Are marketing and operations unclear? Let's take a look at their essential differences and 5 major inspirations

The ambiguous relationship between marketing and Internet operations has been a mystery in the minds of Internet operators since the rise of Internet operations positions:

Although it is important, it seems to have no direct relationship with work;

It's not important, but I always feel that there is a connection between the two that is hard to explain: they seem to have the same master, but they also seem to have essential differences...

The key is that clarifying the relationship between the two will not only allow us to clarify the boundaries between operations and marketing work, but also transplant and draw on the theoretical system of marketing that has been accumulated for centuries, allowing us to see further and go faster on the road of operations.

The following will be explained as follows:

• The essential difference between marketing and operations: different business models and different interest relationships
• The five major stages of marketing development and their implications for operations
• Five revelations of scientific marketing models to operating models

1. The essential differences and connections between marketing and operations

In "Marketing An Introduction", marketing is broadly defined as the process of creating value for customers, building strong customer relationships, and gaining returns.

Does this definition feel familiar to us?

If you replace the word "customer" in the above sentence with "user", you will find that it is very close to the definition of operation. The difference between these two words helps us sort out the core difference between the two: the connotations of the business models are different.

Marketing is about making profits from the difference between customer returns and costs; while operations are about making profits indirectly from users, by selling users' attention and influence to third parties.

The difference between the two is nothing new, but this seemingly small difference has a subversive impact on the strategies, positioning, organizational structure, and resource allocation of traditional marketing-driven companies and Internet business-driven companies.

For example, suppose we run a "fruit store chain" business.

So, for a fruit store operating according to the traditional marketing business model, it will be like this:

Goal: Maximize sales profit.

At the beginning of opening the store, we need to carefully evaluate the coverage area of ​​fruit stores in the community and carefully select the location, then contact and manage the wholesale fruit suppliers, open stores, recruit and train employees, manage the store, flexibly manage prices according to market price fluctuations, and attract local residents through membership cards, etc.

Success or failure depends mainly on store location, fruit quality, employee quality, etc.

However, for a fruit chain store operating according to the Internet model, it may look like this:

Goal: To attract as many users as possible who love to eat fruit.

The first step is to choose a location to open a store? There is no need to operate your own business with such high costs. There are already mature fruit stores everywhere. Why not cooperate with them directly?

For example, you can create a "Fruit Activity Public Account ". Users who follow this account can check in once a week and receive a small portion of high-end fruit (such as cherries, durian, and black currants) for free at a designated fruit store, which will quickly attract a large number of loyal fans who love the fruit activity. Then make profits through online advertising and activities.

Therefore, the remaining work is to find a group of fruit stores with reliable management for long-term cooperation (the negotiation advantage is: stable traffic can also reduce the risk of unsalable fruit stores and thus lower prices), and settle accounts with them periodically.

*These two cases are just examples, please do not imitate blindly.

It can be seen that the difference between "customer" and "user" is just two words, but it has led to a whole set of completely different business models:

The former makes a profit by subtracting costs from sales;

The latter is to invite users to eat fruit and make money elsewhere through the brand popularity effect.

However, there are actually many similarities in the operation of the two:

For example, they all need to provide excellent products (good fruits) to attract people, excellent management to ensure service level, they all need marketing behaviors that can influence people's decisions, and they all hope to gain as much publicity and word of mouth as possible...

Marketing has a history of thousands of years since the beginning of human privatization, and even modern commercial civilization has a history of hundreds of years of development. Therefore, Internet business is obviously a branch of "business" and it split from traditional business more than 20 years ago. Therefore, it is not surprising that the two have many similarities.

To further explore the differences between the two, we can only find the answer by tracing back to the roots.

2. Five inspirations from the history of marketing development for operations

Modern marketing, which has been formed since the Industrial Revolution, has experienced a total of "five different concepts" as the core strategic guidelines. Let's explore their many similarities with the short development process of operations:

Stage 1: Marketing concept of production concept

The marketing production concept holds that customers prefer products that are cheap and widely available.

This is one of the oldest concepts in guiding salespeople. The production concept pursues production efficiency and reduces costs, but ignores customer needs and the relationship with customers. This is called marketing myopia.

