6 marketing strategies to increase conversions!

In the era of digital new media, product marketing has shown a trend of digitalization. Brands that have integrated new national trends and new marketing have redefined their products, which is eye-catching. With the iteration of demands of the new generation of consumers, the integration of various new concepts and new sales methods such as metaverse, cultivation marketing, live streaming sales, etc. that young people are interested in, has brought new opportunities and new growth points to brands such as Li Ning, Huaxizi, and Perfect Diary.

In this era where emerging brands and traditional brands compete on the same stage, all marketing strategies are worth brands’ careful research and redoing in combination with the marketing methods of today’s era. While helping brands attract young people, it can also bring brand voice and sales conversion.

Today, let’s take stock of the common marketing strategies that brands use to tap into new demands, create hits, and become the focus of consumer attention, providing new marketing ideas to create more possibilities for brands.

Scarcity Effect

Live streaming is a common marketing/sales method in this day and age. When users are watching live broadcasts, they are often attracted by the host's countdown of "3, 2, 1...", which successfully creates a buying atmosphere. The host and the venue control often shout "There are XX items left", which invisibly urges users to pay, and makes more people unable to suppress their inner restlessness and buy things, helping the host to boost sales.

This seemingly simple live streaming sales method fully utilizes the scarcity effect, making people anxious that they will not be able to buy again or get a bargain if they miss the opportunity. It successfully shortens the user's shopping hesitation time and achieves quick transactions.

The scarcity effect used in the live broadcast room is consistent with the common marketing strategies such as "limited/time discount" and "loss for only 1 day". The fewer the items and the shorter the time, the higher the value of the product. That is, the scarcity effect successfully induces people's anxiety by virtue of limited time and limited quantity, and the best way to calm anxiety is to place an order. At the same time, the scarcity effect also captures people's aversion to loss, prompting consumers to make quick purchasing decisions.

Anchoring Effect

The anchoring effect works synergistically with the scarcity effect in the live broadcast room. The low-price method is to create a driving force for buying in the live broadcast room. Free shipping at 0.01 yuan, two pieces at 9.9 yuan, etc., make consumers feel that they have picked up a bargain, and also make consumers have a favorable impression of the products in the live broadcast room. Naturally, the experience of the anchor selling at a low price is implanted in their minds.

There is another way to use the price anchoring effect in the live broadcast room. Before quoting the product price in the live broadcast room, the anchor will use Taobao and JD.com as reminder cards to compare with the quotation in the live broadcast room, thereby giving consumers the psychological suggestion that the products in the live broadcast room are cheaper.

Therefore, when the live broadcast room displays promotional information, the anchoring effect plays an invisible role, attracting users to the first information provided by the live broadcast room, prompting people to have the experience of getting bargains in the live broadcast room, and attracting consumers to pay, and even weakening consumers' sensitivity to price when the transaction is completed.

Veblen effect

The opposite of the low-price method is the Veblen effect. The low-price method is to provide cheaper products to consumers, while the Veblen effect refers to the fact that the degree of consumer demand for a product increases due to its higher price (not lower price).

Just like when the iPhone first entered the Chinese market, its high pricing strategy helped the brand attract consumers' attention. The iPhone's higher pricing than domestic mobile phones satisfied consumers' vanity, allowing them to show off and feel satisfied.

In this era where value recognition is more important than price recognition, if domestic brands want to seek new growth points for their brands, they can adopt the Veblen effect, manufacture high-quality products, and screen users for their brands. For example, Huawei's high-end Porsche series of mobile phones, in addition to the chips and technologies used in the mobile phones themselves being higher-end than other series of mobile phones, its high pricing model has also attracted many consumers. Coupled with the increased patriotic enthusiasm and national pride of contemporary young people, it has won traffic for Huawei and successfully increased its mobile phone sales.

Loss Aversion

Loss aversion is often used in the process of sales promotion and hot spot creation.

During the promotion process, brands usually use the scarcity principle to create a sense of anxiety, making consumers feel that they may lose the opportunity to get a bargain. This loss aversion also urges users to pay.

Similarly, if a brand wants to create a hot topic, it needs to constantly entice users to forward and spread it, so as to increase the popularity and discussion of the topic, and thus form a hot topic. In this process, brands have made full use of the psychology of loss aversion. Hot spots are fleeting. When consumers face hot spots related to themselves, they usually have a mentality of following the trend and conforming to the herd. At the same time, they are afraid that the hot spots will not be hot anymore, and they will lose a way to use the hot spots to expand their social circles/show off. As a result, loss aversion allows many users to turn from passive to active, becoming brand content disseminators, thereby pushing a marketing topic to a higher climax.

Face control psychology

Psychology has proven that everyone is obsessed with appearance, that is, people use appearance as an important criterion to measure something. The application of appearance control in brand marketing is "packaging is marketing, packaging is communication."

As more and more users are obsessed with appearance, brands have targeted this user characteristic and started using high-value product designs, marketing posters, TVCs, etc. to attract users so that consumers will continue to be interested in learning about the brand/marketing. At the same time, high-value packaging can satisfy users' hobby of taking photos and posting them on WeChat Moments, and users' spontaneous posting on WeChat Moments can help brands achieve new communication.

In recent years, there are many marketing/brands that have successfully stood out with their good-looking designs, such as Starbucks' cat claw cup, the marketing poster of "If National Treasures Could Talk", and movie marketing has formed a TVC trailer + good-looking promotional poster model.

In addition, many brands now care about whether their designs are good-looking. From packaging to products, from store design to the layout of marketing materials, they all consider whether the design can meet the needs of today's users. It can be seen that appearance control has become a common phenomenon.

Empathy Marketing

It can be said that empathy is a social method and even more a marketing method.

Content that can achieve empathy has a wide target audience and can trigger group emotional resonance. Empathy marketing has also subtly built a bridge of communication between brands and users, and is a commonly used marketing method for brands.

For example, NetEase Cloud Music’s ninth anniversary subway line advertisement was designed based on the 94 functional points and different music “streets” within its APP. The brand hopes to use a subway line map to connect Cloud Village and every villager. The implication is: this will always be a musical paradise that villagers can reach by pressing the play button.

The mutual companionship and witnessing of growth between NetEase Cloud Music and its users have established a warmer relationship between the brand and its users. At the same time, the brand has visualized the 9 years of mutual companionship, achieving emotional resonance between the brand and users while attracting users.

Final Thoughts

In addition to the above marketing strategies, herd mentality, attention economy, sunk costs, social currency design, etc. are all commonly used techniques in current brand marketing, and are also important methods to help brands increase repurchase rates and monetization. The reason why these marketing strategies can work in the market is actually clearly stated in Maslow's theory of needs. On the basis of "people-oriented", brands need to satisfy users' social, self-esteem, self-realization values, etc., and these marketing strategies that can meet users' higher-level needs can naturally improve conversions.