Figure out these 8 questions and save 50% of your advertising and marketing budget!

The content discussed in this article is applicable to marketing, operations, advertising, new media, copywriting, etc. Whether for marketers or operators, how to use advertising to do marketing well has always been a must-learn subject. How to maximize the marketing effect of advertising is the dream of many people, especially in this era when both online and offline traffic costs are skyrocketing.

Advertising is difficult. If you are not careful, you will waste 50% of the marketing cost, or even all of it.

what to do?

Here are 8 suggestions for you, all of which are based on the blood, tears and sadness I have experienced.

1

Marketing may fail before it even starts

In an age of scarce attention, everyone is very busy. Don't expect others to wait for your marketing ads to appear every day. He is very busy. He may be using the toilet, talking to someone, reading a newspaper, browsing WeChat Moments, checking Weibo hot topics, or being attracted by another advertisement...

At this time, your advertisement is facing a person whose attention is very distracted. You need to attract him and make him focus on you.

How to attract?

(1) Related to me

You are on the street, and the whole street is full of people coming and going. If you shout loudly, "Delicious sesame cakes are here" or "Don't miss it if you pass by", some people may be attracted to you. But if you stand on the street and shout loudly "Attention, beauties and handsome guys!" the effect may be better. The words may be rough, but the truth is there.

People will always care about things that are related to themselves, and they won’t care about anything else you say. Therefore, if you want your ad to attract him immediately, "relevant to him" is definitely a good choice.

In fact, this is exactly what most of the ads we see do:

A study on the human brain also found that there is something called the hippocampus in the brain that automatically screens and filters the information we receive, and those information that are closely related to ourselves, or that form a contrast and subvert our cognition can often pass through the screening.

(2) Visual appeal

In order to attract people's attention, advertising vision/packaging is also very important. It has the most intuitive impact and it only takes a moment to decide whether to see it or not.

There are still two points here:

1) The uniqueness of the product

Unique vision. You don’t need to be different from the whole world (you can be the best), you just need to be different from your competitors. This may be one of the true meanings of product packaging, and the same is true for marketing packaging. For example: Most headphone cords were black before, and everyone was used to it, but the iPod used a completely opposite color at the time, which immediately attracted a lot of attention, and then people talked about its functions, quality, etc.

Everyone was surprised that “it turns out that headphone cords can be made white.”

If you want to be different and stand out, the best way is to create a category that is different from this category, and the same goes for advertising.

2) Different from surrounding advertisements

Sometimes, we don’t need to make ourselves completely different, we just need to make ourselves different according to the surrounding advertising environment. Create visual contrast to attract attention. For example, advertisements on Taobao are very common. Sellers will observe the advertisements at the top of the search results page and then quickly create their own advertisements.

If they find that most ads are orange, they might make a green ad image. If they find that most ads feature beautiful women, they might make a big number in their ad image.

In this era, your competitors are no longer just your competing products, but all products that compete with you for user attention.

Once the problem of attention is solved, another problem immediately arises, which leads to the second point.

2

What is the core purpose of your advertising?

When doing marketing, let’s not talk about the advanced strategic level. At least you need to be clear about the core problem that your marketing advertisement is focusing on solving.

Here, we need to look at it from three aspects:

(1) Users do not have relevant needs

For most mainstream products, there is a market demand. However, many users do not realize that they have needs or their needs are not activated.

At this time, the purpose of advertising is to activate user needs. Before he pays attention, no matter how many unique advantages of your product you talk about or how many preferential policies you offer, it will be of no avail.

At this time, the advertisement needs to emphasize telling him "why you should use this product", "this product can help you change what problem that is bothering you now", "what changes will happen in your life after using this product" and so on.

(2) Users have needs but don’t know you yet

Currently, most companies place advertisements for this purpose. The market is huge and there are many users with needs. However, the most terrifying thing is that those users with needs don’t know you exist, and your product is passed over before it even participates in the competition.

At this time, the purpose of advertising is to make consumers remember your brand, remember your product, remember what your product does, and remember what are the obvious features of your product.

