How to write a competitive proposal so that users will choose your product?

Some time ago, the P2P industry experienced a small wave of defaults, causing panic among the public. Currently, the investment market is gradually recovering, and regulatory measures are becoming increasingly stringent. The companies that survive are basically facing huge pressure of receivables.

The so-called pressure to be collected can be simply described as follows:

• It is necessary to acquire a large number of new users and encourage them to complete their first investment;
• Use various activities to activate old users and improve their secondary investment conversion .

In order to achieve this goal, major companies in the P2P track have increased their market investment budgets, established competitive relationships with each other, and during holidays, they have been frantically organizing activities to attract traffic and carrying out various cross-industry collaborations. But in fact, 95% of the activities on the market will become cannon fodder, and the market investment will not get the due return.

Because most products do not have mature competitive plans, marketing activities are done just for the sake of doing it and following the trend . This has led to many P2P products and competing products establishing a homogeneous, blindly following relationship rather than a competitive relationship.

I have summarized a method on how to make a qualified competition plan, establish a favorable competitive relationship with your opponents, and make your products stand out in the market competition.

However, before understanding these methods, you may need to clarify one issue first.

1. Question: What exactly is a competitive solution?

The essence of competition is actually to influence user decisions.

Even though there are many competitive strategies for major products on the market, no matter which one it is, a qualified competition plan needs to be able to influence user decisions; rather than simply exposing product information and increasing clicks.

In other words, you need to answer the following two seemingly basic questions through this competition solution:

• How do users currently solve this problem?
• Why would users choose my product instead of others?

I believe that most product managers can answer the first question, but most people may be unfamiliar with the second question, which shows that everyone’s understanding of product competition relationships is still relatively vague.

I have a method, which is divided into four steps, that can help you better understand the competitive relationship. By using the special product cases in the P2P industry, I will analyze in depth: What constitutes a qualified competitive plan?

2. How to make a qualified competition plan?

1. Make the product category clear at the first time

If I need to buy a new mobile phone, every time I pass by a huge mobile phone billboard at a station, I can't help but take a few glances. Maybe the price is right and I like it, so I will buy it.

This is a very common marketing conversion scenario. There is a key message in this passage. The reason why I can't help but take a few more glances and even have the motivation to buy is that I know it is an advertisement for a mobile phone and I just need it.

As technology continues to innovate, there will be more and more new species and products. In order to attract users' attention and highlight the high technological content of their products, many companies often describe their products as too cool and advanced, but forget to clearly describe the product categories. It’s like marketing copy like “Leader in smart Internet of Things, multi-dimensional mobile artifact”, who knows what this is talking about?

The first thing to do is to make the product category clear so that users can understand: what will it occupy my budget for purchasing?

Most of people's purchasing behaviors are constantly updating what they need or want. When users have a certain demand, the first thing they think of is the product category corresponding to this demand, and then they look for suitable products under this category.

Just like if I have a need for investment and financial management , I should think of financial products rather than the category of sports shoes. At this time, only things that are generally considered financial products in society’s perception will attract my attention and establish a competitive relationship with other financial products.

Therefore, in the P2P industry market, the first thing we need to convey to users is the classification of this product. This is a financial product, not an explanation like P2P self-service investment app. After all, users don’t understand what category it belongs to.

Within the scope of financial products, users can naturally think of all the financial products they are currently using, such as: Ant Financial , Wealth Management, JD Finance , Lufax , etc.

If your product is really good, users will perceive it subconsciously - after using it, they will naturally reduce the use of other financial products, because money is limited.

2. Identify your real competitors

Why would users choose my product instead of others?

Before answering this question, at least I need to know who the other person is. We need to find the real competitors of our products, but many competitors may not be products in the corresponding categories. They are more likely to be products outside the categories.

At this time, we uniformly call anyone who prevents users from purchasing our products a competitor.

So who are our competitors in the market of financial products? Which market would be more suitable for P2P financial products to enter?

1. Many people don’t have the habit of investing, and think saving money is safe;
2. Many people have investment awareness, but do not have better investment channels ;
3. Many people have investment habits and have better investment channels.

In the first case, cultivating habits is a process of guiding by giving concessions, just like cultivating people's habit of using electronic payments, online transfers and online taxi-hailing. This is usually done by giant companies. Unless our company is positioned to become a giant in the industry at this time, this will be a thankless entry point.

The second situation is technology-based and resource-based investors. Most of these users have been immersed in the financial industry for a long time, and many are even practitioners in the industry. They have their own methods and routines for investment and financial management, and their ability to balance returns and risks is better than that of ordinary users, so this is not a good market entry point either.

