The underlying logic of brand marketing

In the post-traffic era, the dividends of mobile Internet and consumer Internet have disappeared, and the remaining half door of content e-commerce is also gradually closing.

Online traffic is no longer growing and offline traffic is saturated. Not only did old marketing encounter new problems, but new consumption also suddenly cooled down.

what to do? Let us re-understand the underlying logic of marketing and find new directions and methods for growth. The content of this article includes: three dimensions, three scenes, and five movement lines.

1. Three Dimensions

We divide marketing into three dimensions: entry-level, intermediate and advanced. In each dimension, the key issues we need to solve are the same.

In the primary stage of marketing, we must focus on the three major elements: people, place, and goods , as well as the management of the transaction process within the store.

In mid-level marketing, people, places and goods are upgraded. They correspond to traffic, conversion, and premium respectively. At this point, your field of vision has expanded, and you need to look beyond the store to find traffic and business opportunities outside.

It is necessary to establish a marketing funnel based on a larger customer base, and to increase brand premium among the more core target customer base.

In high-end marketing, there is another upgrade. They correspond to implicit needs, decision-making motivations, and value cognition respectively. At this point, we switch from the product perspective to the customer perspective.

The purpose of studying customer minds is to gain insight into customers’ hidden needs, lead industry development, and stay away from product homogeneity competition. At the same time, for explicit needs, we need to strengthen customers' decision-making motivations; for implicit needs, we need to manage customer cognition.

Einstein said: “We cannot solve problems with the same thinking that posed them.”

This means that when we want to solve the efficiency and effectiveness of "people, places, and goods", we must improve the dimension of thinking and look for answers in mid-level marketing and high-level marketing.

Here are some reminders:

The essence of business is transaction. There are three elements, three processes and three variables in trading.

• The three elements of a transaction: people, place, and goods.
• There are three trading processes: transaction process, physical process, and psychological process.
• Three transaction variables: customer variable, scenario variable, and value variable.

Based on the above, we can optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of countless trading strategies in order to achieve greater performance results.

Two, three scenes

We have said before that there are three processes in a transaction: transaction process, physical process, and psychological process.

In terms of scenarios, we also have three scenarios: sales scenario, marketing scenario, and mental scenario.

Why do we have to emphasize the scene? Because the scene is a growth greenhouse.

When we put products and customers into a certain scenario, magical phenomena occur.

Originally, customers feel that this product has nothing to do with me, I can’t use it, and I don’t like it, but when placed in a specific scenario, a qualitative change may occur. Customers will suddenly feel that this product cannot be ignored, I may be able to use it, and it is interesting.

For example: popcorn is easily overlooked in daily life. But once you enter the cinema, popcorn sales suddenly increase, and it is suitable for people of all ages.

This is the charm of scene-based setting. Therefore, the scene is a tool to increase desire, also called a growth greenhouse.

Below, we take Starbucks as an example. Let me briefly explain our original scene parsing model.

What is Starbucks’ brand positioning ?

There are at least 3, corresponding to three major scenarios.

• One is sales scenario positioning;
• One is marketing scenario positioning;
• One is mental scene positioning .

When a customer enters a Starbucks store, he or she enters the sales scene.

At this point, anything else would be a waste. Let’s just say: We are a specialty coffee shop. The coffee is good, coffee + cake can be combined into afternoon tea, and the environment is good.

This is because entering a store is the result of a two-way screening. People who are not interested in coffee and don’t know anything about it will most likely not enter the store.

But what? If we look at the flow of people on the street, out of 100 people passing by a store, the majority, probably more than 95%, do not enter the store or even look at the door.

Here, the second positioning arises, which is marketing scenario positioning.

The core of marketing scenario positioning is not selling coffee. Instead, it’s about attracting new customers and repeat purchases . Attracting new customers means that some of them don’t understand coffee, or don’t know Starbucks, or even don’t drink coffee. At this point, talking a lot about how good the coffee is will greatly reduce the conversion efficiency.

