How to do a good job of promotion and traffic generation? Here are 3 tips for you!

In the new consumption era, pure traffic diversion has gradually become ineffective.

Although we have also done many drainage plans, such as: underwear, milk tea, beauty salons, insurance consultants... we have done some drainage plans, and the results are very good. But gradually, I discovered that purely attracting customers and traffic is ineffective in the long run, and may even backfire on your business.

The most urgent thing for many entrepreneurs, businessmen, and bosses is how to attract traffic. In fact, there is no special routine for attracting traffic. The means of attracting traffic for most businesses can be summarized into the following three means:

1. Low-price product traffic generation model

This model is very common. Hotpot restaurants and Chinese restaurants can launch a low-priced dish as a traffic attractor. For example: hot pot restaurants can organize activities to attract new customers. Customers who register as members for the first time can receive a plate of marbled beef for free. Chinese restaurants are similar. New customers who come to the store can get their special salted chicken for only 1 yuan!

Many stores even use this as a means of daily operation. For example, the restaurant case shared earlier - Zhou Mapo, directly sells its signature dish "Mapo Tofu" for 2 yuan.

This is the model of attracting customers with low-priced products. Special dishes are directly sold at low prices as long-term traffic-generating products, making everyone feel that the dishes of [Zhou Mapo] are very cheap.

Sell ​​a certain product in the store for free/at a low price to attract customers to the store, and then make money through other profitable products. This is the low-price traffic model.

1. Low-price package lock-in model

This is an upgraded version of the [low-price product traffic generation model]. Because low-price traffic generation products are still not attractive enough and cannot lock in customers for a long time, the [low-price package customer lock-in model] was created.

How to operate it?

It means selling a product at a price lower than expected, and not just selling it once, but packaging it into multiple purchases and selling it to you.

The purchase of 101 bottles of beer for RMB 20.18 was based on this model. Buying 101 bottles of beer at such a low price of 20.18 yuan is just to lock you in, because you cannot finish 101 bottles of beer at one time (some people here will say that it is not difficult to drink 101 bottles of beer at one time, and I won’t refute it here).

Well, if you can’t finish the beer in one go and you can’t take it away, you can only come back next time to drink it. This way you have locked up the opportunity for consumers to come to your store 3 or 4 times to consume.

Of course, you can also have different products. For example, a Chinese restaurant can also do: buy 108 yuan dishes for 20.19 yuan. The 108 yuan dishes are a collection of five dishes. Each time you visit the store, you can only consume one dish, which locks in your five visits to the store.

1. Super gift traffic generation model

Super gifts are generally used in the recharge stage. For example: if you deposit 300 yuan, you will get a bottle of red wine worth 300 yuan, a facial mask worth 300 yuan, and a cross-industry alliance gift package worth 300 yuan. In other words, as long as you deposit 300 yuan, you can get a gift package worth 900 yuan (or even higher), and the remaining 300 yuan can still be used for consumption.

The above three traffic-generating models can be said to be applicable to various industries. Most of the traffic-generating models you see on the Internet can be attributed to the above three.

It’s nothing more than different industries, different products/packages/gifts for low-priced traffic generation, or different levels of discounts.

But most of the great cases that trigger customer flow are a combination of the three. Here is a case that triggers customer flow:

A high-end beauty salon, whose business is not very good, plans a plan to attract customers. It lets them hold an event where if you recharge 980 yuan, you will get a high-end red wine worth 1,100 yuan, and also a high-end facial mask worth 1,200 yuan. A total of 100 masks!

The mask cannot be taken away, but you can still use it for consumption for 980 yuan!

If you saw this event, would you participate?

Let me make it clear to everyone, the cost of the red wine is 198 yuan and the facial mask is 58 yuan. You can take the red wine away, but if you want to use a facial mask you have to come to the store. Usually women go shopping in groups of several people. If one person applies for a card, most of his friends will also apply for one! Then you can give old customers a 100 yuan cashback, so that more people can help you attract customers!

This solves the problem of drainage to fission! Are you saying you will lose money? With a cost of more than 200 yuan, you can attract customers to your store 100 times. If she doesn’t come, you will still make money!

This case combines three traffic-generating models: traffic-generating products (gift packages for low-value deposits) + long-term customer locks (100 facial masks) + super gifts (red wine). It can be said that this is a very good traffic-generating model.