Some Internet friends may listen to my explanation of this passage with a historical mindset, but have we operators really passed this stage (in fact, we haven’t even reached the standard of this stage)?

We see that those aimless mass advertisements, QR codes posted everywhere, and the operational thinking of adding 5,000 WeChat friends as the guideline are still popular, and there are even some so-called communities that are similar to pyramid schemes... making the place chaotic. Regardless of whether these methods are effective, these behaviors actually directly lower the professional image of the entire operations industry, and ultimately are detrimental to all operations practitioners.

Although Internet operations are developing very well, there is a saying that goes "a latent dragon should not be used", so friends still need to be cautious.

Operational revelation: Please be wary of some "quick promotion" strategies that take advantage of people's information asymmetry and are instigated by marketers who are attached to so-called big Vs (they can be seen everywhere on Zhihu). Any strategy that does not create real value is pseudo-operation.

Stage 2: Marketing concept of product concept

The marketing product concept believes that customers like products with the best quality, functions and attributes, and is committed to continuous improvement of products.

This is an improvement compared to the "Stage One Production Concept", but it is still easy to produce another kind of marketing myopia, such as pursuing the best, largest, fastest, etc. of a single attribute, but ignoring creative (disruptive) solutions that more thoroughly meet customer needs.

We also have large-scale companies on the Internet that use this concept as their strategic guide. The most typical example is that short-term product data and KPI are the only operational guidelines, lacking substantive innovation.

To give a simple example, if you operate a content information product, the editor's preference for content is usually based on the number of readings and shares. But this will inevitably lead to vulgar content and clickbait titles everywhere.

The same is true for non-content products. Once someone in the organization is aware of the underlying potential needs of users and proposes some new solutions, they will usually be opposed by those in power in the organization. The reason is: Do you have good data to support your solution?

However, new innovative ideas require several attempts and modifications before they can make rapid progress. Without the support of the core strength of the organization and without "trial and error", how can substantial innovation be generated?

Operational inspiration: The work approach that uses short-term data KPIs as the only guide needs to be improved urgently. For example, in the operation of a public account, if the data of a promoted article is slightly worse today, the leader will say that such topics should be eliminated. Who in the team dares to innovate?

Stage 3: Marketing concept of sales concept

The sales concept holds that as long as the company conducts large-scale sales and promotions, consumers will buy large quantities of products. It focuses on generating transactions rather than building long-term profitable customer relationships.

Similarly, similar thinking can be found everywhere in the Internet field: for example, falsifying data to deceive investors , and then spending a large amount of money to seize channels , buy traffic, promote exaggerated and false advertisements, and even subsidize the behavior of attracting users.

Operational revelation: As the literacy of all netizens continues to improve, this distorted promotion strategy (taking advantage of information asymmetry to deceive) will gradually lose its influence and may even be banned by legislation, such as the latest Advertising Law.

Stage 4: Scientific Marketing Concept

Believes that achievement of organizational goals depends on understanding the needs and wants of target markets and providing better customer satisfaction than competitors.

This customer-centric "perceive and respond" guiding ideology can be said to be a more comprehensive and scientific marketing concept.

It is an outside-in perspective that drives the strategy of the entire organization with customer interests at the core. It not only meets the obvious needs of customers, but also uses various customer research methods to gain insight into the deeper interests of customers, and makes every effort to satisfy and establish long-term relationships with customers.

Currently, successful Internet companies in the industry are also implementing similar concepts in practice.

We really have to praise WeChat here. There is a reason why it has become the dominant position today. Many small details are indeed protecting the interests of users: such as originality protection and continuously preventing vulgar marketing behaviors in the circle of friends. Although it is not perfect, it is much better than many platforms. In contrast, Sina Weibo had the potential to become a leader in mobile social networking in its early days, but its lack of long-term vision led to its embarrassing position.

Operational inspiration: The strategy driven by scientific marketing concepts is worthy of operational reference, which will be elaborated in detail later.

Concept 5: Social Marketing Concept

The social marketing concept questions the pure marketing concept, arguing that it may ignore the conflict between customers' short-term desires and long-term welfare.

