A Guide to Private Domain Marketing for Fast Moving Consumer Goods

Today, we have entered the era of new retail and even digital retail, and traditional marketing techniques are gradually being eliminated in the changes in the overall market environment. Therefore, it is particularly necessary for fast-moving consumer goods to turn to online retail, open up private domain traffic , and find suitable and effective marketing methods.

The traditional consumer product strategy is receding, and a new round of private domain single-brand methodology is gaining popularity.

The lack of Internet genes and online retail thinking has caused many traditional fast-moving consumer goods to be extremely hesitant in their strategic transformation.

Open the search engine and type in more than a million pieces of information on how fast-moving consumer goods can transform, how to do a good job in private domain, and how to become younger and follow the trend . This shows that the demand of traditional brands for digital transformation is increasing.

Whether it is Genki Forest, Huaxizi, Wang Baobao, or Perfect Diary, these new brands have sprung up in the market, subverting the traditional fast-moving consumer goods' perception of category innovation and new brand building. At the same time, new channel strategies are also undergoing new changes.

The methodology of traditional retail brands starting to open stores in supermarkets and recruiting agents seems to be gradually becoming ineffective.

Today, as the top traffic platforms and user thinking have undergone tremendous changes, new brands and old brands halfway up the mountain are reshaping themselves. How we can play together with users and leverage the trinity of "quality, effectiveness, and sales" with less private traffic costs is a cognition that many traditional brands need to fill.

This article will start with a brief introduction to category innovation and new brand positioning, take the marketing perspective as a cross-section, focus on the establishment of a private domain closed loop, and take the marketing matrix and strategy as the premise to create a model for starting a new brand in the private domain and how to leverage growth with minimal cost . It can be used as a reference for the transition to private domain marketing, the pre-digitalization stage of medium and large-scale fast-moving consumer goods, and mid-term development.

1. Create new categories

When communicating with friends who run fast-moving consumer goods brands, I often see questions like this: "We are making a tea product, similar to iced black tea and green tea." The most troublesome issue now is "channel." In addition to Tmall, JD, and new e-commerce platforms, how should I enter the market? How to acquire customers through low-cost marketing and establish a private domain? Any better ideas?

Generally speaking, my response to such friends is: "If the scale is not big enough in the early stage, then give up", or give a facelift to the original packaging, upgrade to new product categories, and reshape the marketing model.

Why?

It's very simple. If you try to capture more market share in an old category, and your brand positioning and visual language are still based on the old cognitive methodology, and the brand cannot be directly associated with the TOP5 in a certain category, then marketing will appear biased because the leading brands have already provided mature cognitive education to users related to this category.

If you want to occupy the old market share, the subsequent investment will have to increase. How can you attract more users to choose the brand from the existing stock? This involves strategic thinking about new product categories.

The reason for being familiar with categories is to allow a single brand to stand out in a larger market. The choice of category directly determines the scale and user base of a single brand.

So what is a category?

The origin of this word should be traced back to 2004. It has two definitions. The definition given by Wikipedia is: the last level of commodity classification involved in the customer's purchase decision, from which the category can be associated with the brand, and relevant purchase decisions can be made in this category.

For example, when talking about air conditioners, people born in the 1980s can identify Gree and Haier; when talking about mineral water, customers can think of Nongfu Spring and Yilibao; when talking about supermarkets, customers can think of Walmart and Carrefour. Therefore, air conditioners, mineral water, and supermarkets all belong to the category.

The second definition is: category is the specific means to meet needs, and is classified by customers in their own way, which can be simply understood as the difference between categories .

What is species difference? For example, Genki Forest, a sparkling drink.

Customers consider categories in their consumption decisions, but not at the last level. Customers cannot make purchasing choices based on the first-level classification, and this classification is usually not associated with a brand. This type of classification is called category difference. Sometimes it is also called a specific category within a larger category. How to create a new category? This brief description of these aspects is for reference only.

1. Have roots

What is a root? Simply put, my own brand belongs to a certain major category, and I will innovate in the old market within the major category, because only with roots can I divert user demand from the existing market.