Those shocking points about the product and the brand that can grab attention can be used for endorsement at this time. For example, "The best mobile phone in the Eastern Hemisphere", "Put 1,000 songs in your pocket", "Around the earth three times" and so on will quickly make users remember the product.

It is important to note that to generate traffic and exposure, it is not enough to just put a brand name or product name on it. Instead, your product must have a memorable point, so that users remember not just a name, but a name that solves their XX pain point. This is meaningful.

Don’t pursue the ultimate in advertising all day long or engage in some kind of deification campaign. In the end, your product will not be remembered by users, and no one will even know what it does. That would be a tragedy.

(3) Users know you, but they also know others

There is another situation where consumers have certain needs, know your product, but also know others'. Most marketing competition occurs here.

At this time, the purpose of advertising is to let consumers see your strong selling points, the outstanding advantages of your products, the strength of your brand, the outstanding price, the differentiated features, or emotional things like Lao Luo, etc.

At this stage, all the schools of thought are launching their ultimate moves. You have differentiation, I have high performance; you have a sense of style, I have strength; you have personal feelings, I have fan economy; you have technical patents, I have celebrity endorsements... In fact, it is an enhanced version of the previous stage. Anyway, the advertisements here should let users know "why choose me" and "what's the difference between me and those slutty bitches out there".

Anyway, you need to pay attention to: what stage is your product in now? What is the focus of your advertising at this stage?

3

If the needs do not match, all efforts will be in vain

Many times our advertising is really good, and our products and services are indeed recognized by users, but they just don’t buy.

One very likely reason is: Do users really have such a demand? If there is no demand, no matter how good your product is, they will certainly not be interested.

Therefore, for your service or product, you might as well calm down and think carefully about the next question - "What kind of scenario does your product exist in, what product form does it use, and what needs of what users does it meet?"

Think about it carefully. You can take a lot of detours. It would be best if you can summarize your product positioning in one sentence. If you can't even summarize it, how can you match it with user needs?

I remember there is a famous warning saying circulating in the industry: what users want is never a drill with a diameter of 5 mm, but a hole with a diameter of 5 mm.

If you don't understand the real needs of users and package your advertising points incorrectly, you will get half the result with twice the effort or even get nothing with a single blow. It is normal to see no effect.

This is just like the example of Ford back then: "If you ask consumers what they want, they will tell you that they want a carriage that runs faster!" But in fact, what consumers need is not a carriage, but faster and faster. Therefore, cars came into being to meet the needs of consumers.

In short, the product is well packaged and promoted at a high cost, and is indeed recognized by many people. However, if it does not match the real needs of users, it may lose a large number of users. How can you power it if you haven’t even connected the wires?

So, once there is demand and advertising focus, how can we make consumers remember it? This brings me to my fourth point.

4

Do your ads have repetitive repetition?

Large-scale marketing advertising has one core goal: to make people remember your brand or product, that is, to occupy the user's mind.

This requires you to place your ads repeatedly and intensively. The repetition mentioned here mainly includes three points:

(1) Duplication of advertising content

For a period of time, advertising should always revolve around one core point or core goal. Don’t include N points in one advertisement, all of which are core points and try to express everything.

Many people like to put everything in advertisements for fear that others will not see it, but they do not realize that this is just taking it for granted. Now there is less and less time left for advertisements and consumers are becoming more and more forgetful.

(2) Repetition of advertising strategies

After an advertisement is released, it takes a period of accumulation before the effect can be seen. Without repetition, it cannot be remembered. If you want to occupy the user's mind, you have to occupy the user's time.

Don’t use an advertising and marketing strategy today and a new one tomorrow, constantly changing it as it is a waste of money and effort.

Therefore, marketing must be focused and efficient, and users should be “brainwashed” in a focused manner within a fixed period of time to directly reach the boiling point.

(3) Repetition of key points of the advertisement

Like I just said, advertising should focus on one key point, such as your brand name? What are the core features of your product? Your feelings? Your promotional information? etc.

Then, you have to repeat this most important core information in the advertisement, such as "Go to 58.com", "Guazi Used Cars", "Don't Call Mom When You're Hungry" and so on. You will find that it will repeatedly mention key keywords, and it is impossible for you not to remember them.

