How to choose the right advertising channel?

From the era of traditional stores, traffic was obtained by good location, to the era of search engines dominated by Baidu, traffic was obtained by bidding ranking, to the era of traditional e-commerce such as Taobao, Tmall and JD, traffic was obtained by burning through trains, to today's rapid development and explosion of mobile Internet, new media platforms with information flow mainly based on Weibo, WeChat, Douyin, Kuaishou, Toutiao, etc., traffic is obtained by high-quality content.

1. Classification of Internet Traffic

Internet traffic is also divided into free and paid promotion channels.

There are many free promotion channels on the Internet. You have to do it over the long term and continuously, focusing on exposing the brand and implanting keywords, with brand output being greater than traffic. For example, Baidu has the Wenku Q&A forum and Wenku Tieba, Tencent has QQ space, groups, Weibo, mutual fan platforms, and other apps such as Douban and Tianya Tieba. All of the above are for brand trust endorsement for promotion and to cover information flow on the Internet.

In fact, paid channels can be summarized as search engine advertising mainly based on Baidu, traditional e-commerce bidding advertising mainly based on Taobao and Tmall, and information flow advertising mainly based on WeChat Toutiao and Douyin.

Every new platform that emerges has a bonus period, and marketers need to always pay attention to changes in platform rules. Generally, the bonus period of a new platform is only 6-9 months. After the boom period, it enters a sedimentation period, and what matters is operation.

On the one hand, traffic is migrating with platforms and smartphones. On the other hand, users' tastes in marketing are also changing, and the cost of trusting marketing content is also increasing.

2. Characteristics of different channels

Many companies have developed to a certain stage and chosen a content marketing matrix. Here you need to have a general understanding of the attributes, user portraits and rules of each platform. Take the core platform I am familiar with as an example.

Weibo is open-ended and dominated by entertainment stars, making it suitable for topic dissemination, public relations and interactive activities.

WeChat is suitable for content brand communication, customer retention, and transaction conversion.

Baidu, 360 Sogou, and search engine bidding advertising are more about completing brand building and keyword trust endorsement.

News information streams such as Toutiao are intelligently pushed and accurately delivered, which is suitable for exposure and traffic generation, but the actual purchasing power of the population is relatively low.

Douyin, Kuaishou, Yingke, Meipai, and live streaming by internet celebrities are suitable for event promotion and early preparatory communication, exporting the traffic of anchors and internet celebrities to WeChat, as well as the increasingly popular live streaming with goods.

Traditional elevators, subways, buses, and outdoor billboards are suitable for assisting traffic advertising for conversions.

3. Look at the development stage of the enterprise

Every company is at a different stage of development and has different advertising needs. Most small and medium-sized enterprises are still in a period of wild growth and are resource-intensive. They accumulate seed users through cold starts, such as relying on the founder's original network resources, or content marketing like Xiaohan to find accurate customers from fans. This method has relatively low costs and is easy to start, but it is also easy to have a ceiling.

To grow rapidly, you will need funds for marketing and advertising, and to scale up your campaigns to bring in more users and resources. At the next level, when a certain amount of users have been accumulated, you can detonate existing users through fission marketing planning, and reach more of the existing users’ circle of friends until you can open up new business lines, continuously iterate, upgrade, and repeat previous actions.

4. Look at the characteristics of the company's products and services

The different product and service characteristics of a company will inevitably require different appropriate advertising channels.

If you are engaged in life/business services, search engines are more suitable. Users have the habit of actively searching for keywords, and you can acquire customers through bidding rankings. If you are engaged in mass C-end products, the supply chain is mature and user habits do not need to be cultivated. Obviously e-commerce is more suitable. If you are engaged in new services and the market is not yet mature, then information flows such as WeChat Moments headlines are more suitable.

5. Core delivery principles

Jiang Nanchun proposed a 30:70 principle for brand advertising at the positioning conference, that is, in the early stages of a brand’s establishment, 70% should be used for traffic and 30% for brand advertising. As the brand gradually matures, brand advertising should account for 70% and traffic advertising should account for 30%. In the end, companies must rely on their brands to win the market.

Therefore, the media advertising strategies adopted by the brand are different at different stages.

A core principle is: advertise where your users are.

If a startup brand is in the start-up phase, the focus of its investment at this time must be on attracting traffic, and precise investment is the best strategy to shorten the transaction cycle and reduce market expansion costs. At this time, it is recommended to accurately lock in industry circles and core user circles, and give full play to its professional knowledge and brand influence to attract the right team.

Core users are not the same as ordinary users. Before launching the campaign, you must fully analyze who the users are, where they are, what they like, what their labels are, draw an accurate user portrait, and then sort out suitable delivery platforms based on this data and labels.

In short, every penny must be spent wisely, and strive for high conversion. At the same time, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Test several different channels first. If you find a dark horse, immediately increase investment to obtain low-cost user traffic.

Advertising, attracting traffic, finding fans, and trial and error are often phased. What is the best method?

In fact, no strategy is better than a strategy. Just use the most effective method to the extreme, instead of looking for a better one while still working, and changing your mind frequently. There are several criteria for measurement: simple operation, replicability, and scalability.

6. The essence of content marketing

Currently, we serve the brand's new media. Content marketing is a long-term and systematic job. Content is about attracting traffic and conversion, which requires time accumulation, trust and connection.

Recently, I happened to be reading "New Retail" by Teacher Liu Run, and I rethought the essence of content marketing. Creating content is about creating channels, and operating new media is about creating brands.

It will take at least three years for traditional companies to establish a complete channel covering 2,853 counties. New media combined with store and online traffic can be relatively complementary. Stores have stable traffic and trust endorsement, while online traffic is fast but not as vital as stores. The combination of the two establishes a customer and agent service center, gathers traffic and enhances experience, which is the current mainstream new retail model.

Knowing how to choose advertising channels is only the first step in marketing. How to refine selling points, create content, improve conversion rates, and trigger orders are more core issues, which we will talk about later.

Author: Tang Xiaohan

Source: Tang Xiaohan