How can a startup brand carry out marketing promotion?

This article combines marketing promotion theory with practical market experience. The full text is more than 8,000 words. It is hoped that it can help some start-up brands establish a complete marketing idea, avoid detours, and maximize the brand value.

Before talking about how a startup brand can do a good job in marketing and promotion , I would like to talk about the market competition that a brand may face, which can be divided into three levels:

• Competition in product strength;
• Competition for sales power;
• Competition of brand power.

I have talked with many owners of jewelry and watch brands in recent days, and they all agree that the foundation of a brand is products and supply chain. If this link is not opened up, building a brand is like a castle in the air, which looks good but is useless.

Therefore, before a startup brand starts marketing, it should establish a complete product development, design and supply chain system.

The level of competition the brand will encounter in the market

The first step in marketing and promotion of a startup brand: make good products and tell good stories about them

Different industries have different worlds. What we are talking about here is the understanding of industry products and insight into consumer habits. It takes a marketer one or two years, or even five years, to fully understand an industry.

Marketing promotion is based on products. If it is just empty talk, it is difficult to implement it. Therefore, the first step in promoting a startup brand is not to think about where to place advertisements or what activities to plan, but to make good products and tell stories about them well.

In the past five years, I have come into contact with many factory owners, and I have always had a question in my mind: why can't most factories build their brands well?

Now I have some answers in my mind:

• The factory makes the brand, but the brand is not consistent

Because factories mostly adopt the OEM or wholesale model, there are many product styles and diverse styles. But because of this, the brand lacks a memorable point. When you see this product, it looks like one brand, and when you see another product, it looks like another brand. Although the brand has produced a lot of products for a long time, it has not made consumers remember it. What they buy is just a product, not a brand.

Therefore, when a startup brand makes a product, it must maintain consistency in product design style, and consistency or relevance in materials, structure and color.

In addition to being reflected in products, brand consistency is also reflected in the consistency of long-term functional value, social value, and emotional value.

• The factory does not handle the design and marketing details well.

Factories generally do not have access to end consumers, and their advantages often lie in product quality and cost control.

In terms of product communication, factories are more likely to imitate, but each brand has its own genes, and blind imitation will not help surpass other brands.

I have seen some factories shooting product model videos, which basically refer to other brands. There is little discussion on the presentation of product memory points, model selection, makeup and clothing matching. However, in online marketing nowadays, consumers often focus on visual communication. They cannot perceive the quality of the product first, and the first thing they perceive is the texture conveyed by the product's visuals.

Unfortunately, there are not many brands that can tell a good story about their products.

I also know the owner of an eyewear factory. His marketing approach is to hire celebrities to endorse his products. He may spend 1.5 million a year to hire a celebrity to endorse his products, and then he stops investing in marketing! ! !

He doesn’t invest in Xiaohongshu, doesn’t seek help from influencers, and doesn’t produce content. He thinks it would be enough to just invite a celebrity to keep the show going!

In our actual marketing practice, we spend 1.5 million to hire a celebrity endorsement to obtain resources. If we want to fully utilize the resources, we need to spend at least 5 times the budget, otherwise who will know that you hired this celebrity? Who will remember you because this celebrity endorses your product? Who will buy your product because of this celebrity endorsement?

The Dove advertisement endorsed by Angela Baby and Li Yifeng dominated the screens of major video websites and satellite TV stations.

To make a good product, we need to select materials, design structures and match colors;

Tell a good story about the product, explore the unique memory points that connect the product to consumers, and pay attention to visual memory communication.

The battlefield of brand marketing

For us who make fashion products, the consumer mind is the ultimate battlefield, but to truly influence consumers, brands often rely on three sub-battlefields:

• Product battlefield;
• Channel battlefield;
• Media battlefield.

Product is 1, and marketing is the 0 behind it. In a broad sense, marketing also includes product development and design.

Three sub-battlefields for brands to market to consumers

Marketers collect product development suggestions or improvement suggestions for existing products by conducting research on the market and target consumer groups. We generally have the following methods to obtain market and consumer feedback on products:

• E-commerce platform testing: test the click-through rate and collection and purchase rate of new styles;
• Questionnaire: Design questionnaires for old customers and new users, and collect no less than 300 questionnaires for each;
• Testing of information flow ads on social platforms: testing the click-through rate of entering the store and the rate of adding to favorites and adding to cart.

