According to the quarterly financial report of WeChat disclosed on Aug 15, 2018, the number of daily active WeChat mini program users has surpassed 500 million. With over 580,000 mini-programs ready to provide handy services to users of WeChat, mini-programs are now a part of the WeChat ecology. On our end, we have witnessed in the last months an explosive growth of these little creations in China’s multi-purpose app. They are certainly the element every marketer would like to include in the social media marketing strategy in 2018.
The Jisuapp WeChat Mini Programs Market Development Report covered a full picture of mini-programs, and we are covering up here the key insights for marketers and brands who are thinking to reform their WeChat marketing strategies around these accessible tools.
Who are using WeChat Mini Programs?
The young generation with a strong purchasing power are the main users of WeChat mini-programs. Over 66% of mini-programs users are under the age of 35. We can also observe a growth in number of female users. This is due to the rising popularity of e-commerce mini-programs since late 2017. Moreover, over 50% of mini-program users are from first and second-tier cities. With WeChat Pay widely supported in these cities, it also facilitates the growth of mini-programs.
How are mini-programs reshaping WeChat social media marketing strategies of brands?
Users are getting used to spending on WeChat mini-programs, as stated by Jisuapp. E-commerce mini-programs experienced a massive growth in Q3 and Q4 of 2017, with an average increase of 250% in orders. Among the e-commerce mini-programs, fashion related ones reflected the best performance. Apart from e-commerce, mini-programs are also widely used to connect online and offline sales. Mini-programs are able to generate online orders to transfer to offline sales. Furthermore, functions such as membership and coupons in mini-programs are useful to retain customers for online and offline stores. On average, 70% of mini-program users spend 200 to 1000 RMB monthly on them. Around 1/4 of these expenses go to fashion items, where groceries and transportation are also areas for expenditure.
We expect the trend of shopping in mini-programs to grow significantly this year. WeChat announced that their key focus in the future would be investing in smart retailing to facilitate the development of their payment services. This provides a solid basis for mini-programs to support e-commerce and promotion of offline sales. It will be a good idea for brands engaging in smart retailing to consider mini-programs for social media marketing strategies.
From the above, we may conclude that the trend of spending on mini-programs is going to last for a while. While users are not spending massively on mini-programs yet, this is growing into a habit and we believe mini-programs will eventually become one of the key solutions to retail in China.
Leverage WeChat mini-programs for your WeChat social media marketing strategy now!