Like the friends who make beverages mentioned above, customer demand is often met by current categories (iced black tea, green tea). We need to root ourselves in old and abstract categories , just like connecting a water pipe to the city's main water network to get water. The thicker the connected water pipe and the better the position, the more water can be distributed.

If you rely solely on an idea to research and build a brand in the early stages, it is like digging holes and inserting pipes by yourself. It is either impossible or the efficiency is relatively low. From the perspective of marketing and promotion, you will not be able to focus on a certain point and it will be difficult to capture users.

Like yogurt, soy milk contains the trace elements needed in milk. The root of cars and trucks is vehicles, and what they connect to is transportation and travel needs.

Another example is "Chinese medicine brand". The Chinese medicine is ground into powder and the category is named "certain powdered herb". Obviously, this product has no roots, because no one will buy herbs, so the root is the major item in the category.

2. There must be benchmarking

The essence of creating a category is to upgrade old cognition , just like Genki Forest seizing the market share of Coca-Cola and Sprite.

First, you need to find out where the old market is and the keywords and age groups that old product users use to identify the old brand. Then, use new products to focus on these people in the old market and reshape the marketing concept.

For example, Coca-Cola's main product is carbonated beverages with a pH value of around 3.5. Carbonic acid will decompose into CO2 and water in the stomach, so you will burp after consuming carbonated beverages.

But the focus is on sugars . Beverages contain a lot of sugar, and the sugar eventually enters the tricarboxylic acid cycle to generate energy. This intermediate product is acidic. Long-term intake will lead to nutritional deficiencies, obesity, and easy damage to the kidneys.

Genki Forest, on the other hand, conducts research and explores the pain points of old users in old product categories, finds the user groups that are more concerned about these pain points, and then recommends zero-sugar sparkling beverages. Its essence is to use new products to solve the pain point market of old products.

3. No differentiation

The herbal tea market includes malar herbal tea, monk fruit herbal tea, summer chrysanthemum herbal tea, etc. If the company had launched monk fruit herbal tea or promoted a small category of herbal tea at that time, the company would have fallen into the dilemma of the two concepts of "monk fruit" and "herbal tea", and complex concepts often easily make consumers feel repelled.

Master Kong started producing tea beverages in 1996, launching lemon tea and scented tea. In 1997-1998, it launched iced black tea, green tea and oolong tea.

With the rise of the tea beverage market and the decline of Rising Sun in 2000, Master Kong Tea instantly became a leading brand in China's packaged tea beverage market.

Although the first few products launched by Master Kong were not very popular, the ones that were successful were mainly iced black tea and green tea . This is the law of brand differentiation, from mainstream to tributary.

If you want to launch a new product category concept from a corporate perspective, you can use a matrix product launch test instead of just betting on one product. Yuanqi Shenlin also adopted the same strategy in its early days.

When you are doing single-brand innovation yourself, you should also pay attention to the leading companies occupying the category. If your own brand is in an awkward diversion, it will not only become cannon fodder, but also make users feel that the concept is too complicated and difficult to remember.

Category innovation is a high-dimensional attack on a low-dimensional one , it is a strategic commanding height and also a long-term approach. Since the category topic is too large and contains too much content, I will only explain it with simple key points. Every brand must have category awareness so that it can attract more users to create a larger market.

2. Positioning new products

The biggest difference between the current branding logic and the original branding logic is that in the past, user awareness was built first, and then channels were built. Originally, channel media were relatively concentrated, and the supply chain was relatively dispersed.

Now, with the iteration of multiple platforms over time, the channels have become more fragmented, while the super supply chain is actually very concentrated.

From the cases of Huaxizi and Perfect Diary, we can see that now it is relatively easy to OEM a new brand as long as you have users.

It can be seen that in recent years, consumer goods are actually doing the business of traffic and crowds . So how can we find out whether a product can establish new cognition? I have summarized it in two aspects.

