Five major trends in digital marketing in 2021

If I were to summarize the marketing trends in 2020-2021 in one sentence, it would be: advertising must be responsible for transactions. For the vast majority of companies, before the epidemic there was only anxiety about "growth", while after the epidemic there was pressure to "survive".

It’s the end of the year, and before information becomes overwhelming, let me talk about my judgment on the marketing trends in 2021.

1. From pursuing “product-effect synergy” to pursuing “long-term ROI”

The concepts of "brand-effect integration" and "brand-effect synergy" have been called for in the industry for many years. But after all the shouting, the "quality" and "effectiveness" of the advertisement are like the brand's ex-girlfriend and current girlfriend, and they can't work together at the same table.

The reason is that brand advertising and performance advertising are two completely different dimensional creatures, and they are not under the same language system.

The goal of a brand is to influence people’s brain cognition. By constantly consuming reminders, the brain forms a habitual reflex. It's like a dog drooling when it smells a bone. The goal of the effect is to influence people's immediate behavior and make them immediately want to act through accurate consumption stimulation. It's like a cow seeing a red cloth and it will sprint forward.

In 2020, the industry put forward a new concept - "long-term ROI". "Long-term ROI" and "short-term ROI" echo each other and become the new standards for evaluating advertising transactions.

I believe that "long-term ROI" can replace the concept of "brand advertising" and become the new pursuit of digital marketing. Because "long-term ROI" actually redefines brand advertising using traffic thinking.

Isn’t everyone’s complaint about performance-based advertising that it pursues short-term profits and ignores the long-term operation of users? But in fact, it is impossible for brand advertising to never consider conversions. It is just that companies choose to "delay gratification" for the sake of long-term conversion effects.

The so-called "long-term ROI" is to use advertising to guide users into the company's private domain, allowing the company to operate users over the long term and repeatedly.

Let’s take an example: In 2020, after obtaining the authorization from "Sisters Who Make Waves", Fanmilin promoted the "Same Style as Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves" products on WeChat Moments, guiding WeChat users to add followers of the official account.

Fans who follow the Fanmilin official account will receive a reply within 48 hours. If the user is indifferent to the pushed promotion, he or she will receive a second push 10 minutes later, guiding the user to add the beauty consultant's personal WeChat account for free skin consultation.

Each beauty consultant calls herself a "sister" or "best friend" and tries to gain the user's trust and guide the user to place subsequent orders through personalized 1V1 consultation.

This is the "long-term ROI". First, use private domains to retain users, then use a large number of operational activities to awaken and guide users, and ultimately achieve long-term and multiple product consumption.

In 2020, all major media outlets are making great efforts to develop private domains:

• Douyin is focusing on optimizing the weight ratio of local traffic and attention traffic to make the traffic ratio more reasonable;
• Tmall launched the "Flagship Store 2.0 Upgrade Plan" to help merchants shift from operating products to operating people;
• Kuaishou has upgraded the product services of merchant accounts, striving to achieve an ecological positive cycle of "content + fans + business";
• In 2020, “private domain traffic” appeared in Tencent’s financial report for the first time: “The goal of the private domain is to establish relationships with users so that advertising can continue to effectively generate long-term value…”

If we talk about "brand advertising", it means achieving long-term memory of users from a mental dimension. So “long-term ROI” means managing the entire life cycle of users in the digital dimension. Therefore, brand advertising and long-term ROI are both "long-termists" in business, but they choose different routes to reach the same "Rome".

"Brand advertising" attempts to "manipulate people's hearts" for a long time, while "long-term ROI" attempts to refine "manage people's behavior."

The key is that with the concept of "long-term ROI", traffic thinking is no longer a short-sighted behavior, but can also become a sustainable business method for the company like brand thinking.

In 2021, in the field of digital marketing, please forget about "brand-effect synergy" and start pursuing "long-term ROI" and "short-term ROI".

2. IP marketing enters the post-link era

In 2020, many IP marketing cases sent a signal: IP marketing is transitioning from the pre-link era to the post-link era.

In the pre-link era, advertisers want to grab more user attention, and they focus on pre-link behaviors such as "watching, commenting, liking, and sharing."

