Why is it difficult for your solution to effectively solve the problem?

When you encounter any marketing problem, your marketing goal should no longer be a simple list of "marketing wishes". Instead, you should use the three steps of "investigation and analysis, attribution, and finding the target" in the article as a template, repeatedly ask yourself questions, inspire marketing ideas, and develop targeted marketing plans.

When a company encounters a marketing problem or is promoting a product in its early stages, the marketing department is often the first force to be mobilized.

"Wang Ergou, the sales of our products have dropped this quarter. What's going on? Quickly prepare a marketing plan for me."

"Zhang San, our app will be launched in a month. How can we reach more potential users with a low budget? Give me a plan right now."

Well, at this time, the task facing marketers is how to develop an effective marketing plan to solve these problems.

To develop a good plan, the prerequisite is to have a clear and accurate marketing goal.

"Well, Boss, of course we have a marketing plan, but we have to have a marketing goal first. I plan to..."

The boss interrupted the marketing director.

"The goal is not simple. The goal of this product is to have sales of one million within a month and to become well-known nationwide within three months."

"Of course, it is to get product sales back to normal, or even surpass competitors"

“Create new categories and firmly occupy the first position in the minds of users”

"It exploded the entire Internet, with tens of thousands of reposts, tens of millions of reads, and hundreds of millions of discussions on Weibo"

…

Wait, is the marketing goal as simple as “sales recovery, product hits, viral spread ”?

Of course not. Although these so-called goals can hit the G-spot and make people excited, they are just the wishes of the bosses and cannot guide the development of any work.

Everyone wants their product to sell well, become the user's first choice, and become a hot topic on the Internet as soon as it goes online, with countless media outlets competing to report on it.

But wishes cannot guide work. No matter how many such "marketing wishes" you have, they cannot give you any guidance in any direction.

In fact, the marketing goal should be to stand from the perspective of consumers and analyze why consumers do not choose themselves, so as to lay the direction for the formulation of marketing plans.

To set marketing goals, you generally need to ask yourself these three questions:

1. Survey analysis: What was the common choice of users in the past?
2. Attribution: Why don’t users choose themselves? (For more information on how to accurately attribute, please refer to my previous article: Marketers, You Are One Habit Away from Excellence…)
3. Goal: What should I say to change their cognition, habits, and what they think is more important and unimportant, so that they give up their past choices and choose me?

Of course, these three questions all revolve around the three choices of consumers.

For example, for the first question, users in the past had only three choices: one that is in line with their habits, one that is in line with their cognition, and one that is from a competitor.

The second question, why users do not choose you, is also based on these three points: the product does not match their cognition, does not match their habits, and they choose competitors.

The ultimate goal, of course, is to change their cognition and habits, and let them understand what is important and what is not important (relative to competitors), so that they can give up their past choices and choose themselves instead.

1. Cognition

A product will fail if it cannot break consumers’ unfavorable perception of itself. Then no matter how hard you try, it is often useless.

For example, people think that Momo is a hookup platform, Didi is a black car, using Xiaomi is shameful, and buying a BMW is for showing off. What can you do?

Is it okay to do marketing with the mentality of "those who agree with me are my customers, and I don’t care about those who don’t agree with me"?

Of course not. Apart from the possibility that you may be misunderstood (for example, Didi is misunderstood as an illegal taxi), if you really do as they say (for example, most people in the past bought BMWs to show off), you can actually use certain marketing methods to change this unfavorable perception of yourself (for example, BMW emphasizes the "ultimate driving machine" to cover up consumers' motives to show off).

For example, Guangdong herbal tea was very popular in Guangdong back then, so why was it so difficult to promote it nationwide?

It’s not because the taste is bad or the price is too high, but because outsiders believe that herbal tea is made from Chinese medicinal herbs, and most people have a natural aversion to “medicine,” thus hindering their purchase.

For such a product, the marketing goal is clear:

Follow the three-step rule:

1. Survey analysis : In the past, most consumers from other provinces chose other brands rather than "Guangdong Herbal Tea" when purchasing beverages.
2. Attribution : This is because herbal tea is made from Chinese medicinal herbs, and according to the inherent cognition of most consumers, they believe that "all medicines are poisonous", so they refuse to buy it.
3. Finding the Purpose : How Can I Do It? Can we reduce the barrier that “all medicines are poisonous” poses to consumers’ purchases and make them choose us?