1. Find the characteristics of high-potential categories

If you don't have huge amounts of money to invest, it's best for your startup brand to find a category with a certain level of recognition. This will reduce users' cognitive costs. Many people believe that fast-moving consumer goods are sold for visual impact, and they need to be constantly changing and have something that others don't. In fact, this logic is only half right.

If consumers have no knowledge of a certain category, you will have to spend a lot of energy and money to educate them. Before that, you may not be able to sell the product at all, and it may even be difficult for you to survive.

In fact, the essence of the so-called novelty of commodities often lies in the specific form of the commodities. Categories are the strategic commanding heights and belong to the bottom of the iceberg. When a company builds a brand, no one will show their trump cards right away when entering the market, so it is important to choose a broad and large track.

2. Find the potential of popular categories

Many people who are just starting a brand think that their marketing budget is limited, so they simply label themselves as a niche brand . This niche label often restricts their thinking.

The brand is small and beautiful, and the core lies in the sense of niche , which usually refers to the niche of brand personality and expression of propositions. This is determined by the content dissemination , not the target group.

Therefore, we should try our best to start from the popular perspective, and then focus on the niche scale and characteristics. Finally, as the market changes, the demand will become too large, and only with the right social media can we stand out. What kind of categories have the potential to become popular? There are two aspects to the core.

1) Meet the needs of contemporary trends

For example, the lonely economy, I eat alone, travel alone, and record vlogs at home alone. Entering the fast-moving consumer goods market with a single-person scenario is the biggest pain point. Such as the emergence of lazy hotpot, mobile games, instant hot and sour noodles, etc.

The other is the appearance economy . Nowadays, there are many boys who pay attention to skin care, makeup, personalized clothing, etc. Light medical beauty is also the choice of many people.

For example, organic food health care, low-sugar and low-fat meal replacements, weight scales, fitness and slimming equipment, snacks under the entertainment economy, live broadcasts, short videos, etc.

2) Sub-categories under traditional categories

Major categories (women's clothing, skin care, snacks, and home furnishings) are relatively mature and have sufficient market capacity and consumption habits. From a segmentation perspective, if a brand has its own characteristics, it can also support a large brand without worrying about insufficient market space.

For example, Genki Forest sparkling water drinks, Xiaoxiandun instant bird's nest, and some apple cider vinegar are all subcategories under large categories. On the contrary, there is no need to over-subdivide those categories that are originally smaller in scale, otherwise the brand will not be able to be supported due to the small overall market.

3. Three strategies for positioning

1) Name IP differentiation

Consumption scenarios determine consumer demand, and consumer demand determines product positioning.

According to the "Post-95 Data Report", the population of those born after 1995 has reached 250 million. The living habits of these future consumer main forces will determine that new brands will have completely different approaches to products, channels, and markets, so the name is the first step to build closer relationships with users.

After all, names will change with the cycle of the times. Ramen Says, Xiaoxiandun, Wang Baobao, Zhong Xuegao, Sandunban, Shuimangmang Juice and other names on the market represent the rise of new species.

Their methodologies are also quite similar, redefining the product connotation with a new name (IP), giving the product a new appearance (visual hammer), and forming differentiated competition with traditional brands.

You can also name it "Laodi Tea", "Niuqi Cake", etc., and get rid of the traditional positioning mentality. This iterative upgrading model, through new user choices, market positioning, new product innovation and usage methods, and then adding new channels such as live broadcast, short video, content, and Internet celebrities, directly forms a completely different approach from traditional categories, which will have an incredible subversion of traditional brands.

2) Subdivision and lightweight

You need to have the fixed-focus thinking of an 8000-meter telephoto lens to focus.

The market demand is also the largest in large categories with mature competition. New brands can start from areas that big brands do not value or are relatively weak in. After conquering a field and gaining a certain amount of users, they can then lay out channels. This is also the current mainstream methodology.

For example, Perfect Diary avoided the strategy of big brands crowding into skin care products and instead entered the market with small-scale cosmetics. Hua Xizi started with lipstick, a product that seems to have low technical requirements and little competition from big brands, and gained advantages through traditional Chinese style design and differentiated content dissemination.