Here I would like to emphasize again that the above traffic-generating model is very good, and it will definitely be effective after the activity is launched. But you will find that this drainage model may become less and less effective.

What is the reason?

(1) Most of the customers who are attracted by low prices are here to take advantage. It is very difficult to get them to upgrade to higher-priced packages through subsequent sales promotion.

I discussed such a case in my paid group (see the picture below):

My analysis is as follows:

Let's take a look at the picture above first, and then I'll add some data here:

1. After recharging 365 yuan to become a member, you can buy noodles with an original price of 10 yuan for only 2 yuan. The cost of noodles is 3 yuan, and they are sold at 2 yuan. If you don't sell a bowl, you lose 1 yuan.
2. According to her, after becoming a member, the person who ate the most in a year only ate for 140 days.

I can only say that this is a miraculous case. If I were the boss, I would just close the business and run away.

What’s wrong with the logical chain of this case?

This model is that the merchant gets the money earned from a person in advance. How much is it? That is 365 yuan, because you spend 2 yuan more on noodles every day, so you can only maintain the cost (according to the case, you lose one yuan for every bowl sold).

So, have merchants ever thought that the 2 yuan you sell is just the cost of the product, how will you pay for your rent and employee salaries?

And when you have more and more members, because you don’t make any money from the product, the more members you have, the more labor costs you will need.

Assuming there are 2,000 members, who come to consume once every three days on average, 2,000/3=666, which means that the number of members who come to the store every day is 666 people. Divided into two periods, morning and evening, the average is 333 people. The peak meal time is only two hours, 333/120=2.75, which means that 2.75 bowls need to be made in one minute. How much labor cost is needed to achieve this?

What if the number of members reaches 4,000? How much will the labor cost be?

Then, I would like to ask, if everyone finds out in the end that it is actually impossible for me to consume every time after I become a member, which means it is not cost-effective, how can I renew it for the second year?

Then the group members said that noodles can be used as a traffic-generating product, and profits can be made through other products. I won’t talk about noodles as a staple food here. After you finish a bowl of noodles, what else can you fill your stomach with? Let’s take a look at the comments of a group member:

Those who recharge their cards to get a small bargain will basically not pay more than two dollars.

My own store used to do a 9-yuan ramen promotion, and it basically ended up losing money. We found that customers who came in for this promotion would only eat ramen, even if they had to wait in line for an hour.

Therefore, the beauty salon's traffic generation case mentioned above also faces the same problem, that is, the consumers you attract through low-price traffic generation are greedy for small profits. If you want her to spend more money on consumption, it may not be that easy.

Maybe you say, even if this is the case, I won’t lose money, but if you only rely on not losing money to comfort yourself, you will find that such low-quality customers cannot afford your staff expenses and rent expenses...

(2) All routines are easy to copy. If you can adopt this low-cost traffic-generating model, won’t your competitors be able to do the same? Can't they learn it?

If your competitors also adopt the same traffic generation model, how will you respond? Use lower prices and greater discounts to attract traffic? In this case, it is purely a price war.

(3) Consumers are no longer so easy to fool

Recharge 980 yuan and receive a high-end red wine worth 1,100 yuan and a high-end facial mask worth 1,200 yuan. A total of 100 masks!

Such a recharge strategy might have been very tempting ten years ago, or even five years ago. After all, at that time consumers had not yet been brainwashed by the merchants’ tricks, and they might have paid for the card on impulse, and felt that they were getting a great deal. But today's consumers are not so stupid anymore. They have been ripped off time and again.

You say that the red wine is worth 1,100 yuan, but people can find out on their mobile phones that a bottle of red wine only costs 10 yuan, not to mention the "three-no" facial masks that have been ruined by WeChat business.

(4) When you hold a similar event every month, consumers begin to become numb to it, the appeal decreases, and the effectiveness of the event becomes increasingly poor.

At the same time, it also hurts those old customers who actually have the ability to pay.

So, does this mean that these methods of attracting and retaining customers should not be used?

Of course not. As I said above, these methods of attracting customers are not the problem in themselves. The problem lies in how to truly keep customers after attracting them. The so-called real retention does not mean locking them in with a low-priced package model, but making them voluntarily pay to stay by providing the value you provide.