Therefore, in the past, when advertisers negotiated with the media, their thinking was like this: demand more exposure rights, negotiate more implantation slots, and integrate more diverse media resources.

But after 2020, advertisers will be more concerned about using marketing to solve the most fundamental business problems. They will hope that a variety show or a big drama can also drive market transactions.

Advertisers' focus is changing. They have begun to pay attention to the deeper and longer post-link behaviors generated by users after watching a piece of content, such as "searching, adding fans, leaving information, downloading, shopping, visiting stores", etc.

For example, a girl likes to watch "Summer of the Band" and she is a fan of the Trojan Horse Band. She will subconsciously search for "Trojan Horse Band" on the Internet to learn more about their story. This is a "search" behavior.

For example, there is an episode of "Flavorful Origins" that talks about "Tuyouyou", which is a sauce made from crab paste, crab roe and lard, and is especially suitable for mixing with rice. At that time, many versions of the same "Bald Butter" as Fengwei Renjian appeared on Taobao, and the price soared to 400 yuan per can. This is the "in-store" behavior.

This will bring challenges to both media and advertisers. In the future, business negotiations between the two sides will evolve from a battle for rights and interests to "development of links between content and transactions."

For example, when a brand sponsors a variety show, how can it guide people who search for the variety show to purchase it? How to convert fans who like to watch TV series and chase stars into your own private traffic? How to combine variety shows and store activities to turn content traffic into consumers?

How to build these links? How should these contents be designed?

Let’s first look at a complete back-end link case - Chunzhen & Hard Candy Girl 303. Chunzhen’s marketing has two obvious links.

The first link is: content implantation - one item one code - mini program support - live streaming sales.

• In the variety show, fans were called upon to buy exclusive yogurt and vote for the ladies;
• Fans can support their idols by purchasing products with "one item, one code" and scanning the code to enter the mini program;
• Then use the idol fan meeting as a welfare bait to guide fans to make reservations for live broadcasts;
• In the live broadcast room, idols displayed products in various ways and achieved live streaming sales.

Admittedly, many brands are not as wealthy as Mengniu and cannot "hang out" with Hard Candy Girls, but you can also choose a lighter model and build your own back-end chain.

The second link may provide some reference for more small and medium-sized customers, namely: IP authorization - advertising reservation - live streaming sales.

After obtaining IP authorization, live broadcast previews were made through WeChat Moments ads, accurately targeting the young ladies’ fan groups and guiding fans to enter the mini program to watch the live broadcast, thus achieving the ultimate user harvest.

During the epidemic, many advertisers have reduced their investment in long video content. They believe that the return on long video content is too slow, but what I want to say is: it’s not that the content IP is not good, but that people don’t know how to use the IP.

If marketing activities are planned appropriately on the back-end link of user behavior, then IP will not only generate traffic, but will gradually drive transactions. Regarding several post-link thinking of IP, I will sort out some of them for paying readers in the "Extra Content".

In short, the back-link discovery of IP will become the decisive factor in long video marketing in 2021.

3. Integration of the three major video formats: long video, short video, and live broadcast

Although long videos, short videos, and live broadcasts each have their own characteristics, they are all types of "video streams." After they have reached a certain scale, they will begin to absorb each other's advantages and covet each other's business.

1. Long videos begin to compete for the value of “short” videos

On media such as Tencent Video and iQiyi, they are not only striving to supplement PGC and UGC content, but are also gradually laying out the information flow business. The reason why Bilibili has gained a firm foothold is not due to the ACG copyrights on the platform, but rather the short videos created by the UPs.

2. Short videos are also beginning to seek a "long" layout

After trying several self-produced variety shows, Xigua Video spent a lot of money this year to acquire the exclusive copyright of "The Voice of China". Douyin is spending huge amounts of money to create the long video variety show "Battle for the Song", trying to create a top variety show to compete with "Youth With You", but Bilibili's "New Era of Rap" seems to have succeeded earlier.

3. Top anchors are also trying to turn live broadcasts into variety shows

Li Jiaqi expressed this idea when he was on the show "Luyu Has an Appointment for a Day Trip". When celebrity guests came to the live broadcast room, Li Jiaqi's team also tried to integrate variety show segments to boost the popularity of off-site topics during the live broadcast.