In other words, social marketing will take into account the needs of sustainable development of society, environment, culture, several generations or even dozens of generations. It is not the pursuit of simple economic value, but the pursuit of broad social value.

This concept is actually not new. In our East, wise and ambitious people have been proposing and practicing it as early as two thousand years ago.

In fact, the damage caused by excessive pursuit of economic benefits to the world has already appeared on a large scale (don’t underestimate the domino effect caused by the distortion of culture and values, such as the First and Second World Wars), and the prevalence of individualism and hedonism has further aggravated this damage. The term "entertainment to death" is a very ironic metaphor that mankind will eventually become extinct due to superficiality and ignorance...

Friends who are reading this article, the only thing we can do is to practice it.

For example, "working less overtime" has long implicitly or explicitly mentioned social responsibility (the three responsibilities of a wise man). For example, the preface of my new book "Evolutionary Operations" mentioned that it is not intended to be a bestseller, but to cultivate a group of Internet talents with far-sighted thinking and noble character. Or my speech at the National Operations Summit also mentioned that we should pursue long-term feedback rather than indulge in short-term feedback...

The above two paragraphs are about cultural public welfare. After talking about public welfare, let’s continue.

3. The relationship and reference between scientific marketing model and operation

After a brief description of the history of marketing development, we can define scientific marketing as follows: marketing is a process of establishing profitable relationships with customers, creating value for customers as the core driving force of the organization, and obtaining profits in return.

Let’s take a look at the scientific marketing model designed based on this and driven by customer value:

Step 1: Understand the market and customer needs

Including researching consumers, markets, managing marketing information and customer data

Step 2: Design a customer-driven marketing strategy

Including market segmentation, market segment selection, and determining value statements: differentiation and positioning

Step 3: Build a marketing plan to deliver value

Including designing products and services, building a strong brand, pricing, channel management, promotion, etc. (Note: products and brands are part of the big marketing system)

Step 4: Build profitable and delightful customer relationships

Including customer relationship management, building strong connections with customers, and establishing connections with marketing partners (upstream and downstream channels).

Step 5: Get value from customers and create profits and customer assets

Create satisfied and loyal customers, customer lifetime value, increase market share and customer share

The overall picture is as follows:

If we look at it from the perspective of big operations, we will find that in the above marketing models, except for "pricing", "upstream supply chain" and "market segmentation", almost all of them are reflected in the "big operations" of the Internet: such as the Internet's "user research and profiling", "user refined control and operation", "value proposition and positioning", "product brand", "channel (traffic) management", "user relationship management" and so on.

It can be seen that from the perspective of current job functions, the scope of marketing is larger than narrow operations (promotion and product operations ). For a company driven by scientific marketing, the resources and capabilities of the entire organization are centered around marketing strategy.

Whether it is product development, supply chain, channels, finance, or human resources, the marketing department holds the greatest power and bears the greatest responsibility.

The success of the world’s top 500 companies and many emerging companies has fully verified the correctness and scientific nature of the above marketing-driven model. This is a huge treasure trove that can be transplanted and borrowed from our immature Internet operating model.

Therefore, through the insights of scientific marketing models, Li Shaojia summarized five new inspirations that operations can learn from and the subsequent development trends of the operations industry, which is also the core of this article:

Revelation 1: Big operation drive will be the strategic winning trend of Internet companies, and it is also the way out and prospect for operators

The core of the Internet's commercial value comes from users. It can be firmly said that the "big operation thinking" that drives the strategic resource allocation of the entire enterprise with users as the core is scientific and competitive.

The scientific marketing strategies of traditional businesses have also been fully demonstrated.

Unfortunately, most Internet companies still position their operations in the category of "small operations", for example, they only focus on promotion or user operations , event operations, etc., while their respective KPIs and core indicators forcibly split the consistency of the work objectives of each functional area.

In addition, there are many Internet companies that are headed by the person in charge of the product... This actually leads to a vicious cycle: the more capable people are, the less willing they are to engage in operations, and those engaged in operations lack the corresponding capabilities and are indeed unable to handle the task. However, the product-driven strategy actually has many drawbacks. (*This is judged from a functional and strategic perspective and has nothing to do with job competence, etc. Please do not misunderstand)

In fact, I have already given the solution in the "User Development Operation Framework Based on User Perspective" proposed in "Evolutionary Operation".