Regarding channels, I do not recommend setting up too many sales channels and promotion channels in the early stage. First, a startup brand does not have that much energy and personnel. Second, the more platforms there are, the less sophisticated they are. They are latecomers. You should first do one channel well. Once you do one channel well, a mature marketing model will naturally emerge.

If you do a good job in one channel and set a benchmark, distribution, agency and even official resources from other platforms will all come to you.

When we were running a watch brand in the past, we looked for connections here and there, and ran around everywhere. Eventually, we entered many distribution platforms, such as Secoo, Darling Home, Wanbiao and other platforms. We put a lot of effort into entering these platforms, but in the end we still had to rely on ourselves to make efforts on platforms like Tmall and JD.

To be a channel, you must understand one thing:

Channels consume brand power. If you want to build a brand, you have to invest first and establish a brand system that can run sales.

The media is a resource that anyone doing brand marketing and promotion must accumulate. First, it enhances brand endorsement and strengthens brand credibility. Second, media professionals can provide more in-depth and comprehensive descriptions of products and brands, making the information presented to people who are interested in the brand more attractive.

Anyone who does marketing and promotion should pay attention to media people!

How to do marketing promotion for a startup brand?

When a startup brand does marketing promotion, it needs to consider five aspects:

01. Product development and design

Based on the understanding of industry products, research new styles. This style must have some gimmicks or structural innovations in design.

For fashion items, design is important; for electronic products, structure is important.

For example, when we see a simple two-hand watch, or even a three-hand watch, we will naturally think of a DW watch.

DW simple two-hand watch

When we see the little green watch, we naturally think of the Lolarose watch.

lolarose watch

When I see bees and butterflies, I think of OB’s secret garden design.

OB watch bee style

But when I see this VH star watch, I naturally think of Chopard's Happy Diamonds series.

VH Watch Star Model

Brand-designed products must be related to previous products, not only in terms of product model and style, but also in terms of the output of brand value and emotional value.

There is only one purpose for doing this: to present a unified image to consumers, occupy their minds, and make consumers think of our brand first when they need to buy products of this style.

02. Supply Chain Cycle and Quality Management

It shouldn’t be a big problem for a factory to build its own brand, but if it doesn’t have its own factory, it will take a lot of effort.

For any brand, the product is 1. Without this 1, no matter how many zeros are added behind it, it will be useless.

What often brings down a brand is product quality and cycle. If this link is not well controlled, all efforts will be in vain.

I have come across a brand whose products have R&D advantages and whose functions can very well meet user needs, but the quality of the products does not meet the requirements. Customer reputation has collapsed, with many negative reviews and returns. This has actually reduced points for the brand, which is worse than starting a new brand because you have completely lost some of your high-quality customers.

There are also cases where the best sales opportunities are lost due to problems with the product production cycle. At the end of 2015, I worked on a mobile phone brand. When the new product was launched, it did well on Amazon, but the company only prepared more than 100 units, and it seemed that they were sold out in one month. The shortage lasted for 4 months, and when the new product came, the market opportunity had been lost. Although this brand might not have been successful even if there was no shortage of stock, the shortage is a devastating blow to the product that is currently on sale.

In today's market, no user will wait for you for 1 month, 2 months, or 3 months, except for those technology products that have not yet been interviewed. If your product has been put on the shelves and is selling well, ensuring product quality and production cycle is a vital link.

03. Brand visual design: presenting a unified brand visual image to users

I have always believed that the visual presentation of a brand is a process of expressing emotions and that there is vitality in it.

If you think of a brand as a person, the ideas it wants to express must be vivid.

Therefore, the presentation of brand visual design should not be limited to the expression of products [objects], but should also be about the expression of emotions [people].

If visual communication falls into the cycle of imitation and replication, consumers will never remember you.

When DW's minimalist INS became popular, many brands imitated DW, but none of them succeeded.

When OB's Secret Garden became popular, many brands imitated OB, but none of them succeeded.

