How to carry out marketing activities for low-frequency and high-priced products?

What are the product categories?

According to the target group, it can be divided into to b and to c

According to the price, it can be divided into high price and low price

According to the frequency of repurchase, it can be divided into high frequency and low frequency.

These six word combinations can basically cover all existing products.

Today I will use an article to explain how to promote low-frequency, high-priced products on the Internet. Low-frequency, high-priced products are not only found in to b, but also in to c. For example, home improvement building materials are typical to c low-frequency and high-priced products.

01 What's the difference

Low-frequency, high-priced products: A typical example is the building materials and home furnishing industry mentioned above. Its marketing focus is somewhat similar to that of to b products, both of which focus on collecting sales leads from potential customers (why only sales leads can be collected? That’s because the cost of regret for this type of product is very high). This situation is unlikely to change, at least in the next few years. This is because the amount of money involved in this type of goods is relatively large, and the level of trust on the Internet is difficult to support such large transactions. This is also the reason why it is possible to sell home furnishing materials on e-commerce platforms, but it is difficult for merchants to sell them within their own circle of friends.

Because online marketing focuses on lead collection and management, the marketing channels and focus will be very different from those of fast-moving consumer goods. For example, in terms of channels, more emphasis will be placed on search engine marketing, exhibition marketing, order fair marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, etc.; and the marketing entry points are usually based on brand and after-sales service.

High-frequency, low-price products: Typical representatives are various fast-moving consumer goods, which focus on user management and operations. Because the biggest source of sales for fast-moving consumer goods is repeat purchases. Marketing channels usually include various information flow advertisements, e-commerce advertisements, and product promotion. Their marketing entry points are usually efficacy, fear, and prospects.

02 How to do it?

Take an enterprise that mainly engages in product sales as an example. The reason why we take this type of merchant as an example is because Xinlong feels that the methods of selling products and attracting franchisees on the Internet are completely different.

1. Channel Advertising System

Channel advertising, whether it is search bidding or information flow, Xinlong believes that if you want to sell this kind of product well, advertising is inevitable, and the product profit is enough to support the advertising costs (of course, the premise is good optimization)

1. Search bidding advertising, such as Baidu, 360 and other mainstream search engines. Small brands compete for industry words and long-tail words, and add regional words at the same time; big brands don’t have to think about it, in addition to the ones mentioned above, they must have their own brand words. On the one hand, it is to prevent the loss of potential customers, and on the other hand, it is to maintain the ranking of brand words to prevent being impersonated by others.

Small brands can actually use the brand words of industry benchmark companies for bidding (remember here that industry benchmark companies refer to the benchmarks in the eyes of consumers, not the benchmarks in the eyes of the industry). Although this is a violation of regulations, it is generally not a big problem if no one reports it (of course, this method is not recommended, firstly because it is unethical, and secondly because there is a certain risk of infringement).

There are too many people doing this. If you don’t believe it, you can search for “Hua & Hua”, a leader in the marketing industry, to see how many people are trying to take advantage of its popularity.

2. Information flow advertising, such as Toutiao, Douyin, etc. To be honest, in terms of conversion rate, information flow and search bidding cannot be compared. After all, potential customers are very likely to click on ads that appear in search bidding, after all, they come here to find products. Information flow ads interrupt the user's immersion time and destroy his platform usage behavior, which will inevitably make him feel annoyed.

However, the brand exposure provided by information flow cannot be matched by bidding advertising. Take Douyin for example, with a fee of 5,000 yuan, you can easily get hundreds of thousands or even millions of brand exposures.

Imagine if you mainly focus on the local market, and run Douyin ads or DOU+ to bombard all Douyin users within 3 kilometers of your store every week, how many people will remember your brand? As for the cost, maybe only a few hundred dollars a week is enough.

3. Press releases and soft articles. The effect depends on which advertisement you buy. The trust endorsements of different channels on different platforms are completely different, and the difference can even be as big as heaven and earth. Take Sina as an example. The effect of buying an advertisement on the homepage and buying an advertisement on a branch station of a certain channel in a certain city is very different. Of course, the cost is also very different. Buying homepage ads may accumulate momentum for your brand and drive sales, while buying channel ads for sub-sites may simply add a trust endorsement in Baidu search results.

