands.

During the same period, Lululemon got mentions from 8 celebrities and 18 Top KOLs, and Maia Active got only one celebrity and 10 Top KOL mentions. On Red, Top KOLs can work just as well as a mid-tier celebrity. Although both brands haven’t invested much in fame or PR – they don’t have any stars as official brand ambassadors, but instead focused on educating KOLs and KOCs to be their organic “brand ambassadors.”

Lululemon works with a variety of KOLs, while Maia Active focus on Fashion KOLs

Besides the tiers of influencers, both brands also have different considerations regarding what kind of KOLs they choose.

We looked at the TOP 20 best-performing Red Official campaigns (going through Red’s official PuGongYing platform to place the collaboration order. Red will charge a 10% commission but can provide official data tracking abilities. If you need help with how this works, contact us, and we are happy to help!).

Among the TOP 20 official campaigns, 79% of Maia Active campaigns collaborated with fashion KOLs (e.g., OOTD, outfit of the day). Although positioned as a yoga wear brand, Maia Active focuses more on the fashion feature than the sport and fitness side. Most KOLs concentrate on the extra warmth feature of the yoga pants (it’s December when we did this research, and it could get pretty cold in central-north China) and showcase how to mix and match with their winter closet to complete the fashion look. 

As for Lululemon, they work with more diversified types of KOLs, including fashion (60%), sports & fitness (25%), work & life, travel, etc. As a well-established brand in the yoga and activewear vertical, Lululemon strives to affiliate more girls from all walks of life to grow further. 

Conclusion

For international brands in the growing stage, it’s crucial to define your product’s key selling point, stay strong in your vertical, and create story-telling around this core. All the content marketing and KOL marketing efforts should be aligned, just like how Maia Active focus on the positioning of Fashionable yoga pants and choose Fashion KOLs to promote it.

For mature brands with existing awareness in China, consumers will be more patient to listen to your value proposition. Brands can divert more budget by trying different types of KOLs, and other platforms (Douyin, Bilibili, etc.) and reach out to a broader audience to keep growing their marketing funnel.

Want to take a further look at troubleshooting your China strategy? Reach out to us through the button below, and we will get back to you soon!

The post A Look into Lululemon and Maia Active’s KOL Strategy on Red (Xiaohongshu) appeared first on WalkTheChat.

However, Red is no longer satisfied being only the UGC platform where people look for information. In August 2021, Red announced the “Account-Store Integration” to push for a closed-loop in-app conversion. More than half a year passed, so has Xiaohongshu made any progress on this?

Context about Xiaohongshu / Red Account and Store

Before 2021, Red had been operating its own store called “Welfare Community” (in Chinese: Fu li she, 福利社), mostly selling foreign brands and products via cross-border eCommerce. At that time, foreign brands didn’t need to operate a Red account. So you can collaborate with the platform to sell to China through a B2B approach. Red would buy the stock from foreign brands, keep it in bonded warehouses and ship it to end consumers when people place the order. (source: Sohu)

However, this approach didn’t work as well as expected. Chinese customers didn’t find this sales channel as attractive as the established ones like Taobao and Tmall. There are mainly two reasons: 

1. Tmall had more events, shopping festivals, discounts, and promotions that kept consumers’ attention; 
2. Since the brands didn’t invest in brand building, marketing and operation on Red, Chinese consumers didn’t feel connected with the brands selling through “Welfare Community.” 

Over the years, most Chinese people still consider Red a content platform while doubting its eCommerce capacity.

What’s new about Xiaohongshu / Red Account-Store Integartion?

The Account-Store Integration means that:

1. Any Red account can apply for Red Store. Any brand or individual/KOL can create an account on Red and start selling with a store, which is integrated with the Red account and accesible through the account page.

2. There is no Red store if you don’t have Red account. For brands that look for a long-term strategy in China, you have to invest in content creation to build awareness and tell a brand story, and community management to engage with your followers and potential customers.

3. Red also offers a discounted platform commission for merchants. For store with less than 10,000 CNY (~1,470 USD) monthly revenue, there is no platform commission; for monthly revenue above 10,000 CNY, the commission will be 5% (Source: Mr. Milu Sky)

Need any help managing your Red account, or wondering if you should open a store on Red? Simply fill in this one-minute form and we will be in touch with you:

Why is Xiaohongshu / Red pursuing for Account-Store Integartion?

Nowadays, Chinese consumers heavily rely on social content to make their purchasing decision.

