Internet Promotion: How to Master Internet Traffic in 3 Steps?

Traffic is a very critical issue for Internet companies starting up. The effective use of traffic can largely determine the success or failure of a startup.

What exactly is traffic?

How can we use traffic efficiently?

How to obtain traffic at a lower cost?

These are some of the issues that every Internet company's operations staff cannot avoid. First, let's break down each link of traffic:

The operation of Internet companies is inseparable from traffic. Next, we will discuss in detail how to operate the Internet industry from the perspective of traffic. What exactly is traffic? How can we use traffic efficiently? How to obtain traffic at a lower cost?

01. Have a deeper understanding of traffic

▎ Traffic Sources

The traffic we can obtain from the Internet is mainly divided into three parts:

• Enterprise-owned traffic: websites, apps, mini-programs, public accounts, Zhihu, etc.

• Media content: major media platforms, self-media platforms, etc.

• Advertising procurement: search engine bidding ranking, Weibo Fantong, Guangdiantong, etc.

▎ The Dilemma of Traffic

It is relatively difficult to obtain traffic now. First of all, the Internet is already relatively popular, and the growth rate of users is very slow, but the number of players is constantly increasing, which will lead to two problems:

• Expensive traffic: Traffic costs of large Internet platforms are rising sharply.

• Traffic sources are more complex: Real, authentic traffic and company-related vertical traffic are harder to find.

▎ Solution flow

The best way to obtain traffic is: [Integration of brand and effect]

That is, a marketing method that combines brand advertising and performance advertising.

• Brand advertising: All the advertisements we see on CCTV are basically brand advertising, which are mainly used for corporate publicity and have little correlation with sales and performance.

• Performance advertising: As the name suggests, it is oriented towards achieving a certain effect, such as SEO, SEM, etc.

Performance advertising only serves short-term goals, while brand advertising serves the long-term value of the company. In the Internet industry, only the combination of brand and effect is the optimal solution for Internet operations.

▎ Build a traffic moat

Brand is the only moat for an enterprise

Brands can solve two major problems in the Internet dilemma:

• Solve the cognitive problem: Consumers should be able to remember your brand and it should be distinctive enough to distinguish it from other brands.

• Solve the trust problem: No matter what form of endorsement, it seems very pale in the current Internet environment. Who is not a master? Only thorough identification with the brand can promote further conversion of users.

02. Build a brand first

From an operational perspective, building an Internet brand mainly consists of two steps. The first is to clearly define the Internet brand positioning, and the second is how to operate the brand in a way that combines brand and effect.

▎ Internet Brand Positioning

Positioning first depends on the selling points of the products we need to provide? The second is to see what the user’s consumption pain points are?

• Opposing positioning: This positioning method is not the traditional positioning based on user selling points, but a positioning method based on a strong competition orientation, the purpose of which is to establish significant differentiation with competitors .

Take Shenzhou Taxi as an example. When Shenzhou Taxi appeared, China's taxi market was already a red ocean, and the subsidy war between Didi and Kuaiche was in full swing. According to past experience, it was not suitable to enter this market again at this time, but Shenzhou Taxi adopted a completely differentiated approach. Are you going to focus on the low-price strategy? Then let’s focus on security strategies. You target low-end users, and we will target high-end, business users. Facts have also proved that Shenzhou Taxi has indeed carved out a niche in the high-end user market and found its own market space under the pressure of Didi and Kuaiche.

• USP (Unique Selling Proposition) positioning: strongly highlight a certain selling point of the product that other products do not have, only we have it .

• Upgrading positioning: Upgrading does not mean creating a completely new demand, but transferring the old demand to the new product . It can also be said to be creating a new blue ocean market.

In essence, Internet startups such as group buying, online food delivery, and online taxi-hailing are actually positioned as upgrading dimensions. These services do not recreate people's needs, but simply meet people's needs with better products.

▎ Operational strategy combining brand and effect

• Sort out enough marketing scenarios: find out the specific consumption scenarios for the products we operate.

• Sort out all contact points with users: Whether it is new media or traditional media, online or offline, we must sort out every contact point with users. What exactly do we want to convey to users?

• Products empower brands: Whether it is product design or operational posters, we must convey the tone of our brand to our users. When serving young people, we need to be lively and fun; when serving business people, we need to be elegant and low-key.

