Marketing methods that keep users buying

I found that being in love makes people ugly. Take my former colleague Ms. Y for example. Before she got together with her boyfriend, she would dress up like a butterfly to come to work every day. She ate very little for lunch, and everyone thought she lived on a breath of air. Even at team-building dinners, she only took a few bites like a chick pecking at rice. One day, she got married.

She changed her previous style of dressing of high heels and long skirts and started wearing hoodies and sneakers to work. During the team-building dinner, I discovered that her favorite dish was roasted pork belly. She said:

"Because I've had a good appetite recently, I've had a few pimples on my face, so I rarely use makeup..."

She gained 10 kilograms in the first month after she got married.

Later, many of my colleagues and former colleagues, good friends and ordinary friends found their partners. I found that people who just fell in love have some common characteristics:

1. Lost interest in dressing up, but became passionate about food;
2. I stopped being sarcastic about my job and annoying co-workers, and I also stopped being sarcastic about my body.
3. No more posting selfies;

After falling in love, they all became uglier. Although they were ugly in a very cute way at that time, I still have to admit the fact that they have become ugly.

Over the years, I can almost use two key indicators to judge a person's emotional state.

If a person suddenly starts to be unkempt and appears in front of me like a silly little pig, I can basically conclude that he is in love;

If one day she suddenly "serializes" selfies on her Moments again, I can basically conclude that she has been heartbroken.

"Love makes people ugly", I think this phenomenon is worth studying.

Because I serve many consumer brands on a daily basis, including cosmetics, meal replacement drinks, clothing and jewelry, etc. If "love makes people ugly" is a real phenomenon, then men and women in love will be insulated from all "beauty-enhancing" consumer products.

The phenomenon that "love makes people ugly" leaves a question for all consumer products that make people "beautify": what force interrupts users' desire to maintain beauty? The answer to this question is the key for consumer brands to stimulate users' "lasting consumption desire."

I think the reason why people who are no longer single are no longer harsh on themselves is that their repressed emotional needs have been fully met.

The feeling of "satisfaction" is a low-energy emotion. It will not inspire your actions, it will only inhibit your actions.

When we are full and satisfied, the only thing we want to do is to lie down on the sofa and rest, instead of thinking about having another meal tomorrow.

When Bolt was the first to cross the finish line and won the championship, what he was thinking about was not tomorrow's training, but the beach, sunshine and bikinis. So what could have given Bolt the desire to train the day after winning a championship? It is very likely that some other runner will break the world record he just set.

Therefore, satisfying a desire is often equivalent to killing this desire; only unsatisfied desires are the driving force that keeps us moving forward.

Although dressing up is not entirely for the purpose of courting a mate, your carefully maintained appearance has won you a lover, but you will inevitably enter a period of slackness in maintaining your appearance.

This gives marketers an important revelation : If you want to win continuous purchasing power, you cannot satisfy customers 100%, you have to satisfy them “almost”.

Almost satisfied＞100% satisfied

We say that people who just fall in love will become uglier, but when are they at their most beautiful? It's a "date during the flirtation period".

For that date, the girl would confirm 20 lipstick shades with her bestie, and the boy would spend an entire afternoon fixing his hair. Both parties presented their best selves on that date.

During a date in the ambiguous period, the couple is often almost about holding hands, almost about confessing their love, and almost about establishing a relationship. The beauty of both parties is the pursuit of this "almost".

Peaches that are not yet ripe are the sweetest, middle-aged women are the most charming, and Venus without her arms is the most perfect.

Why is “almost satisfied” the best state? Let’s express this with a picture.

The life of any thing cannot escape this trajectory.

“Almost met” is the position one step before the peak. Once we pass this point and enter the real maturity stage, the situation will take a sharp turn for the worse.

Therefore, the scientific logic of "almost satisfying" is: you must press the pause button before "everything reaches its extreme and then turns into the opposite".

Lao Tzu gave a particularly appropriate description of this phenomenon in the Tao Te Ching, which is called "not full". He wrote: "It is because it is not full that it is able to conceal and create new things."

"Bi" means old and "ying" means full. This translates to:

If you can know when to stop and stay in a state of neither fullness nor dissatisfaction, you can create new life when things are about to become worn out.

In Lao Tzu's opinion, this "almost effect" can not only avoid risks, but also is the key to creating new vitality.

This is like the "second growth curve" that the business community is bragging about. You cannot wait until the company has gone downhill before you think about developing the "second growth curve" because at that time the company is "putting out fires" and even if it has the mind, it does not have the spare energy to explore new growth opportunities.

Just like Tencent cannot wait until no one uses QQ on mobile phones before thinking of incubating WeChat; Alibaba cannot wait until there is no traffic on Taobao before investing in Youku and Weibo.

How can this "almost effect" be applied in the business field to create endless consumer desire? The simplest way is to create the temptation of "almost success".

