The 10 hottest growth strategies of 2019

There are two obvious trends in 2019: as the traffic dividend further shrinks, the game of existing traffic becomes more prominent, and the refined management of traffic becomes the focus of enterprises. Changes in the economic and market environment have made "monetization" and "conversion" a top priority.

This year, we continue with our tradition and bring you a list of the top 10 most popular growth strategies for 2019.

Two clear trends emerged in 2019:

1. As the traffic dividend further shrinks, the competition for existing traffic becomes more prominent, and the refined management of traffic becomes the focus of enterprises.
2. Changes in the economic and market environment have made "monetization" and "conversion" a top priority.

Therefore, this year's top 10 strategies will focus more on the consumer goods sector. Next I will introduce them one by one.

1. KOL Matrix Marketing

Overview:

2019 is the year when KOL marketing shines. New consumption, new channels and new products are reshaping new marketing trends. In addition, this year, KOL matrix marketing shows a trend of media decentralization, and the voice of top KOLs is gradually sinking, giving rise to a new concept, KOC.

From the perspective of different numbers of fans, top KOLs have great value in attracting traffic, mid-level KOLs have high cost-effectiveness, and long-tail KOLs have value that cannot be ignored in content distribution and diffusion. Through KOL marketing, brands connect the top, mid and tail KOLs and carry out matrix-style marketing. Only then can brands penetrate the circle and create greater influence.

Case 1: Perfect Diary

The most eye-catching product in the beauty industry this year is undoubtedly Perfect Diary, which is known as the "pride of domestic products." The brand was founded in 2016 and only had a Tmall flagship store in 2017. During Tmall 618 in 2019, Perfect Diary became the No. 1 cosmetics brand on Tmall in just one hour.

In just 8 months, sales increased nearly 50 times, not only surpassing domestic peers such as Meikang Powder, but also surpassing international brands such as YSL and SK-II. In 2018, Perfect Diary’s GMV on Tmall alone reached 650 million yuan.

From the data we dug up, we found that Perfect Diary used 683 influencers from January to July 2019, 438 more than the same period last year. Perfect Diary regularly creates hot-selling products by investing in many KOLs on Xiaohongshu, and then cooperates with the operation of WeChat private domain traffic.

For details on Perfect Diary’s growth strategy, please see the previously published article "Through data mining, we studied Perfect Diary’s two major growth strategies", which was also mined based on our growth engineering system.

Case 2: Start a class

Kaikeba is an online training platform that provides skills improvement for Internet practitioners by integrating teachers and practical projects from IT and Internet companies. The platform now basically covers the online courses needed by Internet practitioners, such as Web front-end, Java, Python, big data, etc.

In 2019, Kaikeba’s main distribution channel was on official accounts. According to Xigua data, we found that from November to December 2019, 301 official accounts were used in just two months. And as far as I know, the reinvestment rate of individual accounts in Kaikeba is very high every month, and the accounts in the Internet circle have been basically wiped out several times.

Especially for those in the technical circle, Kaikeba has already launched campaigns on more than 1,000 mid-level public accounts. The entire circle has been basically penetrated, and everyone in the circle now knows about the Kaikeba platform.

2. Private Domain Traffic

Overview:

Private domain traffic is a very popular term in 2019, but this type of traffic operation method has actually existed for a long time. It’s just that because traffic is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain, people have begun to pay attention to the refined operation of traffic and maximize the value of old users, so private domain traffic became popular in 2019.

Compared with other traffic, private domain traffic does not require us to pay, and we can directly reach users at any time and frequency. The WeChat ecosystem is the best carrier of private domain traffic, such as WeChat groups, personal accounts, and Moments.

It is worth mentioning that WeChat for Business has recently been updated to version 3.0, which connects personal WeChat accounts and certified corporate WeChat accounts, has no upper limit on the number of friends, and has updated functions such as automatic replies, group messaging assistants, and the opening of Moments. The opening of these functions makes WeChat for Business a better carrier for private domain traffic. In the future, the traffic of enterprise WeChat will be a battleground.

Case 1: Xiaobang Insurance

Internet insurance is one of the few sectors that has maintained rapid growth this year. Various third-party insurance platforms are growing rapidly and a large amount of capital is pouring in. From a business logic perspective, these platforms do meet rigid demand. Because the current insurance market information is very confusing, ordinary people don’t know what kind of insurance to buy.

