If you don’t understand these 3 points when doing brand marketing, it’s all in vain!

Many people learn some marketing knowledge from books and use it habitually without thinking about whether this method is suitable for them. Even though there are thousands of methods, you must find a set of methods that suit you in order to achieve real marketing. How to consider this issue? Try thinking from these three aspects, and you will definitely appreciate the power of marketing in user growth.

Marketing has always dominated the market because it can solve various customer acquisition problems such as no one buying a company's products and no one knowing its brand. Mastering marketing methods can easily make a company stand out in the industry.

If you don’t know much about marketing, then the following three commonly used marketing positioning methodologies will definitely make you realize the power of marketing in user growth.

1. Add "high-end" before the category

For example, Jomoo high-end bathroom products, Fotile high-end water heaters, and Yadi high-end electric vehicles, it is easy to guide users' mindsets by using the label effect to label them, and dispel users' safety concerns about quality assurance when making choices.

2. Modify with professional, focused, and expert

For example, professional IT training institutions that have been focusing on the IT field for 20 years and Internet marketing experts use people's admiration for professional authority to make users trust the product more.

3. Use words like sales and far ahead

For example, the 700 million cups of Xiangpiaopiao sold in a year are enough to circle the earth three times. Jomoo King, the world's leading men's pants expert, uses the typical herd effect. When a group of sheep don't know where to go, they will choose to follow the leader.

People are the same. When they don’t know how to choose among the mixed products on the market or when they don’t know how to pick out the clothes on Taobao, they will choose the products that everyone is using and buying.

When you use this marketing methodology, you will definitely do better than other companies that don’t use any marketing techniques. But please don't be proud, because companies that know how to use marketing techniques based on their own circumstances can do better than you. The ranking between them might be like this.

Companies that do not understand marketing methodology (the bottom of the industry) < Companies that understand marketing techniques and follow the routine (doing well but still have room for improvement) < Choose the company that best suits your marketing methodology based on your company's situation (the company that ranks among the top of the industry)

1. The importance of combining your own situation and flexibly applying methodology

There was a clip in "The Founding of a Party" in which the new cultural revolutionaries headed by Chen Duxiu actively introduced foreign revolutionary experience, and many great men went abroad to study when they were young.

Mao Zedong was also on the list at the time, but before the train set off he decided to stay in the country to investigate. He felt that China's national conditions might not be fully applicable to foreign experience. For example, Russia's revolution, which was led by the working class, might not be appropriate to copy to China, because the peasant class made up the majority of the country.

At the 17th CPC National Congress, Deng Xiaoping proposed: "We should combine the universal truth of Marxism with the specific reality of our country and follow our own path."

It is precisely because these great men have constantly combined domestic realities and explored a path of socialism with Chinese characteristics that we have gradually become a world power.

What if you copy other people’s experiences? Chiang failed because he did not take the capitalist path of developed countries into account China's actual conditions.

Therefore, when learning new knowledge, we must not only be an efficient executor who can use it as soon as possible, but also apply it flexibly according to our own situation in order to stand out among many peers.

How to use it flexibly according to your own situation? Let’s take adding high-end before the category as an example to discuss two issues.

• Is high-end marketing positioning suitable for our industry?
• What if the industry is not suitable for high-end marketing?

2. Is high-end marketing positioning suitable for our industry?

When seeing marketing examples using words like "high-end", many people tend to put the word "high-end" in front of their own products.

Here we should pay attention to a misunderstanding that not all categories are suitable for high-end positioning marketing.

If a company positions itself as a product that sells at low prices and small profits but quick turnover, while winning the hearts of users with good quality, low prices and benefits, it is destined to not be able to highlight its "high-end" nature with labels of high quality, high value and high security.

For example, the recently popular Mixue Bingcheng, this type of company is well-loved by people because of its low-end sinking market. If it uses high-end marketing, it will become a laughing stock.

Xiwang is a leading corn oil brand in China. In 2016, Xiwang launched a positioning project and repositioned the brand as "high-end corn oil". The brand hired famous movie star Zhao Wei as its spokesperson, and its advertisements and terminal materials were implemented in line with its high-end positioning.

The “high-end corn oil” positioning project was implemented for two years, and there was no subsequent publicity about “high-end corn oil”.

Why is corn oil not suitable for high-end market?

Pinduoduo founder Huang Zheng once said:

Rich people will buy an Hermès bag and also spend 9.9 yuan on a box of mangoes. This has nothing to do with their purchasing power. For example, my mother is already considered a wealthy mother, but when she goes out to buy groceries or paper towels, she still cares about the difference of one or two dollars, but she also buys high-end iPhones.

People will choose high-end products because of face and value, but when it comes to practical products, they would rather choose cost-effective ones. For example, high-end tricycles, high-end plastic bags, and high-end corn oil will not be recognized by the market.

"High-end" positioning marketing is indeed a good idea, but it may not be suitable for all industries. In high-tech, high-quality industries with social value, such as mobile phones, clothing, and gifts, high-end demands do exist, and it is reasonable to establish a "high-end" brand. In some practical products, forcing a "high-end" route is often a dead end.

3. What if the industry is not suitable for “high-end” marketing?

The beverage industry has the aristocrat among water - Baishuishan, and the high-end milk Telunsu. Have you ever wondered why other beverages such as apple cider vinegar and herbal tea have not developed a brand into the high-end market?

Mineral water and milk have a large user base and fierce market competition. If you want to stand out from your peers, the high-end market segment is a good choice. In addition to differentiating yourself from your peers, high-end marketing positioning can also focus on attracting users who pursue high quality.

In contrast, apple cider vinegar is a new category of beverage and was not well-known before a large-scale market was formed. When users choose a beverage over the milk they usually drink, they will definitely give priority to milk.