Almost there: Everyone has obsessive compulsive disorder

The most typical case is Alipay’s “Collect Five Blessings” campaign. The biggest feature of this case is that most people can collect all four blessings, but they just can’t collect that damn dedication blessing.

If you are the product manager of the Five Blessings Collection activity, which of the following programs do you think is more likely to arouse users' enthusiasm for participation?

A 90% of people cannot collect the Jingyefu

B 90% of people cannot gather harmonious blessings

C. 70% of the people cannot gather the blessings of prosperity and harmony, and 20% of the people cannot gather the blessings of friendship.

D. 50% of the people cannot gather the blessings of prosperity, harmony and friendship, 20% of the people cannot gather the blessings of dedication and harmony, and 10% of the people cannot gather the blessings of patriotism.

The answer is either A or B.

Both A and B allow users to collect 4 Fu cards, with only 1 Fu card missing. This feeling of "almost succeeding" is a very powerful motivation.

It's like a weak runner participating in a marathon. He is so tired that even breathing hurts and he really wants to give up the race. If he had the idea of ​​giving up when he was 10 kilometers away from the finish line, it would have been easy for him to give up. But if he has only 1 km left to the finish line and he has heard the cheers at the finish line, it will be difficult for him to give up the race.

Why does the algorithm of Alipay’s “Collect Five Blessings” only make the Diligence Blessing disappear? It takes advantage of people's "almost successful" mentality, making many people think that they are very close to success, so they desperately scan codes, share, and ask for things.

This reminds me of the story of a serial killer who was born in Russia named Alexander Pichushkin.

Pichushkin was a porter in a supermarket in Moscow. Like most of the serial killers who have left their mark on history, he was taciturn and had few friends. Apart from killing people, his only hobby was playing chess.

Although he is a perverted killer, he has his own "idol" and "life ideal".

His idol is Andrei Chikatilo, Russia's most notorious serial killer, who murdered 52 people, mostly prostitutes and children.

Chushkin and Pichushkin's dream has always been to "surpass Chikatilo", break his record of 52 people and thus "leave his own mark in history".

Pichushkin set himself a goal of 64. Why is it 64? Because the chess board he loves so much has 64 squares!

Then, for each person Pichushkin killed, he placed a coin on a square on the chessboard.

When police arrested him, they found a hand-drawn chess sketch in his home with dates marked on each of the 63 squares.

Pichushkin is known as the "chessboard killer" and his biggest regret in life is the only blank square on the chessboard.

He said, “One more person is missing!”

The example of serial killers is not to scare you, but to say that "almost succeeding" is closer to human instinct. Deep down in everyone's heart, there is a desire for perfection.

In addition to "almost success", we have many other ways to create this "almost effect", such as "the temptation of remainder".

The temptation of remainder: Almost spending it all?

You can open your own food delivery app, whether it’s Ele.me or Meituan.

When I order takeout every day, while I enjoy the capital subsidies, I often lament the cunningness of the merchants. On food delivery apps, merchants and platform owners often send coupons for instant discounts on purchases over a certain amount. For example, you can get 18 off if you spend 60, and 25 off if you spend 100.

But it is not easy to take advantage of the bargains, because you can never get exactly 60 yuan. Often, you can only enjoy the discount of 18 yuan off a purchase of 60 yuan if you put together an order of 75 yuan.

“Get 18 off when you spend 60” ≠ “Get 18 off when you spend 60” Merchants and food delivery platforms use this kind of numbers game to entice you to buy more things.

This kind of discount method of food delivery platforms may be easy for consumers to discover the trick. Well, the following preferential method is more secretive.

Suppose you watched a marketing course taught by General Liang on a knowledge-based payment app. After reading the opening remarks of this course, you feel very excited and immediately place an order with enthusiasm.

However, if you want to purchase courses in this APP, you can only recharge first and then consume. There are three levels of recharge amounts: 12 yuan, 108 yuan, and 209 yuan.

You saw that General Liang’s course was 99 yuan, so you recharged the third tier amount - 108 yuan. After purchasing the course, there was 9 yuan left in the account.

Three months later, General Liang’s course launched its second season, so you recharged another 109 yuan. At this time, the remaining balance in your account is 9+108-99=18 yuan.

The cheapest course on this APP is 99 yuan, and the 18 yuan in the account cannot buy any course. So, you wonder whether General Liang will launch a third season of courses, or whether other experts’ courses are worth buying...

The small balance in the account seemed to be almost spent, but it was actually increasing.

Balance is a seemingly insignificant but endless temptation. As long as we make consumers feel "unfinished", they will continue to "bet" with money.

This method can also be used in sales scenarios.

Many salespeople think that if they want customers to sign a contract with them, they must work hard to meet their needs. But as I said, satisfaction is often the killer of desire. Once a customer is completely satisfied, you may lose this customer.

For example, you are an outdoor advertising salesperson for a large brand, and your client has exploded the Beijing market because of this wave of large-screen advertising in office buildings in Beijing.

But what will the client think after he gets such good advertising results? He probably felt that outdoor advertising in Beijing had been thoroughly penetrated, and the next step was to try other media...

