E-commerce membership automation marketing!

Attracting users with free products, and then harvesting users through a membership system after the users become dependent on the products, has been a major means for e-commerce companies to obtain operating profits in recent years.

Willing-to-pay users represent a high degree of loyalty to the product, high trust, high frequency of consumption, and a high-income group. Previously, there were Amazon Prime members and Sam’s Club members, and now there are JD.com Plus members and Tmall’s 88VIP. How to operate high-net-worth users for an enterprise and make them satisfied, recommend, and share is an indispensable part in the red ocean era of e-commerce.

1. Why become a member?

When will users pay for a product? The key is "inseparable":

One is that when the cost of migrating to a new product is high enough, users will choose to pay for deeper services. For example, Evernote has a free trial in the initial stage, but after user records become a habit; if migration is required, it will take a certain amount of effort and be a bit "troublesome", so users will choose to pay to continue using it.

One is that the service provided by the product is good enough to save users time and energy, and they have enough trust and dependence on the product. For example, with JD.com Plus membership, users do not need to worry about returns or exchanges, and have exclusive Plus customer service. After users enjoy high-end services, what they want is "peace of mind". In order to save trouble, they will be willing to pay to become Plus members.

2. How to operate membership

The higher the proportion of paying members of a product, the higher the operating profit. The cost of losing a paying member is much higher than the cost of acquiring a new customer.

As long as users are paying members, there will be a steady stream of consumption, which is why we should attach importance to the operation of paying members; the operation of paying members requires a clear execution path.

1. Clarify member rights

If users spend money, they should enjoy real, clear and explicit membership benefits; some product memberships piece together exclusive membership benefits to "cheat" users, which will only make users more angry after they become members.

For example, JD.com's plus membership can enjoy free returns and exchanges, 10 times the amount of JD.com beans, and 5 RMB 6 shipping coupons per month. These are real benefits for users who frequently shop on JD.com.

The most direct benefit of Tmall’s 88VIP members is a 9.5% discount at Tmall Supermarket and the ability to use red envelopes when ordering takeout on Ele.me. For users, this directly saves money and is a clear membership benefit.

2. The path of affiliate marketing

After users become loyal members of the product, continuous automated marketing is required to tap into their potential consumption capacity and needs and provide them with better services.

Automated affiliate marketing requires the following steps:

1) Detect user needs

The user's product usage path is search-browse-click-add to cart-purchase-receive-evaluation, which is the path for users to complete conversion within the product.

When users take action, the product must provide timely feedback. For example, during the search and browsing stage, promotional activities may be pushed for products that users are interested in, such as discounts and coupons. Users may not have had the desire to buy originally, but now they can add the product to the cart and consider buying it. The user's behavior path is recorded and stored as a data source for later marketing.

Label each user. The more detailed the label, the more helpful it is to meet the user's needs, and it is also an important cornerstone for subsequent marketing.

2) Detailed marketing strategy

① Priority of marketing in different channels

When users have different levels of needs such as searching, browsing, clicking, collecting, and adding to cart, what kind of marketing copy should be pushed? When users take actions in different categories and through different promotional channels, which side should initiate the marketing action?

This involves unified collaboration in marketing across different channels within the product. From the perspective of scenarios, the priority is: shopping cart>collection>periodic purchase>search>receipt, why?

From the perspective of facilitating user conversion, the greater the possibility of conversion of items added to the shopping cart, the higher the priority; the user has already converted, and receiving the goods is a natural thing, so it is second.

From the perspective of execution, merchants [suppliers/brand owners] > platform: First, merchants have a better understanding of products and promotions, and the execution strategies can be more refined; second, encouraging merchants to engage in marketing can increase the platform's revenue.

② Channel marketing disturbs users

When it comes to automated marketing, you need to take into account the disturbance it may cause to users.

