For marketers and education institutions targeting international Chinese students, it’s important to understand as much as possible about them. This includes which provinces the Chinese students are likely to come from, and what device they use when looking for international education. A deeper understanding about this information will be very useful for marketers and educational institutions planning their marketing in China.
Sogou analytics shows the top five cities looking for information about Australian education are Shandong, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Beijing and Shanghai, however their search preferences vary. Search volumes from these five cities equate to 44% of total searches for AU via desktop, and 36% of those via mobile device1.
The top five cities looking for information about Australian education are Shandong, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Beijing and Shanghai.
Searches from Shandong take 10.6% of all the search volume research on AU via desktop and 11.4% via mobile, ranking at the top for AU on both desktop and mobile devices. For searches for AU via mobile, it’s also worthwhile to pay attention to Liaoning whose share at 6.2% is ranked as fourth, after Beijing but before Guangdong and Shanghai2.
The same five cities hold the highest percentage of all search volume researching other major international education destinations, however for USA, UK and Canada, the highest search province using desktop comes from Beijing at 14.1%, 10.7% and 11.8%, respectively. When researching the USA and Canada, the city with the highest share of search volume using mobile is Shandong, but at 8.3%, Jiangsu leads mobile search for users looking for information on the UK. Henan province ranks as equal second and fifth for searches via mobile device for USA (7.4%) and UK (5.6%), respectively3.
While marketers have concentrated their efforts on the first-tier provinces of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, there is now a significant opportunity to recruit students from second-tier provinces. The search volume from users in Shandong and Jiangsu provinces now ranks in the top five province list. Liaoning, Sichuan, Zhejiang and Henan provinces are close behind, opening up a whole new market.
While marketers have concentrated their efforts on the first-tier provinces of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, there is now a significant opportunity to recruit students from second-tier provinces.
1,2,3 Sogou Analytics 2016.
