Marketing strategy for e-commerce operations promotion!

A netizen has such a case:

If you buy a box of mineral water at 25 yuan, you will get a coupon for 25 yuan off for purchases over 30 yuan, so you only need to pay 5 yuan, right? It's not that simple.

When the purchase amount reaches 30 yuan, shipping is not included and an additional 20 yuan express fee is required to ship it. In the end, I realized that without the coupon, the overall cost of a box of mineral water would be less high.

Yes, it has to be said that today’s e-commerce promotions are so varied that you never know how sophisticated the marketing tactics are. Many platforms’ coupons are linked to each other, making you dizzy, and they are automatically distributed to your account for use without you noticing.

What should I do? Some people say that it is enough to apply for insurance? Or you can avoid holiday marketing and not buy anything; but you find that if the insured goods you receive are "not price protected" after unpacking, it seems not cost-effective to avoid holiday shopping on a single item basis.

In fact, phishing-style shopping behavior has appeared in our lives more than once, which also makes users more rational. The most basic idea in Toshifumi Suzuki's "The Philosophy of Retail" is "user-centricity"; it includes three perspectives: insight into customers, firm beliefs, and breaking traditional thinking.

The main reason why some companies are able to survive difficult economic cycles is that when faced with new things and difficulties, they are able to understand the real needs of users, take the initiative to make changes around users and persevere in reshaping their own brands.

Looking back at the marketing of current e-commerce platforms, there are too many routines in the various activities such as opening cat shops, building buildings, and forming teams for PK. Most of them have long lost their original intentions. Behind the changes in gameplay are actually the changes in the "online information channels" and the transformation of the "consumer ecology" under the existing stock.

I. A brief history of the development of big promotion

Speaking of gameplay, it is generally related to two aspects: e-commerce development and holiday marketing.

On September 4, 1995, Pierre Omidyar founded the world's first online shopping company in San Jose, California, USA under the name of Auctionweb. It was named eBay and provided an international online trading platform for individuals and corporate users, officially launching the global online trading model. At that time, it revolved around two aspects:

1. Sellers and buyers are matched, and eBay completes the transaction automation;
2. Offer auctions by category and let buyers make offers.

Later, thanks to the development of China's Internet technology, the country's first C2C website "Ebay" was officially established in August 1999.

In the same year, China Merchants Bank, which is well known to everyone, just launched the "One Network" online banking service in China, becoming the first "online commercial bank" in China to achieve nationwide connectivity.

During this period, China's e-commerce industry was still in its infancy, real Internet applications had not yet been formed, the e-commerce environment was far from mature, and online retail was just getting started.

It was not until the decade after 2000 that China's e-commerce experienced a rapid transformation from its infancy to its development stage. What happened in these years?

EachNet was acquired by eBay, and a number of emerging e-commerce websites were closed, but opportunities and challenges coexisted; after SARS in 2003, many people began to participate in online shopping, and the two most important e-commerce companies in the history of China's e-commerce development were established one after another.

Online shopping officially entered its emergence stage in 2006. In the past few years, the development of a number of websites such as Dangdang, Joyo, China Shopping, and 51 Specials has increased the number of Internet users by dozens of times.

It was not until 2007 that the total transaction volume of both C2C and B2C electronic markets achieved rapid growth of 125.2% and 92.3% respectively; it was not until the China E-Commerce Shopping Festival officially appeared on November 11, 2009 that the platform began to "create festival marketing."

At that time, Double 11 was still the world of singles; in order to allow more consumers and sellers to participate in the "online atmosphere", the platform began to create new ways of playing; how do you understand this?

The platform spontaneously turns "non-agreed days" into festivals for publicity or promotion, mainly by cleverly leveraging the power of traditional culture to gather users; at the same time, it uses promotional means to satisfy consumption behaviors. In my opinion, it can be divided into: marketing innovation and cultural innovation.

The former: In the early years, the infrastructure of e-commerce platforms was imperfect, and marketing was limited to discounts, coupons, free shipping for multiple items, or combinations.

As the number of platform users increases, marketing methods begin to innovate, such as limited-time discounts, periodic purchases and gifts, gifts for sharing, and bargaining assistance.