Of course, in addition to the need to "refresh" operational concepts, senior management of the company also needs to draw on the scientific strategic model of marketing to design a complete set of organizational structures, personnel recruitment standards, KPI assessments, incentives, etc. driven by "big operations." We are user-centric and use operations to drive all corporate resources, including products, services, brand communication, etc. There is still a long way to go.

However, this is definitely the trend of future Internet business and also the prospect for us operators. Therefore, I have mentioned many times in my books and speeches: operations are not a joke, it is not about playing with users. Operators have a long way to go and need a strong sense of responsibility and comprehensive comprehensive abilities.

Lesson 2: A management system centered on employee satisfaction replaces a system management centered on KPI

In the traditional marketing business model, there are many that have achieved success through this strategy. For example, the well-known Haidilao and Four Seasons Hotel are both famous for "taking care of those who take care of customers", which makes these service companies very attractive to customers. That kind of "love from the inside out" can really infect people, right?

A Four Seasons guest is said to have told the manager: If there is a heaven, I hope it is run by the Four Seasons.

Looking back at Internet operations, it has been fully demonstrated before that the success or failure of operations is a matter of life and death for an Internet company, which places high demands on the talents and "degree of care" of operators. "Talent" can be assessed, but "degree of dedication" can only be judged by employees' sense of belonging and happiness.

Obviously, in order to drive an excellent operator to unleash all value, we must never adopt an assessment method based solely on KPIs. This management approach, which is prone to short-sightedness and hindering innovation, is no longer able to cope with the more intense Internet business competition.

Improving employees' sense of belonging and happiness cannot be achieved simply by increasing salaries and benefits. There are many IT Internet companies that are famous for their high salaries, but not many employees are seen praising the company in private.

So where is the answer to operational management innovation?

That is to learn from these outstanding service industry management systems: improve employee admission standards (better to have nothing than to have unqualified people), fully empower employees (not just talk), implement them at the management system level, reduce the weight of short-term KPI assessments (at best, use them as a data reference tool ), and cleverly increase the weight of assessments of employee attitudes and enthusiasm. Finally, the operations leader must be both talented and virtuous (this is the guarantee to ensure the implementation of management).

Revelation 3: Market segmentation thinking is a potential application for Internet companies

Contemporary companies have realized that it is impossible for them to have a strong appeal to all customers in a market. Instead, it has become a consensus to identify market segments, select one or more of them, develop products tailored for them, and focus on customers who are more interested in creating value for the company in order to demonstrate competitive advantage.

Similarly, most Internet products also have such requirements. Unfortunately, only a very small number of these needs are met: for example, some products have "paid professional versions", "paid ad-free versions", etc., or support customized subscription topics and content...

But these are still very far from the "market segmentation" requirements of marketing: the so-called products that meet the market segmentation should be products that do not require you to do a lot of manual configuration, are easy to use, and can highlight your personal characteristics and temperament. They should not be versions that make you feel out of place and difficult to swallow after switching to another version.

Take WeChat for example, if there was a "to-do reminder based on social communication" version, I would be happy to pay for it.

By using a variety of different versions of products to meet the needs of different user groups, while connecting the underlying data and isolating functions, the core competitiveness of product operations will inevitably be greatly enhanced.

Revelation 4: Learn from marketing channel thinking to establish and maintain a high-quality channel library

One of the core values ​​of Internet business is “eliminating the middlemen”.

According to this logic, the current emphasis on "channels" seems a bit out of place, but this is not the case.

Against the backdrop of the current crazy explosion of online information, the value of online traffic has also dropped sharply.

For example, we can do an experiment and randomly forward an article (in preview status) to see what proportion of the new clicks and reads account for your circle of friends?

The over-expansion of new media in recent years has also caused the value of self-built content channels to drop sharply. Although many companies have seen the value of self-built traffic (such as official public accounts) and seem to be able to reduce advertising expenses, we should not forget the human costs of maintaining content operations .

More importantly, not many types of products are suitable for building their own content channels, especially "low-frequency" and "lacking sustained topicality" products. For example, home decoration and building materials, large appliances, travel and business trip industries, etc.