When the little green watch of Lolarose became popular, many brands imitated Lolarose, but none of them succeeded.

When KVK jewelry became popular, many brands imitated KVK, but probably none of them succeeded.

When Bugatti's mechanical technology became popular, many brands imitated Bugatti, but none of them succeeded.

We finally understand: you can’t build a brand just by imitating others.

If you follow others, you will never have the same broad vision as them.

It is possible to innovate after imitation.

The brand's visuals cover a lot, including promotional videos, creative pictures, short videos, promotional materials, main pictures, detailed pictures...

I have been paying attention to many brands since 2015 and found that foreign brands have relatively unified visual presentation, but domestic brands have more diversified visuals. The possible reason is that the core visual elements of foreign brands are fixed and remain unchanged, while we may be too eager to present all the elements to users.

The source of brand visual design is design concept, and the basic starting point is user needs.

There is a very interesting phenomenon now. Many young groups, especially those of Generation Z, buy things based on recommendations and live streaming. First of all, no matter whether the quality is good or not, if I like it, the anchor I follow recommends it, or a certain internet celebrity recommends it, then I will buy it. Such a market environment is becoming more and more friendly to small brands.

The market is becoming more and more segmented, and user needs are becoming more and more personalized.

The brand's vision must also keep up with the pace. It is possible that a design that we think is cool may not be bought by anyone, while it is possible that Sheila's ordinary design may win the unanimous favor of users. This is not unrelated to user needs.

Brand visual design is driven by both material and emotion. Material is the basis of use, and emotion is the basis of value. Only the combination of the two can give users a familiar and happy visual experience.

04 Focus on marketing and sales channels: present content that users are interested in on platforms where target customers gather

When it comes to e-commerce, Tmall may be everyone’s first choice, but now, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.

Tmall is already a very mature e-commerce platform. Unless your product has special advantages and you are willing to spend money on advertising and marketing, it is extremely difficult to obtain traffic on Tmall.

Why not try JD.com which has more male customers, Vipshop which has more 30+ female customers, or Dewu which has more fashion geeks, or Pinduoduo which has the largest population in the sinking market, or the rising star of e-commerce – Douyin?

For startup brands, acquiring traffic is important. It is not necessary to acquire traffic on the platform with the most traffic. Instead, you should acquire traffic on platforms with a more focused target group or more traffic, and then measure the customer acquisition cost to make a comprehensive judgment.

If other platforms become the first or second in the industry, e-commerce platforms such as Tmall will naturally open up.

In the past there were Taobao brands, and now everyone is also talking about Douyin brands. This may be an opportunity.

So generally I will ask people who join the company's brand center to make a work plan. In fact, I want to see the market thinking in the plan, rather than thinking that everyone is doing Tmall, so I have to do Tmall's traffic.

It is more about studying the trends of platforms, target consumers and competing products.

The purpose of understanding the market is to combine product concepts with target consumer groups.

Know yourself and know your enemy, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat.

Only by understanding the behavior of competitors and market trends can marketing avoid confusion. Some brand marketing data looks good on the surface, but as far as I can see, the actual effect of this kind of marketing is not good and it will not go far. Some brands insist on doing marketing in vertical fields. Although the data is average for the time being, it is easy to explode once they get started.

001 Brand Market Analysis

For a startup brand, the size of the market you are in, how fast it is growing, whether there is rigid demand, whether there are repeat purchases, and whether the market is concentrated will all affect your marketing decisions.

A very important part of brand market analysis is the analysis of the competitive environment. Is the brand in an emerging market or a red ocean market?

If a new market is being opened up, the required marketing expenses will include extremely high education costs, but the moat is also relatively easy to establish; if a mature market is being opened up, it is necessary to divide the market, identify the market segments where competition is not very fierce, and quickly occupy them.

For example, plus-size women's clothing is a potential market segment.

For example, smart fishing gear has opened up a new market.

002 Brand marketing & sales channel determination

Brand marketing channels are not determined by marketers on a whim, but are based on the existence of target users.

If your target users are between 35 and 50 years old, then your marketing channel must not be Weibo, but rather platforms such as Toutiao, Kuaishou, and Douyin.

Your marketing channels will naturally be determined by where your target user groups are concentrated.

