Brand promotion: How to create a hit product?

When it comes to hot products, what do you think of? Is it the product poster that’s going viral, the product experience that’s received rave reviews, or the record-breaking sales figures? The author of this article believes that a hot-selling product is one that possesses three high qualities. How should we understand it specifically?

What is a hot product? This is a good question and different people have different opinions.

We believe that a hot-selling product is one that possesses three high qualities.

Which three highs?

We give a formula for explosive products:

Hot products = high demand * high spread * high conversion rate

Could you be more specific?

• High demand refers to the matching efficiency between product and demand.
• High transmissibility refers to the amplification efficiency between code and medium.
• High conversion rate refers to the causal efficiency between decision-making and motivation.

So let’s talk about the first part today: how to make a product with high demand and explosive appearance?

1. What are high-demand products?

High-demand products have three main characteristics:

1. Customer identity is easy to identify and the target is clear. If it is not easy to lock in the target customers, the marketing cost will be very high and the customers will not be able to sense that you are talking to them. On the contrary, if the marketing cost is low, it will be easier for customers to identify the target market, and they will immediately know that you are calling me and not someone else. This comes first.
2. Customers have a high desire to consume and are very interested. Do your target customers feel attracted to you or not when they see you? Do you have a desire to consume? Whether the level of desire is high or low determines how difficult it is for the product to enter the customer's heart.
3. Customers have a low decision threshold and make decisions lightly. Even though customers have the desire to consume from you, it does not mean that they can make a decision immediately. Customer decisions also require a driving force, such as: a reason to consume (promotion is ongoing); a call to action (targeted red envelope); a matching opportunity (time to change the phone).

Could you please say it again in plain language? OK.

These three characteristics are:

1. The target customer knows you are calling him;
2. Target customers are a little excited to see you;
3. Target customers respond to your call with action.

What kind of product has the above three characteristics?

We believe that products that possess these three elements are entry-level, high-demand products.

On the other hand, if the three elements of a product are not met, it means that you will not be able to become a high-demand product.

What are the three elements of a product?

Product = a solution to a specific need of a target customer

Let’s first analyze it in the consumer category. Traditional consumption drives customer decisions around three customer decision dimensions.

The first is the geographical location, the second is the process technology, and the third is the raw materials.

For example, when it comes to liquor, we usually say “it doesn’t enter Sichuan from the west and it doesn’t enter Anhui from the east.” These are all very strong geographical attributes.

But, if we want to ask which province Jiang Xiaobai is from? Is it a strong aroma or a sauce aroma? What raw materials are used? I guess most people can’t answer this question. Moreover, Jiang Xiaobai’s target customers don’t care about these three keywords.

Therefore, the early product definition of Jiang Xiaobai changed: Jiang Xiaobai = a party wine that young people in small towns identify with.

This is a typical high-demand product that possesses all three elements.

Let’s find another case in 2B enterprise-level services. For traditional 2B companies, it is difficult to explain what their products are in a few words? Because there are too many functions.

For example: If you provide digital services to logistics companies, you cannot explain clearly within 100 words: what is our product? What concrete results have been brought to customers?

In the early days, G7 added a GPS to trucks. Its customer value promotion point was: Without my G7, one dispatcher can manage 5 vehicles; with my G7, one dispatcher can manage 50 vehicles.

Therefore, at this stage, G7 = a tool for freight companies to improve the scheduling and management of vehicle numbers.

Obviously, the product definitions of Jiang Xiaobai and G7 in the early stage both meet the three basic characteristics of high-demand products:

It is easy to find target customers (the portrait is very concrete, the marketing cost of finding target customers is controllable, and the target customers also know that you are calling them); target customers know at a glance what benefits they can get (easy to understand, remember, and spread, and easy to increase consumption desire); target customers are very easy to make decisions (the benefit-cost relationship is relatively concise, easy to convince yourself, and easy to be motivated to report to superiors).

Let's summarize here:

Products with high demand are likely to become hot-selling products.

A product that has these three elements is an entry-level, high-demand product.

However, the three elements of a product do not necessarily mean a high-quality hit.

2. The underlying logic of the three elements of a product

The three elements of a product, why is it an entry-level high-demand product?

It mainly works in three dimensions, resulting in the product having traffic potential and conversion potential.

Which three dimensions?

First, productization of small scenarios in large industries.

We want to push an iron block against the wall, but this is impossible because the two are made of different materials. But if the head of the iron block is turned into a nail, it can be easily pushed into the wall.

With the same force, the surfaces of action will not react with each other, but the pressure between the point of action and the surface of action will increase, making it easier for a reaction to occur.

When we want to react to customers, we must narrow the point of contact with customers.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu says: If you are prepared for everything, you will be at a loss for everything.

What's the meaning? My product has advantages everywhere, and there are no advantages.

