How should brands plan their presence on Xiaohongshu during the 618 shopping festival?

May is almost halfway through, and brands are still busy preparing for the 618 promotion. As a trendy lifestyle destination where young people gather, Xiaohongshu is an important promotion platform that cannot be ignored.

During a major event like 618, how should brands deploy Xiaohongshu to achieve new business growth? This issue will share the brand's node marketing strategy from aspects such as controlling marketing rhythm and determining delivery plans.

01Control the overall marketing rhythm

Consumer demand surges before big sales. To assist in purchasing decisions, consumers often search for products on Xiaohongshu to check reviews and other information. The increase in search behavior brings exposure to brands.

If brands can plan ahead and control the marketing rhythm, they will be able to gain the upper hand in the complex industry competition and absorb platform traffic.

During the 618 period, the brand's concentrated marketing period is from April to June. According to the 618 marketing data model of the Xiaohongshu platform in 2021, the official recommends that brands divide the marketing cycle into four stages: the sowing period, the grass-planting period, the decisive period and the heat-extending period . The marketing goals and promotion strategies of each stage are different.

▲ Map: Xin Hong

The sowing period is from April 25th to May 14th . During this stage, brands need to take advantage of the blue ocean period of traffic to preheat the event in advance, release multiple grass-planting notes, determine the explosive products through horse racing tests, clarify the core selling points, create content models, and screen potential explosive articles to accumulate energy for the later outbreak.

For example, the beauty brand "Shu Uemura" checked the brand's delivery trend in the past 30 days and found that the delivery volume of business notes in late April had a significant increase. It is predicted that this is to lay out content for node promotions.

In the past two weeks, the brand has released a total of 53 business cooperation notes , and the products released include liquid foundation , eyebrow pencil , lipstick , etc.; the extracted selling points include long-lasting makeup , smooth application, and suitability for beginners , etc.; the content released includes reviews , good product recommendations , etc., to test materials and products in advance.

▲ Xinhong-Brand Details Page-Planting Notes

The grass-planting period is from May 15th to June 5th . During this stage, product exposure will continue to increase based on the main promoted products or product matrix determined during the sowing period. The potential high-quality notes accumulated before can expand the delivery traffic, continuously produce explosive articles, lead the industry track, seize core keywords, and achieve grass-planting in the users' minds.

Last year, during the 618 shopping festival, "Colorkey" ranked top 3 in Tmall sales, with sales exceeding 230 million. It promoted a number of products including "Little Mist Mirror Loose Powder" and "Black Segment Lip Glaze" on content platforms such as Xiaohongshu. The UGC content produced by influencers helps the brand to gain word-of-mouth and achieve a screen-sweeping effect among consumers before the product is officially launched, making the brand a dark horse in the cosmetics industry.

On the eve of this year's big sale, Kolaqi was also actively releasing grass-planting content. Judging from the comment word cloud, users commented with words such as "good-looking", "heart-moving", and "liked" , forming a good grass-planting atmosphere and laying the foundation for brand promotion conversion.

▲ Xinhong-Brand Details Page-Public Opinion Analysis

The decisive period is from June 6th to June 18th , one week before the big promotion. After attracting most of the consumer groups, the brand can continue to amplify the effect of high-quality notes, form searchable materials, increase investment, further expand the coverage of the target consumer groups, and improve sales conversion rate.

The extended hot period is from June 19th to June 30th . After the big promotion, the brand side should track and review the effect of the delivery, summarize the delivery keywords and long-tail words with high conversion rates, and continue to occupy the position through advertising to accumulate the brand's long-tail traffic. In addition, the product can be promoted for the second time based on the fans’ real feedback and evaluation information.

Control the overall marketing rhythm and implement step-by-step operational actions in the four major marketing stages to maximize the effect of brand communication.

02Develop a phased launch plan

On the basis of determining the basic marketing cycle, brands need to refine the plan, including determining the budget, product selection, talent placement, content format, etc., and match different delivery strategies at different promotion stages.

Determine your budget

Before and after the 618 promotion, the recommended budget for the sowing period is 25% for laying out preheating content; the recommended budget for the grass-planting period is 30% for achieving explosive article coverage, occupying the mind and boosting traffic to a small peak; the recommended budget for the decisive period is 40% for continuously amplifying the explosive article effect, reinvesting in high-quality influencers, and increasing exposure; the recommended budget for the extended heat period is 5% for stabilizing long-tail traffic (the recommended budget is for reference only).

▲ Map: Xin Hong

Determine the delivery method

There are two ways of delivery: influencer cooperation and performance advertising , which are adjusted according to the proportion of the marketing stage. If information flow advertising is the main method during the sowing period, search advertising can be added during the grass-planting period.

▲ Xinhong-Find celebrities-Celebrity search

Performance advertising covers forms such as information flow advertising, splash screen advertising, and search advertising. Xiaohongshu’s official recent launch of the featured advertising product "Xiaohongping" , the one-stop advertising platform "Juguang" , and the comprehensive upgrade of the traffic tool "French Fries" also provide brands with more channels to amplify the promotion effect and allow good content and good products to be seen.

Determine product selection

In terms of product selection, brands can combine products based on existing products and budget. For brands with limited budgets, they can focus on promoting hot-selling products ; mature brands can allocate budgets reasonably, with the ratio of hot-selling products: potential products: long-tail products = 5:4:1 .

Hot-selling products usually have the best sales performance and can consolidate brand reputation, stimulate consumption, and bring traffic to the store; potential products are new products that the brand intends to promote, or products with obvious selling points; long-tail products are supplementary products to enrich the brand product matrix and meet specific needs.

Taking the recent grass-planting notes of a certain beauty brand as an example, among the top three product categories, perfume accounts for 60.6%, which are hot-selling products, while liquid foundation and lip gloss account for 38.6%, which are potential products.

▲ Xinhong-Brand Details Page-Category Analysis

Determine the content to be delivered

Big sales can easily stimulate users' desire to buy. When consumers search for products, the demand for practical reviews, product recommendations, shopping lists and other types of notes will increase. In terms of note content, we need to understand user pain points, create demand scenarios that resonate with users, and reasonably arrange keywords to help notes become popular and improve conversions.

Taking the recent business notes of @是夏颖呀and the brand "D·COLOR迪彩" as an example, a scenario is given: after doing nucleic acid test 5 times a week, being asked about hair color 3 times, arousing the user's curiosity of "what color is so attractive?" Then, starting from the pain points of users who want to become beautiful, highlight the product’s selling points such as whitening and color fixing to complete the brand promotion. This expert, who has only 11,400 followers, received 151,500 likes and 101,500 collections for his shared notes.

▲ New Red-Note Details

In addition, brands must abide by platform rules when arranging content. Xiaohongshu’s recently launched “Community Business Convention” and “Brand Violation Points Deduction” policies show that business values ​​of sincere operation and careful creation are what the platform advocates.

▲ Image source: Xiaohongshu

The 618 sowing period is coming to an end. The following planting period and decisive period are the key stages of brand marketing. Differentiated marketing plans should be specified for the two stages to comprehensively enhance brand exposure and voice, and ultimately achieve an increase in product sales.