The a1 Snack Research Institute starts with cakes, with the core being innovative approaches. Others generally think of cakes in offline scenarios. But a1 has become a relatively new sales scenario online, and offline has become (the place for activities) so the competition is naturally less.

This approach is like cavalry in a war, attacking the enemy's weak defense from the side, first occupying a small city, strengthening its own base, and then attacking the surrounding areas.

3) Make full use of the flirting thinking

Give the brand a coat and make good use of the language.

Friends who have drunk Santonban Coffee will never forget its literary packaging. When you mention Jiang Xiaobai, you will definitely think of its copywriting style. When you talk about Xiaoxiandun, you will think of instant bird's nest. With the addition of internet celebrities' recommendation, the cliché scene of bird's nest has been successfully made interesting . When you think of Zhong Xue Gao, you might think it is unique and high-end.

I summarize this methodology as "skills to seduce men."

If you try this product, you will be a beautiful woman, and your target audience is men aged 25-30.

You can decide what clothes to wear for her (visual hammer), what language to speak (Lolita, Kawaii, etc.) and use the appropriate media channel. All of these operations are called reshaping the cognitive model from a brand perspective.

The combination of good-looking design and sales through e-commerce channels can definitely help you earn enough traffic. It can be said that there are always new possibilities in the market in terms of positioning new products and creating new species, and these points may come from a post-95 intern in your company.

The biggest competition for those who want to be the top student in a product category is not their rivals, but their insights into consumer groups and the market . If you use this methodology to achieve scale, you can subsequently link "categories and brands" together to form high-barrier cognition.

3. Five modules for cold-starting new brands in private domains

How to acquire the first batch of users for a new product is one of the core issues for many brands.

I don't advocate the so-called high-profile approach to investment. After all, new products also need iteration, which includes taste, visual packaging , etc. I have also seen that many brand founders no longer iterate after making a decision. This is a very traditional way of thinking.

For the first batch of product research and development, it is not recommended to have a large minimum order quantity, and don't be in a hurry to find channels or agents. So what do you need to do before taking market action?

1. First, think about these issues clearly

They are:

• What group of people is the product targeted at?
• Where are the competitors?
• What consumption scenario?
• What is the different experience between my product and previous products (experience, not quality)?

The above questions can be summarized from the action level as follows: In which traffic fields can I find these people most easily, and how can I find them? In these traffic fields, I want to clearly express what are the key elements of product concepts and experience improvement ?

As long as there are 1-2 particularly clear scenes or stories that can focus people, if not, users will match the old scene cognition and form automatic associations, and finally the new brand may deviate from the team's understanding curve.

At the same time, in this era of refined user operations , the team must also figure out how to maintain continuous interaction with consumers? And how to improve innovation (content marketing, product marketing)? What is the key point to ensure continuously better product quality?

If you want to be a channel agent, what is the source of channel power? If I adopt the direct sales model, how do I establish my digital system and DTC?

How can I ensure that production and services are carried out well after scale-up? What kind of people or teams do I need? What is the initial configuration?

2. Trial activities are your first batch of seed users

Trial activities are the most direct and effective way to obtain feedback from the first batch of users , and are often the best place to collect "taste" and "opinions".

After the trial, you can also invite friends to help forward the link, check in and post on WeChat Moments, and invite more people to participate in the interaction and tasting for free, so that the influence of the product will be further spread.

But you need to build your territory well in the early stage, such as Weibo, WeChat or Yishi . At the very least, you need to have some product introduction, brand mission, vision, and value output so that more interested users can get to know you.

At the same time, remember to leave your WeChat during the trial activity and invite more people to join the community later. In this way, we have a free basic growth flywheel model, and tasting activities can be carried out continuously on a cyclical basis, which falls into the category of product subsidies.

3. Find KOC in your target field

Remember the above question? In which traffic fields can I best find these user groups? How to find it?