From the perspective of the three elements of retail: "people, goods and place", the purpose of marketing is to play with "goods and place" and increase the life cycle value of people; place refers to the e-commerce platform, goods represent the floating price of commodities, and people refer to "user life cycle, participation, and length of stay."

From this we can see that the essence of marketing innovation is actually demand management, and the entire demand process is: R+STP (perhaps differentiation should be added) + 4P+I+C.

The translation is:

“Market research plus market segmentation + market selection + market positioning-differentiation + product-channel-price-promotion + control + execution ; this is also an important concept proposed by CEO consultant Wang Sai in “Chief Growth Officer: From CMO to CGO”.

Perhaps these were not so segmented for e-commerce platforms at the time. The core reason was that the market was not saturated in the early stages, and there was no such thing as segmentation. It was a red ocean stage.

The latter: The word closest to festival in English is festival, which evolved from traditional culture and represents periodic performances and activities.

For example: Music Festival, Thanksgiving, Spring Festival, Father's Day, Mother's Day and so on; you should know that in the early days of e-commerce platforms, marketing was mostly centered around "growth" or "GMV" on the site.

When a certain scale is reached, a portion of the budget will be allocated for external exposure, through advertising, social media or celebrity endorsements plus discounts and subsidies.

When e-commerce marketing methods emerged one after another after 2018, the "10 billion subsidies" became popular again. This activity form with important significance in the history of e-commerce is also a fierce means used by many platforms in the era of pictures and texts, and it is also the beginning of the ever-changing and varied methods of e-commerce.

In summary, we can see that e-commerce is a commercial system composed of the three core requirements of "people, goods and places". Whether it is the early B2B, C2C or O2O, the role it plays has never changed.

That is to build a credible "platform" to link supply and demand, and ultimately reach a transaction, and on this basis continue to "innovate" around people.

So why, with the development of multiple platforms, users are becoming more and more fragmented and less loyal? If we extend the time period, we can see that the two main components are: changes in media channels and brand mindset.

2. Changes in Media Mentality

Talking about media channels: Media is the carrier and form of information. We often talk about information fragmentation, which is media fragmentation. The customer acquisition of e-commerce platforms is always inseparable from "content and media".

But as long as technology advances, the media will change, and each change will often bring new "iterative" product opportunities while causing a dispersed demographic dividend.

The fact behind this is that the population base has not increased significantly, but rather the media has changed, resulting in a large number of new user needs that we cannot imagine or meet.

1. If you don't believe me, let's compare

Before the Internet 1.0 era, people usually obtained information through channels such as magazines, radio, television and traditional newspapers. The most concentrated brand strategy of that era was the CCTV advertisements during the Chinese New Year.

After the emergence of PC Internet, information media platforms include giants such as "Sina, Sohu, NetEase, and Baidu"; everyone will find that under the same media environment, the company with the largest amount of information will definitely become very powerful.

With the popularization of 4G and 5G, "search engines" and intelligent algorithms have once again subdivided users' demand for "information processing" into medium and long videos and short pictures and texts.

So platforms like Zhihu, Xiaohongshu, ByteDance, and bilibili began to appear. What will this change cause? The simplest answer is: "Users are becoming more and more professional."

For example:

In the past, consumers bought things based on demand, searched on platforms, and placed orders. What changes will occur after information becomes abundant? When users have needs, they will go to major search engines to search for brands, and even compare products and reviews before placing an order.

In other words , it may have taken users several minutes to complete the first few steps in the past, but now it takes users several hours due to various marketing stimuli; they may even come back to search for a brand keyword, add items to the shopping cart and leave, only to think about whether to place an order in the evening.

This will result in the user demands becoming increasingly clear in the context of overall consumption upgrading, and the e-commerce platforms’ large-scale promotional marketing cannot be carried out in a rush.

Instead, we need to further subdivide themes and products in conjunction with festivals, recommend them to users in a non-routine manner, and at the same time create a "content field" for users within the platform.