4. KOL soft articles promoting products. The effect depends on the KOL you choose and the quality of the soft article. Now there are too many inflated KOLs who make a living just by making money. How to judge the quality of soft articles? Just see whether the article has a story. It is best if it has a reversal or emotional appeal. Otherwise, it is not a qualified marketing soft article.

Basically, these are the common and frequently used advertising channels. However, if you are targeting the local market, you can try placing elevator ads and radio station ads, which are quite effective for certain categories, such as the home improvement and building materials mentioned above.

We have chosen the advertising channel, so what content should we use to carry out the advertising?

Generally speaking there are three types:

1. Brand official website. If you are a dealer and do not have an official website, you can use the quick website building service provided by the advertising platform (actually it is a secondary page)

2. The form for collecting leads must appear, otherwise your advertisement may be wasted.

3. Now some friends have begun to use WeChat accounts as a connection. Their main purpose is to reduce the number of steps for users to fill in. They can add WeChat by simply scanning the code, and then guide them to WeChat to maintain courses and conversions.

4. Event page. This kind of follow-up page is very common in low-frequency and high-priced products. On the one hand, it is mainly influenced by the idea of ​​integrating product and effect, and directly stimulates page viewers through event policies, thereby increasing the probability of customer inquiries or leaving clues; on the other hand, it is because it is difficult to mobilize old customers of this product, so when merchants hold events, they lack the starting volume, and at this time they have to go to major traffic platforms for targeted delivery.

After talking about advertising channels, let’s talk about several common specific activities.

2. Activity System

It is difficult to organize promotions for low-frequency, high-priced products, because no matter how much discount you offer, customers will feel that it is too expensive. Even if you lose a lot of money, they will still think you are cheating them out of their money.

So how to solve it?

Common solutions include

1. Industry friends and cross-industry alliances work together to offer great discounts. The discount from one company is not enough, so can I join forces with ten companies? If that’s not enough, I’ll join forces with 100 companies!

The xx alliances we have seen frequently in the past few years are all of this form, with upstream and downstream suppliers in the industry gathered together, usually in a certain exhibition hall, and then jointly selecting a host who is responsible for driving the atmosphere of the whole venue. Each brand then takes turns to introduce its own products on stage, and then make a deal. The salespersons in the audience will encourage you to place an order, and will also give you various great value gifts (in fact, the unit price may not be more than a hundred yuan). Generally, this kind of exhibition really gives profits, but the disadvantage is that the products that merchants can bring are limited, and in the end it really becomes a matter of small profits but quick turnover.

Later, everyone felt that this was too tiring, so instead of holding small-scale exhibitions in such high-end places, they held them directly in the markets where the stores were located. After creating a good atmosphere, they would take potential customers directly to the stores and follow up on the sales.

This method is still effective today and is an indispensable sales channel for merchants in the local market.

2. Online Major League: this is more interesting. In essence, it is moving offline alliance activities online. But the difference is that this discount requires money to purchase, while offline alliance activities are almost all free of charge.

Generally, everyone thinks that offline effects are definitely better, after all, you don’t need to spend money to enter. But in fact, it is not the case. The effect of online major league activities is simply too good to be true.

Why? That’s because the element of fission distribution has been added. For example, you spend 99 yuan to buy a preferential qualification (usually this package is included), but when you forward it to your friends circle or WeChat group, others buy the gift package through your link, and more than 50 yuan is directly deposited into their account through WeChat. What's more, you don't need to buy the gift package, as long as you forward it to others and they buy it, you will get the money.

In this comparison, the strength of online communication is naturally far greater than that of offline communication.

