How can brands break through marketing bottleneck?

An entrepreneur opened an overseas flagship store for his brand, but found that mainstream platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin could not promote his products, let alone live streaming. After listening to the introduction, I knew that the hidden skills I used when I was a webmaster were about to come out.

Today, I would like to share my thinking logic: Since Xiaohongshu and Douyin cannot promote products, how can brands break through the marketing bottleneck?

Let’s focus on a few points: traffic acquisition, conversion, selling points, user decision threshold, packaging vision , etc., and talk about the logic.

Reminder: It is inconvenient to provide solutions for some content, but there will be some thinking directions. It may be a bit brain-burning, so it is not recommended for lazy people to read. But if you can read it thoroughly, you will definitely benefit a lot.

01Traffic Acquisition

Let’s start with traffic, which is what entrepreneurs care about most: How to obtain accurate traffic and reach users? After all, no matter how good a product is, it would be the most tragic if it cannot reach users.

At this point, we are faced with a thorny problem: mainstream methods of acquiring traffic are basically ineffective, including live streaming sales. Douyin cannot be broadcast, Kuaishou and Bilibili are also impossible.

What should I do then?

All products are based on users, so the first thing to consider is what kind of users the product is for?

Where do such users appear? Here, there are two ways to acquire traffic: online and offline .

Product Introduction:

It is a male functional product with an average order value of nearly 1,000 yuan. The majority of buyers are men, but there are also a small number of women who care about men.

The current mainstream consumer product marketing is focused on Hongshu, Douyin, etc. because these platforms have a large number of users and the products are not product-sensitive, so they can communicate directly with users and convert traffic with relatively high efficiency.

But are these the only apps available in China?

Obviously not, there are thousands of apps, websites, and communities in China.

Based on the target users, first lock in apps or websites where a relatively focused group of people gather. What are some such apps?

Users can be divided into users with strong purchasing needs and users with weak purchasing needs.

1) For users with strong purchasing needs:

1. Find the traffic source:

What are the purchasing habits of users who usually buy this kind of product? What kind of information acquisition, trust building, and purchasing actions will they take? All of these behaviors involve different traffic entrances.

Which entrances have the opportunity to actively expose information, which entrances have the opportunity to intercept users, and which entrances can guide private domain conversions.

What we need to do next is to take the initiative in such places. If it is active exposure, there are many ways of active exposure, involving delivery, conversion, keywords and so on.

2. Determine feasibility:

Then, you may find many traffic sources, but some are invalid and some links are relatively long. The second step is definitely to narrow the scope and focus on traffic sources that are more feasible.

There will be various judgment signs that narrow the traffic source: for example, it cannot be effectively exposed, the acquisition method cannot be scaled, the acquisition cost is too high, etc.

3. Data optimization

Regardless of whether it is active delivery or traffic interception, the customer acquisition and conversion costs must be considered, and the effect can be amplified or the traffic source can be optimized again through data optimization.

Optimization is not just about materials, it also includes copywriting, which will be mentioned later in the selling points.

2) Users with low demand

This group of users needs brands to inspire them and awaken their needs.

In fact, functional products for men can easily arouse men, but many people ignore it.

So back to the traffic source, where do they gather? What are our daily behavioral habits? In addition to watching Douyin, what other habits have we overlooked, and what channels carry these habits?

At this time, you can look at various Internet reports to see what netizens do online and find the focused traffic source.

Then, what methods and what content forms can be used to awaken users without strong needs, and what is the content? This logical thinking is similar to the previous one.

Can all users only receive online education? Obviously not.

Offline, where is the source of traffic for this type of users? Where are the places with high concentrations? Through which key people and channels can they be converted? In fact, the answer is quite easy.

Suction cup flow rate:

In the non-popular operation of traffic acquisition, there is an indirect way of obtaining traffic, which I call "sucker traffic". That is, the product does not directly reach the target users, but instead uses suction cups to actively acquire target users through the attraction of suction cups. This method, in cooperation with a third party, actually has lower operating costs. The target users are easily attracted to something, and that thing is the suction cup.

Carrying out traffic acquisition work definitely means traffic costs. To reduce traffic costs, one must either refine traffic channels or increase traffic conversion rates and reduce traffic transaction costs.

To improve traffic conversion rate, one of the most important things is to lower the user decision-making threshold and differentiate themselves.

02User Decision Threshold

The price of this product is around 1,000 yuan, which is a medium-to-high unit price in this category. Such a price means that the conversion of traffic will definitely be greatly affected.

It is definitely not enough to only acquire traffic without optimizing it.

Functional products, especially those with medium to high unit prices, need to build user trust and reduce decision-making hesitation time.

Since the average order value is high and the hesitation time is long, in order to shorten the hesitation time and increase conversion, isn’t the answer the reverse?

It’s definitely not a price reduction!

There are more than just ways to make consumers feel that prices are cheap, such as lowering prices.

Making consumers feel that it is cheap is the core issue to be solved. There are three common methods.

If you still don’t know what to do, read “make consumers feel the price is cheap” a few more times.

03Selling Points and Differentiation

If the average order value of a product is higher than that of competing products, it means that there needs to be a more effective or stronger reason for users to buy, or even obvious product differentiation, otherwise it will not be possible to support users' confidence in placing an order.

So how can we refine product differentiation into core selling points that users can perceive? To understand what kind of differentiation these users are interested in, we need to get insights from them.

Are there any side effects? Is the effect obvious? How long will it take to improve? How long does it take to feel the effects? Anything else?

Is the core selling point a brand selling point or a marketing selling point? Which one is more conducive to conversion requires further research and refinement.

This is a functional product, is it effective? Is it visual? Is it user-perceivable? It is equally important for users.

Here, you must not tell the user that you have xx ingredient, because the user is not a chemist.

What marketers need to do is to reduce the cost of user understanding.

Concept grafting, concept translation, and concept metaphor are all ways to reduce the cost of user understanding.

The slogans and images in the advertisements are all information that users can perceive and need to be polished.

04Packaging Vision

The current product packaging is blue, and several very abstract graphics make up the main picture.

This is a functional product for men, and the picture is so highbrow. Is it meant to make breath fresh and natural?

What kind of color will make men feel the effect and the picture used in the scene at once?

You can refer to energy drinks, which already give the answer.

Another thing is the product shape, does it have to be round? If it is possible to create different shapes, what kind of shapes can allow users to have effective associations and strengthen the associations?

I won’t go into details about the rest.

05Private Domain Traffic

The product is a repeat purchase product, so conversion and sedimentation in the private domain are very necessary.

There is a lot of content on the market about how to settle and what services to provide after settlement, so I won’t go into details.

06 Conclusion

Although the focus is on traffic acquisition, the entire brand process is behind it.

Let’s go back to what I have always said: marketing is actually the study of human nature.

When it comes to marketing, you must first consider your users and then infer the various marketing actions you need to take through your users.

where are they? What are they focusing on? How to get their attention? How to attract their favor? Marketers need to think clearly about these things.

On the execution level, it is impossible for a team to know everything. Once the big strategy is decided, different parts can be undertaken by suitable suppliers, and team members will do a good job of supervision, control, optimization and improvement. If you leave everything to suppliers, you will probably end up with a mess.

Author: Marketing Lao Wang

Source: Marketing Lao Wang (wltx-2015)