In this regard, "True Happiness" was very user-friendly in Gome's anniversary marketing, directly informing users of low prices, allowing users to make decisions more efficiently; and it was able to better help users make selections.

2. Let’s talk about brand mindset

There is no doubt that the gene of an enterprise is expansion, and its vitality depends on brand power; it can be said that the formation of a type of leading e-commerce platform has made the second echelon out of reach. In addition to establishing its own basic supply-side barriers, brand strategy is also very important.

You must know that the more centralized the media environment is, the more you need to return to the origin. Traffic itself cannot create a platform brand. The shaping of brand awareness requires understanding the user's mental trajectory, structure and rules; and then using the core channels of "content scenarios + life scenarios" to continue to occupy the position.

So how do you measure consumer mind status?

In my opinion, when it comes to consumer decisions, products of a single brand are not created equal. When making decisions, users will also rank different brands and form a purchasing ladder.

For example: if you want sugar-free sparkling water, you will reflexively buy Yuanqi Forest, and buy comfortable underwear from Ubras and Bananain, etc. You can see that they occupy a certain category or characteristic positioning; therefore, the core of the mind is "strong association", which is a combination of "semantic memory" and "episodic memory".

So, relative to the volume of goods sold or transaction amount, from a long-term perspective, how e-commerce platforms can continue to occupy the high mental ladder and establish a "conditioned reflex" type of cognitive barrier will be the key to determining the next five years.

But can this continue to impress consumers?

In fact, from a market perspective, it is very difficult. Why? One important reason is that e-commerce platforms are moving from a single cargo field to a content field, which means that the "supply chain structure" will become the infrastructure, and the number of KOLs and KOCs a platform has is one of the long-term stability factors.

3. Two-Sided Market Effect

First, let’s understand two concepts: two-sided market effect and two-sided network effect.

The first aspect: The value created by positive feedback between different types of users is the two-sided market effect, also known as the two-sided network. The theory was proposed by Rochet and Tirole (2003). What does it mean specifically?

The two groups of participants need to trade through an intermediary layer or platform, and the benefits of one group of participants joining the platform depend on the number of the other group of participants on the platform (Armstrong, 2004).

For example: Among all the e-commerce platforms, there are two groups of merchants and sellers. Merchants and buyers cannot create value through interaction. Only merchants and buyers can trade.

Or the taxi-hailing platform only has interaction between passengers and drivers, and there is no interaction between passengers and passengers, or drivers and drivers on the platform. There are many similar cases.

The second aspect: If there is a product or service whose intrinsic value increases with the addition of each user, it will form a "two-sided network effect."

For example: Zhihu can be considered as a two-sided market consisting of "content producers" and "content consumers", and the production quantity and consumption quantity on both sides are directly proportional.

Or take WeChat and QQ. For a single user, the more friends he has who use WeChat, the greater the value of WeChat to him, and it will attract more people to use WeChat, right? Therefore, social products have a natural monopoly.

So what inspiration can we get?

When the scenario is a two-sided market (a trading venue consisting of two independent user groups, e-commerce platforms are a case in point. Although merchants are sometimes also consumers, they are generally segmented relationships), "same-side network effects" and "cross-side network effects" will appear, which will cause an imbalance between supply and demand.

In other words, if e-commerce platforms want to develop in the long term, they must first transform the "effect" , and behind this from a deeper perspective is the reform of supply and demand, which is obviously difficult in the early stages.

But from the consumer side, if we want to get more users to become part of the platform, then we need to involve "media and information".

Two-Sided Marketplace Network Effects

Furthermore, in theory, any two people can interact with each other, and with the emergence of various groups, live broadcasts, and communities, the mode of interaction can be split from point-to-point to multi-point-to-multi-point, and the flow of information will show explosive growth.

This is also the pain point of e-commerce platforms in the past, which only had a simple "cargo field". Now we need to build a "human field" based on users.

Zhiyuan predicts that the development of e-commerce will become more "ubiquitous", that is, the 4A development trend integrating anyone (Anyone), anything (Anything), any place (Anywhere), and any time (Anytime) will become more and more obvious, but the prerequisite is that the "content infrastructure" facilities of the e-commerce platform are complete.