Third-party insurance platforms came into being, providing consulting services to users in the form of "evaluations" and "tutorials" and recommending insurance products. Among them, Xiaobang Insurance has completed a B round of financing of 200 million yuan, and its scale is gradually growing.

From the delivery data we observed, we found that Xiaobang Insurance has been delivering ads in the public account field. From July to September 2019 alone, 236 public accounts were launched in three months, generating 1.64 million readings.

All delivered materials are uniformly directed to the tutor’s personal WeChat account, and then added to the group for refined operations. Guide users to purchase 1-on-1 insurance consulting services for 9.9 yuan, and finally let users purchase corresponding insurance products.

Case 2: Perfect Diary Xiaowanzi System

In KOL matrix marketing, we mentioned that Perfect Diary has deployed a large number of KOLs on Xiaohongshu. Perfect Diary has deposited all the traffic from the public domain into its own private traffic system, thereby increasing the user's lifetime value.

In the process, after users purchase Perfect Diary products, a "red envelope card" will be included in the package. By scratching the layer, they can get a special password. Scan the QR code to follow the official account, and the official account will immediately push a page containing the personal account QR code. After adding your personal account, you will receive a small program QR code. Scan the code and enter the password to receive a 1-2 yuan red envelope.

According to conservative estimates, Perfect Diary has hundreds of personal accounts, all of which are uniformly identified by the character “Xiao Wanzi”. According to the standard of 3,000 people/account, the number of fans in the "private domain" should be close to one million.

3. E-commerce in-app purchases

Overview:

E-commerce platforms purchase huge amounts of traffic every year in pursuit of extreme exposure. However, the customer acquisition costs of the platforms, whether Alibaba, JD.com or Vipshop, have been rising. In difficult situations, there will always be new breakthroughs.

In recent years, through interpersonal communication among users and activating the supply chain of small businesses in the sinking market, Pinduoduo has saved a lot of customer acquisition costs and channel costs by using the group buying business, and has carved out a small third path between the two e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com.

"Trust cost" is also an important factor that hinders users from placing orders. On this basis, Pinduoduo has developed a new way of playing: e-commerce in-app purchases. Through in-app purchase benefits, it greatly improves credibility and incorporates fission attributes, allowing Pinduoduo to continue to grow.

Case: Pinduoduo in-app purchase benefits

Pinduoduo has always been very thoughtful about the growth of traffic. From the well-known "help me cut the price" to the recent e-commerce in-app purchase benefits, its control over human nature has been very good.

At the beginning, Pinduoduo made its internal benefits into xlsx files, which looked like an Excel file on the chat interface. But when you actually click on it, you see a fake web page interface, which is full of discounted products on Pinduoduo. When you click on the Generate In-App Purchase button, you are asked to download the Pinduoduo app.

On the one hand, this format can reduce users’ decision-making costs as they are all familiar content in our daily lives; on the other hand, it can eliminate users’ vigilance.

Later, after this routine became well known to everyone, Pinduoduo's in-app purchasing method began to be upgraded again, becoming an in-app purchasing app for corporate employees. The keywords "in-app purchase" and "friends and relatives" can capture the user's psychology very well.

Moreover, the prices of products in the mini program are also very low. For example, the in-app purchase price of Airpods2 headphones is only 850 yuan, which is 238 yuan lower than the market price. However, 27 in-app purchase coupons are required, and to obtain in-app purchase coupons, you need to invite friends. For each friend you invite, you will get 1-5 coupons at random.

4. E-commerce live streaming

Overview:

Live streaming e-commerce is one of the methods with the highest purchase conversion rate at this stage. Taobao Live has already had a GMV of over 100 billion in 2018, and the total number of people placing orders exceeded 100 million. Even the entrance to Taobao Live was upgraded to a first-level page and an independent APP was created.

At the same time, as another major short video giant in China, Kuaishou, live streaming is also its main source of income. The opening of Kuaishou stores in the second half of 2018 further accelerated the monetization of live streaming e-commerce. The number of Kuaishou merchant account users exceeds 600,000, with more than 10,000 new users added daily and an average of more than 200,000 live broadcasts per day.

