Let’s talk about the core routines of product self-propagation

In the past few years, many people have come to me to "have a chat", some to exchange ideas and some to persuade me to join them.

From the perspective of personnel channels , some of them are first-degree relationships, such as my classmates, colleagues, and friends. There are even more second-degree relationships, such as classmates' classmates, classmates' colleagues, classmates' friends, colleagues' classmates, etc., about 9 combinations, so basically half of China can be covered. Although I don't have to worry about free meals, coffee and tea, I'm still afraid that I won't be able to accept this customer. The efficiency is too low, so we need to talk more and share more in one-to-many situations.

Needless to say, most of the people who come to talk to me are about starting a business and ask me to diagnose their brand and products, especially to solve the problem of promotion . A common question is: Which promotion channel do you think is most effective for my product? How to create a popular official Weibo or WeChat account ? How to plan an event, make an H5, and become famous overnight? How to use marketing momentum to counterattack the old powerhouse Durex ?

I understand that everyone is anxious and worried, but at the same time I feel extremely sorry.

Because I found that most people did not grasp the most core thing - that is, what is the essence of brand communication and product promotion in the current era. It is difficult to see this clearly and it is difficult to succeed by using all kinds of fancy promotion methods. This is especially true for entrepreneurs who are short of funds and traffic .

What is the essence of communication in this era? First of all, we need to see where everyone spends their time.

Where people spend their time and what information channels they trust determine which form of communication becomes the dominant mode of the era.

In today's society, looking around, everyone is playing with their mobile phones and looking at their phones all the time. Most of the time is spent reading information forwarded by netizens and shared by friends on self-communication platforms such as WeChat Moments and Weibo. On the other hand, with the explosion of information and the pervasiveness of advertising, people are becoming more resistant and wary of merchants' self-promotional advertising, and are more trusting of products recommended and content shared by friends.

Therefore, the logic is very clear. First, you need to inspire users to actively share your promotional information, that is, to spread it by themselves. Secondly, because everyone is resistant to advertising, this requires that the promotional content should not be too much like advertising, because "an advertisement that does not look like an advertisement is a good advertisement, and the best advertisement is no advertisement at all."

So, the conclusion is: you should try your best to inspire users to share your product itself, which is the most effective way to promote it. For Internet products, you can share pictures, screenshots, links, etc., but for physical products, you need to take photos and send them directly.

Do you still remember the Baidu Magic Photo PK big names that once created the miracle of " attracting tens of millions of new users ", the "Crazy Guess the Picture" that everyone was crazy about, the "Magic Camera and PRISMA Filters" that were frequently on the screen, and Jiang Xiaobai that carved out a path in the liquor market with the youthful and inspirational copywriting on the wine bottles? And those weird-looking Baba melon seeds with “吃口什静静” printed on the jar, which one of them didn’t become popular through self-propagation?

Even the shared bicycles that are now frantically grabbing market share with huge amounts of capital initially relied on self-propagation of their products. Especially the charming Mobike . I saw several people showing them off on their WeChat Moments last summer.

I just wonder, what's the point of sunbathing by riding a bicycle? Driven by curiosity, I tried it out and found it very interesting. Because Mobike allows you to realize the "interaction between mobile Internet technology and the oldest means of transportation " for the first time. Whether it is scanning the code to unlock the bike, or pressing the "find bike bell" button on your phone and the bike will be silently honking not far away, these are unprecedented and unique experiences. Therefore, after the ride, I naturally posted it on WeChat Moments.

You see, if you can inspire users to share your product, you are not far from becoming popular.

Moreover, with the method of self-propagation of products, there is no need to envy others for having more users. Even if others have 100,000 users and you only have 1,000 users, you have to know that "making 1,000 users scream is far better than 100,000 users not screaming." Come, use the math skills your physical education teacher taught you to do some calculations. If you can inspire half of them to spread the message themselves, and assuming that an average user has 500 friends, you see, you can reach 250,000 people in minutes. According to this fission effect, the snowball will get bigger and bigger over time, and it would be a miracle if it doesn't become popular.

A person’s greatest enemy is not others, but himself. Similarly, when doing promotion, the easiest thing to overlook is the product itself and the huge potential for self-propagation that the product itself contains.

I guess at this point, many people will not accept it, saying that my products are not as high-end as the examples you cited above, that my products are too ordinary and too rustic to be worth showing off, let alone self-propagation.

Of course, the premise of self-propagation is that the product experience is satisfactory, and only after this prerequisite is met can we talk about propagation. Under this premise, I have never seen a product that is truly useless, has no highlights, and cannot inspire self-propagation.

If you are not convinced, well, I will now specialize in dealing with all kinds of dissatisfaction.

Here are a few products that we’ve talked about recently, including coffee shops, county e-commerce , and online gifting.