For example, who were the first batch of users of cosmetics? Born after 1995, women of Generation Z, aged 18-24. So what social media do they usually watch? Where will it be? Xiaohongshu, bilibili, Douyin, Kuaishou, and makeup WeChat interest groups?

So when you break these issues down into smaller details, you will find that your goals will become clearer, and you can then spend very little cost on business cooperation.

For example, invite them to become brand experience officers and let them experience it for free, and then write their experience reviews. If they think it is good, they can sell it through self-media and WeChat Moments and give appropriate rewards.

Remember to record this information from a market perspective. You can ask your team’s new media to package and output the case as an experience event . This way, users feel involved and brands interact, thus expanding your base user flywheel one step further.

As you refine your product and grow it, you will find that the small cards in the packaging are very useful to users . It is a customer acquisition portal. In the early stage, you can guide customers to add corporate WeChat. In the later stage, when the scale becomes large, you can slowly iterate it. It is not impossible to put an entrance to the mini program mall.

4. New e-commerce channels and KOLs

If there are not enough SKUs, it is indeed not cost-effective to open a Tmall or JD flagship store.

Of course, investing in a JD.com Tmall store involves operations and promotion. Generally speaking, the monthly cost of opening a store and adding the operating staff is not small. If it is within the budget, it is not a bad idea to use it as a sales and customer acquisition channel.

New e-commerce is also a good choice (Tik Tok, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, social e-commerce platforms), but this requires continuous content operation, which is also an indispensable part of the brand. If you are in a hurry for sales, you can look for mid-level KOLs to collaborate on short videos. Remember to include an entrance to guide users to add WeChat every time you release materials.

It is not the case that KOLs with low prices are the first choice. Matching the brand’s tone and historical data are also important. Some KOLs may not be very good at bringing goods, but they can play a role in continuously promoting content and influencing decision-making. The anchors of new e-commerce platforms can continue to invest, and there are two options:

• One is to regularly invite some amateurs or slightly famous people to live broadcast;
• The second is to cooperate with some big external IPs.

WeChat mini programs are a must-have and a core part of private domain marketing. In the early stage, you can use SaaS suppliers to solve the problem, or you can do some marketing promotion, such as cooperating with official accounts to do some paid targeted circle of friends delivery to gain exposure and increase sales.

5. Cross-border and interdisciplinary cooperation

The traffic group of small brands’ cross-industry cooperation is generally small , and it is also a process of continuous accumulation.

Whether the cooperation between small brands can go viral depends on the creativity and content . During the cooperation, some appropriate peripheral investment can be made according to the scale of the joint venture.

The first criterion for determining cross-industry cooperation is "what kind of user group do I need" , "what can I provide to the other party" and "what can I provide to users".

In different industries, various methods of playing can be adopted, such as buy-one-get-one-free, discounts, raffles, limited editions, promotions, and co-branded items. It depends on the scale of the activity and is also a sustainable investment.

However, cross-industry collaboration to sell products is not a panacea. The key lies in “brand co-branding potential exposure.”

During the cooperation, we should make full use of every "marketing and communication opportunity". Some regular materials can not only be packaged and pushed by official accounts, but also shared on Weibo, Bilibili, etc.

But you need to pay attention to the brand tone, which should be content-oriented rather than advertising-oriented. Cooperation is not necessarily between products, but can also be in other areas, such as Santonban ✖ Bookstore, Wang Baobao ✖ Catering, Adopt a Cow ✖️ and so on.

6. Content is the main battlefield for new FMCG brands

Everything can be traffic, and the essence of traffic is content , so new brands need to become content-generating machines . Many people believe that channels are the main battlefield for brands, but I believe that content is also the main battlefield in the Internet era.

Traffic channels are now relatively scattered, so how can we capture the effective groups?

The answer is "long-term investment in creating quality content with a brand-centric approach". These contents include: popular science knowledge, user experience, brand dynamics, celebrity endorsements, charity, marketing methods, cross-border cooperation , etc.

As long as it can be recorded with a vlog and presented with audio, pictures and texts, it should be made into content, and these contents can be formed into a matrix to acquire customers in the public domain. On the one hand, it serves as free advertising, and on the other hand, it serves as brand communication.

