Line marketing in Thailand remains to be a profitable strategy for most Chinese companies despite the plunging economy. Regardless of several business setbacks and losses due to COVID19, China brands stayed active in their Thailand market penetration, particularly in the e-commerce sector.
In fact, according to a Bangkok Post news report, Chinese companies continue to invest tens of millions of baht in marketing budget to stimulate spending.
One way to successfully penetrate the Thai market is through LINE marketing. While there are other messaging apps in Thailand, Line remains to be on top. That’s why marketers view it as an indispensable tool for Thailand’s marketing.
To help you further explore this marketing opportunity, we’ve come up with an ultimate guide for you. We comprehensively covered the two most important aspects of Line – the Official Account and MyShop.
Why is Line an Important Marketing Tool in Thailand?
Over the years, Line has turned into a powerful app with more and more features added in. Similar to China’s WeChat, the app went beyond messaging and integrated the following functions:
- Follow friends and businesses
- Engage in one-to-one conversations
- Receive push notifications from Official Accounts
- Online shopping
- Payment gateway
- News updates through Line Today
Furthermore, a survey report shows that a vast majority (85%) of Internet users in Thailand use Line actively.
In 2019, Line is also the top app in the country when it comes to the amount of time spent on the app each day. According to statistics released by Line, Thais’ average daily usage time on the app lasts 216 minutes (3.6 hours).
How to set up a Line Official Account?
Building your Line Official Account in Thailand to start doing Line Marketing in Thailand may get tricky if you have zero knowledge in the Thai language. Therefore, seeking help from a local agency may help speed up and ease the application process for you.
Alternatively, if you want to set it up on your own, here are the 5 steps:
- Apply for a Thai mobile number.
- Create a Line Official Account.
- Submit company documents for Line to verify the Official Account.
- Purchase a Line Broadcast Message package to send push notifications.
- Purchase Line ads through Line’s official partner.
What are the Line benefits for your brand?
Besides gaining a solid presence in the Thai market, Line offers many benefits your brand can eventually profit from. With Line, you can:
- Send push notifications to 100% of your followers, contrary to other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram that don’t have this function
- Distribute coupons to all your followers, whereby you’re allowed to set a limit to the volume of coupon and redemption period
- Conduct market surveys
- View your Official Account’s backend statistics to analyze page performance
- Launch an e-commerce store on Line MyShop
These marketing advantages continue to flourish as a result of many positive studies and surveys about Line. For instance, a 2019 Line survey discovered that Thais are generally happy to receive promotional messages on the app. About 70% of them said that brand promotion is their most preferred content type.
Being Thailand’s primary communication tool, Line indeed promises an incredible marketing opportunity for brands exploring the market. Hence, harnessing the platform’s dominance is your very first step to market penetration. With Line, you are most likely to earn acceptance by Thai consumers and ultimately achieve success in the market.
Why build e-commerce on Line MyShop?
Launched in Q1 2020, Line MyShop is a relatively new feature in the app. Based on Line MyShop’s official website, it currently offers an opportunity to reach more than 45 million users in Thailand.
Generally, its aim is to help brands close sales directly and natively on the platform. More so, the new e-commerce feature comes with a full suite of e-commerce tools – all these at no additional cost.
Moreover, the feature guarantees a higher chance of closing sales through direct chat. In fact, it’s 15 times higher than redirecting your customers to another shopping platform.
What are the advantages of Line MyShop?
Other than upping your chances of closing sales, Line MyShop also offers more advantages for your brand. By and large, here’s what you can get for e-commerce:
- Relatively fuss-free shop setup for brands with Line Official Account. You simply have to upload your inventory details to start selling.
- Free e-commerce backend tools to oversee inventory and delivery management.
- Integration of different payment modes like Rabbit Pay, credit card, and wire transfer.
- Publicly visible store with URL and QR codes for easy sharing across multi-channels.
- Built-in reporting function that provides insightful statistics to aid you in optimizing your store and sales performance.
- Sales are closed natively on the platform. This way, drop-out issues will be significantly reduced. Normally, drop-outs happen to customers needing to switch platforms to complete a purchase.
Line OA & MyShop Case Studies in Thailand
Need examples to feed your mind about Line Official Accounts and MyShop? Check out these big brands currently using the leading platform to engage with their Thai customers.
Huawei (@Huawei)
Vivo (@VivoSmartphone)
Haier (@HaierThailand)
Xiaomi (@Xiaomithailand_store)
Sulwhasoo (@Sulwhasoo_Thailand)
Lactasoy (@LactasoyClub)
IH Digital is a digital marketing agency headquartered in Singapore. Spanning Southeast Asia and Greater China, we have offices in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
If you are interested do Line Marketing in Thailand, schedule a consultation soon to speak to our marketing experts.