Users may not necessarily choose you. If you still take the high-end route at this time, it will only make people think, "Since it's more expensive, why shouldn't I choose milk?"

In the early 21st century, if people were asked to choose between water, milk and tea, they would undoubtedly choose milk, which has nutritional value, or mineral water, which is more thirst-quenching. At that time, tea was just an optional drink.

A brand like Wanglaoji is very clear about the position of herbal tea in the beverage industry. They did not use high-end packaging to show their high quality, but cleverly broke people's inherent perception of beverages with the slogan "If you are afraid of getting a sore throat, drink Wanglaoji". Since then, people have chosen Wanglaoji over milk and herbal tea to prevent getting a sore throat.

If the industry you are in has a large market demand, fierce competition and many competitors, you can choose to use high-end marketing to show your uniqueness. However, if the industry is in a situation where market demand is small and users are not necessarily willing to pay, other marketing methods can be used based on its own situation, such as scenario-based positioning marketing.

• If you are afraid of getting angry, drink Wanglaoji
• When you are tired or sleepy, drink Dongpeng beverage
• For buying and selling used cars, go to Guazi.com

Most people are familiar with these advertisements and will even choose the brand next time they need something. Why is this? Because its brand has occupied and integrated into the minds of users after long-term positioning marketing, when users have needs, they will make decisions subconsciously in order to reduce selection time.

High-end products will not necessarily make all users pay for them. In some industries, scenario-based marketing is used to help people solve their needs and cater to users' preferences, which is more valuable than "high-end".

4. Does it really work to say that you are professional and have high sales?

Some people learn the knowledge of using authoritative words and simply replace the company copy, but ignore the importance of details.

1. What are details?

• You spend a lot of money to use Through Traffic and bidding ranking to promote your product to the first position. However, not all users will choose you just because you rank first in the search results and believe that you are the best in the industry. For example, when you buy something, do you make your choice based on the ranking of Baidu or Taobao search results?
• If you write that you are an expert and professional, users will only trust you temporarily. Some smart users will even investigate through other channels to see if the situation is true. When you choose a company, will you trust it directly because it says it is an expert and has been focusing on it for many years?
• Sales are good and you are far ahead. Unless this is really the case, if you want to use the herd effect to acquire users, you have to find a bunch of sheep to highlight that you are the leader, such as the common practices of hiring people to view houses at real estate launches, brushing orders on Taobao, and hiring people to queue up in milk tea shops.

Suppose 100 people visit your website. Without considering other factors, 10% of them make a purchase directly after entering the website, 20% make their purchase based on the search result ranking, and 70% make a purchase by comparing prices from different stores and making careful selections.

Even if you do nothing, there will be traffic when you open a company or a store. That's because out of 100 people, there will always be a few who happen to see and choose you when they have a need. It's just a matter of more or less traffic.

Simply writing that you are an expert and have a leading sales volume may attract 5% of users to buy, but in fact you can do better with more care.

Various marketing methods, such as using thoughtful copywriting to resonate with customers, providing positive reviews to gain their trust, and providing real data to dispel their concerns, can attract 70% of the more savvy customers to pay.

Let’s take a look at the comparison between the two.

An example of using words to modify oneself directly: A restaurant uses marketing methods to vigorously promote itself as a professional chef on the store sign. In order to make customers more willing to choose to eat here, it takes advantage of people's concerns about the unsanitary nature of eating out and tries to dispel safety concerns with the words "clean and hygienic, more assured to eat".

On the surface, these marketing methods are at least much better than other ordinary restaurants, but business is still slow.

It turned out that in order to save money on decoration, he used very old tables and did not keep the hygiene good. The shop looked dirty from the outside. He even often did not turn on the lights to save money. The overall dim lighting made the shop look unsafe and unhygienic.

An example of highlighting advantages through practical actions: We all know that Haidilao has good service, but most people did not learn about it from their advertisements or promotions. They felt it sincerely in the store through the enthusiasm and patience of the waiters.

This is also true for many websites and advertisements. They use all kinds of modifiers to describe how good and professional they are, but few companies actually create a good feeling.

So when we express that we are professional and provide good service, we should think more about the examples of Haidilao and restaurants. We should not only describe ourselves as good in all aspects, but also carefully create an atmosphere of relevant modifiers so that users can feel our uniqueness.

5. Why users don’t buy it when it’s clearly done well

When it comes to user choice issues, we often have to learn to think from the user's perspective to discover the problem.

One-sided wishful thinking often leads to a bottleneck of "I have done everything, why don't users buy it and the effect is so bad?" In fact, this is a manifestation of arrogance. When you, as a user, buy a product, you will worry about this issue and that issue. Why should others choose you directly when buying your product?

If you really think you are doing a good job and users have not chosen you yet, please don’t complain that users are blind. It might be a good idea to spend more time to see what your peers are doing, because users will not be partial to any one company and will only shop around and buy the one that they are most satisfied with.

When your product is better than those of its competitors, but users choose its competitors, it must be because your marketing and promotion methods are not good enough. You have to know that there is a reason why the authentic food shops in the alleys are almost deserted, while the Internet-famous restaurants with unpalatable food are crowded with people.

Just like falling in love, when a user says, "You are a good product, but I am not worthy of you", maybe she has a more suitable choice~

VI. Conclusion

If you don’t know how to flexibly apply knowledge based on your own situation when doing marketing, no matter how many books you read, it will be difficult to do well and become strong.

If you don't think from the user's perspective, no matter how much work you do, it will be in vain.

The reason users don’t choose you is not because they are blind, but because you are not as good as your peers in some aspects.