For example, if you want to adopt a cow, public platforms such as Toutiao, Baidu, Zhihu, Douyin, and Haokan Video will all have public layouts. Users may be tempted by it regardless of search or algorithm recommendation.

The above five aspects can be used in the early stages of product polishing and brand promotion. If there is also a high-quality brand story, it will be easier to connect with consumers’ psychological cognition and stickiness.

4. Combination punches and tactics of single brand traffic contact points

Online, the core matrix of private domain of fast-moving consumer goods lies in “personal account + community + WeChat mini program + official account” , and the personal account plays the role of IP.

For example, Perfect Diary uses the social network as a place to strongly reach user information and push discounts, benefits and content activities on a daily basis. WeChat mini-programs are used to conduct transactions and interact with users, while official accounts are used to accumulate information and connect the multiple touchpoints.

If expanded upon, WeChat search, payment card wallet, LBS, mini-program system entrance (task bar, customer service message, mini-program jump), discovery entrance, and enterprise WeChat are all places where user contact information can be reached.

From an offline perspective, the QR code on the product bottle itself can also be used for marketing. For example, using live codes to embed interactive turntables, hold lucky draws to receive red envelopes, embed corporate WeChat, and public accounts are also a type of entrance design.

The strength of attracting users depends on the product activity subsidies . I have encountered many products where you can open the lid and scan the code to receive red envelopes ranging from 0.3 to 1 yuan. This is very interesting for users in the sinking market.

Secondly, express delivery packaging is also a traffic entrance. Many JD.com and Tmall merchants are accustomed to putting a small delivery card in the packaging.

The card guides users to add (personal WeChat, corporate WeChat), and then return 5-10 yuan. This is essentially a way to acquire customers at a very low cost. In these actions, the guidance of words is very important, and they must be designed in a detailed manner from the user's perspective.

1. Market size below 300,000

This stage belongs to the early stage and the core is the user-oriented All-in online section. If the budget is insufficient and the number of users is small, after the product is positioned, just repeat the above 5 standard actions for starting up.

The key skill lies in laying a solid foundation. Only by building a private domain basic pool can you build a flywheel around users.

Simply put: "Build a good IP number, post well on Moments, build good content for the official account (video account), do more KOC and KOL pilots, and hold more online activities." Guiding people to add WeChat and build good content is the most down-to-earth way.

What is most tested at this time is the user operation ability , which includes IP and community. Try to build the personal WeChat account into a virtual character as much as possible, push friends circles from an anthropomorphic perspective every day, and like users.

Building a community is not simply about selling goods. You can arrange regular “professional knowledge sharing classes” and “invite KOC and KOL to share their experiences” every week, and you can also provide some supplementary knowledge.

For example, a milk brand "offers health classes every week". After a continuous cycle, the brand community will have a basic tone, which will pave the way for the subsequent brand offline pop-up stores, membership-based fission marketing, finding the brand's own KOC, and even opening offline stores.

I once joined a community after drinking a certain type of instant coffee. In addition to popularizing knowledge about coffee, they also offered a "weekly book reading" program. In the end, they actually used the content as an accessory to get me to sign up for a monthly coffee card, used the membership card as bait for distribution, and gave me 12 book readings per month to supervise my studies. Of course, they would also distribute the products in the later stage.

If you have some budget, you might as well build the mini program community at this stage, and cooperate with new users to carry out various activities such as check-ins, challenges, PK, etc. to accumulate content.

In the future, the digitalization of new brand users will eventually become a self-organizing form. The brand will have its own fan base, and all business models will be extended around the fan base.

For example, you can see the research institute in the Genki Forest mini program (Genki Member Store), which is divided into various sections such as tasting recruitment, content recruitment, and fancy eating and drinking. These are all preparations for subsequent user fan groups. Even the recruiting agents believe that these groups are the first choice.