Other giant platforms, such as ByteDance, Weibo, and Tencent, have also begun to develop live streaming e-commerce. The live streaming e-commerce market, which is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, is currently on the rise. Brands have leveraged the amazing traffic of e-commerce anchors and their strong ability to bring goods to consumers, creating one sales story after another this year.

Case 1: Huaxizi

As a figure with top traffic in live streaming e-commerce, Li Jiaqi is nicknamed "Lipstick King" and has 30 million fans across the entire network. The traffic effect brought by the top e-commerce anchors is amazing, and Hua Xizi has grasped this point very well.

We previously used growth engineering to investigate the data of Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast on Taobao and found that one of the most frequently appearing brand words for products in Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast was Hua Xizi, and it ran through the entire process of Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast from pre-sale to November 11 during this year’s Double Eleven.

Huaxizi only joined the Double Eleven battle this year and participated in Tmall Double Eleven for the first time. Just one hour after the opening, the transaction volume successfully exceeded 100 million yuan, and the best-selling loose powder sold more than 700,000 boxes on the same day, making it one of the few domestic brands to enter the "100 million yuan club".

Case 2: Xiao Xiao Bao Mama

While live streaming e-commerce is booming, Tencent, as a social networking giant, is not to be outdone and also launched "Tencent Live" this year. Unlike Douyin, Kuaishou, and Taobao Live, Tencent's live broadcast focuses more on content. Tencent's live broadcast is focused on content live broadcast and wins people's hearts with stories.

Xiaoxiaobao Mama, as the first maternal and infant brand invited to open Tencent live broadcast, sold products worth 2.16 million yuan through chat-style live broadcast. The live broadcast between Bao Ma and her fans lasted for more than an hour, with more than 131,000 viewers during the live broadcast, and the page views of the Xiao Xiao Bao Mama e-commerce mini program exceeded 658,000. During the live broadcast, 15,360 products were sold, with total sales exceeding 2.16 million.

This live broadcast is different from the common live broadcast methods. It does not pursue sensory stimulation and does not have excessive language packaging. Bao Ma patiently explains the stories behind the products and brands. Start with the product, return to the brand, and use storytelling to achieve brand and effect integration.

5. Selling products through short videos

Overview:

Among the top ten growth hacking strategies of 2018, we mentioned the strategy of short video traffic generation. But at that time, short video users were in their prime, and everyone was only focused on how to acquire customers.

Short videos are still very popular this year, and users' attention continues to shift to short videos. The effect of using creative videos to promote consumer goods is more significant. In the past, everyone used short videos to drive product traffic. This year, everyone is more concerned about sales conversion, and large-scale delivery and script creation will become the focus.

Through Douyin’s unique recommendation algorithm, the products you want to sell can be accurately pushed to the right people. One video brings in millions of sales, and this continues to happen in 2019.

Case 1: PROYA Bubble Mask

In July 2019, a short video on Douyin showing three men applying bubble masks in a silly way received more than 2.274 million likes. The video was promoting PROYA's popular bubble mask. This mask topped the "TikTok Beauty and Skin Care List" in July 2019, selling 800,000 boxes, which in turn helped PROYA's mask sales increase from more than 20 million to 60 million.

In Daojie's article "The Methodology of Launching a Hot-selling Bubble Mask with Monthly Sales of 60 Million", it is concluded that PROYA's popular bubble mask meets four attributes:

1. The novelty of resisting the dullness of life;
2. Sense of therapeutic effect;
3. Social currency;
4. The price is less than 100 yuan.

As an old domestic brand, PROYA has successfully stood out with the help of TikTok. It not only relied on the bonus period of short video sales, but also continuously refined its products to meet the needs of the current population.

Case 2: Sephora No. 55 Foundation Brush

In November 2019, just after the Double Eleven shopping spree, a dark horse appeared on the Douyin product rankings: Sephora’s No. 55 foundation brush. In just seven days, more than 1,400 new live streamers were added, more than 2,400 promotional videos were shot, the number of views on Douyin exceeded 5.5 million, and sales increased by more than 550,000 orders. It can be said that this is another phenomenal hot-selling product on Douyin.