For example, when Jin Jing came to the live broadcast room, Li Jiaqi played the "Of course" game with her.

This principle is just like when we watch the NBA, in the past the center was the center and the guard was the guard, but now there are guards like James who have the body of a center but should play as a small forward.

In video marketing in 2021, we can already say: short video experts who don’t understand long videos are not worthy of doing live broadcasts! As long videos, short videos, and live broadcasts merge with each other, how should advertisers seize this marketing opportunity and fully mobilize the traffic of the three major video formats?

I think the key is to use content to connect the three major video formats, especially the content of long videos.

Let me give you an example to explain this.

In 2020, the third season of "Talk Show Conference" became popular, but the traffic value of this show is not on the long video platform, but outside the long video platform.

The talk show jokes of Li Xueqin and Yang Li have become popular videos on Kuaishou and Douyin; Li Xueqin's "lazy" outlook on life has become the best material for self-media editors; Yang Li's golden sentences complaining about the relationship between men and women have become late-night pictures in the girls' circle of friends.

This program also facilitated Li Dan's first live broadcast to sell goods. With the help of guest Luo Yonghao and his team, Li Dan's first live broadcast achieved a transaction volume of 27 million.

In fact, short videos and live broadcasts have been eating up the long-tail traffic of long videos. Long video content is the origin of traffic and is the glue between the three major video formats.

In 2020, many long video contents have actually begun to explore the commercial methods of short videos and live broadcasts. For example, many content IPs of TV stations are live streaming and selling goods on a column basis. My family once ordered a large bag of cheese yogurt for 9.9 yuan in the live broadcast room of If You Are the One.

In 2021, if a brand wants to cooperate with Xiaoguo Culture, he can talk to Li Dan like this: "Our brand does not want more product placement rights, but we hope that the talk show actors will perform more short video clips for me to use as materials for information flow distribution. We also particularly hope to settle in your live broadcast room, and we can sell products while telling jokes..."

4. Media and stores merge, new marketing gives birth to new business species

A few days ago, a client asked me a question: "Our ROI on Douyin has plummeted. Should we still invest in Douyin?" I answered: "Whether to invest in Douyin does not depend on the ROI, but on whether you regard Douyin as a media or a sales channel?"

If you regard Douyin as a sales channel, and the function of the channel is to sell goods, then as long as the ROI is not up to standard, you should give up Douyin; but if you regard Douyin as a media, and the function of the media is to promote products, then your investment in Douyin is an advertising investment, and as long as you control your money, you should continue to invest.

The biggest innovation of the media in recent years is not attracting hundreds of millions of users, but breaking through its own boundaries and transforming into a sales platform.

And what about the stores? They are also actively exploring the possibilities of offline space. The display of many brands is by no means a good-looking shelf, but a pop-up store with a great experience. In other words, media and stores are merging into one. The media is the store, and the store is the media.

Why are so many small brands flocking to Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, and WeChat public accounts? For these small brands, they do not have the ability to enter Tmall, nor do they have the funds to expand offline channels. They treat these media as sales platforms.

Taking Xiaohongshu as an example, notes are flyers, KOLs are shopping guides, and official accounts are stores. Why are there so many new and cutting-edge brands emerging in China in a market where traffic is expensive and monopolized? It is because new media have broken the channel monopoly and provided opportunities for numerous entrepreneurs.

Not only in China, but also in the United States, there is a similar trend. In the past two years, a large number of DTC brands have emerged in the United States, Direct to Costomer, or simply "direct selling brands."

The "direct selling brand" in the United States is not the micro-business model in China, but refers to eliminating middlemen and sales channels, and selling goods directly to consumers on the official website. China’s Internet infrastructure is better than that of the United States. We don’t need to build our own official website. We sell products through WeChat mini-programs, Douyin and Kuaishou stores.

In 2019, brand-direct e-commerce accounted for 35%-40% in the United States, while in China it was less than 15%. But in the first half of this year, China's DTC brands have received more than 40 rounds of financing, with a scale exceeding 4.2 billion!