When I use the same resources and strength to promote more than a dozen functions to customers, customers are indifferent. But on the other hand, if I narrow these dozen functions down to one function, a nail effect will be formed, the pressure will increase, and with the same strength, the ability to generate transaction reactions with customers will be enhanced.

This is called productization of large industries and small scenarios.

A big industry means that the entire pond must be big, and only when the pond is big can the fish be big. We should not be a fish in a small industry or a small pond, as that would leave little room for growth for the company.

A big industry refers to an industry with a relatively large ceiling, while a small scene means "if you have everything, you will have nothing to lose."

We should not try to explain more than a dozen functions at once, but just find a single function as that point, just like the point in front of the nail. The scene must be small, the function must be small, and the contact point for transaction reaction with customers must be a small scene.

Productization means that standard products must be produced. If we don’t make standard products, each customer will have to conduct independent research and development, which will be extremely costly, impossible to deliver, and impossible to scale.

What is the relationship between the three elements of a product and the first dimension?

The three elements of a product are solutions to the specific needs of target customers.

What is the significance of specific needs?

Here is a little business trick: business is the satisfaction of strangers. If it is a stranger, he cannot remember it and has no interest in memorizing a large amount of information.

The productization of large industries and small scenes has greatly reduced the communication and memory costs for strangers, because specific needs are realized in small scenes, with a smaller amount of information, in the form of a single point breakthrough.

Second, the value perception system is the key.

The scenario is the medium between the product and the demand, and the product is the medium between the merchant and the customer.

For customers, what do they think of our products?

He only looks at two:

1. Solve the problem. What problem does your product help me solve? This is easier to understand.
2. Create value. When you can’t clearly see what problem you are solving, you need to create value.

The former is often a light decision, while the latter is often a heavy decision. It is easier to make a decision if you can clearly see what problem you are trying to solve. If you don’t clearly see what problem you are solving, you need to find a way to perceive value.

What this means is that there are two types of value creation: one is value that is easily perceived, and the other is value that is not easily perceived.

For example, when using a mobile phone, what is the easily perceived value? The picture is clear and beautiful. This is an easily perceived value that can be seen at first glance.

What is the value that is not easily perceived?

For example, if you use the most expensive chip, the customer may not feel it. Customers don’t know that you have spent such a huge amount of technical effort behind the scenes. When you advertise that the GPU you use is particularly advanced, customers may not pay.

However, if the customer only needs to see that the picture is particularly clear, they are likely to be willing to pay.

We often say: products are just carriers, and customer-perceived value is the delivery target.

This view is a bit extreme, but the meaning behind it is that we need to create a value system that is easy for customers to perceive, and at the same time make it easy for target customers to access and perceive it.

Third, behavior-induced customer experience.

In the past, our relationship with customers was a transactional relationship. The so-called transactional relationship means that customers came to me to buy something, and then left and we never had any contact again. They only come to me when there is a problem and they need after-sales service.

For example, for traditional cars, car owners will only go to 4S stores when they need repairs and maintenance, but usually car brands don’t know what the owners are doing with the cars they produce?

Now the logic of the new economy and new consumption is different, it is a full-process service. The good and bad experiences customers have before, after, and during the entire usage process of our products are highly relevant to us.

Because having a good experience means that customers are likely to have good word of mouth, and good word of mouth means that they will help me spread the word for free, which may help me bring in new customers.

Therefore, we need to stand in the customer's perspective and make a customer behavior map. In the customer behavior map, we need to see which behaviors the customer has before buying, which behaviors during buying, and which behaviors after buying. Connect these behaviors together and think about each point: where customers are likely to have a good experience, where they are likely to have a bad experience, and where the experience needs to be optimized? In the past, I just had to sell the products, but now that’s not possible. Now I want to become a high-demand product, and the entire interaction process between customers and merchants must be managed. Behind this is behavior-induced customer experience management. This is the third underlying logic of the three elements of a product.

Why is it said that a product must have the three elements to be considered entry-level? You must understand three underlying logics and use them well to achieve scores of 75, 85, or 95.

If you don't understand or know how to use these three underlying logics, and don't carry out refined design and heavy operations in this direction, even if you have the three elements of a product, you are just getting started and will only get 65 points.

3. Four solutions for high-demand products

How can we develop and design high-demand products?

First, find incremental markets.

First, let’s define the incremental market. What is the incremental market?

The incremental market refers to a series of market segment windows where demand far exceeds supply.

The incremental market is not a fixed market or a fixed time, but a series of dynamic processes.

In different regions, different time periods, and different market segments, there will be intermittent periods when demand far exceeds supply, so it is a window period.

In an incremental market, because demand far exceeds supply, customers have a high desire to consume and it is particularly easy for them to make decisions.

The best way to compete is to stay away from competition and find an incremental market where demand far exceeds supply, and of course it must be 100% high-demand products (within the window period).

Second, find a single breakthrough point.