Through Feigua data, we can view the videos promoting this product on Douyin, which are mainly divided into 3 modes:

1. Store exploration and testing;
2. Actual test of applying makeup on the arm;
3. Comparison test of beauty sponge and makeup brush.

From Feigua Data

The price of this product is 89.9 yuan, but there is a coupon for "50 yuan off for purchases over 89 yuan", so the discount is only 39.9 yuan, and the commission rate for this product is 50%. The "low price + high commission" method has attracted a large number of Taobao agents to join in the promotion, which in turn created one hot sale phenomenon after another.

6. Virtual Avatar

Overview:

On August 30, 2019, WeChat Moments was flooded with several face-changing videos. As long as you upload your photo, you can turn your face into the celebrity face in the classic video. The software that created this face-changing feast is called "ZAO". It topped the AppStore's free download list three days later.

The gameplay logic of ZAO is very simple. You only need a frontal face. After submitting it, using AI technology, you can be replaced with a popular star or a character in a film or TV show, achieving the special effect of instantly changing your face, allowing you to enjoy the thrill of being a star.

The reason behind ZAO’s sudden popularity is the gradual maturity of AI technology, through which people can change various virtual images to build the ideal life in their minds. Product designers seized on users’ vanity and created quite a few screen-sweeping events in 2019. Using virtual images can not only attract new traffic, but also retain and activate existing customers.

Case 1: Tencent News national flag avatar

At the end of September 2019, Tencent News Client planned an event called "Celebrate National Day, Change Your Look". Through a link from Tencent News, you can add the national flag style to your WeChat avatar. But at that time, few people knew that Tencent News had such an event.

Everyone posted “Give me a national flag @微信官方” on their Moments, and it quickly became popular on Moments. According to Qimai data, the number of new downloads on iOS reached 108,000 on September 25, 2019. Some public accounts seized on this information gap and released a tutorial, which directly increased their followers by hundreds of thousands on the same day.

Case 2: Taobao Life

Virtual images can not only drive traffic to products, but also promote product retention. In July 2019, the Taobao app launched the Taobao Life Achievements function, which allows you to view some of your corresponding data on Taobao, and more importantly, you can create a virtual image of your own.

Taobao Life has launched basic achievement system, task system, photo (group photo) system, mall system, wish box and other different contents. The personal image created from Taobao Life can be used to replace the Taobao avatar, and can also be used to take photos with friends to promote the activeness of social relationships on Taobao.

7. Vertical Community

Overview:

In 2019, communities moved from the Internet to the real world, and a business system based on community thinking was born: community group buying, knowledge payment, community e-commerce, sharing economy, etc. Although the popular tracks are now highly homogenized, there are still many opportunities in vertical fields.

Especially with the rise of Generation Z (born after 1995), interest-based vertical communities are gradually growing. Vertical community users have high stickiness and long-term effectiveness, and their long-term commercial value is very large.

In addition, vertical communities can grow into vertical communities in the future, such as the sneaker trading platform Du, the basketball discussion community Hupu, the domestic two-dimensional gathering place Bilibili video website, etc., which are all very good communities in vertical fields.

Case 1: Group Sound

Qun Xiang is a vertical community focusing on C-end traffic business, dedicated to building a top domestic traffic operator community, mainly focusing on the ecological traffic changes and brand growth cases of WeChat, Taobao, Douyin, and Kuaishou.

Qun Xiang started out by hosting various traffic manipulator conferences, and often organizes offline activities, offline communities, and content membership services for various traffic manipulators.

Each event will invite a well-known trader in the field to share his experience in traffic with everyone. In the first half of 2019, we held 6 conferences with thousands of people, 19 online conferences, and 45 offline closed-door conferences.

Qun Xiang's product form is mainly WeChat community + official account + mini program. The price of Qun Xiang membership is 1,599 yuan, and the charge for each event is based on member price and non-member price. For example, members of the 1,000-person conference can participate for free, and if they are non-members, the ticket price is 399 yuan.

Case 2: Women's Knife Skills

Women's Knife Skills is an institution for in-depth research on the economy, founded by our good friend Doris, the Knife Sister. The Women's Knife Skills Community is mainly aimed at helping companies better serve women under the trend of Internet reform and the rise of her economy.

Women's Knife Skills mainly focuses on executives and practitioners in industries such as consumption (including beauty, etc.), fashion, Internet, entertainment, medical beauty, maternal and child care, and gaming.