After doing all of the above, the marketing effect has improved a lot, but how to further reduce marketing costs and improve marketing effects?

Let’s look at suggestion number 5.

5

Have you figured out the user purchasing decision process?

If many companies think clearly about their users’ purchasing decision-making process, they will realize how unfair their advertising is!

To be more serious, the user's purchasing decision process includes several stages: generating demand, collecting information, comparing information, purchasing decision, and post-purchase behavior.

The first step is the demand generation stage. How are our users’ demands stimulated in most cases? Does it happen offline or online?

If it is offline stimulation, then increase offline advertising activities. If it is online stimulation, then strengthen online advertising accordingly. For example, if a business sells stinky tofu, it must expand offline.

Of course, some demands are stimulated both online and offline, so you have to be clear about all the channels through which your users obtain information, where users are most concentrated in obtaining information, and where users trust information the most. Your ads should be there to ensure that the information is collected.

Next is the information comparison and purchase decision stage. If your product is not seen in the previous information collection stage, you have nothing to do here.

At this stage, users will have various hesitations, make various comprehensive comparisons, and make various trade-offs.

So, at this time we need to know: What do users care most about such products? What will influence their final purchasing decision? Are these products more emotional or rational? Are our core advantages reflected in the advertisement...etc.

Of course, at this time, many advertisements will seize the psychological weaknesses of users, such as: making users feel urgent that "if they don't buy it immediately, it will be gone"; for example: creating an atmosphere of "scarcity"; for example: utilizing users' psychological accounts to reduce users' psychological hesitation.

In short, have you figured out your users’ purchasing decision-making process? It’s best to draw it out on a piece of paper and organize it carefully.

What areas will stimulate your user needs? Is your ad attractive enough to attract users? Where do your users mainly learn about and consult about your products, and what is the cost-effectiveness? In the decision-making comparison stage, what will your users pay more attention to? Are your ads targeted?

After solving the problem of user purchasing decision, there is still a user action problem that needs to be solved, which is point 6.

6

Don’t make it too hard for users to take action

Okay, there are no problems with the above. Our ads are indeed in line with user needs, and the key marketing points are also done very well. The most important thing is that users also trust us. But they still don't act?

What's the problem?

This is a typical marketing problem nowadays. Everyone has been using most of their resources to emphasize how great the product is, but rarely constantly telling consumers "how easy it is to change" and "how simple it is to take action." They have not tried every means to make consumers feel that it is easy to achieve their goals.

This is critical, extremely critical. The key point is basically ignored.

We must make it easy for users to take action and achieve their goals quickly. Think about it, the horrible fact that smoking harms your body is that because quitting smoking is not easy, no one is willing to change, not to mention your minor needs?

Yale University once conducted an experiment in which students were required to go to the school hospital to receive free tetanus vaccinations. They prepared two versions of the tetanus manual, and different groups received different versions.

One group received the high-fear version, which used exaggerated language and highly stimulating pictures, and listed severe tetanus patients as examples; while the other group received the low-fear version, which used relatively plain language. The result was unexpected. One month later, the proportion of students who actually got vaccinated was the same, only 3%.

The experiment continued. Nothing else changed this time, except that the experimenter added two minor points to the manual:

1. One is a geographical map of the school hospital (everyone knows the way to the school hospital);
2. Another is to add the specific time for vaccination.

However, these two seemingly meaningless contents ultimately led to a significant increase in the number of students seeking vaccination, with the proportion increasing to 28%, an increase of more than 9 times.

This has nothing to do with the product itself, but more about the map and specific time making the act of "going to the school hospital to get vaccinated" seem easier to achieve.

In other words, no matter how good your products and activities are, before they are so good that consumers worship you as a legend, you should let consumers know that "your products are easy to meet needs", "your activities are particularly easy to participate in", "your APP can be used with one click"...

Tell consumers that “it’s actually very easy to take action”, “it can be done easily”, “many people have already done it”, etc.

So, at this point, I have reason to believe that such marketing can double the effect, but it is just "belief". It's not that I am contradicting myself, but there is no absolute thing.

