How brands can be revitalized through private domain marketing

Since the concept of private domain marketing has become popular again, traditional old brands have decisively entered the market after watching for a while.

Having said that, new brands are small and easy to turn around, and traditional old brands have reached a bottleneck. If they want to be reborn through private domain marketing, how should they do it?

1. Reshape the relationship between brand and users

Doing business once or doing business for life are two inevitable choices that brands must make.

Regarding this choice, many brands choose the former, at least before private domain marketing.

I am nearsighted, so I pay more attention to discount information related to glasses. In the past few years, I have been to two local eyewear stores to get glasses through the local public accounts.

The first one I went to was about 3 years ago. There happened to be one near my workplace, so I went there after lunch… and it was done in about an hour. During the process, I took photos and posted them on WeChat Moments as requested by the clerk, and also added their store’s WeChat… but in the past few years, apart from the notification to come and pick up the glasses, they haven’t sent any other advertising information, not even on WeChat Moments.

The second one was probably last year. That store was a store within a building, which means that their customers came from online. The entire glasses fitting process was self-service except for the eye test when the staff came to test my eyesight.

Speaking of these two experiences, what I want to say is that although most brands are now starting to do private domains, many private domains only have one form.

The two eyewear stores mentioned above both chose online promotion and offline transactions, but the entire link was broken:

The first one: online advertising - visit the store - make a deal - add WeChat - leave.

The second one: online advertising - visit the store - transaction - leave.

In today's era of product homogeneity and users pursuing personalization, if a brand wants to achieve rebirth through private domains, it must set up a complete user path so that users can continue to pay attention to the brand and products. Otherwise, the user will leave after the experience and may not come back again next time!

For low-frequency and necessary products like myopia glasses, there are two tasks that must be done in private domain marketing. One is to plant grass, and the other is to educate. Everyone knows about planting grass, so there is no need to say more, but what about education?

For example, at the first store I went to, I added their WeChat account, and they provided useful tips on cleaning and maintaining glasses on WeChat Moments. I learned useful tips through WeChat Moments, and my glasses are still clear and the lenses are still in good condition after three or four years. I would definitely recommend this store to my friends. After all, there is not that much difference between products like glasses. It all depends on the service.

2. Pay attention to the needs of young users

According to a report jointly released by Boston Consulting Group and Alibaba Research Institute, young consumers, together with the ever-expanding related classes, will become the main driving force for China's consumption growth in the future, and jointly promote the transformation and upgrading of China's consumer market.

In his masterpiece "Contagious", Jonah Berger explores how to make products, ideas, and behaviors spread and invade like a virus.

When discussing why a certain event or behavior becomes popular, it is specifically mentioned that: "A gym or a church may become a place to spread this trend. Especially in schools, students can freely choose and choose their favorite popular methods, which can promote this trend better than any other place."

In other words, it is the young people on campus who are the initiators and leaders of this fashion and trend. Whether in the past, present or future.

There is also a saying that goes, "If young people don't consume your products, it's only a matter of time before your brand dies." Although this statement is too absolute, it does make sense.

In 2019, Guyu’s omni-channel sales volume soared to around 300 million yuan, an increase of about 600% over 2018. On the Xiaohongshu platform, the repurchase rate reached 40%-50%, and the average order value was 120-150 yuan.

"943 Eye Cream for Staying Up Late has long been ranked first on Xiaohongshu's affordable eye cream list, and Ceramide Lotion and Brightening Essence have also entered the Xiaohongshu list." In terms of sales, their current monthly sales in Xiaohongshu's flagship store exceed 10,000, with an average customer spending of around 100 yuan and a repurchase rate of 30-40%.

As to why they entered the Xiaohongshu platform, both brand managers said that it was mainly based on user usage habits.

"We found that Xiaohongshu has social attributes and is the most important platform for word-of-mouth communication." After a round of exposure of content on Xiaohongshu, the platform will decide whether to carry out the next round of distribution based on user interaction. By using this mechanism, good content can get rounds of exposure on Xiaohongshu, which helps to retain the brand's reputation.

In addition to promoting word-of-mouth, the direct communication channel between brands and Xiaohongshu users can even feed back into the brand's marketing strategy.

According to the person in charge of the Guyu brand, in 2019 Guyu launched a moisturizing lotion product featuring the ingredient "Cistanche deserticola", but its market awareness was almost zero. “When this product was being sold, it was mainly sold by anchors, but there was no natural transaction volume because no one knew what this product was.”

Afterwards, the Guyu team gained insight into the young users on the Xiaohongshu platform, replaced the ingredient "Cistanche" with the more well-known "Cactus", and upgraded the product packaging to a more refreshing tone. The product became a hit within less than three months after it was launched.

3. Online and offline omni-channel marketing

As each major platform tries to retain its own users and releases relevant rules, competition and barriers emerge between platforms, the ways of playing that used to work are no longer viable.

Users are still there, but they may stay on Tmall, Douyin, JD.com, and WeChat. Their consumption scenarios have been divided by the platforms; the traffic between these platforms is different, and the channels between users are not connected. We call this a "traffic island."

Today, if you want to acquire users, you must first break the traffic silos.