Over the years, Chinese consumers have been overwhelmed with choices from both domestic and international brands. When you are free to select products of similar appearance or functionality among 100 brands, the human connection becomes more important. That’s also why Chinese people rely more on recommendations from KOLs and KOCs, especially when they purchase a new brand for the first time.

New brands entering the Chinese market have to find a niche or a differentiating strategy to succeed. Social media content can help to amplify your differentiating strategy.

On social media such as Red and Douyin, the platform algorithm can efficiently deliver the right content to the right audience group, depending on their interactions and interests shown on the platform. The social content can come from KOL and the brand itself, but both channels are necessary and need to align with each other.

What can do you on Xiaohongshu / Red to drive sales?

Xiaohongshu / Red provides multiple marketing tools to help brands and influencers. For example, you can host live streaming, and use “Shutiao” (similar to boosted content on Instagram) to boost your potential viral posts. For merchants, you can also run paid KOL campaigns through Red’s official influencer collaboration platform Dandelion (in Chinese: 蒲公英/Pugongying), and run performance ads.

On the other side, KOLs can also activate the “Little List” (in Chinese: 小清单) function to help merchants drive sales. “Little List” is similar to KOL’s recommendation list or shopping list. KOLs can select products from different merchants available on Red Store and add them to “Little List.” Followers can subscribe to KOL’s “Little List” to receive updates; this KOL will also get a commission if users purchase through “Little List.”

Looking for more details about Red / Xiaohongshu marketing? You will find this guide very useful:

• Red/Xiaohongshu Marketing – A Complete Guide

What do I need to invest in for a Red / Xiaohongshu Store?

The model of Red Store nowadays is similar to a marketplace, so brands also need to invest in operation. Some typical tasks will be product upload, store refresh, sign up for platform events, customer service, communication with KOLs, live streamings, and others. The workload will depend on the frequency of new-in, how popular is the brand, and the volume of daily sales.

Red plays an important role in consumers’ purchasing decisions, especially in the consideration and research phase. If Red manages to keep the users in the research phase and encourage them to purchase in-app, Red Store will be a promising social commerce channel.

The post Xiaohongshu/Red Pushes “Account-Store Integration” to drive In-app Conversion appeared first on WalkTheChat.

Have some unanswered questions about your Red/Xiaohongshu strategy? Get in touch with us!

Why do we need Performance Optimization Mode for Xiaohongshu marketing?

Except for the user’s spontaneous search, the performance of a post on Red/Xiaohongshu highly depends on the recommendation algorithm. Therefore, even a top-tier influencer’s performance can fluctuate from time to time. The reason is that Red is a UGC platform where people value genuine sharing and reviews. Sometimes, official sponsored content might not perform as well as expected. 

Working with Red influencers is common for domestic and international brands operating in China. If the influencer’s post is organic or through seeding, meaning not an official sponsored content, you can use “Shutiao” (in Chinese: 薯条) to boost the post. However, for specific regulated industries such as supplements, cosmetic medicine, or other functional products, it’s better to go through Red’s official influencer collaboration platform “Dandelion / Pugongying” (in Chinese: 蒲公英) and make it a sponsored content. This is to avoid being judged as an “illegal advertisement” without notifying the platform. For a sponsored post, you cannot use Shutiao to push it, so this is when “performance optimization mode” becomes relevant. 

How does it work?

You can select “performance optimization mode” when booking the KOL collaboration through the official Dandelion platform. 

Within 15 days after publication, Red will help boost the content until it reaches 80% of the system’s estimated exposure. The KOL’s recent performance determines the estimated impressions in the system. (source: Ebrun)

In a word, you cannot decide the target impression, but the platform will guarantee that your sponsored post reaches the average level of the selected KOL. According to the same source, 70% of the influencers present on Dandelion platform already have this function active. (source same as above)

How much does it cost?

The price for using “performance optimization mode” will be 20% of the KOL’s quotation. For example, if the KOL’s quotation is 5k USD, the commission to be paid to Red will be 1k USD. Without the performance optimization mode, the standard platform commission will be 10% which is 500 USD.

Is it worth trying?

This feature ensures sufficient exposure during important branding events such as IP Collaboration, Limited Edition Release, Rebranding, etc. However, it doesn’t ensure CTR, clicks, or engagement. If you want to guarantee a baseline impression for your sponsored content, “performance optimization mode” is a great tool to avoid failure. 

In the Dandelion platform, you can see the estimated impression before confirming the collaboration with the KOL. However, if the KOL’s recent performance is poor, this feature will not do the magic and turn it into gold. 

Want to learn more about Red/Xiaohongshu marketing? You will find this article useful:

• Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) Marketing – A Complete Guide

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