New marketing methods of Tmall, JD.com and other companies on Double Eleven!

The annual Double 11 promotion has arrived as scheduled. Compared with previous years, the pre-sale period of Double 11 this year has been extended. Starting from October 20, this protracted battle for merchants and consumers across the country has begun.

Although Double 11 has become a regular e-commerce festival every year, in order to stimulate merchants' enthusiasm for participation and consumers' purchasing enthusiasm, major e-commerce and content platforms are also innovating and formulating more novel Double 11 marketing strategies. How are the platforms playing during this year’s Double 11?

E-commerce platform

Tmall - New channel expansion, self-broadcasting marketing becomes the focus

Consumer side: new features and new scenarios

As an old player in Double 11, Tmall launched a lot of new functional gameplay inside and outside the site this year, among which the three most obvious ones are:

① Revised interactive mini-games: Before the Double 11 promotion every year, Tmall will launch interactive mini-games on its homepage and distribute red envelope subsidies to motivate consumers, such as the Building Challenge in 2019 and the Super Star Cat in 2020. However, its cumbersome process will also be complained by some users. This year, according to Tmall product manager Yunmiao, single-person upgrades will be cancelled to reduce the burden on users. "Fun, easy to play, and profitable" are the salient features of interactive games. It is reported that the interactive game will be launched at midnight on October 21.

② Launch of the Double 11 product promotion machine: A new feature called “product promotion machine” has been launched on the browsing interface of the Taobao mobile homepage. Consumers can click “product promotion” to see a large amount of content and quickly add products to the shopping cart. At present, many celebrities and influencers have shared their stocking lists and similar products on the grass-growing machine for consumers to refer to. This function is also a new attempt by the Taobao platform in the form of grass-planting.

Image source: Taobao

③ Share the shopping cart to WeChat with one click: According to public information, the Taobao platform is currently testing a new function called “shopping cart sharing”, which is expected to be officially launched on October 27. After this function is launched, users can share their shopping cart items to WeChat friends and Moments with one click. Previously, Taobao Special Platform also announced that it would launch WeChat Pay and fully open it on Double 11. The cooperative relationship between Alibaba and Tencent is constantly progressing, and the opening of channels between the two sides has also brought more convenient services to users.

Merchant side: Live broadcast center, online marketing

In terms of attracting merchants, Tmall's focus of merchant support in 2020 is on live streaming, short videos, open membership groups and other gameplay. This year, Tmall has successively launched 14 merchant support measures, including subsidies of 1 billion commissions, the launch of the full-domain intelligent marketing platform "Wanxiangtai", free early recovery of payments and huge subsidies for Taobao Live.

Judging from the various initiatives launched by Tmall, live streaming sales are still the highlight of this year. Last year, the focus of Taobao Mobile's homepage was moved down to add a short video/live broadcast section. This year, a new first-level entrance to Taobao Live was added to the homepage, presented in a single-column stream. This move will greatly simplify the process for users to enter the live broadcast scene and bring double the public domain traffic to major live broadcast rooms.

In addition, this year's self-broadcasting by merchants has become a new focus of support and rewards. From October 20 to November 11, Tmall will offer free traffic rewards, up to 500,000 traffic coupons, to merchants that are launching their first broadcast and those that have completed their target challenge plans. Taobao Education also provides free training, diagnosis and Q&A services to new Tmall merchants participating in Double 11 for the first time.

In addition to bringing different aspects of traffic to merchants within the site, Tmall has also put a lot of effort into off-site promotion and marketing. This year, Alibaba Mama's IP character "Dai Erduo" became the Double 11 cheering officer, and used the recently popular "kangaroo shake" meme on the Internet to shoot a short video "Double 11 Kangaroo Shake Everyone Cheer Dance". Brands such as Erke, Pechoin, and Three Squirrels also joined the promotional campaign. At present, the reading volume of the Weibo topic #Double11MeetingJustKangarooShake# has reached 72 million.

Image source: Three Squirrels official blog

JD.com - Simple, crude and fast

On October 17, JD.com held a press conference to launch its 11.11 Global Love Season. At the conference, JD.com also announced the specific gameplay strategy for this year’s Double 11. Like Tmall, the pre-sale starts at 8 pm on October 20, but the time for payment of the final payment is advanced to 8 pm. The overall time rhythm also has more of JD.com’s own personality and characteristics.

Consumer side: Purchase in minutes and arrive in hours, refreshing pickup speed

In terms of product services, JD.com has previously launched more than 40 services including price guarantee, door-to-door replacement, replacement at will, online pet consultation, replacement instead of repair, premium compensation, and integrated delivery and installation. During this year's Double 11, Shao Jingping from JD Retail Marketing and Commercialization Center said that more than 90% of the best-selling products will enjoy price guarantee services, and more than 20 million JD PLUS members will enjoy exclusive super subsidies.

Shortly before the Double 11 launch conference, JD.com officially launched the “Nearby” service, also known as “Hourly Shopping”, on the homepage of the App, which provides instant delivery of high-quality goods from all categories of stores within 3-5 kilometers of the consumer’s location. It is revealed that more than 100,000 offline stores of all categories have been connected to JD Hourly Shopping. At present, the "Hourly Shopping" has started the Double 11 shopping season at 8 pm on October 18.