Therefore, Wanglaoji later positioned herbal tea as a beverage, avoiding consumers’ unfavorable perception that “all medicines are poisonous”, and opened up the market for Guangdong herbal tea across the country.

For example, when Momo was first established, it was very popular among users as a software for strangers to make friends. But gradually, the user growth rate slowed down. How to set a marketing goal based on this?

1. Survey analysis: Even though many people endure loneliness, they do not try to use dating apps like Momo.
2. Attribution: This is because many people label Momo as a "hookup app", which makes many people face social pressure when using Momo.
3. Find the goal: What should I do and say to break users’ inherent perception of “Momo” and make them reconsider us?

Therefore, Momo later released a set of "Just live like this" posters to provide consumers with new reasons for their choices.

"I use Momo not for hooking up, but because I want to connect with a bigger world and more interesting people."

2. Habits

Consumer habits are also a gap that many marketers find difficult to overcome. This is because once habits are established, they are often difficult to change.

There was once a survey that showed this point. Researchers found that even though there were no restrictions on fixed seats for students in college classrooms, most college students still tended to sit in the seats they had sat in before during class.

When private cars were first promoted, they encountered challenges from user habits - most people were accustomed to taking the subway or bus to travel.

Therefore, for the private car service, the marketing objectives are:

When traveling, users are more likely to choose to take buses or subways rather than private cars. The reason they don't want to change is that squeezing into buses and subways has become a routine for many office workers, and they have become accustomed to such a life. So what should I do to break this habit of users and make them consider private car services?

Therefore, later on, major car-hailing companies spent money to subsidize users, or even invited users to ride in their cars for free, which lowered the threshold for many consumers to try and thus established a new habit of taking private cars.

There are many examples of changing user habits: Alipay and WeChat changed people’s cash payment habits; Ele.me changed people’s dining habits; Taobao changed people’s physical store shopping habits, and so on…

3. Competitors

If breaking cognition and habits is fighting against "internal factors that influence consumer choices"; then, defeating competitors is fighting against "external factors that influence consumer choices."

In most cases, it is because consumers choose your competitors that you lose your chance.

For example, when Uber dominated the travel market, facing strong competitors, Shenzhou found its own marketing goals:

In the past, when users took a private car, they would often choose Uber . This was because, as the market leader, Uber would of course be the choice of more people. What should we do to make users feel that Shenzhou is better than Uber, so that people will consider Shenzhou when taking a private car trip?

Therefore, later on, Shenzhou focused on its "safety" positioning, which made some users believe that "safety" was more important than most people's choices, thereby converting new users.

The same was true in the cola market back then. Coca-Cola was more popular with people. In comparison, although the taste was not much different, Pepsi could only occupy a very small market share.

Facing the market leader, Pepsi later found its own marketing goal:

In the past, if users wanted to drink cola, they were more inclined to choose Coca-Cola rather than Pepsi. Because Coca-Cola occupies the largest share in the cola market, it is chosen by more people, and most people believe that Coca-Cola is the most authentic cola. What special reason do I need to provide to make consumers feel that authenticity and the choice of most people are not the most important, so that consumers will choose Pepsi instead of Coca-Cola?

Therefore, Pepsi later focused on its positioning as "the choice of the younger generation" and attacked Coca-Cola's "long history and authenticity", which led to great success.

Conclusion

Marketing goals are only the basis for developing marketing plans. You cannot expect them to help you solve problems. You can only use them to inspire yourself.

What is the common choice of consumers in the market at present? Is it their cognition, habits, or competitors? Why would consumers choose these instead of me? What do I need to do to make them choose me?

In short, when you encounter any marketing problem, your marketing goal should no longer be a simple list of "marketing wishes". Instead, you should use the three steps of "investigation and analysis, attribution, and finding the target" in the article as a template, repeatedly ask yourself questions, inspire marketing ideas, and formulate targeted marketing plans.