If you buy a gift package, you need to go to the store to use it. Once you arrive at the store, the clerk has countless ways to get you to pay more for better products. For example, the original price of product A is 3,999 yuan. After deducting the money for the gift package and then fulfilling the promised discount, the actual price is 2,999 yuan. The clerk then tells you that if you purchase product B, you can get a 10-fold discount with the gift package, and you can also enjoy the same discount. In the end, the original price of product B is 6,999 yuan, but the final price is 3,999 yuan. Many consumers will naturally choose product B. For merchants, the extra 1,000 yuan is profit. Even if the customer does not choose B and insists on choosing A, there is no loss for the merchant, and it may even help the merchant complete its sales task.

Can this profit be achieved? Of course it can. If the core components of this product are the same, the only difference is the outer shell, making it look more high-end, and then some smart functions may be added, the cost increase will be very limited.

This is like buying a mobile phone. You will find that the core components are basically the same, but the ones with larger screens will have a higher price. The memory is 64G, 128G, and 265G. Generally speaking, there is not much difference between the same model of mobile phones with 128G and 256G, but the price difference between 64G and 128G is huge. This strategy actually stimulates you to buy the one with the largest memory, because the larger the memory, the higher the profit.

In other words, it is time to work hard on product pricing. For products with obvious differences, the pricing difference should be large; if the product difference is small, the pricing difference should also be small, but the cost must be asynchronous with the price increase, otherwise it is easy to lose money.

3. The advantages of a big alliance include sharing of customer sources and one-stop shopping from the customer's perspective. But for some brands with smaller potential energy in the alliance, sometimes they really become runners-up. What should they do then? That’s easy. Just organize your own activities.

The focus of my activities is:

Low price and high frequency drive low frequency and high price

Some home appliance businesses, such as those that sell air conditioners, washing machines, and range hoods, often use this method. They will provide appliance cleaning services for free, if not within one year, then for two years. Those who are more skilled in playing it may integrate the fission gameplay and offer additional services when forwarding the link. They may also offer additional services to customers who complete transactions through the link or leave leads.

Another way is to convert low-frequency high prices into low-frequency bottom prices. This is actually similar to the online Major League gift package fission distribution mentioned above, but the difference is that the fission distribution method is not included. Usually, this kind of activity can be planned for the sales of complementary products. For example, if you buy a water purifier, you will naturally replace the filter cartridge later. In this case, you can sell the water purifier at a low price and make money from the filter cartridge. After all, filter cartridges are special-purpose.

Or conversely, the water purifier retains a certain profit, and reserves one year's filter cartridge cost and adds it to the water purifier cost, and then advocates buying the water purifier to enjoy xxx discount, and then replaces the filter cartridge for free for one year. (After all, in the water purifier industry, the market is too chaotic, and now everyone knows that the filter element is the biggest source of money.) Of course, this has little to do with the above-mentioned transformation of low-frequency and high-price into low-frequency and low-price.

Now that the above problems are solved, we can choose specific activity strategies.

Choice of activity format.

1. Assisting in bargaining. I don’t need to say much about this. Is there anyone who has not been dominated by the fear of Pinduoduo’s “help me bargain for a lower price”?

2. Group buying methods. There are many ways to do group buying. The online alliance mentioned above can actually be regarded as a kind of group buying.

Other ways to group together include:

Forming a group of two or three people greatly reduces the difficulty of participation. After all, for something as low-frequency and high-priced as this, no one would treat it as buying mineral water and just join the group casually. For example, things like main building materials may only be bought once in a lifetime, and the second time you buy them is for your son.

Internal purchasing group, this is more tempting. Why? This is closely related to the domestic environment. Chinese people all believe that it is easier to get things done if you have connections. They need connections to get their children into school, to get help when they are sick, and to get exams. Naturally, when buying something, the first thing that comes to mind is to see if any friends around them have the product for sale, and then use their connections to get an internal discount. The one who is the best at this game is Pinduoduo. Oh my god, will I ever be able to escape from Pinduoduo's tricks in this lifetime?

