It can feel frustrating when you work for a Chinese hardware company that makes a great product, but just can’t seem to gain traction in Western markets. That isn’t an engineering problem—it is a trust problem. Let me show you what I mean.

In June of this year, a small startup out of Hong Kong attempted to launch the HELIX 5-axis desktop CNC mill on Kickstarter. By the time the campaign ended, HELIX had only raised $6,181—less than half of the modest funding goal—from just four backers.

Why did the HELIX campaign fail so spectacularly? The machine itself was priced competitively at HK$ 23,999 (about $3,088.19) and on paper, the specifications and capabilities seemed promising.

Compare the HELIX campaign to that of the Makera Carvera in 2022. That campaign raised a whopping $1,703,669 from 588 backers. Makera, which is headquartered in Beijing, has since launched two more models, the Carvera Air and Z1, and has enjoyed a great deal of success.

By studying examples like these, we can learn an important lesson: makers in American markets do not implicitly trust Chinese brands. To gain traction in Western markets, Chinese brands must know how to cater to these audiences. That requires a deep understanding of Western culture, which many Chinese brands fail to properly take into account.

American Perception

There are many complex reasons that Americans have a distrust of Chinese brands—particularly new brands that aren’t yet established.

While politics and even xenophobia can play a role, don’t make the mistake of attributing failure to those factors outside of your control. As we saw with Makera, Westerners are happy to support Chinese companies under the right circumstances.

American retailers sell a great deal of products made by Chinese manufacturers and the quality of those products varies dramatically. Unless a Chinese company creates a strong brand to set itself apart, American buyers are unable to differentiate between the good products and the bad. Because it all looks the same to them, they don’t trust any of it.

That problem is further exacerbated by an experience that is common for American buyers: poor after-sales support. From improperly translated product manuals to frustrating warranty claims processes, Westerners have learned that purchasing a product from an unknown Chinese brand often comes with risk.

China arguably has the best manufacturing capabilities in the world at the moment. Chinese products can and do surpass Western alternatives when it comes to features and price. And yet, American consumers have a default perception that Chinese products are inferior.

Those perceptions will be slow to change, but there is good news:

Chinese brands that implement the right marketing and content strategies can build trust among Western makers, ensuring success.

Before I get to those strategies, let’s first look at what kills trust.

What Kills Trust: 4 Critical Mistakes

Building trust is not an easy thing to do, but losing trust certainly is. It only takes a couple of small mistakes for brand to lose their opportunity. These are some of the most common of those mistakes I see that cause Chinese brands to lose the trust of the maker community.

Relying on Machine Translation

This is so prevalent that it is something of a joke among Westerners. Automatic translation services may have improved over the years, but they are still inadequate. That is particularly true when the subject matter is technical in nature.

That is bad enough when it is in a manual or guide, but machine translation is especially problematic when potential customers see it in marketing material and promotional content.

For example, take a look at this copy from the HELIX Kickstarter campaign page:

Five axis CNC machine tools are usually large and mainly used for factory production. They are bulky and cumbersome, and require operators to have professional operational knowledge.

These friends who like to create by themselves are very unfriendly.

The first two sentences are passable—though most native English speakers would consider the writing lacking. The third sentence, however, is nonsensical. It is an obvious machine translation that isn’t comprehensible in English.

Before prospective Kickstarter backers even learned about the product’s features, the bad translation was already creating distrust.

Selling Specs Instead of Potential

Over the course of my career, I have noticed a very prevalent trend: Chinese companies present product value in the form of objective specification sheets and feature lists.

Westerners, on the other hand, perceive value in the form of subjective experiences and emotional feelings.

In American “Introduction to Marketing” classes, one of the first lessons we’re taught is that you sell a lifestyle—not a product.

Because of cultural and linguistic differences, Chinese brands all too often struggle to present a “lifestyle” that Westerners want to buy. They sell a product, rather than an experience.

We see this mistake in the HELIX Kickstarter campaign. The campaign’s copy and imagery attempt to demonstrate the machine’s capabilities rather than the potential possibilities. Consumers don’t just want to know what the machine can do; they also want to know what they can do with the machine.