A friend of mine started a coffee shop. The location, environment and taste of drinks were all good, but he found that it was not popular, so he came to talk to me. I picked up the coffee in my hand and asked her why she was still using this old-fashioned coffee latte art. How would it inspire customers to take photos and post them on WeChat Moments? I suggested that she adopt the strategy of "experience beyond expectations, customization" and serve different dishes to different people.

For example, when the coffee guy hears the three customers who have placed their orders chatting excitedly about the topic of " financing and listing" (well, this is basically what everyone talks about in coffee shops now), then the latte art on the three cups of coffee will be the letters "I", "P" and "O" respectively. When the coffee is served, it would be a disaster if they don’t put the coffee together and take a photo to post on WeChat Moments. By the way, remember to make the logo on the cup big.

Inspired by me, she said that we could also introduce a sense of participation, allowing customers to participate in baking waffles, which would be more interesting. You see, I got it in a few minutes. I also suggested that she try "customization" again and continue playing with letters. For example, you can prepare molds with 26 letters, and everyone can stamp the letters on their waffles. Now, no matter whether the waffles they made looked good or tasted good, if they didn’t smile happily, dance around, take photos and post them on WeChat Moments, then they would be in trouble.

A friend of mine wanted to enter the vast county-level market and sell big-brand home appliances, so he came to talk to me. He said they were using down-to-earth promotional methods such as hanging banners, setting up balloon arches, parading with cars carrying loud speakers, reducing prices and issuing coupons. I said, that's fine, but they also need to stimulate self-propagation. I suggested that he adopt the "sense of participation" strategy and mobilize the masses to play together: for example, if you want to sell refrigerators, you can do this: let the villagers collect a few photos of old refrigerators from relatives and neighbors, and then they can get a discount of several hundred yuan on the spot when they buy the refrigerators. In this way, the brand can quickly reach everyone, and it will be a big hit.

A friend of mine has made a one-click gift-giving function through mobile phones, which turns the physical gift card into an online electronic one. He sends a link to others and they can click on the page to choose their own gift. One day, talk to me. I suggested to him that he should use the method of "implanting Easter eggs" to stimulate self-propagation. For example, when the recipient opens the page with his mobile phone, a frosted glass or foggy effect appears, which needs to be wiped gently with the hand before the gift giver's portrait or message behind the gift gradually appears. He would be shocked if he didn't scream at this kind of gift-giving experience which was full of surprise, anticipation and class.

What? You’re still not convinced? Come, let me give you two more examples. One is a public welfare project and the other is a sexual service. Give you another idea. They all used the self-propagation method of making invisible business "visualized" - being seen by others can achieve self-propagation.

The first one is like this. There is a men's health fund abroad called Movember. In order to call on more people to pay attention to men's health and raise public welfare funds, they launch an event in November every year, requiring participants not to shave within a month.

Generally speaking, public welfare activities do not have strong self-propagation capabilities. When you donate money to charity, at most you will be given a certificate, a souvenir, a receipt, etc., and you cannot carry these evidences of your donation with you and show them to everyone you meet. The Movember Foundation has found a clever way. "Growing a beard" not only makes people feel novel and cool, making them willing to try it, but also makes the activity visible, greatly attracting the attention of friends and family. Suppose your friend participates in the Movember event, and one day you see him with a big beard, you will definitely ask him why he grows a beard. In this way, you will get to know the foundation.

The seemingly unrelated beard visualizes the people participating in the event, thus forming self-propagation. Soon, tens of thousands of people participated in the event, and the funds raised quickly exceeded 100 million yuan, which shows that the effect was very good.

Let’s talk about the second one. The Portuguese-language series " Marketing Tricks" launched by HBO tells the story of how three beautiful call girls use various marketing methods to make their business flourish. This TV series is both entertaining and educational, with no boring moments throughout. It allows you to learn practical marketing knowledge in an exciting state. You deserve it.

In the play, in order to expand their business to the middle and upper class men, several girls came up with an idea to give a pair of exclusive blue cufflinks to the men who had enjoyed their service.

Since men who like to go to places of entertainment often have their own small circles and will share high-quality resources with each other. At a party, this beautiful cufflink will easily be noticed and talked about. In this way, a small cufflink not only reflects the VIP treatment, but also realizes the visualization of its business, ultimately promoting word-of-mouth communication and increasing business volume.

It is worth reminding you that if one day you really see this familiar blue cufflink on a guest’s decent shirt, it is best not to ask questions easily unless you have a very close relationship or have a grudge against him.

You see, the ladies are using the advanced concept of product self-propagation to promote their products. It would be a pity if we still hold on to the golden bowl of the product and beg for food.

In fact, the above only introduces one or two tricks. If you can fully tap the potential of the product and use the eight tactics of product self-propagation, such as "main process, visualization, adding copywriting, personalization, planting easter eggs, exceeding expectations, sense of participation, and catching hot spots", and implant multiple self-propagation mechanisms in the entire product chain and all user experience contact points, then it would be really strange if it doesn't become popular.

"Okay, now you accept it?"

"I give up! Bai Ning, let's talk?"

"ah..."