The first is the marketing time. If the user is unwilling to accept the marketing reminder [such as grabbing Moutai, grabbing NIKE shoes, etc.], sending a promotional text message to the user at 10 pm will disturb the user and may shut down any marketing reach of the product, which is not worth the loss. It is recommended that the marketing time be between 9 am and 8 pm, when users have the time and patience to see the promotional information.

The second is mutually exclusive marketing classification. For example, different channels such as Juhuasuan, Taobao Flash Sales and 10 Billion Subsidy all send marketing information to users, all targeting the same category, which may annoy users. A better way to deal with this is for the system to deduplicate different marketing information.

③ Marketing strategy execution

There are three factors to consider when conducting automated marketing: time, content, and method of reaching out.

When considering marketing time, it is necessary to consider the characteristics of the marketing business entity. For example, breakfast items such as freeze-dried porridge are suitable for marketing between 9 and 10 p.m., because users may be lying in bed thinking about what to eat for breakfast tomorrow, and the scene can be automatically brought in. Or adult products such as Durex condoms. Data shows that there is a peak in access traffic around 10 p.m., which is very suitable for marketing.

Assuming it is a marketing activity such as Juhuasuan, the promotion of the product is limited in time and quantity. Then, users with such consumption needs can be automatically reminded X minutes [assuming 30 minutes] after the product goes on sale, making it easier to obtain conversions.

At present, the main contact methods are in-site messaging, SMS and push, each with its own advantages. The advantages of in-site messaging and push are that they are free and the data transmission is timely, especially push, which can be seen by users in time and is suitable for real-time marketing. The disadvantage is that users may turn off message notifications, resulting in a relatively low opening rate. The advantage of SMS is that users have a relatively high opening rate, but the cost is 3-5 cents per message, which is more suitable for merchants to actively market. SMS can target specific marketing groups and conduct offline marketing the next day or for multiple days.

Content copywriting requires the configuration of a fixed copywriting template, and the system automatically assembles the copywriting. This tests marketers' ability to see into details and their insights. In this regard, Pinduoduo is worth learning. One can often see Pinduoduo's unique copywriting on WeChat groups and Moments, which is truly admirable.

For example, there are ghost-animal content such as "The president visited me at night and told me that I could receive a big cash red envelope", and story content such as "There was a little rabbit who knocked on the turtle's door, and the turtle said I don't have time to pay attention to you", etc. Ordinary operations cannot be as meticulous as Pinduoduo, but they can also learn this style.

3. Example Analysis

1. Shopping cart marketing

When users add items to their shopping carts, it means they have a clear intention to buy, and you can do targeted in-depth marketing at this time.

The first is the marketing population. When there are preferential benefit points such as coupons, direct discounts, and discounts for added items, marketing can be triggered for users who have added the item to the cart within 0-XX days, guiding users to revisit the product and increase their desire to buy. When there are no benefit points, marketing can also be targeted at products in specific cycles, such as on the 2nd and 16th days after adding the item to the cart, with an interval of 2 weeks to reach out to users to remind them without disturbing them.

2. Product selection

A user’s shopping cart may contain N items. How to select the items that can be marketed?

It mainly depends on user preferences and the strength of discounts. When it comes to product dimensions, you can consider user category and brand preferences, product price promotions, product data [sales, orders, etc.] and the market popularity of the product. Based on the product data, you can choose the most suitable product for marketing.

3. Marketing Priorities

For example, in a shopping cart scenario, if there are coupons, discounts for purchases above a certain amount, and direct discounts, which one should be chosen as the benefit point?

This requires operators to make judgments based on past data. For example, in previous marketing, the opening rate of products with coupons in the shopping cart was relatively high. In the future, we may consider giving priority to pushing products with coupons in the shopping cart.

If member automated marketing is done well in the long term, it can increase the daily activity and retention of the channel, so it needs to be operated and executed in a refined manner; otherwise, it may cause disgust and discomfort among users.

It is necessary to improve operational effectiveness from data results and feedback effects in each marketing campaign.

Author: Bread and Butter

Source: Bread and Butter