Hello, I’m Leo Sato (@slamdunk772), the CEO of applemint, a digital marketing agency in Taiwan!
Today, I’d like to introduce some successful digital marketing strategies in Taiwan or rather, the marketing situation in Taiwan. The conclusion is simple: Understand the psychology of Taiwanese consumers and communicate accordingly! It may sound obvious, but I’ll reassure you with examples. I hope these examples will be useful for everyone!
Let’s get started!
Maybe it’s better to use Japanese yen notation…
We have a client who sells high-end anime merchandise. They sell products that combine Japanese traditional crafts and anime through cross-border e-commerce, with an average unit price of around 40,000 to 50,000 yen. There used to be times when their ads didn’t sell much, but recently, their products have been selling quite well. Especially during free shipping campaigns, they sell about twice as much as usual. I’m sure the recent weakness of the yen has contributed to their products selling better. The effectiveness of their digital advertising has improved since the rapid depreciation of the yen began.
Interestingly, our client has always displayed prices in Japanese yen for cross-border e-commerce, with the supplementary notation of Taiwanese dollars. I feel that this approach has gradually become more effective. The reason is that when I recently went on a business trip to Oita, I naturally converted the prices of Japanese products into Taiwanese dollars at the Oita specialty product corner and felt a sense of affordability. For example, a 5,000 yen bottle of sake is considered expensive for sake, but if you divide it by the current exchange rate of yen to Taiwanese dollars, which is about 5 (as of March 24), it’s 1,000 NTD, which doesn’t seem high at all for sake. While the exchange rate between the Taiwanese dollar and the Japanese yen is about 1 Taiwanese dollar = 4.7 yen (as of March 24), are there really people who use exactly 4.7 to divide when converting from Japanese prices? Most people probably just make a rough estimate and think in terms of their own country’s currency.
So, I thought that when selling certain Japanese products through cross-border e-commerce, unless legally restricted, displaying prices in Japanese yen might sell better than in Taiwanese dollars. Because in the current weak yen environment, displaying prices in Japanese yen creates a sense of value.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, about 4 to 5 million Taiwanese people visited Japan annually. Recently, it’s actually becoming difficult to find people who haven’t been to Japan. They remember the market prices of Japanese products and past exchange rates. That’s why I think this communication strategy using yen notation is effective.
Even without offering discounts, if you use yen notation, people naturally feel like they’re getting a discount. It would be interesting to conduct an A/B test with yen notation and Taiwanese dollar notation someday.
Sending out messages elicits responses
The other day, in preparation for next month’s event promotion, I wrote a column about the AV new law in the media called Kanday on behalf of my client. I wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about adult content originally, but through conversations with people in the adult industry during events, I felt that there was room for improvement in the AV new law, so I wrote about it along with some PR.
Surprisingly, I received a response from a former Asia market representative of OnlyFans. OnlyFans is an adult version of social media, where regular users pay for subscription and view paid content from users posting adult content.
By the way, it seems that there are quite a few gay porn stars on OnlyFans, and Japanese gay porn stars come to Taiwan during the annual Pride Parade in Taiwan to interact with Taiwanese porn stars… (I found out when I filmed a discussion video with someone who had a same-sex marriage in Taiwan the other day).
Anyway, unfortunately, the column about the AV new law didn’t get many views…
Since the topic was niche, I think non-male readers didn’t read it…
However, as the contact from the OnlyFans representative shows, niche content can resonate with specific audiences. The important thing is to reach out and send messages. In the age of social media, sending out messages can be scary, but if you want to expand your business or start from scratch, sending out messages to other parties is unavoidable.
There are often no responses even after sending out messages, but I still believe that sending out messages is important. In that case, what’s important is to target niche audiences for communication. Regarding product or service development, I think the way forward is to create for specific people and accumulate small hits.
I think I’m done with events and the adult industry, but I’ve learned that if you initiate something, some kind of response will come back. If you’re lamenting that your products or services aren’t selling, why not send out valuable information to core users and increase your presence?
That’s all from Sato, representative of applemint!
Click to contact applemint.