In fact, the above are all preparations, and the real content is just beginning now.

Many bosses have misunderstandings about marketing. They always want to use a certain marketing method to turn their stores around and make them profitable and revive.

Is this possibility possible? Of course it is possible. But this possibility can only happen if there are no problems with your products, your services, and your consumer experience.

The starting point of business must be the benefit of consumers.

This kind of benefit does not mean that you can just use a low price. If that were the case, millions of companies would not need to establish their own brands. Consumers would just use the lowest price, wouldn't that be enough? Pinduoduo was supposed to defeat Taobao and become the industry leader.

Ask yourself the following: How are your products, services, and experiences? Don’t you have any idea about it? Most bosses will emphasize that my products are very good, but business is not good, it must be a problem of traffic.

But once you arrive at the store and experience it yourself, you will understand that what they say about their products being good is just wishful thinking, and they may not even be as good as their competitors. Some bosses don’t even have basic business thinking and don’t even understand how to make money, yet they open a business.

In this situation, instead of making their own products well and improving their service system, they simply attribute the reasons to problems with their own marketing and believe that their own publicity is not adequate. But if you tell him that you want to build the value of your product and optimize your consumer experience, he will easily say, "Okay, I'll start right away." Then, what marketing methods will be used to attract traffic and expand publicity?

I don't know what to say.

Kotler, the father of marketing, mentioned the 4Ps of marketing in his book Marketing Management: product, price, channel, and promotion. The first P is the product. If the product is not good or is average, there is no need to talk about marketing. Because, even if you attract traffic, how can you keep them?

Therefore, traffic generation is always the last thing and the most superficial thing. Only when the brand positioning, product value, service differentiation and consumer experience are perfect, can we plan how to generate traffic.

So, as a marketer, is there nothing we can do in terms of products? Of course not. Creating product value is also one of the tasks of marketers.

There are three types of product creation here:

A. The product itself is not good enough

There is nothing much to say in this situation. If the product is not good, just go back to the drawing board. Marketers can start with market demand and product design to create a product that meets market demand and has the power to spread.

The so-called marketing does not mean to promote the product after it comes out, but to have the marketing communication gene in the product when designing it. When you start designing a product, you need to understand what the product is positioned for, how the packaging is presented visually, which consumer groups it targets, and which consumer pain points it solves...

In this case, subsequent marketing promotion will be much easier. Therefore, the projects that marketers can get involved in from the very beginning are actually the best.

B. The product itself has advantages, but they are not reflected

Let me explain this with a case.

I have a client who makes air coolers, and their brand is called Dr. Liang Air Coolers. Their air coolers are mainly sold in the rural market and have a certain degree of popularity.

When he found me, the problem he faced was that this industry was very chaotic. In the past few years, because he entered the industry early and his product quality was good, he gained some fame. However, due to fierce market competition, many manufacturers began to enter this market. These manufacturers adopted low-price approach and disrupted the industry. But he doesn't want to engage in a price war, but still wants to build his own brand.

I asked him, your air cooler is more expensive than other companies, so what is your advantage?

He said that from the outside, there is actually no differentiation and no obvious advantages. If there is an advantage, one is that they entered the industry early and accumulated some reputation, the second is that the core of their air coolers is better, the air volume is larger, and the cooling is faster.

So, based on the information he provided, I re-positioned his brand. Their original brand slogan was: For coolness and comfort, use Dr. Liang.

I optimized the brand slogan and changed it to: Large air volume, fast cooling! For air coolers, choose Dr. Liang.

In addition to optimizing the slogan, we also need to go back to the consumer's purchase scene, that is, how to convey the value of the product to consumers.

Although you said that a large air volume will lead to a quick cooling, such a slogan is still unconvincing because you did not give a reason.

Why does the temperature drop quickly when the air volume is large? That’s because Dr. Liang’s refrigeration core is better than that of other manufacturers, which is why it is sold at a higher price. So, how do you make consumers understand that Dr. Liang’s products are of better quality?

Back to the consumer's purchase scene, I gave him the following strategy:

As shown in the picture, in every retail store, there is a promotional board on top of Dr. Liang’s best-selling air cooler, and the copy highlights Dr. Liang’s advantages (if there is no price advantage, we must highlight our core quality advantage).

