3 steps for Xiaohongshu brands to seize the traffic trend

According to data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of single adults in my country reached 240 million in 2020, and the marriage rate hit the lowest level in nearly a decade. Under the wave of single economy growth, we carry out precision marketing in three aspects to help brands create new consumer markets.

01 Single economy trend

Ramen Says, founded in 2016, has achieved sales of over 100 million yuan in the first quarter of this year with its emotional brand of "You should eat well even when you are alone". These single-person food products, represented by snail noodles, Ramen Shuo, and Zihaiguo, are testimony to the arrival of the single economy.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic last year, snail noodles have frequently appeared on the hot searches on Weibo. Taobao's economic warming data showed that in the last week of February, 3.2 million people searched for "snail noodles" on Taobao. Unexpectedly, the economic recovery started from the Chinese people's food.

Picture｜From the Internet

The "2019-2020 National Taste Report" released by Tmall pointed out that single-person meals, fitness meals, tonic products, place of origin, cross-border products and lazy fast food have become the six major annual food trend keywords in 2020.

Picture｜From the Internet

Nowadays, food has gone beyond its own meaning and has become more of an emotional sustenance or a reflection of lifestyle changes. The products derived from the single economy not only solve the "single" group's demand for "food", but also radiate to all aspects such as clothing, housing, transportation, and entertainment.

02 Consumer Profile

According to a special report on the single economy released by Guotai Junan Securities, the consumption drivers of single groups mainly revolve around convenience, self-satisfaction, spiritual sustenance and the desire for self-improvement.

Xiaohongshu, which advocates a refined life, has a younger user base, with ages mainly concentrated between 18 and 34 years old, accounting for 83.31%; the majority of users are female, accounting for 90.41%, and male users account for 9.59%. It is consistent with the characteristics of the current single economy group, they have certain pursuits in life, have their own standards for quality, have clear consumption needs, and have strong consumption capacity.

By grasping the characteristics of this group of people, finding the points of convergence between the brand and Xiaohongshu users, and solving the pain points of the current "single" population, we can gain a market advantage.

Figure｜Qiangua Data "2021 Xiaohongshu Active User Portrait Trend Report"

03 3 Steps to Get More Traffic

Multi-scenario demonstration

With the advent of the single economy, self-heating foods, small packages, and mini home appliances have become popular online, and the takeout market has gradually grown. Offline, there are many more one-person restaurants, one-person cinemas, one-person KTVs, etc. to cope with this trend.

Picture｜From the Internet

Adapt to the "Amway" attribute of Xiaohongshu, assist users in making consumption decisions, and obtain more "grass planting" in multi-scenario demonstrations.

The Zihaiguo has the attributes of being "portable" and "easy to operate", and can meet the needs of many different scenarios. Young users often work overtime, go camping or travel, or stay up late to watch TV series. Brands are good at exploring user living habits, and the product characteristics are very consistent with user needs.

Picture｜From the Internet

The brand not only creates brainwashing slogans such as "meals for one person" in promotional advertisements or TV product placements, but also provides many interpretations of scenarios where the product can be used.

The topic #Eat Zihaiguo when traveling has been read over 205,000 times. It expresses the application scenarios of Zihaiguo concisely and clearly through soft implantation in travel scenarios of mid-level experts and amateurs.

Picture｜From Xiaohongshu

Delivery layout

When placing KOLs, blindly placing them in large quantities will inevitably result in half the effort with twice the results, waste money, and fail to make much of a splash.

Taking "Haohuanluo" as an example, as a more representative brand in its category, the data chart of "Haohuanluo"'s grass-planting notes shows that: from the top and celebrity fans, the lower the number, the total amount of grass-planting interactions of notes posted by influencers with this brand is higher than the average interaction volume of ordinary grass-planting notes.

Figure｜Qiangua Data—Brand Placement Analysis Details

Comparing the percentage of the attributes of grass-planting influencers and combining the amount of grass-planting interaction, the number of placements decreases from celebrities, top influencers, mid-level influencers and then to junior influencers. The final amount of placement is concentrated on junior influencers, thus ensuring the joint growth of both product exposure and grass-planting.

Figure｜Qiangua Data—Brand Placement Analysis Details

Choosing a KOL is actually choosing a customer group. Select KOLs who are highly compatible with the product. For example, Ramen Says is more suitable for finding KOLs in the vertical field of homemade "one-person meals". The fans they attract are basically students or users who live alone, which coincides with the target group of the product. The fan groups of review bloggers, food recommendation bloggers, etc. are all suitable for the setting of single economy.

Picture｜From Xiaohongshu

Differentiated Marketing

There are so many similar products on the market, how can you stand out from them? When launching competing products, learn to create product differentiation on Xiaohongshu, highlight the key points of the product, and reflect it on the cover of Xiaohongshu to attract more users. Apart from the unchangeable factor of the product's "appearance", paying attention to the following points and creating differentiated marketing will give you an edge.

1. Time difference

For users who have finished a day's study or work, going to a store to enjoy exquisite ramen requires a lot of time and money costs, but at "Ramen Says", it only takes 5 minutes to have a bowl of exquisite ramen. All the ingredients are available and the operation is simple. Even if you are not good at cooking, you can easily make a bowl of exquisite ramen.

Picture｜From Xiaohongshu

By utilizing the differentiation in time, Ramen Says highlights that it can solve the problems that office workers and students encounter in their daily three meals. Similarly, products in the single economy are more about solving problems such as "being alone", "no time" and "low efficiency" for users.

2. Taste Differences

Today’s users are no longer satisfied with the single flavors of instant noodles such as braised beef, sauerkraut beef, spicy beef, etc. Most brands are now striving to develop in a diversified direction to cater to the public’s pursuit of rich tastes.

Lian Zihaiguo has 8 flavors, and the brand uses this to create flavor differentiation marketing. Select KOLs to review each flavor and give a detailed description of each flavor. Users can then make selective purchases based on their needs. This vertical segmentation of products can help users make selection decisions.

Picture｜From Xiaohongshu

3. Price Difference

According to the analysis of topic comments on Qiangua Data, users focus on price. With the proliferation of homogeneous products, competing on price will not work. The key points to attract users are to focus on what kind of changes the product itself can bring to users and what kind of quality they can enjoy at what price.

Figure｜Qiangua Data—Brand Placement Analysis Details

"20 yuan per person" and "three Michelin stars", two characteristics that are completely impossible to coexist, are achieved by "Kongke" pasta. For only 20 yuan, you can get pasta of the standard of a Michelin restaurant, with complete ingredients, simple preparation, and good taste, which fully meets the needs of the single economy.

Picture｜From Xiaohongshu

04 Conclusion

Today's society is at the peak of the Internet explosion. Emerging consumer products are rapidly emerging like mushrooms after a spring rain and are gradually becoming the leaders in various sub-categories. At the same time, with precise marketing strategy positioning and the use of various marketing methods, new brands can continue to be exposed and become Internet celebrities.

Brands need to analyze user groups under the single economy, focus on grasping the demands of single people for convenience, cost-effectiveness, quality, self-satisfaction and emotional sustenance, and find the right points of fit for the products in order to accurately grasp the marketing direction.

Conduct multi-scenario demonstrations to help users better understand the functional features behind the product and assist them in making quick decisions.

Choosing KOL means choosing user groups, optimizing brand placement, and maximizing marketing effects.

Differentiated marketing creates brand highlights and amplifies the characteristics that can solve user pain points, which can increase exposure and user purchasing desire.