The most direct method is online and offline omni-channel marketing.

In the past two years, more and more emerging brands have seized the trend of new consumption and the new traffic dividend, and have achieved rapid overtaking in the field through innovative brand marketing strategies. Yellow Swan, the leader in the raw egg category, is a dark horse among them.

In the past year, sales have increased nearly 10 times. In less than two years, Huang Tiane has become the national sales leader in the category of edible raw eggs. It has also won numerous international awards in the food industry and has become a popular brand in the new consumer sector.

Behind Huang Tiane's impressive achievements, in addition to products, what is more important is the insight into the trend of new retail, combining online and offline channels, and using innovative marketing strategies to overtake others, thereby accelerating market coverage and sales capabilities.

Offline, Huang Tiane mainly adopts boutique supermarkets combined with large hypermarkets such as Walmart and Yonghui, as well as community elevators.

Online, it has entered new retail and e-commerce platforms such as Dingdong Maicai, Hema Fresh, MissFresh, Tmall, and JD.com, and has formed a closed-loop link of live e-commerce through celebrities + live broadcasts + interactive awards, bringing double boost to Huang Tiane's brand exposure and conversion.

Especially after the epidemic, the demand for health consumption has been unprecedentedly magnified and has shown explosive growth. Consumers have higher requirements for the flavor and taste of eggs; with the rapid development of social media today, if you ask which channel can effectively penetrate the customer's life trajectory, it must be the elevator!

Therefore, Huang Tiane chose community elevators as its communication channel. Through high-frequency exposure in community elevators, the core brand content and product features of "raw edible eggs" were rooted in the minds of target consumers in the community life scenes closest to "home". Through the creative video "More Mothers' Choices", emotional resonance was aroused, which deepened consumers' brand awareness of Huang Tiane and strengthened purchasing habits.

Community elevators are also the "last ten meters" to reach consumers, demonstrating a powerful customer-gathering effect and becoming the golden traffic entrance for Huang Tiane to lock in middle-class family consumption.

For omni-channel marketing, online channels are the preferred popular channels at the moment, while for offline channels, customer accuracy becomes the first priority. Online channels need breadth, and offline channels need depth! The combination of breadth and depth is the best match.

4. Reshape products to create best-selling products

If old brands really want to be reborn, they must find answers from the perspective of brand logic and brand marketing.

Being old does not necessarily mean being depressed and gloomy.

Let’s first take a look at some successful old domestic brands: When it comes to Warrior shoes and Feiyue shoes, you may be more familiar with the names “stinky sneakers” and “rubber shoes”. This cheap street stall product, which has faded from people's sight for many years, has become a "hot item" that European and American fashionistas are scrambling to buy in recent years. What once sold for 20 or 30 yuan now costs 50 euros a pair.

And the tacky military green "Liberation Shoes" are now appearing on the men's fashion shows of luxury brands such as Prada and Burberry. Of course, they have all been improved by foreign designers. But his net worth is no longer what it used to be.

In addition, Pechoin and Dabao are known as the "skin care duo". Many foreigners who come to China will bring back a bunch of cheap Dabao products.

These brands have existed in China for more than 20 years or even longer. The reason they have been revived and rejuvenated is that they have correctly positioned their products, changed their track to rebuild their brand value, created explosive products, and captured the young groups to give their products a more reliable sense of belonging.

The improvement of the cold chain and the trend of consumption upgrading have given the low-temperature yogurt market more development potential. As those born after 1995 and 2000 have become the main consumers, they are more pursuing personalization, paying attention to product quality and consumer experience, and are more accepting and fond of low-temperature yogurt.

As a leading local dairy company in Sichuan, Jule has advantages such as high-quality milk supply and diversified sales channels. With its product innovation and iteration capabilities, it has quickly occupied a position in the low-temperature yogurt market and has successively created a number of unique, innovative and consumer-favorite products:

• Launched in 2016, burnt yogurt has now become a major category in the yogurt market;
• In 2018, the company launched a yogurt that combines nuts and yogurt, which won the favor of a large number of young people.
• In 2019, the company launched a product called "chewy yogurt" that can be eaten by chewing, by combining grains and yogurt for fermentation. The product quickly became popular due to its fun and uniqueness.

When 996 has become the norm, the way for young people in the workplace to relieve stress is to "eat and drink well". More and more yogurts with visible and edible fruit and grains have entered the "snack pocket list" of young people: they can recharge the body without causing extra burden.

If you want to break through the bottleneck through private domain marketing, hot products are essential! To create a hit product, you must be close to consumers and understand their needs!

It is too easy for young consumers to choose products nowadays, and to retain them, they still have to rely on products, a product that can satisfy both physical and psychological needs, just like the yogurt launched by Jule in 2019. Although eating and drinking delicious food are ways to relieve stress, young people also need to eat healthily!

Private domain is definitely the icing on the cake for brands, rather than a life-saving measure! If a brand wants to be rejuvenated through the private domain, it needs to establish a new brand image among young consumers and re-occupy the young market in order to rejuvenate!

Author: Community Marketing Research Institute

Author: Community Marketing Research Institute