Zunch, the only American interactive marketing firm who has built ties to China, is now celebrating Chinese New Year of Dog. The year of 2005 marked Zunch's initial march into China's huge Internet market. The new year of 2006 will see Zunch's firm establishment of her China presence.

The China Internet market reacted Zunch's involvement with warm welcome while with a little worry. Recently, my colleague Robin, our SEO specialist in China, found a very interesting post on some Chinese blog sites and online magazine. It is about Zunch's entering into China. Below is my rough translation (Please excuse any error in English. The original was posted on our Chinese blog at http://blog.zunch.cn). Enjoy!

Top SEO Firm Entering China, Chinese SEO Industry Speeds Up

from: http://www.ccwonline.com.cn/content.aspx?did=394564
and http://blog.donews.com/jdwo/archive/2006/01/11/690800.aspx

Everybody who watches SEO should know during this time,  that a highly-repuated SEO company in the U.S. will enter China in March with high sound/tone. Now they are in the middle of preparation and building up their momentum.

That is Zunch. From their Chinese website, we found their service model and ideas are similar to those of our local quality SEO company’s.

This company, while entering China, has brought in and sponsored SES-Nanjing.  The SES is the top search marketing conference ever held in China. Earlier, they sponsored Shanghai AD-TECH.

From their high tone, we can see that Zunch’s entering China will have significant impact on Chinese SEO industry and even to the entire search marketing industry. Zunch’s involvement will directly promote Chinese SEO to a new level up, and greatly increase the influence of SEO in China.

First, Zunch will announce a new generation of web marketing solution – clients are not just give out money for advertising, but also can know whether their investment will achieve anything and where to invest. Internet marketing companies should not just sell advertising products, but should use their technology to help clients how to analyze and position themselves in the market. For example, existing Baidu and Google agents only sell their products, but SEO firms are spending more energy in Internet marketing theories and practice.

Meanwhile, Zunch’s entering China has also directly brought Chinese SEO into global SEO business and Zunch will bring foreign countries’ experience into China. If we can say that in the past, many companies said SEO was just playing tricks rather than a legitimate industry, now, Zunch’s coming to China has made many clients directly feel that SEO does exist!

Of course, in the meantime, Zunch’s coming to China has greatly encouraged Chinese SEO companies, giving them great confidence about their business. Previously, small investors and small SEO firms were very hesitant and lacking of confidence, now they should focus on how to find opportunities and profit models.

For those who have made their minds to be the leaders of second generation search marketing, Zunch’s involvement has made the competition much more severe. They will have to face the music (of Zunch) and learn how to “dance with a wolf”* while lacking capital investment. From what Zunch is hiring, most Chinese SEO companies can’t work with only one or two key specialists. This model will face great challenge ever. For Chinese SEO firms who do not have brand reputation, it is very difficult to compete against Zunch, because they want to train SEO specialist but they are also afraid of losing them afterwards – the specialists they have trained may become their competitors in the future.

Since last year, Chinese SEO is moving to a few highly-advantaged firms and many small workshops or garbage companies have gone to history. From now on, from the competition against companies like Zunch who has great international background, China will finally have her own SEO and search marketing companies of great brands.

China’s SEO business must break through in 2006, so that they can have the way to cope with foreign competition. On the other hand, Zunch and other foreign interactive marketing companies will have to pay something to be able to adjust to the Chinese market.

-----------------------------------
*Dance with A Wolf: When foreign business enters into China, Chinese local business is facing geat challenges. In such a tipical situation of sever competition and challenge, Chinese business has to face the music. They treat foreign competitors as "wolves" and compete against them in a way of "dancing with wolves." This has been extremely true since China entered WTO and is forced to comply with WTO's standards of opening the market. To Chinese local internet marketing companies, Zunch is a "wolf."

PermaLink