A lottery group is less common. To put it simply, each person pays 1 yuan, 1 person wins and gets the product, and the rest of the non-winners get 1 yuan back and receive a discount. Xinlong generally does not recommend joining this kind of group for low-frequency, high-priced products, because it is very easy to lose money - if 10 people form a group, 1 person wins the prize, and the remaining 9 people do not make any purchases, then you will definitely lose money. Selling one item can break even, and selling two items will make a profit. But I also have clients who have succeeded in doing so. The key lies in whether the bait provided to the people who did not win the prize is enough.

To put it simply, a tiered price group tour is to set a minimum price, for example, 30% off, but this 30% off is only available when the group has 5 people. If there are only 3 people, then it is 20% off, and if there are only 2 people, then it is 10% off.

There are many other ways to play group buying, so I won’t list them all here. I had previously learned from "NetEase 1 Yuan Treasure Hunt" and made similar variant groups for clients, and the effect was very good. However, after NetEase 1 Yuan Treasure Hunt collapsed, I dared not play it anymore. After all, there are certain policy risks. When doing business, the most feared thing is to encounter this kind of risk, which can almost lead to bankruptcy in one go.

3. Coupons. I’m sure everyone has seen this promotional method. But very few people can play well. Basically, sending out the coupons is not a problem, but after sending them out, there is nothing else. The main reason for this situation is still the issue of "sincerity". The issuer cannot make the customer feel that they are getting a good deal. Let’s take the joke as an example: “Buy a Porsche and get a 10,000 yuan voucher for free.” Most of the failed voucher marketing efforts create this illusion for customers. A discount of 10,000 yuan is really a lot, but the customer feels that you are trying to trick him, so the discount of 100,000 yuan will be wasted.

4. Gift marketing: A common problem with this method is that customers say, "I don't want the gift. Didn't you say your gift is worth xxx yuan? Just give me a discount."

There are generally two reasons for this situation: one is that the gift is not attractive to the customer. He cannot use it after you give it to him, so he naturally wants to cash it in; the other is that the customer is only sensitive to price and does not care about anything else.

When faced with this situation, many salespeople are afraid that the customer will cancel the order, and they don’t know how to answer or simply ask the person in charge for a discount. In fact, when a customer asks this question, it means that he is planning to buy it. Asking this question is more likely because he still has certain expectations about the price. So the correct approach for the salesperson should be to break the customer's expectation and then give him a sweet treat.

For example, "Product A you purchased is subsidized by the manufacturer, and its price cannot be lowered any further. The gifts are given by the company out of its own pocket to thank everyone for their support, but we didn't expect that you already have this product. Discounts are not impossible, but product A is definitely not allowed, because all the sales prices here are entered into the system, and the manufacturer can see it directly, and will be convicted of price gouging and fined nearly 100,000. If you must get a discount, you can take a look at product B, which does not participate in the event, and the manufacturer does not supervise the price of this product. I will sell it to you at a loss after the discount, which can be regarded as a way to meet the annual sales target." The script is a bit long, but that's what I mean. That is to say, if you want a discount, you can. Just change the product and I will give you a discount immediately.

In fact, coupon and gift marketing can be combined to create an offline or online interactive game. After the game, you can win coupons or gifts based on your performance. This combined marketing method increases the customer's abandonment cost. Although the path is longer, the conversion rate will not necessarily decrease.

5. Old customers bringing in new customers. Generally speaking, old customers bringing in new customers is a long-term marketing activity . As for low-frequency, high-priced products, the effectiveness of old customers bringing in new customers depends on the quality of the merchant's products and after-sales service. Otherwise, no matter how many rewards you give to old customers for bringing in new customers, it will be useless. For example, in the real estate industry, the rewards for old customers to bring in new customers are high, often several thousand or even tens of thousands. However, if the owner is not comfortable living in the community, they will not recommend new customers to you even if you are rewarded with tens of thousands of yuan. What old customers need to avoid when bringing in new customers is that after the new users know about the preferential policy, how to avoid the mentality that "it turns out that he recommended me to buy things here just to make money from me". As long as this mentality is avoided, the effect of bringing in new customers will be long-lasting.