In contrast, users in the second category would be the most suitable market gap for a startup company like ours to tap into.

After all, this part of users neither needs you to cultivate their investment habits nor have better investment channels. This is a national need, because most people are in this situation, and P2P as a financial product of inclusive finance is perfect.

Now that we have identified the market, we will look for the market leaders to see who is blocking users from purchasing our products. There are four types of financial products that guide national investment:

• Bank financial products;
• Stocks/funds;
• Savings insurance;
• P2P and other Internet financial products.

At this time, we encounter the user's first concern: among these four types of financial products, why should I choose P2P?

First, let’s list the determining factors for each category:

• Bank-type financial products (backed by the credit of the state and banks, relatively safe, but with lower returns);
• Stocks/funds (there are cyclical fluctuations in the industry, investment learning costs, and unstable returns);
• Savings insurance (insurance is mainly for protection, investment is only an additional function).

At this time we can see:

• Compared with bank-type financial products, we cannot compare safety (due to the high credit endorsement of the state and banks), but we should compare the returns. P2P is relatively higher, and the returns are usually 2-3 times that of bank financial products;
• Compared with stock/fund products, we cannot compare the returns, but the learning costs and cyclical fluctuations. P2P has almost no initial investment and learning costs, and the returns are not affected by economic cycle fluctuations.
• Compared with insurance, the main purpose of insurance is protection, while the main purpose of P2P is investment.

It is not difficult to find that P2P is a financial product with investment attributes as its main feature, with returns 2-3 times higher than bank financial products, and it is not affected by economic cycles in the short term, and has no learning cost. So if you have some spare money recently, want to invest, and pursue a certain return, but don’t have the time and interest to pay attention to economic cycles and learn investment-related knowledge, P2P will be your best choice.

Among users' first level of concerns, our real competitors are bank-type financial products, stocks/funds, and savings insurance. We need users to give up these and choose P2P, and competitive solutions need to influence users' investment decisions. At this level, benefits, learning costs, and economic cycles are all factors that influence user decisions.

How to find the decisive factors is explained in the article "Understanding the two key factors of the market will help your product grow from zero to one".

3. Find a favorable competitive position for your product

Above we have solved the user’s first concern: why use P2P instead of other financial products?

The second level of concern is what we are going to talk about now. Among the many P2P products, why should I use A instead of B?

Many companies start with product promotion ads that use this template:

• Yield X%+X%;
• Deposited in XX Bank, safe operation for X years;
• The cumulative transaction volume is XXXX yuan, and the cumulative number of lenders is XXXX people.

Add another sentence:

"If you want a reliable Internet financial platform, choose XXX for investment"

Almost all online lending companies say this, so what problems does this pose?

The problem is: if you are the only company in the market, it is okay for you to say this, and users will listen to you.

Because at this time " your product = P2P financial product " (there is no competitor, and the user's perception of the market can only be defined by you).

However, if we are not the only one competing in the market for similar products and we are not the first in the industry, the above-mentioned promotional methods cannot bring us a favorable competitive position. For example: Through your indiscriminate publicity, the user has indeed gained a certain understanding of P2P, and he also knows the difference between P2P and other financial products. Your promotional copy is also particularly outstanding and can really touch the user's heart.

At this time, the user is likely to want to invest, and will search online to find out which good P2P companies are there. After a round of checking, they find that the number one is Company A, and then they will go to Company A to invest. If you are not Company A, there is basically nothing for you to do next.

No matter how well other companies promote themselves, they are only diverting traffic to the industry's top products. This is what I said at the beginning of the article, why no matter how many marketing activities some companies do, they will only become cannon fodder. The companies that truly win the market are often those that occupy a favorable position in the minds of users, rather than simply worrying about whether a certain sentence of copy impresses consumers.

So how can we establish an effective position in the user’s second level of concern?

I have a method : everything is like a coin, with two sides, and the contradictions in the market will conflict with each other. No matter how good a product is, it will always have its good aspects, but it will also have shortcomings. If you can become the number one in a certain aspect, you can basically make users equate the characteristics of this aspect with your product, which is the so-called winner takes all.

Just like Company A, which has always emphasized safe operation for X years, 0 accidents, and a bad debt rate lower than that of banks, if I were a conservative user with a strong sense of security, I would be able to feel: "Safe P2P product = Company A" .

"We need to explore the opposite of our opponent's advantages, establish a competitive relationship, and quickly become number one."