At this stage, you can also rely on new e-commerce as a channel. Brand building from the marketing end is also indispensable, and it is suitable to use public relations thinking to build the brand. Different styles of TVCs can be shot for different festivals for joint dissemination. Maybe a certain marketing opportunity will make the brand stand out. The above contents can be promoted in parallel.

2. Strategy for more than 1 million users

At this stage, the brand infrastructure construction has been completed and scaled up, and internal and external SOPs have also been implemented. From the perspective of category innovation, we can develop new products and expand SKUs. From the market side, we can increase investment in public domain penetration , industry seeding , and variety show branding in three dimensions.

Online, we still use self-operated retail, clean up the KOCs on major platforms, and continue to promote KOLs; offline, we can allocate according to regions and channel types, and recruiting suitable channel candidates to invest in expansion is the best option.

It is no longer suitable to operate users manually. From the perspective of packaging upgrade, all offline marketing QR codes (on the packaging) can be replaced with corporate WeChat.

The core of using WeChat for Business is to accumulate data assets for user selection and research, and to conduct more testing for subsequent new product launch channels. At the same time, there are many marketing functions that can replace human efforts, such as tag push, digital membership, marketing promotion, incentive system, etc.

At the marketing level, a scale of millions is a test of brand power.

During this stage, you can use celebrity endorsements, movie appearances, variety show placements, television, elevator advertising, and joint charity campaigns to gain a higher market position. Of course, all of this requires learning to take advantage of opportunities. It is often best to do it together with leading platforms during major holidays.

For example, participating in the 618 and Double 11 promotions, many brands joining forces, working with top internet celebrities and famous singers for marketing, etc. All of this is done around the brand positioning and tone.

Huaxizi is a typical brand reference, and its main strategy for public domain traffic is entertainment marketing .

For example, we choose to cooperate with some stars with development potential, such as Du Juan and Zhou Shen, as well as some non-hot variety shows, such as Newborn Diary and Teen Fame. The subscription price for this type of variety show is relatively cheap, but the track is very young.

Furthermore, we cannot stop cultivating seeds in the industry track. Xiaohongshu, Douyin, bilibili, and Weibo still need to deploy a large number of KOLs to divert users to private domains, and offline sections can open experience stores at this time.

For example, Hua Xizi’s approach in the brand service sector has been to launch offline experience plans for tens of thousands of people many times, using experience as a gimmick but in fact it is a brand created by fans.

The offline method will eventually evolve into self-organization. On the one hand, it conveys the brand design concept. On the other hand, by inviting users to participate in the brand supply chain production process, it gradually cultivates KOCs and KOLs of your own brand, and they will also spread it for you on other media.

5. Store + unmanned retail connects online and offline

When brand power and user base reach a certain scale and are under pressure from competitors, the market will encounter a bottleneck period. At this time, more new stories and new channels are needed to support the capture of more market share.

For rapidly developing mid-size brands, SKUs have become increasingly comprehensive, and opening stores and unmanned smart retail spaces is the best choice.

1. Create a good model room

There are many models for choosing model rooms. For example, opening a small offline store for cosmetics is the best option. Additional services can also be added if users want to experience the scene.

For fast-moving consumer goods such as beverages, such as Genki Forest, unmanned vending machines are more popular from a development perspective. With the development of digitalization, unmanned vending machines can better achieve standardized operations, have fast fulfillment capabilities, and are widely deployed , but they also require support from a sufficient number of categories.

Stores have high barriers but also huge pain points. For example, the cost of opening a beauty store is high and the customer flow cannot be controlled. However, for those born after 1995 and 2000, the essence of offline stores is the experience.

Market data research shows that a point worthy of attention is site selection. Beauty and cosmetics stores prefer to open stores in high-quality commercial real estate areas to ensure customer flow, which can attract more consumers than traditional stores.

Taking mature international beauty brands such as Estee Lauder as an example, the brand’s counters in first- and second-tier cities are relatively saturated, and expansion into lower-tier markets relies more on online channels rather than opening offline stores.

This is also in line with the logic of online brands operating offline terminals, using data profiling to drive site selection.