That is why demonstration builds are a critical part of a successful content strategy, as I’ll explain later in this article.

Pricing Too Low

One massive advantage Chinese manufacturers have over their Western counterparts is lower production costs, which they can leverage to offer products at competitive prices. And competitive pricing is a good thing, but it is a bad idea to take that too far.

Buyers want to feel like they’re getting a good deal, but they don’t want to feel like they’re buying something “cheap.”

In English, the word “cheap” is a synonym for “inexpensive,” but it is also used colloquially to mean “poor quality.” That dual meaning isn’t an accident; it is a direct reflection of the way that people perceive value.

A product priced too low will create the impression—conscious or not—that the item lacks value.

Once again, this was apparent in the HELIX campaign. The price was very low and that left potential backers with the impression that the machine couldn’t possibly meet the campaign’s claims without sacrifices being made somewhere.

By pricing products appropriately, Chinese companies can retain perceived value and also generate more revenue to devote to the content strategies I will cover in this article.

Lack of Community Presence

The HELIX team’s biggest mistake was a failure to establish themselves in the maker community before launch and throughout the campaign.

They relied on entirely on Kickstarter for marketing and awareness, which resulted in just four people choosing to make a pledge.

I cannot overstate how bad that decision was. That alone could have been the cause of their failure.

To understand why, look at it from the perspective of a potential backer:

This was an unknown company asking people to pledge more than $3,000 (more than many people in earn in month) on an unproven product, which may not ever be delivered.

That is the kind of decision that few people will take lightly. People don’t want to take big risks and the best way to make them feel safer is by demonstrating a commitment to the community by involving the community.

Projects and reviews from trusted members of the maker community are a great way to show that commitment. Not only do they prove that a company has confidence in their products, but they show that the brand is part of the community.

How to Build Trust: The Makera Strategy

There are many ways in which a brand can lose trust. But by taking those into account with the right marketing and content strategies, Chinese brands can build trust.

As Makera proved, effective strategies generate trust and result in success. Like HELIX, Makera was an unknown brand launching a CNC mill through a Kickstarter campaign. But where HELIX failed, Makera succeeded.

They did so by investing in a team that understands Western audiences, the strategies that foster trust, and importance of community involvement.

We can look at that original Carvera Kickstarter campaign page to learn lessons about the multi-pronged strategy they employed:

Create Native English Content

Makera is based in Beijing, but the campaign copy was written by people who are fluent in English.

It isn’t perfect, but it communicates the message well. It doesn’t read like a machine translation and doesn’t have the hallmark errors of such translations. There are colloquialisms, idioms, and even minor mistakes that make the copy feel authentic.

This illustrates that nicely:

Normally, desktop CNC machines are not equipped with dust collection functions because of the size and limited space.

But we know how it feels without it, chips and dust clutter your work surface and get stuck in every little nook and cranny of your work area. Even worse, some materials like carbon fiber/glass fiber can be very dangerous if you breathe in the machined dust.

Not only are they explaining how they solved a real problem that people in the community actually face, but they did so with language that drives the point home.

Show, Don’t Tell

It is one thing to tell customers “Our machine cuts at feeds up to 150 inches per minute.” But it is far more effective to show the machine performing at high speed to produce a real part. That is something writers learn early in their careers and it applies to marketing more generally, too.

Makera mastered that concept and almost the entire campaign page is a showcase of various objects made on the Carvera machine. Those show finished projects, but also show the machine in action.

Furthermore, they devoted page real estate to showing the Carvera’s functions. The automatic tool changer, for instance, might have been difficult to readers to comprehend. So, Makera included animated GIFs of the tool-changing process.

And then Makera went the extra mile and gave machines to members of the maker community—people who could then produce projects and content that further demonstrated the Carvera’s capabilities.

They were confident in their product and got involved in the community.

Build Community Presence Before Launch

Prior to the Kickstarter launch, Makera partnered with several key figures in the maker community. People like Caleb Kraft and Naomi Wu, who have built trust in the community through many years of genuine content production and quality projects.

It isn’t necessary to partner with such high-profile people and that isn’t always possible. But it is important to work with people in the community who have demonstrated both expertise and integrity.