The copy is: Look at the core first! Whether the air cooler is good or not depends on the quality of its inner core. Dr. Liang uses XXXX inner core! Large air volume and fast cooling!

Why should we write one to see the inner core first? Because this is an action instruction that clearly asks consumers to do something.

The usual way of writing copy is like this: first introduce the product attributes, then introduce the benefits of the product attributes to consumers, and finally consumers choose to buy it after understanding the benefits.

But when you give the action instruction first, it is actually the opposite. When you write "look at the inner core first", after seeing it, the consumer will go to check the inner core of the air cooler first, but he certainly does not understand the inner core. At this time, the following introduction or the shopping guide will say: Our product has a large air volume and a fast cooling speed because the refrigeration core is better.

At this point, you have transmitted the value of your product to consumers.

Of course, you can also directly say that our air cooler core is good, but without the action instruction of "look at the core first", consumers' cognition will not be so profound.

C. The product itself is good, but there is no significant difference from competitors

In this case, marketers need to demonstrate value. It is very important to create a sense of value for homogeneous products or products without obvious differentiation.

I have already mentioned this point in my previous article, so I will quote it directly: Suppose you are in the catering business and your main product is sauerkraut fish. How do you shape the value of your product?

Since it is sauerkraut fish, we can start with the sauerkraut and fish. For example: You can say that the sauerkraut in our family is made from ten-year-old fermented sauerkraut, just like what Tai Er Pickled Cabbage Fish said, “Sauerkraut tastes better than fish.”

From the perspective of fish, you can create a sense of value from the following aspects:

1) Emphasize the type of fish. For example, other people’s pickled fish is grass carp, while ours is sea bass; other people’s is sea bass, while ours is sturgeon, which creates differentiation.

2) Break down the structure of the fish, for example, what are the different parts of the fish and what nutritional value it has, so that customers can increase their sense of value while also gaining a sense of pretentiousness from gaining new knowledge.

3) Emphasize the freshness of the fish. For example, when customers arrive at the store, they can directly select and weigh the fish, and then the fish will be slaughtered and cooked on the spot. This will eliminate the psychological barrier that the fish is not fresh. This is the case in most food stalls.

4) Start with the fish soup. For example, after the waiter brings the fish to the table, tell the user that our fish soup is made from beef bones, which is combined with the freshness of the fish, which is wonderful.

Then, let the waiter personally serve a bowl of fish soup to each customer so that the customer can taste the flavor of the fish soup first. Of course, you can also say that the water we use to make fish soup is airlifted from Changbai Mountain, or it is water from Nongfu Spring.

In short, we need to emphasize that our products are unique and different from others, and can make users perceive the value.

5) Start with the use of oil. For example, Lu Dingji’s main slogan is: We only use oil once!

In addition to the above, you can also start with the pot that holds the fish. For example, the pot that the boss falls in love with fish is a round tray. When the fish is put on, it is still sizzling and steaming.

You can also start from the pain points. For example, many people don’t like to eat fish because they are worried about fish bones getting stuck in their throats. You can just say: The fish in my house doesn’t have a single bone! Find one and the whole table gets a free meal.

For example: You can start with the bones of fish. For example, the bone marrow of my fish can be sucked out and eaten (this is my imagination, I don’t even know whether fish have bone marrow or not, I’m just giving an example).

In short, in the new consumption era, you should not think that marketing is just about promotion and traffic generation. At the same time, you also need to have a good product. But if you just have a good product, that is not enough, you must also have the ability to shape the value of the product.

The one with the strongest ability in shaping product value should be Diaoye, and his most classic example is "Diaoye Beef Brisket". There is no problem with Diaoye Beef Brisket in marketing, and it is also a classic in shaping product value, but it fails in product taste and price.

Therefore, you must understand that a good product does not mean a strong perceived product value, and a strong perceived product value does not mean that the product is necessarily good.

The market environment has changed, and consumers’ mindsets have also changed. Pure traffic diversion cannot bring long-term value. The longevity of a brand must be based on the integration of brand positioning, product value, service differentiation, and consumer experience, providing real value to consumers. Only in this way can the effectiveness of traffic generation be maximized.

Source: Marketing Learning Society