How to avoid it is to distribute benefits reasonably and be open and transparent. Generally speaking, the discounts for new customers must be greater than those for old customers. Why? Generally speaking, A asks B to help choose a suitable product. After the choice is made and A is satisfied, A usually treats B to a meal. Now B gets the reward for bringing in a new member, and A also saves the money for a meal. But if the discount for new customers is lower than that for old customers, the situation will be exactly the opposite. This is the reality.

6. Factory live broadcast for bargaining/group buying, this is an online marketing method that emerged during the epidemic. It is essentially a group purchase, so why is it listed separately? This is because there are two conditions for live bargaining to be successful: on the one hand, it must be a reliable live broadcast platform (at least the interface conforms to the current mainstream aesthetic and does not lag); on the other hand, the platform that undertakes the transaction is very important. Big brands can directly use their own shopping malls, but small brands can only succeed with the help of e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo. The core reason is still the issue of trust.

The success rate of live bargaining/group buying is relatively high, provided that real profit concessions are made, because the experience provided by live streaming to customers is intuitive and credible. It is not as easy to fake as pictures (in fact, the cost of faking live video is not as high as imagined)

7. Community group buying. This method is really the most cost-effective marketing method in the field of fast-moving consumer goods, especially for products such as fresh fruits. But is it still applicable to low-frequency and high-priced products? The effect is somewhat discounted, but it is not to the point of being unusable. It mainly depends on how you use it.

The most common misunderstandings in community group buying:

① You don’t need to spend too much time preparing. Maybe everyone has seen too many big guys selling xxx million in one or two days through social networking, which has created the illusion that they can sell goods by just creating a group. Not to mention that some people have falsified data. Even if it is all true, the big guys did not do any groundwork. They just suddenly created a group and sold out all of a sudden. But their preparations have been carried out in daily life - building a good persona, which is "one or two days of community and two or three years of hard work to build a persona."

② When running a community, I have to be honest and not rely on others, otherwise it will be too fake. I won’t explain this, anyone who thinks this way is a fool.

③Build a community with 0 cost or very low cost. As I said above, community is the most cost-effective way, but it does not mean that the cost is the lowest. The reason for its high cost-effectiveness is that the conversion rate is much higher than other channels. The growth of a community lies more in hidden costs, such as network costs and maintenance costs. The cost of personal connections is difficult to calculate. For some people, asking a KOL to forward an activity may only cost the cost of a meal, and when you ask a KOL to forward an activity, the other party may not help you do so even if you pay them.

When it comes to community marketing for low-frequency, high-value products, the best way is actually not to build your own group to promote it, but to enter groups where potential customers gather to do marketing. For example, if we are in the building materials business, we can blend into the residential area owner group, especially the residential area owner group that has just received housing delivery. The management is loose (sometimes the group owner even tacitly allows advertisers to come in, because the owners need them to solve problems). When others talk about the products you sell, you can explain it to them from the owner’s perspective, and then persuade them to cooperate. As long as what you say makes sense, you basically have no chance of getting away. Okay, you might say, this is too tiring. No one has ever told you that marketing is an easy job. You think it is easy only because you are deceived by the appearances. How many marketers work all night long for a campaign?

Then when you have accumulated a certain number of potential customers, you can consider forming your own group to sell. Don’t think about fission without much starting volume. Most of the group members who fission by using non-product related gifts as bait are here to grab red envelopes. Using gifts of related products as bait may not generate enough traction and may not even fill up a group.

8. The core characters split. Some people will become partners through fission, which actually means encouraging customers to become part-time sales staff for the company. The simple way to play is that as long as you post product advertisements, you are my distributor, and I get a commission for each item sold. A more advanced system is a tiered commission system, where distributors are upgraded based on their accumulated sales (distributor → store owner → partner), and different levels enjoy different benefits.

This method can be used as a regular marketing method, the purpose of which is to expand the reach of sales information rather than how much goods can be sold. (Those who can understand this sentence can basically roll out channels quickly)

The core person is not necessarily the customer. Sometimes, the customer is only the last choice. There are many more suitable candidates than the customer, such as the designer in the decoration industry.