That integrity is crucial. Honesty, even when it is negative, carries far more weight than overly positive promotion. If a review feels like an ad, the audience will lose trust. And they won’t just lose trust for that creator—they will assume that all pre-launch content is promotional and untrustworthy.

Kraft’s video review, for example, contains his candid opinion that the Carvera’s dust collection system was mediocre. He felt that it was “better than nothing,” but he wasn’t raving about it.

Makera was smart to include that video review prominently on the Kickstarter campaign page. It let backers know that Makera wasn’t trying to hide anything and that a trusted member of the community was providing his real, honest thoughts.

Reviews are a major part of a good pre-launch content strategy, but it doesn’t end there. Projects that make use of the product are also a great idea, as they clearly demonstrate what the product can do.

Remember: show, don’t tell. Sell a lifestyle, not a product.

Prioritize Documentation Quality

Earlier this year, Makera sent me a Carvera Air to review for Hackster.io as part of their launch strategy for that new product, which is a more affordable sibling to the Carvera.

There was a lot that I liked about the Carvera Air (and a couple of things I didn’t like), but what stood out to me most was the stellar documentation. Not only was the “getting started” guide informative and easy to follow, but there was also an entire booklet filled with detailed project instructions.

Those projects were designed to walk the user through machine’s functions, growing in complexity and ultimately ending up with all of the parts necessary to build a cool display light. The projects were fun to do and made it enjoyable to become acquainted with the Carvera Air.

That documentation alone did a lot to build trust for Makera. It ensured that new users learned how to properly use the machine. It gave owners projects to show off within the community. It made owners feel like Makera understood their needs. And because the projects were fun, it generated goodwill.

Strategize Your Market Entry Timeline

You already saw how Makera sent Carvera units to reviewers prior to launch, which was a key strategic decision.

When eufyMake launched their E1 UV printer, they followed the same strategy. In fact, I was the first person to publish a review of that machine.

My coverage helped generate buzz that contributed to the eufyMake E1 Kickstarter campaign becoming the highest-funded crowdfunding campaign in history.

(read my eufyMake E1 case study here)

That timing is important and patience pays off. It takes time to create excitement in the community, but launches often experience a snowball effect and the delay can pay off.

Give reviewers time to evaluate the product and to publish content. Then give that content time to permeate through the community and media outlets.

The timing of promotional content—social media ad campaigns and PR announcements—is also important. The goal is to slowly build awareness and hype in the lead up to launch, so buyers are eager when the product becomes available.

Then strategic timing should continue after the launch. Silence after a launch disconcerts the community and you need to show that you’re supporting current owners, and will continue to support future buyers. This is where long-term content strategies come into play and help keep the momentum going.

In particular, sponsored projects and involvement in community events pay dividends.

The Bottom Line

Chinese hardware companies have every advantage except one, which is trust. But it is possible to build trust with a solid content strategy:

• Native English content that feels authentic
• Demonstration projects that showcase possibilities, not just specs
• Early engagement with trusted in Western maker communities
• Strategic pre-launch timing that builds momentum
• High-quality documentation that supports your users

The companies that master these strategies—such as Makera and eufyMake—don’t just succeed. They break records.

Make It Happen

Breaking into Western markets can seem daunting. Engaging target audiences and enticing buyers can feel impossible. But so much of the challenge is about establishing trust and, as you’ve seen throughout this article, there are right and wrong ways to go about doing that.

The truth is that makers throughout North America and Europe are eager for innovative new products. Makera and eufyMake proved that. You just need the right strategy to reach those makers and to avoid the mistakes made by the HELIX team and so many others.

The good news is that you don’t need to do it alone. After spending 15 years creating technical content for the maker community, I am now offering my services as a Technical Content Strategist to Chinese brands. My goal is to use my technical experience and expertise in communication to help you create the content necessary to build trust before, during, and after a product launch.

If you’re planning a Western market launch and want to avoid the mistakes that sink campaigns like HELIX, let’s talk. I offer a free 30-minute consultation where we can discuss your product, your timeline, and the content strategy that will work for your brand.

View my services or email me directly: cameron@cameroncoward.com