It can be said that 2020 is the year of explosion for China's DTC brands. A large number of factory stores and upstream OEMs are establishing their own brands. Everyone wants to break into an industry that is "worth redoing" in the new wave of consumerism.

How should we respond to this explosion of new species? I think all media, stores, and emerging brands should change their mindset:

• Media: should move from selling advertising space to helping clients build trading platforms;
• Stores: should move from selling goods to building a product experience space;
• Emerging brands: should move from advertising and looking at conversions to building long-term relationships with users.

5. Platform competition: from plundering traffic resources to building trading facilities

The competition between Internet platforms has always been fierce. From the earliest four major portals, to BAT, and then to TMD, it seems that a new giant is born every few years.

But if we write the Internet's business competition into a history book, we can find a rule: whoever can serve more small and medium-sized customers will be the final winner.

Let’s take the Internet advertising market as an example: in the early days, the four major portals could only serve top companies such as Parkson and Unilever. They place page ads on Sina and Sohu, and patch ads on iQiyi and Youku. These ads are charged based on display, but there are probably less than 1,000 such customers.

Later, search ads and bidding ads appeared, which could be paid on a per-click basis and had a high conversion rate. As a result, small clothing brands, private hospitals, game manufacturers... medium-sized customers from all walks of life have flocked to search advertising, and there are hundreds of thousands of these customers.

However, for small local businesses such as 4S stores, restaurants, and printing companies, search and bidding advertising are unaffordable, but there may be 30 to 40 million of these customers. As a result, local lifestyle websites such as Meituan, Dianping, and Ele.me emerged.

Therefore, in the history of China's Internet competition, Baidu, Taobao, and Meituan, which have the ability to serve small and medium-sized enterprises, have all become winners.

However, small and micro enterprises and local merchants are not the smallest business entities. The smallest business entity is not an enterprise, but an individual. Are there any platforms that serve self-employed individuals? Today’s Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat mini-programs are the most typical representatives.

In 2019, the annual transaction volume of WeChat Mini Programs exceeded 800 billion! What is the concept of 800 billion? Pinduoduo's transaction volume in 2019 was 1 trillion yuan, which means that WeChat Mini Programs has become the fourth largest e-commerce platform after Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo.

If WeChat red envelopes are the Pearl Harbor attack on Alibaba in the payment field.

Then, in the e-commerce field, WeChat mini programs have silently completed the assassination of the entire e-commerce industry. The awesome thing about WeChat mini programs is that they can not only accommodate big customers like BMW, but also attract countless mom-and-pop stores.

At present, Douyin has become an incubator for China's "second-tier e-commerce". A large number of factory stores, new consumer brands, and countless self-employed individuals have obtained the "entry ticket" to market competition with the help of Douyin.

If a platform wants to attract more small customers, it cannot rely on external resources to drive growth, but must rely on building service facilities to allow customers to settle in on their own.

This principle is like two developers selling properties. Developer A relies on advertising, setting prices, and hiring top salespeople to sell the properties. Developer B only completed the interior decoration, built the green area, and brought in convenience stores, laundries, pharmacies and other shops...

If you were a buyer, would you buy property A or property B? Of course, we would choose Building B which is ready for move-in.

How will various platforms win customers’ budgets in 2021? It is not about opening up advertising space with larger traffic or just purchasing more content copyrights, but about helping companies build their own trading venues so that they can operate their "private domain assets" well.

In the future, marketing competitions between companies will no longer be about who can afford S-level columns or who can achieve a more efficient media combination, but about who can make fuller and more efficient use of the transaction facilities provided by the platform.

To summarize:

1. From pursuing "product-effect synergy" to pursuing "long-term ROI"
2. IP marketing enters the post-link era
3. The integration of three major video formats: long video, short video, and live broadcast
4. Media and stores merge to create new business models through new marketing
5. Platform competition: from plundering traffic resources to building trading facilities

VI. Conclusion

The five marketing guesses for 2021 can actually be summed up in two words: link + content. The key to future marketing is to use content to drive links and use links to accelerate transactions.

Infrastructure such as links will become more and more popular, just like broadband fiber. Therefore, content is the moat for future competition. Short-term victory depends on digital layout, and long-term victory depends on content productivity.

In 2021, I hope everyone can find their own marketing goals.