Who they are
- Baidu
- www.baidu.com
- Baidu is the leading Chinese-language Internet search provider. Its Global Business Unit has launched a series of apps for markets outside of China.
What they needed
- Introduce its line of mobile apps to the U.S. market
- Develop a content marketing strategy to raise awareness for their brand
- Get influential bloggers to use their apps and write about the benefits
What they did
- Collaborated with the Cooperatize team on content strategy
- Focused on two themes for their stories: “tech-savvy gentlemen” and “tech product reviewers”
- Distributed PDFs and images about their mobile products to bloggers
What they accomplished
- Vetted all bloggers and story drafts via platform
- 14 stories published by bloggers in the tech-savvy and tech product review categories
- Over 7,500 guaranteed readers to the stories
About Cooperatize
Cooperatize is a native advertising platform for sponsored content on thousands of publishers. Using the Cooperatize platform, brand managers can reach their target audience by finding relevant publishers, get sponsored posts written, and track the performance of their stories. All sponsored posts integrate the brands seamlessly and abide by all FTC guidelines.
For more information, visit http://www.cooperatize.com
Baidu Educates U.S. Consumers Through Stories via Cooperatize - Case Study
A new line of mobile apps from the Chinese search engine makes its way to the U.S.
Baidu’s Global Business Unit wanted a creative way to market its line of international mobile apps to U.S. consumers. Baidu had used traditional outreach methods such as PR and exhibiting at conferences, but needed a scalable way to get more stories published about their brand. Baidu approached Cooperatize to help create an effective content strategy that would provide them with great stories they could share on their channels, and also ensure the stories got read by the right audience.
"Cooperatize helped us generate great, interesting content about our apps, and helped put it in front of the right audience.” – Josh Fenn, Senior Marketing Manager, Baidu Inc.
Building a Story Campaign From Scratch
Baidu knew they wanted bloggers to write about them, but wanted to do it in a scalable way versus working with bloggers one by one. The Baidu team created their campaign on Cooperatize in 15 minutes and the platform instantly reached out to relevant bloggers based in the U.S. on their behalf. The platform did all the heavy lifting from sourcing all the right bloggers, contacting them about the campaign, and consolidating all the bloggers’ information in one place.
Baidu engaged with Cooperatize from the initial content strategy phase to having bloggers publish their stories.
Baidu Receives Guaranteed Readership to Stories
One feature of the platform the Baidu team enjoyed was seeing how many estimated readers would engage with their sponsored stories. Through their 2 campaigns, Baidu was guaranteed over 7,500 readers before any story drafts were written! This metric allowed Baidu to back out a cost-per-read metric for their media investment. The stories have garnered more than 7,500 readers and since the investment stays fixed, the cost-per-read goes down over time.
Giving Creative Control to Bloggers
Baidu knew they wanted the stories to feel authentic and organic, so they gave the bloggers freedom to write stories that resonated with their audiences. One of the themes Baidu focused on was the “tech-savvy gentleman”, and Baidu worked with bloggers who did not necessarily write about tech products, but could write a story about their brand from a fashion, lifestyle, or travel perspective. For instance, one of the stories published by a well-known travel blogger discussed the “6 Battery Saver Tips to Extend Your Phone’s Battery Life” which makes sense for this blogger’s travel audience.