In terms of community form, Sister Dao is a public account + knowledge planet. The public account "Sister Dao Doris" has 200,000 fans on the entire network. It mainly focuses on her business observations, methodology, traffic channel gameplay, executive perspectives and user insights in the economic industry.

There are two Knowledge Planets: She Economics Research Institute and China-US Growth Marketing Circle. She Economics Research Institute is mainly for sharing women's business and connecting with 500+ she economics professionals. The China-US Growth Marketing Circle is a platform for sharing brand marketing, China-US resources, industry daily reports, etc.

8. Industry Infographic

Overview:

Industry infographics were very popular in 2019, and are essentially the same as the “infographics” popular abroad. The informative nature of industry infographics is a natural bait for dissemination, which, with the help of distribution mechanisms, further stimulates the urge to share. This can be said to be the best traffic-generating product this year. In China, industry infographics are divided into two types: 1. Industry map; 2. Industry calendar.

With a systematic knowledge system and a good overall design, users are also willing to spread and share it on their own. As more people spread it, industry infographics become social currency. Moreover, every knowledge point in the industry infographic can become a hook in the future.

More importantly, if you publish a paper book, you need to apply for copyright, and the application process is rather cumbersome. However, there are currently no such restrictions on industry infographics. Once you design the manuscript and find a printing company, you can publish and sell it.

Case 1: Operational Skills Map

The wave of industry maps in 2019 was probably first triggered by official accounts. More than 20,000 copies were sold in just two days, and it quickly became a hot topic on WeChat Moments. The map contains operation-related knowledge points, and its bright color scheme can easily touch the hearts of the operation group.

And by utilizing the Youzan platform, a distribution mechanism was added. Users only need to follow this service account and bind their mobile phone numbers through Youzan platform to distribute the products.

Case 2: Calendar of the Way to Make Money

The Shengcaiyoushu community is a knowledge planet created by Yi Ren, a former Alibaba operator and a pioneer entrepreneur. The community slogan is "Talking about money doesn't hurt feelings", and it mainly shares various down-to-earth Internet money-making cases and ideas.

In August 2019, Yiren joined forces with 500 people online to collaborate on the "Money-Making Calendar" in two months. The content of the calendar is 366 highlights selected from over 8,000 topics in the more than two years since the community was founded.

4,000 copies were sold in the first 18 hours, and sales reached 10,000 in 58 days. Many people’s friend circles were flooded with this green calendar. Similarly, the Money-Making Calendar is also sold through Youzan, which increases the distribution mechanism.

9. Dramatize advertising materials

Overview:

When we used growth engineering to study the advertisements of many brands, we found that the current advertising materials are showing a trend of drama. Previous advertisements were very straightforward, starting with directly talking about the advantages of the product and why it was good. At that time, the Internet was still in the bonus period of traffic growth, and business growth could be promoted by purchasing traffic.

But nowadays, product homogeneity is very serious and users are tired of hard advertising. So this year, advertising materials have begun to become more dramatic, using various jokes and planned plots to continue to attract users' attention.

Case 1: P&G Detoxifying Soap

This is an advertisement material released by P&G on TikTok. The product promoted in the video is the detoxifying soap from P&G’s Tmall flagship store, priced at 59.9 yuan. The content of the video mainly tells the story of a couple shopping in a supermarket, and suddenly the girl meets her ex-boyfriend.

The ex-boyfriend started to attack the girl, saying that she was a gold digger. The current boyfriend started to reason with her and a big argument broke out. Later, the clerk couldn't stand it anymore, so he came out to help the couple, deliberately dirtying the ex-boyfriend's hands, and finally started talking about the benefits of detoxifying soap before they were prepared.

This type of short video advertising material, coupled with some humorous plots, can attract more attention from young users.

Case 2: MiDu Novels

MiDou Novel is a novel reader that focuses on genuine, free, high-quality novels, commonly known as online novels. The growth trend in 2019 was very rapid. As of March 2019, the daily active users of Midu Novel had exceeded 6.22 million, making it a leading player in the free reading field. Midu Novels places video ads on many channels, and one of their tactics is to film the plot of the novel into a video.

