Experience and skills in writing e-commerce marketing plans!

Everyone in the e-commerce industry knows that the platforms are now the “big parties” because they hold traffic resource packages that brands are flocking to .

This is why brands nowadays are competing to compete with the Super Brand Day and Gathering Day events mentioned above, because these IP events can exchange valuable traffic resource packages for their own stores.

This has given rise to a phenomenon: brands often find a 4A advertising company with great difficulty and write dozens of pages of proposals, but when they take them to the second-hand store for a competition, they are always rejected. These advertising companies have to modify the proposals until they start to doubt their lives, and then they stop the loss in time and stop providing services. At this time, some customers will come to us to repackage the PK plan. We dare not say that all the plans we write will be selected by the waiter in the end, but most of the plans we produce after communicating with the waiter back and forth can achieve good results.

Seeing this, everyone can't help but question: Are we better than those well-known 4A creative companies?

The answer is of course no.

I don't mean to be bad-mouthing 4A. All the creative directors in these advertising companies have won various awards. Their creative abilities are definitely stronger than those of us planners in e-commerce TP.

Based on my personal observations, I think there are two main reasons for the above phenomenon:

One is that, with the support of the e-commerce environment, we are better at planning a marketing closed loop with the mindset of business conversion rather than a series of scattered creative communications. As an e-commerce marketing IP activity, the marketing closed loop is what matters most;

Another reason is that we, whose core business is e-commerce marketing, prefer to figure out their tactics from communicating with the e-commerce platform waiters about PK plans again and again: what they want, and apply it to the PK with the next customer, thus forming a virtuous circle.

Of the two reasons above, the former can be attributed to the perspective of e-commerce marketing, and the latter can be attributed to the perspective of the platform clerk.

In this article, we will start from these two perspectives and systematically analyze the rules of e-commerce marketing IP activity PK. Before you go to PK, you can first look at the plan you have made and question yourself from these two perspectives.

The advantage of doing this is that it can help you minimize the number of times you are beaten back by the waiter and increase the success rate of PK.

Soul-searching question 1: Is your plan planned with e-commerce marketing thinking or communication thinking?

1. One is to create a closed marketing loop, the other is to create communication volume

Nowadays, many cases are labeled as marketing. For newcomers in the industry, it is difficult for them to correctly distinguish the boundaries between public relations, advertising, and marketing, and they usually confuse various cases as marketing.

In my opinion, many well-known cases are about communication, not marketing.

I believe that people in the industry are familiar with Alibaba Databank, which contains the most important consumer data assets of each brand, called AIPL.

A stands for Awareness, I stands for Interest, P stands for Purchase, and L stands for Loyalty.

Real marketing is actually a complete interpretation of the consumer chain, from off-site topics and interactions to ordering and purchasing, and finally settling into membership.

Communication only creates topics or at most enables interactions. Taking the familiar leveraged marketing as an example, during the just-passed Chinese Valentine's Day, I believe many brands will launch various creative posters to attract the attention of many fans, but this only belongs to leveraged communication, not leveraged marketing. The difference lies in that it has not been transformed into products.

To be more specific, for example, if Durex, which is the best at making things happen, simply launches a series of exquisite copywriting, this is leveraged communication, but if it launches customized gift boxes in conjunction with the copywriting, this is leveraged marketing. This is probably the reason why Durex, starting this year, no longer indulges in various hot-spot jokes, but begins to adjust its strategy and start marketing from the entire consumer chain.

2. Good communication creativity does not necessarily lead to good e-commerce marketing results

Of course, good ideas are hard to come by, and we all hope that our brand can one day create a screen-sweeping case. But it turns out that some viral communication ideas have been successful in terms of volume, but have performed mediocrely in business.

For example, Pechoin, which continued to be active in the screen-sweeping world in the past few years, is best remembered for its 4.27-meter-long WeChat picture. The entire picture and text is based on the spy war in the Republic of China, which can be said to be extremely readable. In the end, this WeChat push lived up to expectations and received 30 million reads.

But what is surprising is that the final sales conversion rate is less than 0.00008 (you read that right, 4 zeros after the decimal point). Taking the AIPL link as an example, there was an obvious gap between consumers’ interest (Interest) and purchase (Purchase) in this communication activity.

Of course, you might say that this is because different brand activities pursue different goals. Some just want to maximize the volume of communication, while others want sales conversions.

That’s right, but what do you think is important in e-commerce marketing IP activities? Of course, we hope to form a closed loop from dissemination to final sales.

3. Good e-commerce marketing ideas are all ideas that can be linked to each link in the marketing closed loop

Since good communication ideas do not necessarily lead to good e-commerce marketing results, what kind of ideas are most effective? The answer lies in the creative ideas that can link together all the links in the marketing closed loop.

Take the example of the Kindle Gathering Day some time ago: in the off-site communication, they launched the topic #kindle covered instant noodles are more fragrant#. With the courage to make fun of itself, the brand gained a lot of attention and love from young users.