Finding incremental markets requires looking outward, looking for the window period in the market segments where demand far exceeds supply. Finding a single breakthrough point is an inward-looking effort. It requires compressing the overall customer interface into one point and finding one function from a dozen functions to achieve a single breakthrough point.

Scenarios are tools to enhance customers’ desire to consume. We must find a function, put it in a concrete scenario, and use this scenario to create customer-perceived value to enhance overall competitiveness.

For example, you can extract one signature dish from 20 home-cooked dishes to build a relationship with customers. The signature dish will definitely improve the efficiency of the connection between the entire restaurant and customers.

Every business needs to find a signature dish that customers like. Our real advantages are what our customers think are our advantages.

Third, look for behavioral inducements.

In the past, the relationship between me and my clients was a short-term transactional one, but now it is a long-term companionship-type relationship, and I even provide consultative sales within the customer's life cycle.

How can we, like IKEA, let customers follow the planned routes layer by layer and complete the entire journey in the long customer behavior map? This requires strong behavior-inducing design.

For example, there is a poster at the entrance of the supermarket that says the original price of eggs is 10 yuan per catty, but today the price is limited to 5 yuan per catty. This makes it easy to attract potential customers into the supermarket.

The behavior-induced customer experience has been explained in detail in the previous article and will not be repeated here.

In traditional consumption, we tend to focus on functional consumption and emotional consumption. New consumption is different. A large number of emerging consumer brands that have achieved explosive growth from 0 to 1 are good at inducing customer behavior outside of e-commerce trading platforms. For example: Ramen Says is making efforts on Bilibili, Santonban Coffee is making efforts on Xiachufang, and Perfect Diary just happened to catch the monetization dividend of Xiaohongshu.

It is not difficult to find that in addition to the functional consumption and emotional consumption of traditional consumption, new consumption has established new customer relationships with new consumer groups from two different dimensions, in terms of content consumption and service consumption, allowing customers to have new cognitions. All these marketing costs are controllable, and explosive social forces have been gathered in a short period of time.

Fourth, look for coding efficiency.

How many selling points does a mobile phone have? Theoretically, there can be hundreds of them.

For example: the phone has high-definition picture quality and bright colors, it is smoother when playing games, has a long battery life, the screen is not easy to break, and it does not get hot when used. These are selling points that are easily perceived by customers.

Are there any selling points that are not easily perceived by customers? some. For example: I use Qualcomm's latest CPU, a triple-camera combination, GPU software upgrades, and so on. Customers often cannot see these technology-driven value points at first glance, or even if they do, they cannot understand them.

Talking about so many selling points will lead to the dilemma mentioned in Sun Tzu's Art of War: "If you are fully prepared, you will have nothing to lack." The fact that you mention so many selling points means that you actually have no selling points.

Therefore, we need to find a way to project the product’s selling points onto the customer’s buying points.

What is the priority order of importance of the customer's decision to buy our mobile phone? Which is the single biggest customer decision point?

It is not difficult to find that mobile phone photography is currently the single biggest decision point for customers. It has to be said that Huawei followed the technology-driven route of GPU software optimization, GPU hardware production, and imaging effect optimization, and ultimately projected it onto the single customer decision point of "I am the best camera phone for Chinese people", and reaped a large amount of brand premium.

We need to find a way to improve the efficiency of the entire selling point coding and prioritize it according to the customer's decision-making importance, especially the single biggest buying point. If this is achieved, there will be a significant qualitative improvement in demand.

IV. Conclusion

Finally, let’s summarize:

A hot-selling product is one that possesses three high qualities.

Hot product formula:

Hot products = high demand * high spread * high conversion rate

The three elements of the product make it an entry-level product with high demand.

Three elements of a product = solutions to the specific needs of target customers.

How to create high-demand products?

1. Find incremental markets;
2. Find a single point of breakthrough;
3. Find behavioral inducements;
4. Find the coding efficiency.

Could you explain it in more straightforward terms?

The best way to compete is to stay away from competition and constantly find the window period of the market segment where the demand far exceeds the supply (i.e. the incremental market). This is an excellent way for us to develop explosive products by looking outward.

In addition to seeking outside, we also need to seek inside, extracting one signature dish that customers like from 20 home-cooked dishes, and matching this signature dish with a suitable scene, so as to improve the connection efficiency of customer needs, which is also easy to produce hot products;

If the competition is too fierce, we also need to study the customer behavior map from a global perspective, optimize the customer experience, and use the Internet's usual behavioral induction to pull customers into the marketing funnel step by step. This kind of data intelligence + heavy operation drive is also likely to produce explosive products;

Ultimately, it’s a matter of changing your mindset. Customers don’t need our products; what they need is solutions to their problems. We must convert product selling points into customer buying points, and these must be customer buying points with high priority. The best hit product is the one where we shape the customer’s biggest single decision point.

High demand is the essence of a hot product.

Author: Cao Sheng

Source: Grayscale Cognition Society (ID: HDrenzhishe)