Image source: JD.com

Merchants: 10 million bonuses to help new products and new customers grow

Shao Jingping publicly stated at the press conference that this year's Double 11 has the largest number of participating brand merchants in history, especially the number of participating fashion brands has increased significantly compared with previous years. JD.com will work with brands, merchants and farmers to bring over 400 million new products and over 700 million domestic products.

As early as 2013, JD.com launched the "Donglian Plan", focusing on brand resource replacement, joint marketing and other methods. This year, in order to help merchants reduce costs in advertising and maximize resource utilization and benefits, JD.com has newly upgraded the "New JD Alliance Plan". Individual brands participating in the "New JD Alliance Plan" can receive up to 1 million yuan in virtual advertising incentives.

In addition to traffic support and cost reduction strategies, JD.com also launched the "JD.com Pilot Plan" for POP merchants. Merchants who meet the launch threshold in Jingzhuntong’s new product/new customer scenarios or tagged new products can participate in the rankings and receive corresponding advertising virtual gold rights rewards based on their rankings. The total bonus pool is as high as tens of millions.

Image source: GroupM E-Commerce "2020 Double Eleven Panoramic Insight Report"

Content Platform

Douyin - a new marketing hub for Double 11, with a strong PK atmosphere

Starting this year, many businesses have regarded the Douyin platform as an important platform for building their brand, and Douyin itself has also gradually begun to emphasize its e-commerce attributes. Especially in the Double 11 this year, on the eve of the big promotion, Douyin has released many strategic gameplays targeting influencers and merchants.

Last year, Douyin took the "Double 11 Fan Festival" as its theme, mainly carried out fan marketing for Douyin users, launched special "fan coupons", and opened four "super gameplays": super live broadcast room, super flash sale day, super category carnival and super lucky free order. This year, Douyin made the most obvious difference in time from e-commerce platforms, starting Double 11 in advance on October 15 and naming this year's theme "Double 11 Good Products Festival." Compared with last year, Douyin’s gameplay is more focused on influencers and merchants, and the government has also increased support and subsidies for merchants and influencers.

If you observe the overall gameplay of Douyin, you will find that it mostly uses rankings and competitions to heat up the Double 11 atmosphere. In terms of rankings, Douyin has launched a short video topic ranking competition. Users can participate in this event by posting a short video with a shopping cart and including the topic #抖音双11好物节#. The top 1,000 users can also receive Qianchuan traffic coupons as rewards. In addition, Douyin officials will also launch real-time hot-selling lists, personalized recommendation lists, and Douyin Mall ranking channels during the event to bring more exposure to brands and products.

Image source: TikTok

In terms of competition, Douyin E-commerce has launched live broadcast room gameplay, industry gameplay and qualifying game gameplay for merchants, influencers and service providers at different levels. The live broadcast room gameplay is based on the business characteristics and business stages of different merchants and influencers on the Douyin platform, with different types of live broadcast rooms being set up, such as ace influencer live broadcast rooms, ace brand live broadcast rooms, and good product live broadcast rooms.

The ranking competition rules are more suitable for mid-level and lower-level Douyin e-commerce creators. Douyin's Double 11 Good Products Festival has set up two formats: peak mission competition and national mission competition. Creators who reach a certain threshold and complete daily customized tasks can receive official rewards.

Weibo, Baidu, Xiaohongshu - Play a supporting role and grab attention

As content platforms, Weibo, Baidu, and Xiaohongshu did not show the same "e-commerce" ambitions as Douyin this year, but instead worked hard to maximize their investment and traffic.

Weibo: On October 13, Weibo released the "Double 11 E-commerce Industry Marketing Guide", announcing that it will provide assistance in three aspects: resource expansion, strategic support, and operational empowerment, to assist advertisers in stabilizing their delivery results.

Image source: Weibo Advertising Assistant Official Account

Baidu: On October 14, Baidu also released the "Retail Double 11 Marketing Strategy", stating that it will provide e-commerce customers (jumping to Taobao/JD.com, etc.) with delivery solutions that meet the needs of big promotions; it will release new search resources for the first time to help advertisers search for big promotion volumes; automatic targeting + Double 11 customized population packages to accurately reach the target population, etc.

Image source: Baidu Marketing Center Official Account

Xiaohongshu: Xiaohongshu, which has been continuously integrating into the e-commerce model in the past two years, seems to have weakened its e-commerce function on the eve of Double 11 this year. In the Double 11 marketing manual launched before the National Day holiday, its core marketing goal is to "grab attention", and the focus is still on the grass-planting layout. Xiaohongshu has been trying hard to sell goods through live streaming, but there is no relevant marketing content in this Double 11 marketing manual.

In the manual, Xiaohongshu explains its specific marketing strategies in three directions: KOL brand cooperation, growth brand marketing methods, and advanced brand marketing methods, and introduces its officially certified marketing rhythm.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

In addition to the above-mentioned e-commerce and content platforms, other e-commerce platforms such as Suning.com, Pinduoduo, and Vipshop are also constantly exporting their own Double 11 strategies. Many people say that the popularity of Double 11 is decreasing year by year, but it is still the most favorable opportunity for brands and merchants to quickly become popular in the short term, and it is also driving more and more content social platforms to join this e-commerce craze.

The preparations for Double 11 are about to begin. Who will be the one leading the way?

Finally, here is the specific timetable for each platform for Double 11 in 2021:

Author: Bamboo

Source: Bright Data