But Kindle does much more than that. What’s even more amazing is that they actually launched a series of Kindle and instant noodle gift boxes on the gathering day, with different flavors of instant noodles corresponding to the different types of idea books in the Kindle. It seamlessly bridges the gap from volume to sales.

Of course, there are more ways to help brands build a closed loop of e-commerce marketing than just making gift boxes for products.

There are also creative promotional mechanisms such as the "Bet against the weather, get a free meal if it rains" launched by GXG a few years ago and the "Full refund if France wins the championship" launched by Vatti last year; there is also the dome-shaped celebrity rights unlocking mechanism that has been more popular on Tmall platform recently. Brands regularly unlock different celebrity rights, such as a celebrity video, offline fan meetings, and helping celebrities project onto the big screen. The prerequisite for unlocking is that fans need to accumulate support points in this interaction by following/collecting brand stores, adding to shopping carts, purchasing, sharing, etc. Different amounts of support points correspond to different unlocking rights.

This approach breaks the traditional way of using celebrities only as brand spokespersons. Now they are also brand marketing influencers.

Soul-searching question 2: Does your plan provide the highlights and events that the e-commerce platform clerks want from their perspective?

The above-mentioned soul-searching question 1 can only guarantee that your overall plan will be upgraded from communication thinking to e-commerce marketing thinking, but whether the plan can successfully compete with e-commerce marketing IP activities such as Super Brand Day, Gathering Day, Little Black Box, etc., there is still a very important step away: Does your plan stand from the perspective of these shop assistants and provide the highlights and major events they want?

Sounds very metaphysical, right?

Yes, a little bit, because there is no absolute scientific standard to judge whether a brand’s solution can compete with others. The key lies in human decision.

As long as it involves dealing with people, there is a lot of knowledge involved.

However, what I want to share is not from the perspective of interpersonal relationships, teaching you how to increase the approval rate of the plan by maintaining a good relationship with the store manager, but from a professional perspective, sharing how some brands can provide attractive chips in this game between them and the store manager.

The reason why it is called a game is that in fact, PK these marketing IP activities are essentially a win-win situation under the resource exchange between brands and e-commerce platforms: if the brand lacks e-commerce traffic, the platform can provide it; if the platform lacks off-site traffic, the brand can provide it.

Therefore, for feedback such as “the plan lacks any brand highlights or major events”, let’s first analyze the background and motivation behind what the waiter said.

As more and more brands flock to compete in these IP events, the competition is becoming increasingly fierce.

Some brands always write about top traffic stars such as TFBOYS, Cai Xukun, and Bai Yu in their plans, and with the support of resources from land, sea and air, it is no wonder that the waiters feel numb when seeing this. If your plan doesn’t have a big brand event, how can it stand out? Moreover, these waiters also need to make a few showcases and make performance reports at the end of the year. Without any eye-catching major events, what can they showcase?

At this time, as a brand, you must first reflect internally: Is our marketing investment purely for these e-commerce marketing IP activities? In other words, during this period, we did not have the original marketing investment of the brand marketing department to compete with, but the brand e-commerce department had to invest resources and plan creative ideas completely from scratch.

If this is the case, we usually advise clients not to compete this time, but to consider it again next time when your brand has a big marketing campaign. Because from the perspective of return on investment, all the brand resources reinvested are far higher than the platform resources ultimately replaced.

We have also met clients who have started from scratch. We usually share some cases of our own operations first, not only to show that we have experience, but more importantly to tell them how much investment a brand needs to make to hold an event of the scale of Super Brand Day/Gathering Day.

After listening to the case, we will ask: Does your brand have any major marketing resources this time? The answer is: No. We asked again: But doing this will require a huge amount of resources. Are you sure you must go to PK this time?

The customer said firmly: Yes, now is our off-season for sales, we must have a Super Product Day to boost performance. Don't worry, feel free to come up with any creative ideas, our company has plenty of marketing budget. Well, we believed it at first, and we revised the plan back and forth countless times. We went through a lot of efforts to compete with each other, and finally when the waiter was about to finalize the implementation plan with the brand side, the problem of cutting off the source of funds arose.

For those big events originally written in the plan, the brands were unable to carry out any of them, or wanted to replace them with half-hearted executions, either because the boss said the cost of the event was too high, or because they couldn’t reach an agreement on the rights of the celebrities and artists... Well, let’s just consider it a lesson learned, and anyway, we will never take on such cases again.

Back to the second situation of the above question, if the PK plan is made based on the brand's original market investment, and then the waiter receives feedback that there are no highlights or major events, then this is actually an adjustment of the resources or creativity in the plan itself. In this case, the brand can continue to follow up on the plan PK.

So what exactly is the highlight event that the waiter mentioned?

Of course, there is no way to make a specific standard, but I can share some experience based on some projects I have managed and existing cases in the industry, which can serve as a reference for brands and creative companies when preparing these e-commerce activity plans. The following dimensions do not all need to be included in the plan. Sometimes, only one of them is enough to win the favor of the waiter.