Therefore, the seventh suggestion below is a must.

7

Do you test your marketing/advertising?

In my opinion, all the above can be said to be inseparable from two words: testing.

• Whether your advertisement can arouse users’ interest and stimulate their needs requires testing!
• Whether your core marketing selling point is what users care about requires testing!
• Whether the advertisement is placed in the right place and whether there is any problem with the label targeting also needs to be tested!
• Which marketing strategy has a higher conversion rate? This requires more testing!
• …

Without testing, it won’t work at all. There is no such thing as an advertising genius. Everything is developed through testing step by step.

Again, at least 50% of advertising costs are wasted, but we don’t know where they are wasted. If you don’t test, it’s a lot more waste.

In the world of marketing, nothing can be said to be absolute. It is foolish to expect to make a good advertisement in one go without conducting experiments and tests.

What is a good advertisement?

It’s very simple. An advertisement that has been tested and is effective in actual combat is called a good advertisement.

Note that nothing is optimal, and repeated testing to continuously expand potential energy is the most effective approach.

OK, let’s talk about the last one.

8

Beware of the myth of big brands

The author supports companies paying attention to brand building. The significance of brand to companies is unquestionable.

But there are many people who have seen too many high-end brands on the Internet and have gradually become complacent after seeing the amazing marketing cases of major brands every day! I feel like I'm in a super brand.

As small and medium-sized enterprises, it is not that they cannot build a brand, but they should be "careful" in building a brand because they cannot afford to lose.

(1) Don’t blindly imitate big brands

It doesn’t matter if you imitate big brands. What matters is to imitate them blindly, even to the point of obsession, and ignoring your own development stage and positioning.

Big brands are indeed worthy of our learning and imitation, but in addition to learning what they are doing now.

More importantly, you need to learn how they built their brand step by step, how they did it in the past, what their strategy was when they were at your level, and what they did?

Marketing operators should be innovators + historians, especially good historians, analyzing major events in the history of big brands that changed their status. Don't just look at others now, as this will lead to being fooled by illusions.

(2) Distinguish the work in different stages

If you want to build a good brand, don’t just try to play with all kinds of creative ideas, brand spirits and brand beliefs like big brands do.

At the beginning, we must address the question of "Who am I, what do I do, and what can I do for you?" Have you done all of this?

Anyway, I have seen too many companies fail on the road to brand building!

Without phased work deployment, how do you know what problem the advertisement should solve now? How do you know what the focus of each advertisement is?

(3) Don’t start with a high-end, international tone

I don’t know when it started, but high-end and international style seems to have become synonymous with brand building.

• How to organize a product launch and ask your boss for instructions? The answer is: It must be high-end.
• Do a batch of product advertisements and put them offline, and ask your leader for visual opinions? The answer is: Add some international style.
• When planning an event, the boss said: It must be high-end, and preferably a bit international...

I believe that everyone has encountered such situations too many times, and you know what he is going to say without even asking. More and more people are starting to bring up words like "high-end" and "international style" into brand decision-making meetings.

This is because people are obsessed with big brands and fail to understand the meaning of brands.

So, once it comes to brand issues, I don’t know how to answer the question. All I can do is say, “Well, this one is more upscale, that one is more international…” Because upscale can give people a feeling of being powerful and tough.

This is a completely inexplicable waste of money. It is not acceptable for non-professionals to direct professionals to do things. A high-end, international style cannot save you, but it may kill you when you hold high the banner of your brand.

Summarize

In short, a very successful small or medium-sized brand must first have a very complete sales process of its own. Maximizing your sales efficiency should be the focus.

First ensure food and clothing, then talk about building the brand. Moreover, branding is not all about spending money. Brand building is everywhere, such as: serving every customer well, handling every complaint well, improving the basic VI of the brand, upgrading existing products, and improving customer satisfaction...

Okay, that’s all about the 8 advertising and marketing problems. They may not “kill you” directly, but they will greatly waste your marketing budget and even ruin your goals.

Hope it helps you.

Author: Mumu Old Thief

Source: Mumu Laozei (ID: mumuseo)