How to choose high-quality advertising channels?

Today we come in and talk about the logic of brand advertising .

1. Brief analysis of the user purchase decision process

1. User decision-making process

We usually divide the user purchase decision process into the following five steps:

Graphic analysis:

Pre-purchase: Users are stimulated to consume, collect relevant consumption information , and evaluate to determine consumption goals

Purchase: Users consume the target product at a price they consider reasonable based on the information they process before purchase.

Post-purchase: After purchasing the product, the user makes a self-summary of the product's satisfaction and cost-effectiveness.

2. Analysis of business operation behavior

Based on the above theory, brands organize corresponding operations in a planned manner to attract users to consume:

Business Operation Measures:

Pre-purchase: Influencing the user’s pre-purchase information processing process through advertising and word-of-mouth communication

Purchase: Accelerate the user's purchase decision-making speed on site through on-site promotions and other means

Post-purchase: Improve consumer satisfaction through efficient after-sales and timely customer service

From the above analysis, it can be seen that what really determines the user's purchasing decision is the pre-purchase information processing process. Because of their nature of reducing consumption risks, users find it difficult to accept products that are completely unknown to them.

Therefore, for consumer brands, especially new brands, advertising is a key node that influences user purchasing decisions.

2. Factors that influence users’ pre-purchase decisions

1. User information source

During the entire pre-purchase decision-making process, after the user's needs are stimulated, he needs to complete information processing by collecting information and evaluating plans, and finally determine the consumption goals.

Among them, the information collection stage becomes the core stage of the pre-purchase decision-making process due to the different information sources.

Main sources of information for users:

Personal source: information transmission between users’ social relationships such as family , friends, neighbors, colleagues, etc.

Commercial sources: refers to advertising, packaging display, commercial promotion, etc. by parties involved in brand operation

Public sources: third-party social information sources such as mass media, professional consumer reviews, etc.

Source of experience: user’s own product usage experience related to needs, cost-effectiveness measurement, etc.

2. Changes in user information sources

It is worth noting that the proportions of these user information sources are not consistent. With the development of commercial civilization, especially the emergence of traditional media such as newspapers, radio, and television, the proportion of commercial sources has become increasingly higher, and eventually dominated the sources of user information collection.

For example, when we are faced with dozens of brands of shampoo, will we choose the one we have seen advertised, or a brand we have never heard of? Even if we choose a commonly used shampoo, when we use it for the first time, is it because we have seen the advertisement?

3. Advertising Model in the Traditional Media Era

1. Analysis of advertising model

It is undeniable that the emergence of newspapers, radio and television has greatly enriched our spiritual life. For the first time, humans were able to quickly learn about things happening thousands of miles away through public media.

The high operating threshold of traditional media has led to the monopoly of advertising channels in this era. Whether consumers or brands, they are helpless in the face of the media.

analyze:

• Consumers: If we want to get free spiritual entertainment, we must accept a large number of advertisements in traditional media
• Brands: The media deliberately creates differences in advertising effects at different times and on different pages, forcing brands to increase their investment

In order to achieve maximum user coverage within the same broadcast time, brands have unanimously chosen to place high-density advertisements during prime time. Just think of what happened to the Melatonin brand back then.

2. Sequelae

The aftereffects of traditional media’s advertising strategies are very obvious:

Sequelae analysis:

• User fatigue: More and more ads cause users to be annoyed when watching, but they have no choice
• Brand burden: Prime time broadcasting time is always limited, prices are gradually increasing, and brands are overwhelmed
• Operating costs: In order to maintain high ratings and gain competitive advantages, media operating costs continue to increase

This prisoner's dilemma appears again and again in various media forms, and even today's video sites are no exception.

Examples:

• Tencent Video spent over 800 million yuan to exclusively broadcast Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace
• Users are bombarded with ads as they try to get a glimpse of the action. As for the brands, this type of exclusive broadcast is sometimes a gamble.

The core reason for the emergence of these problems is that the user information collection structure has been seriously shifted , with commercial sources accounting for too high a proportion.

4. The impact of the Internet on pre-purchase decision-making factors

1. What has the Internet changed?

The emergence of the Internet provides an opportunity for users to change the structure of information sources, because the influence of individual users has increased unprecedentedly:

The impact of the Internet;

• Speed ​​of transmission: Through the Internet, we can transmit and search for information faster, and the time difference of information is shortened.
• Broadcasting: The Internet can quickly deliver individual voices to millions of people, as long as it is attractive enough.
• Content retention : Our content on the Internet can be preserved for a long time and can be retrieved and browsed by others

To put it simply: when I push an article, hundreds of people will see it immediately, and as long as I don’t actively delete it, the article will continue to be saved and searched and read.

This is the change that the Internet has brought to information sources. It has expanded personal sources, public sources, and accumulated user experience sources, while the proportion of commercial sources in user information collection has been compressed.

2. Changes in advertising

The production of a large amount of individual information, especially the rise of self-media , has broken the monopoly of traditional media.

This brings two changes to user decision-making:

analyze:

• User-generated search: Users use the Internet to search on their own , breaking the traditional media era of passively receiving information.
• Distrust of brands: Brands continue to use rough advertising to make users feel distrustful, and non-commercial sources are rapidly emerging

Simply put, in the era of traditional media, advertising is based on what the brand says, and users can only believe what they believe, with no way to verify it with the channel . In the Internet age, users will actively seek answers, forcing brands to involve non-commercial sources and control negative reviews.

Therefore, advertising in the Internet era needs to consider the proportion and strength of user active search channels (such as search engines ) and brand active display channels (such as Weibo and WeChat KOLs ) at different stages .

5. My understanding of advertising channels

1. Changes in user behavior

It is the advent of the Internet that has changed the behavior of users in the pre-purchase stage, thus driving changes in brands:

analyze:

• Traditional media era: users passively receive brand advertisements, forming brand memory and conditioned reflexes when purchasing
• Internet era: After users accept brand advertisements, they will actively search for information to make purchases

This change is especially evident when new brands enter the market.

Advertising like that of Melatonin will certainly make users form a certain brand impression, but when users actively search, if the screen is full of negative reviews or there is no brand information at all, it will still not increase sales.

We must break away from the crude traditional advertising model and use softer methods to reduce users' psychological resistance and increase the probability of the brand being remembered. OPPO’s approach to variety shows is worth learning.

2. Changes that brands should make

Based on the changes in users' pre-purchase behavior, brands, especially new brands, should follow this trend and make timely adjustments.

analyze:

• Media channel evaluation: evaluate the brand's placement and actual effect in conventional media channels
• Active search priority: Prioritize delivery in media scenarios where target users actively search
• Traffic landing is second: Taobao , JD.com and other channels are preferred as the landing points for product promotion traffic
• Brand display again: Brands actively place targeted advertisements based on the channels that target users follow

suggestion:

• Prioritize optimization of user-initiated media search scenarios such as SEA (such as Baidu) and consumer communities (such as Xiaohongshu )
• Enter the e-commerce industry to open a brand flagship store, with Tmall being the first choice followed by JD.com. Taobao is the main receiving point for e-commerce outflow traffic
• After completing active search optimization and traffic landing points, you can test regular channels such as Weibo, Weibo, and Douyin .

The above order must not be reversed.

There are many brands with lots of money and stupidity, who start by investing in Weibo and Weibo celebrities and Xiaohongshu stars, spending a lot but with little effect. There are two reasons for this: users cannot search for information and traffic has no landing point.

This kind of mistake is really stupid. I hope brand owners can be humble and do the basic work step by step before considering media investment. This is the right way to build a brand.

Source: Lazy Yangyang Talks Marketing