The rapid expansion of information has led to an increasingly common situation where the information dissemination chain is broken. Unfortunately, we are still living in an era where “even good wine needs no bush”.

Therefore, there are still many aspects of traditional marketing channel management that are worth learning from, such as the channel construction process:

Analyze users -> set channel goals -> identify channels -> evaluate channels -> manage and motivate channels

This process is still applicable to our operations.

Simply put, it is to preliminarily screen reliable upstream and downstream channels based on the characteristics of target users (many high-quality offline channels cannot be ignored), and then preliminarily set the budget for investment in channels in terms of funds and manpower, further screen channels according to the goals, invest in execution, and select and abandon some channels based on implementation feedback. This cycle continues until a reliable channel is finally identified and the channel relationship is maintained. This series of work requires dedicated follow-up.

Is that enough? no.

The biggest difference between Internet products and traditional physical products is that Internet products are not cyclical fast-moving consumer goods, but products that can be installed once and used forever (for loyal users). Therefore, the drainage effect of any channel will generally show a situation similar to diminishing marginal returns.

Therefore, Internet channel management should be more inclined to build diversified channels while reducing the "usage (cooperation) frequency" of a single channel.

Revelation 5: Marketing pricing strategies can still be transplanted and borrowed from the user decision-making model of operations

When seeing the word "price", friends may be curious. Isn’t Internet business (mostly) based on “free”? Why can we still learn from the “price” of marketing?

Let’s first look at the marketing definition of price: the amount a customer pays to obtain a product (service). This is the definition of price in a narrow sense.

However, as smart as you are, you will definitely think, is the difficulty we pay to obtain a certain product just money?

Yes, this brings us to the broad definition of price: the sum of all costs incurred to obtain something. This kind of broad price thinking is something we operators can learn from.

For example, what costs do we have to pay to download and use any free Internet product?

Download time, learning cost, trust cost, emotional cost, security cost, etc.

Drawing on marketing price thinking, Li Shaojia extracted a rough rule for Internet products to encourage users to experience products:

User perceived value – User perceived cost > 0 (or greater than well-known similar competitors in the industry)

For a product you operate, there are obviously many users who pay attention to the product, but the download volume has always been low. At this time, you can compare this formula to see at which "perception" level you have a problem.

For example, for products with high decision-making costs such as financial management, you cannot unilaterally increase the user's perceived value (for example, very high interest rates). The company's excessively high promotional value may sometimes have a counterproductive effect on users (they may think it is a scam or there is a possibility of fraud), which will significantly increase the user's perceived cost and make them less willing to download and use it.

For example, for a gaming product, even if the game is free, considering the time cost of downloading and the memory occupied by the game, these user perceived costs are actually not low. In the APP Store, the most important thing to show the user perceived value is those game screenshots (or small video previews). At this time, if you only select pictures that introduce game characters and have gorgeous designs, but no screenshots of key game scenes and growth mechanisms, then the user's perceived value will still be vague (I often see similar game screenshots), and with so many options, they will usually give up downloading.

Conclusion

Marketing is rooted in the traditional business model of "directly obtaining maximum profit". It has undergone many changes in social forms and continued to adapt to the pace of social, economic and cultural adjustments and evolution, leaving us with many classic and mature management and operation models.

Internet operations, on the other hand, are based on a new business model of "acquiring the most users and making profits by selling user influence." It has a short history, shallow roots, and is far from being fully formed. At this stage, operators must avoid blindly following the crowd and blindly believing in authority, especially in an industry like the Internet, which is changing with each passing day and it is more difficult to form authority.

In particular, I resonate with the fifth stage of marketing concept, “social marketing concept”. Whether as a user or a consumer, every action, consumption, like, or dissemination we make is silently affecting the environment (natural or cultural) on which we depend for survival.

For example, some famous celebrities evade original detection by plagiarizing and partially copying, blatantly infringing on unknown authors, and shamelessly accept the dissemination and praise of uninformed readers... The public forgives and condones this, what will society become?

Although this idea is a bit ahead of its time now, in the future, as the overall quality of the people improves, companies that lack "social responsibility" will surely be spurned by society.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media information flow

The author of this article @李少加 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!