• Communication design: Make users feel like they want to pay attention, in line with AIDMA principles. The information is concise and clear, and the contact information and QR code are prominently displayed.

▲AIDMA model

03. How to implement fission marketing efficiently?

Stock with incremental, high frequency with high frequency

The first step is to attract new users through advertising and quickly expand the user base through subsidies. But the problem is obvious: the cost of acquiring customers through advertising is too high, which leads to a low-cost way of acquiring courses: the fission of old users, reducing the cost of acquiring customers, and driving incremental growth through existing users.

Let’s not talk about the part of attracting new customers through advertising for now. Let’s first talk about how to achieve exponential growth through old customers, which is the currently very popular fission marketing. Fission marketing can be broken down into three steps:

▎ Deployment of fission marketing

• Platform deployment

There are two requirements to be met: sufficient traffic + social attributes .

The platform deployment has been described above, and the most important ones are WeChat and Weibo.

• Creative deployment

Grab the user's attention in a short time. The key points presented to users must be visible to them at a glance. For example, if you are advertising a low price, you must put the price in the most obvious position. If you are advertising an instructor, don’t worry about anything else. The first thing users will see is who the instructor is. Remember, don’t try to grab everything. You want a great lecturer, good course content, and a favorable price. The consequence of trying to grab everything is that you will get nothing!

The page logic must be very clear. After grabbing the user's attention for the first time, the content must also be very clear when the user browses other content, and presented in the most understandable and concise way for the user. Don't put a lot of text that will make users not want to read on after just one glance.

• Welfare deployment

Quality benefits. What do users really need? No matter what the nature of this benefit is, it must make users want it at first sight and want to participate in this activity.

Compound interest model. A reasonable compound interest model should be set based on your ultimate operating objectives. What if I invite friends to register to get benefits? Participate in buying benefits? Determine the ultimate purpose of the service and set it.

One thing worth noting here is that the compound interest of the WeChat public platform is at most two levels. If you do marketing in the previous marketing class of Xin Shixiang on WeChat now, it is very likely to be closed down.

• Technology deployment

Try to simplify the user's sharing path as much as possible. Combine the attributes of each platform to provide the most convenient sharing method. Sharing itself is a very casual thing, and users will easily give up if the behavior is too complicated.

Every process must be sorted out in advance. How to attract users from pictures? How do incentives encourage users to share? How smoothly can users obtain rewards? How to promote users to forward?

Data statistics. What is the data at each stage? How many people saw the event? How many people participated in the forwarding? How many people participated in the purchase? Sort out the data at each layer of the funnel. And make adjustments at any time based on the data during the activity, and never stick to one path.

▎ Acquisition of seed users

The quality of seed users is always more important than their quantity.

There can be many sources of seed users. During the cold start phase, we can look for vertical users in relevant forums and groups to apply our products. If it has been operating for a period of time, seed users can continue to increase the number of our existing fans.

▎ Fission Bait Release

Why should users help you to do fission?

What can users get after sharing? cash? Coupons? Information package?

Does the user get what the target group needs?

Don't be too self-indulgent. For example, cash red envelopes are indeed very motivating for users, but if you are in a scenario where everyone is in a hurry to take the exam, do they really have time to earn this cash red envelope? Think more from the user's perspective and ask yourself more whys? If I were in the user’s environment, would I really share?

▎ Share interesting plans

• Allow users to earn social currency

Get more topics to talk about when you talk to others. This is very simple. It is the essential attribute of new media to follow hot topics, such as Yu Minhong’s remarks a few days ago, Li Dan’s suspected cheating, etc.

• Allow users to create a personal image

The logic behind many popular H5s is the same. For example, NetEase’s “Sleeping Position Competition” and “Which Character in Ode to Joy Is Like You” are all designed to help users shape their personal image.

• Create an emotional resonance for users.

For example, activities that bring back memories of the post-90s generation, Mid-Autumn Festival and family-related activities, etc.

• Imaginative ideas that surprise users.

For example, the collaboration between the Palace Museum and Tencent mixes Zhu Yuanzhang with current technology. Users will find it novel and will be happy to forward it.

About the understanding of Internet traffic.

Let’s talk about this for today.

Source: Happy Fat-Water