There is also a more advanced type of corporate fission, which is essentially also a bundling of interests.

03 How to obtain the activity launch volume

First of all, the quickest way to get the startup volume is to place advertisements as mentioned above.

Then there is

Total employee marketing.

If you have a few Suning employees in your circle of friends, you should have recently experienced the fear of being dominated by Suning's employee marketing.

In fact, Suning’s full-staff marketing is still lacking. Many people complain that companies force employees to forward marketing information, but if you look at it from the company's perspective, there is nothing wrong with this kind of coercion.

It lacks an overall strategy, and many employees are overwhelmed by the tasks, and end up having to pay out of their own pockets for things they don't need.

So how should full-staff marketing be done?

Total-employee marketing refers more to the joint marketing campaign by all stakeholders of the company, rather than just internal employees.

Like Shandong Xinrui Marketing where Xinlong is located, every time a client launches an event, we, as a community of interests, must fully support and cooperate in building momentum. Then add employees at all levels of the company, executives, upstream and downstream competitors, agents, and cross-industry partners, and some even call on friends and relatives to create momentum, and the effect will naturally come out.

Some friends may be curious about how it is possible to be so motivated. In fact, it is ultimately driven by interests.

When the event starts, choose the incentive method based on the size of the event. Sometimes it's cash, sometimes it's something specific, sometimes it's some honor, and sometimes it's even a paid vacation.

There are only positive incentives, no punishment.

How to ensure the enthusiasm of participants? It’s very simple, just give the reward upfront.

Follow up on the achievements and rewards you obtained in the last employee-wide marketing campaign, and the corresponding rewards will be directly extended to this one (there is a set of conversion methods internally for rewards of different natures), and they will be given to you directly before the activity starts. At the same time, everyone's tasks are set during the mobilization meeting. If they are completed, an additional xx reward will be given. If they are not completed, sorry, the reward given to you will be returned to me.

Then give everyone the materials needed for marketing, including the time to send the materials, the content to send, how to privately chat if there is interaction, etc.

After receiving the materials, start working at a unified time.

After the activity, an evaluation of the results will be conducted. Rewards will be distributed according to performance.

There are usually four evaluation indicators: synchronization, responsiveness, number of leads, and sales. The proportion of each item changes according to the purpose of the activity, and the calculation method is not scientific and rigorous enough, but everyone calculates the scores under the same algorithm, so there is no unfairness.

04 Conclusion

That’s basically all I have to say about marketing skills. Relatively speaking, these are some marketing strategies that are acceptable to both parties, which I have summarized after serving many parties as a second party. Some wild ideas are either constrained by one's own abilities or by the client.

In fact, all of the above cannot be called "marketing". Most of them can only be regarded as "promotion", which is just 1p of the 4p, and products, prices and channels are hardly involved.

This is also something I regret. I am a supporter of the 4P theory, but I rarely meet clients who can trust the other 3Ps to me. So far, the number of clients who can fully trust me is less than a handful. In fact, I can understand that for small and medium-sized business owners, there are certain risks in completely handing over these four core contents to others. What's more, many companies that mainly rely on agency sales actually have no control over products and prices.

Then I will say a few more words about an idea I realized during the past two days of talking with clients. I hope it will be helpful to friends who are also the second party.

How to understand customer psychology? Take myself as an example. As the third party providing marketing services, in most cases, my understanding of marketing is higher than that of my clients.

This can easily lead to a bias. I think my customers can understand what I say, but in reality they don’t understand but are embarrassed to say it.

In this case, communication will be hindered and it will be difficult to understand the customer's true intentions. It is easy to attack by reducing dimension, but it is difficult to persuade by reducing dimension, especially when you are sincere in doing things instead of cutting leeks.

Generally speaking, communication at the same latitude makes it easier to obtain the information we really need. At this time, we need to communicate with customers on the same latitude about specific issues, and then raise the level of analysis and develop solutions, so that we can truly solve customers' problems.

Author: User 629228

Source: User 629228