Use 3 tricks to easily promote your product

For a large, mature company, promoting a new product or service means that it has all kinds of resources at its fingertips. With their deep pockets, they directly bought out advertising space in various mainstream markets. Walking down the streets, you can see promotional materials and TV commercials everywhere. If you are better off, you can directly use your own mature products to divert traffic and penetrate the publicity into every corner of life.

However, at present, the Internet industry is developing rapidly, and most newly developed startups or even small companies that are showing some signs of improvement do not have the above-mentioned promotion capabilities. Most companies have limited resources, and product promotion is a matter of life and death for them.

This article summarizes three common and effective promotion methods and shares them with you.

Promotion and marketing is a broad subject. This article does not intend to provide a systematic and comprehensive introduction, and the author does not have such ability. I just wrote an article recently titled "How did "VUE", which is popular in the circle of friends , rise and develop? 》 mentioned issues related to product promotion, but it was too simple. Therefore, in this article, the author briefly summarized some good promotion methods, which can also be regarded as a kind of learning accumulation. First, attach the mind map of this article.

In the information age, sometimes a Weibo post or a piece of news can set the Internet on fire. Be good at seizing opportunities. When a hot topic on the Internet becomes popular, smart products know how to leverage the marketing momentum, associate the product with the hot topic, compete for users' attention, increase product exposure, and achieve twice the result with half the effort.

1. Take advantage of current events

Taking advantage of current affairs is the most useful tool in marketing promotion . Whenever a hot topic appears, it is a time for companies to show off their copywriting skills. This is also the most exciting moment for netizens, who are eagerly waiting to see which advertisement is the most entrepreneurial and humorous. Durex , which is recognized by the industry as a veteran in riding on the trend of popularity, can be said to have taken riding on the trend of popularity to the extreme.

A while ago, Bitcoin was rampant and spread all over the world. Durex Weibo immediately took advantage of the trend and imitated the format of the Bitcoin virus, typing "Your most precious information has been encrypted by us", and netizens got the message.

Wang Jianlin 's brilliant reply in the interview: you can set a small goal first, has become a classic. Durex continues to maintain its usual old-driver style and published the copy "One hundred million is really not a lot", implying that Durex's protective effect is reassuring.

Competitor Durex also used the black and yellow color scheme of its products to create subtle promotional copy. But it is less subtle, being too obvious and direct.

In the beginning, Durex's marketing method was to post some warm and inspiring articles every day. They were bland, talking about some life principles, some popular science knowledge about sex, and occasionally some more provocative texts and some fashionable and interesting pictures, but they gave people a very general feeling, or the text did not match the pictures, and there was no connection, as if they were posting on Weibo just for the sake of posting on Weibo.

Now, Durex's humorous and clever use of hot topics and its copywriting that makes people understand have made its brand image deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and won the love of the majority of netizens.

2. Take advantage of competitors

Another great publicity opportunity is to take advantage of problems with your opponent to promote yourself. It can achieve twice the result with half the effort.

The once famous Ctrip outage incident, due to the sluggish public service of Ctrip and the slow system recovery, there were all kinds of voices on the Internet for a while, and competitors certainly would not take this opportunity.

Because of its strategic partnership with Ctrip, Tuniu used a more cute approach: the blue ocean is waiting for you to come back. However, its competitor Qunar was not so polite and made blatant jokes.

But among the many copywritings, the one I appreciate the most is the editor of Tongcheng, who cleverly borrowed the poster of Doraemon. It was a double hit, not only did it not offend anyone, but it also seemed particularly affectionate and righteous: Brother, please fix it quickly, I'll take it first!

As for where to go on the weekend, it’s pretty standard: give Ctrip some time, and come find me if there are any places around the city. Ali Travel - Go, also promoted it flawlessly. It can be said that before this, many people did not know that Ali had this product, and some netizens knew about it but had never used it. Through this marketing promotion, its exposure and popularity were greatly improved.

Good products are inherently contagious. Leverage marketing can quickly attract attention, but the disadvantage is that it may only gain fame without creating a successful product.

Therefore, a more direct promotion method is to set up a dissemination mechanism within the product and attract the attention and use of other people through sharing among acquaintances.

They can be roughly divided into the following three categories:

1. Share Unlock

A very direct way to guide sharing is to set restrictions and guide users to share before they can unlock the app.

For example, because I have been short of data traffic for a long time, I often pay attention to the data-giving activities of Beijing Mobile ’s official account . Most of the activities are in the form of games , but it is usually difficult to get satisfactory results with only one chance. However, if you share the activity to your circle of friends, you can get unlimited attempts.

This is a typical method of internal product guidance and external product dissemination. People who have actually used the product share the product in order to obtain better permissions and content. New users are endorsed by old users and are more convincing.

There are also some common photo beautification software that can unlock advanced filters by sharing. For example, a very popular photo social software, nice, can get more advanced filters and stickers by sharing.

2. Share and show off

The love of showing off is a manifestation of a person's inner desire for attention and affirmation. People like to show off what they think is a good side of themselves, to demonstrate their taste, status, ability, etc. Being able to gain praise, recognition and envy from others can satisfy psychological needs.

Most game products are well aware of this. The best effect I have seen recently is NetEase's Onmyoji . Many readers have played this game. During its peak period, the circle of friends was full of players' sharing. This game can obtain rare characters through the extraction mechanism, and the probability is extremely low. Even if you are a RMB player, it is difficult to obtain it if you are unlucky.