4. Basic transformation three-piece set

The vast majority of current marketing theories are based on "marketing, branding, and communication disciplines"; but compared to these disciplines, in my opinion, I would rather call "cognitive psychology and behavioral economics" the essential foundation for understanding users.

If you don’t believe it, think about it: when the platform becomes infrastructure, what needs to be strengthened around the continuous penetration of users in order to retain them? Is it a discount or cost-effectiveness?

Obviously not. Zhiyuan believes that these four aspects of infrastructure are the core that affect the "platform differentiated value" , specifically:

1. Brand culture strategy

In most markets, marketing agencies and platforms focus too much on analyzing market share and attention share. In fact, these factors are not very important to consumers and are difficult for consumers to perceive correctly.

It is under these conditions that culture becomes a tool to guide consumers' perception, strongly influencing their understanding and judgment of products.

Starbucks was founded in 1971. Its three founders were young intellectuals with new cultural tastes. Thanks to the emerging educational methods, they were able to perfectly combine coffee craftsmanship with global subculture.

From the logo and name, you can see that it is extraordinary, but from its brand story, we can dig out four details of the methodological approach:

1. Find the mainstream of market culture;
2. Identify social fractures;
3. opportunities to tap into ideology;
4. Procure the right raw materials.

First of all, there is no need to explain in detail the point that it is in line with mainstream consumption. With every major historical change and evolution and the adjustments brought about by the media, the cultural significance and expression forms provided by existing products and brands will be completely reshaped. This is called social rupture.

The phenomena covered include three dimensions: "economic changes, social movements and mass media".

We see that current interest-based e-commerce, Generation Z, and the metaverse actually all come from “rupture”; all kinds of labels can be completely refined and integrated into brand culture, thereby strengthening penetration through mission, vision, values, and language vision.

2. Biological clock marketing

It's like setting an alarm for a person. Without the need for the brain to take the initiative, one can spontaneously think of "this holiday" according to his or her interests at the time.

For example, during Double 11 and 618, users will spontaneously think of e-commerce platforms during this period, and will actively look for themed activities; of course, there are also "one-hour social power outage" and "spending time with your loved ones on Chinese Valentine's Day".

Currently, most platforms or single brands on the market rarely use this "marketing" as a strategic marketing method. Xibei Oat Noodles' Kissing Festival has been held in the catering industry for many years. Kissing while eating offline can get discounts, creating a strong sense of interaction.

In a word, it is not only a festival, but also a symbol of beautiful expectation and inner joy; it allows people to form special memories through scenes, time, and strong connections with people around them.

3. IP derivatives and interactions

There are many successful IP images in history, such as Disney’s Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse series; Marvel has a powerful IP universe, the classic Journey to the West with Tang Monk and his three companions is also an IP, Line friends is an IP, Kumamon is an IP, and Molly is also an IP.

First of all, they are highly recognizable and recognizable, just like a brand; they appear on various types of objects or commodities and are widely used, such as clothing, daily consumer goods or electronic products.

Creating an IP for a platform is not something that can be solved by simply changing the logo. The image in the IP strategy only helps people understand the spirit, personality and other characteristics that the brand wants to convey, but having an image does not mean that the platform has a brand IP.

So how do you tell whether a brand has formed an IP? It’s very simple. Take away the platform and the tangible assets and see if users can associate the image with the “platform”.

For example, for Gome’s “Real Joy”, the “Buy All Over China” live broadcast launched in collaboration with CCTV News is a very eye-catching IP and can be said to be a luxurious configuration.

To put it more simply, brand IPization is a new tool or methodology for brand building, which is an advanced level. Only by creating a distinct personality for oneself and continuous interaction between content and users can a brand be sought after by consumers, and thus be able to "stand firm."

To sum up

Big promotion marketing seeks change, and the change lies in honing the internal "basic skills" and "getting to the users".

Marketing does not mean being numerous or complicated. Providing real benefits to users and adding brand power is the key to long-term survival. After all, when the inventory is saturated, service and experience become "users' first choice", aren't they?

Author: Wang Zhiyuan

Source: Wang Zhiyuan