If a store that starts directly from offline is compared with an online channel, it is found that although offline is applicable and has immediate advantages, it still lacks the advantage that can defeat online channels, namely price advantage.

Therefore, in the early stage of a single brand, it is necessary to first build online fulfillment capabilities, create model rooms offline to establish a brand image, and offline customer acquisition is a good choice. As for the business aspect, it can be regarded as a by-product.

In addition to the cosmetics category, there is also a lot of room for choice in other categories. For example, casual snacks are more suitable for experience spaces. When they reach a certain scale, they can achieve cross-border growth and integrate snacks into experience scene stores. You can also combine "leisure massage" and "book space" with snacks.

The first store operation logic, from the perspective of online and offline integration, the integration of shopping guide IP + corporate WeChat + community + mini program + payment system + supply chain is the best thing.

How to do it specifically? From the perspective of opening a store, the marketing level can be done by moving offline BA online, guiding customers to add WeChat, using mini-programs to place orders, paying online, and picking up goods offline. This process is sufficient. In other aspects, from the development of single product online SKUs, you have completed the construction of a closed loop.

2. Unmanned smart retail

The "2021-2025 China Unmanned Economy Industry In-depth Research and Investment Prospect Forecast Report" released by China Investment Industry Research Institute shows that in 2017, the domestic unmanned retail market (including vending machines) had a market size of nearly 21.8 billion, with a three-year compound growth rate of about 44.4%.

With the continuous accumulation of operating experience of unmanned shelf companies and the gradual participation of Chinese industry giants, the industry concentration continues to rise, resources are gradually concentrated in leading companies, and the unmanned shelf industry will gradually move towards maturity, scale and standardization.

Therefore, the scale of China's unmanned shelf industry will continue to grow in the next five years, and is expected to climb to 2.44 billion yuan in 2023.

Whether it is unmanned retail or shelves, they are essentially a branch field of the retail supply chain terminal, with the attributes of long chain and open market. It will not form an independent business model, but will become a channel accessory of big brands. Therefore, unmanned shelves are not a game of "opening points".

In the early stage, the blind pursuit of store expansion and ignoring the empowerment of back-end operational data will directly lead to the fact that the more stores there are, the worse the customer experience will be, and conversely the greater the losses will be.

The essence of the domestic SKU channel war has already begun. Due to factors such as uneven urban development, large deviations in consumer preferences, limited scene SKUs, and heavy operational management, unmanned retail has not yet truly achieved the integration of product supply and demand.

In the future, there will be a huge space for consumer brands to engage in unmanned smart retail. It will definitely be different for each person and each cabinet. Each container of big brands will have its own popular products and provide sales space for small brands.

Only by creating popular SKUs at a single point while embracing many small and beautiful brands to win the market together, can we attract consumers and make users pay for the products, which is also a major trend in the future.

The essence of business is innovation and efficiency. Whether it is running a store or doing unmanned smart retail, it will not end up being a single brand.

In the context of the times, the Internet cannot change the nature of transactions. It simply creates greater value by better meeting the needs of customers or consumers through improved efficiency, reduced costs and faster innovation.

6. Final Thoughts

This methodology is suitable for many fast-moving consumer goods brands and is also suitable for digitalization.

For example, Luckin Coffee went from selling one blue cup of coffee to opening 3,898 directly-operated stores by 2020, and Heytea went from selling one drink to opening more than 800 stores by the end of 2020.

There are also new generation domestic brands like Perfect Diary. In the future, there will be more new products that will break the new cross-border marketing pattern, such as the rising Wang Baobao and Yuanqi Shenlin...

Under the wave of demographic dividend, domestic brands are ushering in unprecedented development opportunities.

It is said that it is difficult for giants to turn around. Old brands seize the opportunity by upgrading to digitalization and rejuvenation , while new brands seize the opportunity by possessing Internet genes, occupying product categories, and playing with users . With the help of users, they dare to subvert themselves. I wish you go further and further on the road of marketing.

Author: Wang Zhiyuan

Source: Wang Zhiyuan (ID: Z201440)