If you are a smart salesperson, you should not only brag about the effectiveness of this wave of advertising when closing deals with clients. You must take the initiative to discover the shortcomings of this wave of advertising and make clients feel that there is room and necessity for improvement.

A good salesperson will always lay the groundwork for his or her next sale. Only when there is a "remainder" left in the customer's mental account can you get the next budget.

In fact, the people who are most adept at using this logic are the pick-up masters.

The biggest obstacle for these pick-up masters, from the first pick-up to the successful sex scam, is how to naturally create opportunities to meet girls and thus eliminate their guard.

Let me give you an example of a common routine.

When the pickup artist sees his prey in the coffee shop, he will walk up to the girl and say that his phone is out of battery, but his mother is sick and in the hospital, and he is anxious to call back.

When girls hear about this kind of thing, they usually lend the other person their phone. The pick-up artist uses the girl's phone to dial his own phone, so that he knows the girl's phone number.

When meeting for the first time, the pick-up expert will immediately return the phone to the girl without any further entanglement.

A few days later, the pick-up artist will call the girl and send her a message, saying: Because of this phone call, his mother was sent to the hospital in time, so he must thank the girl in person.

If he succeeds in asking a girl out again, the pick-up expert will ask the girl questions, such as the plays she likes to watch, the things she is good at, and the things she hopes to solve.

The pick-up experts use these words not to find common topics, but to come up with topics for online chats after the date and to create reasons for the next meeting. For example, if a girl likes to cook, the pick-up expert will ask her how to make sweet and sour pork in the next few days...

The key rule these pick-up masters use to deceive girls is to leave a "remainder" every time they meet and chat with them, creating an opportunity for the next time.

"Remainder" is more like some kind of welfare. The following method is more difficult to solve. Let's see how defects prolong the desire to consume?

The beauty of imperfection: If you don’t have any flaws, no one will love you.

Let’s first review a historic digital product - MP3. Before the advent of smartphones, MP3 was replacing CD players and becoming the first choice for young people to listen to music.

At the time, most MP3 players looked similar. On a block the size of a building block, there is a small screen that displays the name of the song being played. Apple's previous generations of iPods also had a similar design, but they looked more aesthetically pleasing.

But in 2005, Apple launched the iPod Shuffle series, the biggest feature of this product is "no screen".

MP3 players without screens are actually very inconvenient, because when you choose songs, if you only use your ears to identify them, it is difficult for you to quickly find the songs you want to listen to.

However, this iPod without a screen has become Apple's flagship music product and has sold very well. Why did a product with obvious flaws become a hit for Apple?

Because it has no screen, Apple lowered the cost of this product. The first generation iPod Shuffle was sold for only $99, which was enough to capture the mid-to-low-end market at the time.

But this is not the main reason. The main reason is that Apple has given this product a new positioning: just for enjoying music! Because there is no screen, you can only use your ears to distinguish and select music. The music itself determines whether you will press play, pause or skip songs.

iPod Shuffle is a minimalist player that abandons all glitz and is designed only for music.

iPod Shuffle is a low-end player that sacrifices the screen to reduce costs in order to capture the low-end market demand.

Both descriptions are a kind of truth, the key is which one you choose to believe.

When a brand can elevate defects to the level of aesthetics, defects become a kind of ideology and an ultimate beauty.

Most people or most products are pursuing a seemingly perfect state, but perfection often means mediocrity.

“Just one step away from perfection” is more exciting than “perfect”. Because that defect will hurt your heart and you won't be able to let it go.

I think there are many products whose selling points are designed entirely around defects.

For example, a manual razor. Thanks to the development of electronic shavers, men no longer need to use foam when shaving, and can only shave with a blade that can easily scratch the face.

But the greatest pleasure of manual razor blades is this retro shaving ritual, which reminds people of the demeanor of British gentlemen. If a manual razor brand can create a good retro atmosphere for its product, it will not be eliminated by electronic razors.

Another example is the death race car.

A fixed gear bike is a type of bicycle. But its flywheel is stuck, which means that if you ride forward, the bike will move forward. Ride backwards and the bike will move backwards. If you stop pedaling, the bike will stop.

Therefore, fixed gear is very dangerous. If you have not received special training, you will not be able to "brake" at all.

But this defect became its charm. Fixed gear bicycles were once very popular and became a cycling tool for urban trendsetters. Fixed gear fans believe that fixed gear is a life attitude and a spiritual totem.

Therefore, don’t always try to meet user needs 100%. An iPod with a screen loses the minimalist music pleasure, and a fixed gear bike that can brake easily betrays the spiritual belief of fixed gear bikes.

If you don't lack anything, no one will love you.

Conclusion

Perhaps influenced by Boss Joe, we always say that we should pursue "perfection". But pursuing perfection is not the same as pursuing perfection. The ultimate is to do one thing very well, while perfection is to do one thing completely.

Author: General Liang

Source: General Liang