Why explore the opposite of his strengths?

Because this is where he cannot iterate and optimize. Just like the advantage of WeChat is social networking among acquaintances, its opposite is social networking among strangers. Momo has been making great strides in social networking among strangers, avoiding direct competition with WeChat and becoming the number one in the industry. Because WeChat will never be able to optimize and iterate in this regard.

Although WeChat is still the leading product in the social field, when people mention stranger social networking, everyone will only think of Momo.

Just as in the P2P industry, returns and risks are a contradiction in the market. In the pursuit of extreme risk, the returns will inevitably be lacking. Emphasizing absolutely high returns at the bottom line of market compliance and tolerable risks (not to say ignoring risks) is a different approach from competing product promotion methods that always emphasize safety.

Because when you can become the first in the market, your company can be equated with the label of high-yield P2P financial products, and those users who put returns at the top of their decision-making concerns will no longer choose Company A and will naturally find your products. At this point, we and Company A have established a favorable competitive position because you advocate safety and I advocate profit.

Benefits and risks are factors that users need to weigh in the market. You can't have your cake and eat it too. I am not advocating that everyone ignore risks and blindly pursue benefits, but I am proposing this competitive thinking.

To sum up, in the financial industry, there are other market opposites like this:

• New users vs old users
• Short-term vs. long-term investing
• Fast debt transfer speed VS slow debt transfer speed
• Low Fees VS High Fees
• Low discount vs. high discount
• …

More market opposites can help you find a breakthrough, but the premise is that this opposite has sufficient competitive significance in the market. For example: the style of the product UI is "warm colors VS cold colors", which does not have much competitive significance in investment products.

4. Find the right competitive approach through the product’s decision chain

Our product promotion and marketing are often inseparable from the word traffic , and I find that everyone has reached the point of obsession with traffic, as if any product will be successful as long as it has the blessing of large traffic.

“Will the download and purchase conversion rate of the product increase as long as there is a large amount of exposure and traffic?”

Of course not.

Let’s look at this example, where the following two ads were placed in residential elevator ads:

• Fresh fruit delivery, delivered to your home in ten minutes
• Nansha school district house, half an hour subway to the city center, 17000/square meter hot booking

If both are settled based on purchase volume, which one has better conversion effect?

It is very likely that the one with fruit express is better, and it will get better and better as the cost of placement increases.

This is a view that is generally misunderstood in the market. In fact, a large amount of market exposure and traffic introduction will only have a significant effect on products with short decision-making chains and low cognitive participation. On the contrary, products that require repeated thinking, lack trust endorsement, have a long decision-making chain, and high cognitive participation are unlikely to have actual conversion effects relying solely on market exposure, such as the above advertisement about buying a house.

I have a good idea that can help products with long decision chains increase traffic conversion. Still the above two ads, if they are delivered in this way, the effect may be better:

• Fresh fruit delivery, delivered to your home in ten minutes
• Nansha school district housing, scan the QR code to join the free house viewing and food tour, places are limited.

At this time, the product that originally had high cognitive participation and a long decision-making chain has changed into a QR code scanning registration activity with low cognitive participation and a short decision-making chain, rather than directly considering whether to buy a house. We can introduce the house’s features, location advantages, supporting facilities, etc. to users during their house-viewing journey, and include the behavior of guiding purchases in subsequent combined marketing.

After all, it is too difficult to make users understand the product, generate purchasing motivation, and build brand trust in just a few seconds or even more than ten seconds. Therefore, splitting the decision-making chain would be a good idea. The same applies to placing P2P product advertisements in elevators.

By choosing the appropriate competition method based on the length of the decision-making chain, we are also establishing a suitable competitive relationship.

The above four steps seem to be very basic methods, and they are not any profound and mysterious secrets at all. In fact, everyone has heard of them more or less, but not everyone can apply them in actual product marketing .

In the days to come, the combination of products and marketing will become closer and closer. Product managers will no longer be limited to the inherent thinking methods such as prototype design, process thinking, and development coordination. They are more likely to think comprehensively about the market, scenarios, user psychology, and brand positioning.

Product marketing will be an important direction for future large-scale product design.

in conclusion

How to make a good competitive proposal for your product?

1. First of all, we should clearly state the classification of products.
2. Identify your real competitors
3. Find a favorable competitive position for your product
4. Find the right competitive approach through the product's decision chain

Statement: Because P2P cases are special and have review value, this article only uses P2P financial products for case analysis and does not represent any of my investment positions or investment advice.

Source: Jacoblab (ID: jacoblab)