Some channels may cover a wider range of people. Take Douyin as an example. Its users range from children of a few years old to middle-aged people. For some brands whose target audience is between 18 and 25 years old, Bilibili may be more suitable than Douyin. The followers of the two-dimensional world are basically those born after 1995 and 2000, and there are also a small number of those born after 1990.

Don’t be too greedy when choosing brand channels. It would be great if you can make your voice heard on one or two platforms where target users gather.

The same is true for sales channels.

003 Brand Marketing Content Planning

The core of the brand: emotional resonance and differentiation.

When creating content, start-up brands also follow the "80/20 principle", with 80% being product content and 20% being scene- and emotional content. The goal is to make users remember the product first.

A mature brand may have a 50-50 split in terms of products, scenarios, and emotions.

Content plays an important role in brand communication.

We encourage users to create more content, and we also guide users to create high-quality content through video, picture and text collection activities, topic interactions, and various incentives. The purpose is to create content from the user's perspective and resonate with similar users. Such content is more valuable than what we write ourselves.

When the content created by a brand’s users far exceeds the content created by the brand itself, the brand has actually been successful.

I also encourage the team not to copy or plagiarize when creating content. You can learn, but you are absolutely not allowed to copy other people's ideas verbatim. Maintaining originality is a basic quality of a content operator. Content experience can be accumulated slowly, but once the way and ideas of creating content are determined, it will be difficult to change.

The presentation of content must also match consumer preferences. Short videos are very popular now. If the main presentation method of your content is still pictures and texts, it would deviate from consumer preferences.

Content format caters to consumer preferences

004 Determine marketing strategy

Although the purchasing process of users is speeding up now, there are still at least a few people who buy at a glance. Most people still choose products out of habit or familiarity.

In terms of marketing, we should not give up on the principle of marketing layout just because of the rise of quick purchases such as live streaming.

Live streaming is a sales channel, but the popularity will die down sooner or later. When things return to normal, marketing will also require different stages.

Live streaming alone cannot support a brand

Traffic needs to be cultivated, and user shopping psychology also needs to be cultivated.

Brand awareness (coverage) – Brand preference (interaction) – Customers (purchases) – Fans (engagement)

When we build a brand, we still follow this funnel model, build brand awareness during normal times, cover and attract as many users as possible, increase user preference through some activities, provide certain benefits and profit-sharing activities during holidays or major e-commerce marketing nodes to promote user conversion, and plan some activities for old customers to let them participate in the operation or construction of the brand, such as the Product Experience Officer Program.

Some brands perform better on May 20, Chinese Valentine's Day, and Christmas, while some brands perform better on June 18 and November 11. It is the consensus of our team to formulate marketing strategies at different nodes.

05. Customer Relationship Management: Customer service begins after the product is sold

No startup brand can afford to neglect serving its customers.

• Are the real buyers the brand’s target customers?
• Are the reasons why customers buy what we expect?
• Is customer satisfaction continuing to improve?
• Are the channels for customer marketing correct?
• Does your branded content resonate with your customers?

These five questions from the depths of the soul are about brand design, marketing strategy, and adjustments to sales teams. Marketing can also speak with data.

Some problems can also be solved through customer relationship operations.

For example, customer satisfaction can be improved through after-sales questionnaire surveys, telephone follow-up visits, etc.

Another example is providing data feedback and decision support to other departments through customer data surveys;

Another example is increasing the stickiness of old customers and improving the repurchase rate through customer community operations.

The more of a start-up brand is, the more systematic planning it needs to make, so as to avoid going a long way and then having to turn back, wasting manpower and time.

Before having a complete marketing system, when faced with new things, we don’t know how to place them. This uncertainty will make many people doing marketing feel confused and helpless.

When doing brand marketing, we must consider three aspects of construction:

• exposure;
• flow;
• Conversion.

That is:

• Where do your target consumers see you?
• How can your target consumers trust you?
• Where do target consumers place orders?

The prophet goes first, and the pioneer goes first. Reading ten thousand books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles, and traveling ten thousand miles is not as good as a smooth road.

Author: Xiangzi Evolution

Source: Xiangzi Evolution