Therefore, for the players who get it , this is a rare opportunity to show off. Not only can they gain the envy of others by sharing and showing off, but it also helps the modified game spread quickly and become a phenomenal game.

Games are born with the gene of sharing and showing off, but that doesn’t mean that only games can do it.

At the end of each year, some products will release some summary data for users, such as Alipay ’s annual bill, which summarizes a year’s expenses from multiple aspects. You can always find a part where you are much better than others to show off and share.

There is also an annual flight map of Zongheng Travel, which shows all your routes, total mileage, number of flights, etc. throughout the year. You can share it to show off how busy you are on business trips, or how often you have time to travel, etc.

The positioning of these features is to meet the desire of users to show off and share. Needless to say, users will naturally share.

3. Gifts for new customers

It is a very useful method to give certain benefits when you successfully invite friends to join. Many Internet products use this method for publicity and promotion.

Some people would join through invitation because it is hard to refuse the link sent by friends. Others may become interested in the product because their good friends use it and want to learn more about it. Even when most people in a group have joined a product, those who have not joined will feel isolated and pressured and hope to fit in as soon as possible. This is in line with the power of the group mentioned in the book "Influence".

The shared bicycle companies Mobike and ofo, which are at the center of controversy, both have their own strategies for attracting new users from old users. Mobike increases the credit scores of new and old users through invitation codes, while ofo provides 50% off cycling coupons to new and old users who have successfully registered through links.

Some products directly provide cash-equivalent vouchers to new and old users who are successfully attracted, such as Airbnb, the Chinese version of Airbnb. Old users share the link through social platforms such as WeChat and Weibo, and new users successfully register through the link. Both parties can receive a 200-yuan voucher.

This strategy not only encourages old users to continue to attract new users to register, but also encourages new users to actively look for potential users in order to make money after registration, thus forming a rapid spread.

Of course, the details also need to be considered. At the end of 2013, when Airbnb restarted its user promotion plan, it found that changing the copy "You can get $25 by inviting friends" to "Give your friends $25 travel expenses" increased the conversion rate of new users by 25%.

Of course, there are various other forms of attracting new users, such as 360 Cloud Disk giving extra cloud space by attracting new users, 10086 giving traffic by attracting new users, etc. As long as it is profitable, old users will be happy to actively promote the product.

Of course, the registration cost for new users is not high, otherwise the effect may be greatly reduced. Old users do not want to forward and new users do not want to register.

For example, when it comes to credit card opening services, people who have credit cards know that usually, recommending new or old users can get good prizes, but most people don’t want to register too many credit cards. Therefore, when someone recommends you to apply for a credit card, most people will decline.

"Viral transmission" refers to the rapid and explosive spread like a virus. It is a low-cost and high-impact transmission method.

If a product adopts the correct "viral" marketing, it can naturally arouse people's desire to share, spread the product to a wider audience at a lower cost, and the communication effect can increase exponentially. Moreover, this method of communication is not sophisticated and can often be seen in the circle of friends. It can be roughly summarized into the following two categories.

1. Test class

The "My Military Uniform Photo" that has been trending recently is an H5 page created by the People's Times client to pay tribute to the "August 1st Army Day". It quickly became popular on WeChat Moments, with over 1 billion views, and its insightful views attracted attention.

Everyone can upload their own photos to generate composite photos of various military uniform photos. The effect is good and the boys look handsome and the girls look good, which has caused netizens to forward them crazily. This is a "viral spread" triggered by inspiring patriotism and demonstrating one's own will under special circumstances.

Another "personality labeling" software, with its relatively fresh style and descriptions that netizens believe are very accurate, quickly took over the circle of friends. Finally, WeChat even took action and banned the account for 7 days in the name of "inducing sharing", which shows how fierce its spread was.

2. Games

Another very effective way to spread information quickly is through small games in the circle of friends. Mini games are lightweight and have a simple development cycle, but they can quickly gain attention. Mini games with a little bit of uniqueness can spread quickly, turning advertising into a part of the game, or even having nothing to do with it. All they need to do is gain popularity and have promotional content appear at the end.

The mini-game must be simple to operate so that anyone can quickly get started, and it must have a points or level mechanism, and it must be able to be shared and competed with others. This is the only way to attract a large number of netizens to participate in a short period of time.

For example, 2048, which is popular in the circle of friends, is easy to operate. You just need to swipe right and down. Friends can share the final score through the game and compete with each other. Even the WeChat Moments mini-game was modified and later developed into an app, which shows its influence.

There is another small game that not only meets the above requirements in that it is simple to operate and has a competition mechanism, but its biggest highlight is that its name is "Only four people in the world can pass 17 levels". Its name has successfully inspired the spirit of challenge among netizens, which is also a very successful promotion method.

But one thing also needs to be remembered, the game can be simple to operate, but it does not mean that the difficulty is easy. It either challenges a certain level of mental strength or physical strength, and it always requires extraordinary support, otherwise it will not arouse the interest of users.

This is just a rough summary, please forgive me if the examples are not rich enough.

The above three methods are relatively representative, with significant effects and low costs. As long as they are used skillfully, they will spread rapidly with the help of the Internet.

There are many channels for promotion at present, but the prices are high and ordinary companies and new product teams cannot afford them. Instead of spending money on burning, it is better to save it and polish the product. Therefore, you must learn these three tricks to achieve great results with little effort.