1. Does your plan have a clear strategic goal to achieve through this wave of activities?

This question, translated from the waiter's perspective, means: We can give many brands the opportunity to participate in the Super Brand Day. What is the greatest significance for your company?

And this significance is also what these waiters value most without considering the specific creativity of the plan.

As they carry out one activity after another, they pay more and more attention to the "quality" rather than the "quantity" of the activities. Strategic goals are a very important factor in their consideration of the "quality" of activities. So what strategic goals does the brand prefer to PK these activities?

It usually includes two categories: one is the entire brand development level, and the other is the store operation level.

The goals at the brand development level, for example, are the transformation of the brand's target audience strategy: Canada Goose initially positioned itself as a cold-proof down jacket for extreme weather conditions, and its consumer scenarios were also related to outdoor cold. However, in China, a major motivation for consumers to buy it is not only because it is cold-proof, but more because it is a popular winter luxury fashion outfit in recent years.

In other words, if Canada Goose holds activities on Tmall, it can be said to be deepening the brand's transformation into light luxury in China.

The goal at the store operation level, for example, is to see through the data bank that the angle from I to P in the store's AIPL inverted triangle model is too sharp, which means that the store has not done a good job of converting people entering the store into buyers. In this case, we can set the activity goal as "driving store sales conversion." For example, if a store has just opened, it is obvious that the goal of the activity in this case is to "increase fans and attract new customers."

With clear strategic goals for the event, we can then use Alibaba’s global ecosystem empowerment and overall communication creativity to be more targeted.

2. Does your proposal include at least one creative material that people can remember at first sight?

Most of the time when we talk about creativity, we are actually talking about the whole process from the biggest creative concept (concept or big idea) to creative materials (creative materials) and then to amplification.

This means that when we look through a proposal that is dozens of pages long, we cannot find a creative material that people can remember at first glance.

For example: A brand that always talks in general terms can launch a Douyin challenge and then find a group of KOLs to spread it. But the core of this Douyin challenge is the interactive mechanism, which has the opportunity to develop into a creative material that people can remember at first sight. The core interactive gameplay of your Tik Tok challenge is to develop a filter similar to the one some time ago where users can watch their appearance getting older year by year? Or is there really a challenge called kicking the bottle cap? Or polish a finger dance that looks cute like a young lady?

These are the points that the waiters are interested in. They will even write in the investment proposal: the proposal creativity does not need to be comprehensive, it only needs to be polished and refined to have a marketing highlight.

This is probably their inner thoughts after seeing too many general proposals submitted by brands.

3. Does your plan include at least one scarce communication resource on an e-commerce platform?

What is the most lacking in e-commerce platforms now? Traffic! Currently, the biggest sources of traffic that can feed back to e-commerce are offline and celebrities.

Everyone is familiar with offline communication resources, such as subways, outdoor areas, elevators, stores, etc., but to say they are scarce is not that simple.

Generally speaking, scarce offline communication resources can be divided into two categories: one in terms of "quantity" and the other in terms of "quality".

Examples of winning by quantity include international fast food chains, which have hundreds or thousands of stores across the country. If they can promise to let these stores cooperate in material promotion during the event, or go a step further and have some new retail methods: interactive bar sample distribution, smart stores, etc., for the waiter, this level of resources is irresistible.

Examples of winning by quality include international events such as the World Cup and F1. Being able to have a joint logo of a brand and a Tmall event in these events is definitely a scarce resource. Another example is overseas communication resources. Projecting a screen in Times Square is not considered a big scarcity, so the first commercial event of the Dead Sea was born, with Tmall participating.

Next, it is easy to understand that if celebrities want to become scarce communication resources, they must either be big enough to achieve breadth, or be strongly integrated with brand activities to achieve depth.

4. Does your plan include at least one scarce resource?

As mentioned earlier, the most important thing about e-commerce marketing thinking is to create a closed marketing loop, and products are a good link that can connect an activity from volume to sales.

Therefore, whether there is a sufficiently scarce product not only affects whether the event can compete with other events, but also affects the final sales of the event. There are many cases where the initial communication was very good and brought a lot of traffic to the store, but the final sales performance was mediocre. The reason is that there were no scarce product resources to take over, and consumers walked away.

As for how to create scarce goods, there are actually many means. For example, when launching new products, you can see various new products from Tmall Little Black Box marketing IP activities; for example, various classic out-of-stock models and celebrity models; for example, brand cross-border gift boxes, IP joint gift boxes, creative gift boxes, etc.

Summarize

Okay, after writing several thousand words, I finally finished it.

Finally, to summarize, this article provides two perspectives to examine an e-commerce marketing IP activity PK plan. They are: the e-commerce marketing perspective and the platform clerk perspective. The former can help your plan upgrade from communication thinking to e-commerce marketing thinking; the latter can help you provide highlights and major events from the perspective of the waiter as bargaining chips in this PK.

Author: Advertising Circle

Source: Advertising Circle