For example, the advertising material we observed used a plot from the novel "The Master of Tomb Raiders": a tomb robber dug out an ancient artifact and wanted to sell it, but the other party said that the thing was ghost goods and unlucky, but the seller said that he was waiting for the money to save his brother's life, and then some very strange events happened. The last part of the video is to direct traffic to MiDu Novel: To know what happens next, please go to MiDu Novel.

10. Offline store traffic diversion

Overview:

In 2019, as online traffic became increasingly difficult to obtain, people gradually began to pay attention to the "reflux" of offline channels to online. For brands with offline stores, this part of the traffic is considerable. If combined with private domain traffic for conversion, the future commercial value will be very large. One of the industries that is best at store traffic generation is the beauty industry, which comes up with a variety of eye-catching store traffic generation methods every year.

Last year, the most popular way to attract traffic in the beauty industry was the "pop-up store", while this year the way to attract traffic to beauty stores is called small prototypes. More than 40 major beauty brands have placed multiple automatic prototype machines in major shopping malls.

If you search for the keyword "small prototype machine" on Xiaohongshu or Weibo, you can find many corresponding guides to get one. Go to the mall to find the machine (small prototype machine), scan the code with your mobile phone, fill in the information, and you can get small samples of big brands, many of which are free. This kind of free distribution of small samples has become a powerful tool for attracting traffic to the beauty industry, helping brands to attract new customers through multiple channels from offline to online.

Case 1: Tmall U-first

Tmall U is Tmall's new retail omni-channel sampling platform, providing brands with a one-stop solution for attracting new customers, quickly increasing fans, and building word-of-mouth. Simply put, Tmall U19 is actually a trial platform in Tmall Mall. Buyers can register and apply. When the seller puts a new product on the shelf, if the trial is successful, they can try the product first.

However, if merchants want to join Tmall U, they must first meet some official conditions. One very important point is that the promotional price of the registered product must be 0.01 yuan, 9.9 yuan or 19.9 yuan. The low-price strategy allows offline users to not have too much price burden. They can try out big brand products for 1 cent, which is similar to the effect of a small prototype.

In terms of the method of receiving samples, most small samples are free or cost very little. You need to scan the QR code using WeChat, and then the user needs to follow their official account or mini program and fill in the mobile phone number to receive the redemption code. After entering the redemption code on the small sample, a trial package will be dropped. This completes the process of directing traffic from offline to online.

Case 2: Innisfree

Innisfree is a Korean cosmetics brand. The cosmetics of this brand are natural, healthy and simple. It officially entered China on April 25, 2012, and now has more than 500 offline stores in more than 100 cities across the country.

Innisfree is a typical representative of traffic-oriented single-brand stores, focusing on naturalism and fast fashion. The facade is decorated with large areas of green plants, the counters are mainly made of logs, and the main tone is green. Domestic brands such as Yiyezi and Chunji are also similar to it.

Innisfree stores will offer various preferential benefits, and actively guide users to scan the code and follow the official account to become store members. Through offline store traffic and brand content operations, it has accumulated tens of millions of fans on the WeChat official account, forming brand private domain traffic.

Summarize

The above are the top 10 most popular growth strategies for 2019 brought to you by Growth Black Box. Looking back on this year: KOL matrix marketing sinks to KOC; private domain traffic rises up; e-commerce in-app purchase solves the trust cost; e-commerce live broadcast of domestic products is the trend; short video sales become a new trend; virtual images create a screen-sweeping feast; vertical communities emerge; industry infographics stand out; advertising materials are tricky; offline store traffic generation techniques.

In China, traffic channels are very complex and closed, user stratification is very obvious, and traffic dividends are constantly changing. This means that you cannot stick to a single marketing channel, but must explore dividends and opportunities in various emerging channels. From search to private domain traffic, from KOL to KOC, from the era of pictures and texts to the era of short videos. With each dividend change, the growth strategy and corresponding growth tools will change.

In the long run, the ROI of each channel will begin to tend to equilibrium, and eventually companies will need to establish an omni-channel marketing system to hedge against the revenue fluctuations of various channels.

Therefore, if you want to maintain healthy and sustainable growth, you must find a way to continuously generate strategies and implement them efficiently.

Author: Zhang Xilun

WeChat public account: growthbox