Therefore, Starbucks’ marketing scenario positioning is: delivering a unique coffee experience .

• The experience is more important than the coffee;
• Emotions are more important than products;
• Touchpoints are more important than selling products.

Some people come into the store once and never come back again. what to do? Find ways to increase the frequency and behavior of his coming. Become a member, recharge 5 cups at a time and get 1 cup for free. Now, this person will come 6 times. Sell ​​her a beautiful cherry blossom cup, and she takes it home. Every time she uses it, it becomes free advertising.

Finally, some people have already decided which coffee shop to go to before they even go out at home.

How do they make decisions?

It creates strong memory, strong preference, and strong awakening of a certain brand. When you think of certain keywords, you associate them with a certain brand. This is called mental scene positioning.

There are two types of mental scene positioning:

One is that when there is a consumption demand, people directly think of a certain brand; the other is that even when there is no consumption demand, they can still come into contact with a certain brand frequently.

If it is the former, you can advertise: For premium coffee, I only drink Starbucks. After a long time, with a large amount of advertising, people will remember it. If it's the latter, it's a big problem. Your customers will definitely get annoyed if you keep nagging them about how good your coffee is when they don't really need it.

What should I do?

Forget that you sell coffee. Stand in the customer's perspective, serve him/her sincerely, and say what he/she likes to hear.

Therefore, Starbucks’ mental positioning is: the third space.

This has nothing to do with coffee. This is because the third space is so vast in scope and has so many application scenarios that coffee cannot even be ranked among them. Many people would think this is far-fetched, and would feel that so much money was spent on talking about the third space instead of coffee. What an absolute waste.

Moreover, when Starbucks only opened 20 stores in China, if it proactively called itself the third space, even customers would laugh their heads off. If customers don’t agree, then there will be even greater trouble.

So, what are the benefits of the third space?

It is to lock in the identity and value of target customers. The offense and defense suddenly switched positions.

Target customers feel that Starbucks is a part of my life and it is my value proposition that makes me choose Starbucks. Instead of Starbucks ads bombarding my memory, I ended up passively accepting Starbucks.

Through the above analysis, I wonder if you can understand that brand positioning and scenario analysis are inseparable.

The above model still has a lot of underlying logic that needs to be cognitively disassembled and reconstructed.

For example: From the perspective of scenario analysis, we also need to study key issues such as decision-making paths, behavioral routes, and transaction guides ; from the perspective of marketing strategies, we also need to study key issues such as customer needs, customer behavior, customer relationships, and customer cognition .

Therefore, scenario analysis connects brand positioning on one side and demand positioning on the other.

Three, five major moving lines

We have introduced three dimensions and three scenarios earlier. To truly implement performance results, we also need to create five performance routes.

Specifically including: people looking for goods, people looking for venues, venues looking for people, goods looking for people, and people looking for people.

In the design of the movement routes for people to find goods, we focus on locking in customers' explicit needs, intercepting explicit needs and increasing customers' desires.

In the design of the movement routes for people to find places, we focus on locking in customer application scenarios, seizing scene share and establishing a cooperative ecosystem.

In the design of the traffic flow for finding people on site, we focus on locking in circle customers, building a scene greenhouse and providing unique experience.

In the design of the flow of goods finding people, we focus on locking in customer interests, expanding potential touchpoints and attracting traffic with content.

In the design of traffic flow for people to find each other, we focus on understanding decision-making motivations, refining customer word-of-mouth and exploring relationship communication.

Let's take a few examples, which may be a bit simplistic and crude:

If you are afraid of getting angry, drink Wanglaoji. It is one of the traffic flow designs for people to find goods.

The way IKEA displays its products is one of the ways people move around.

Starbucks’ third space. It is one of the movement route designs for finding people in the venue.

Santonban Coffee’s promotion in Xiachufang is one of the traffic flow designs that helps goods find people.

Durex’s social communication is one of the traffic flow designs for people to find each other.

The actual performance flow is much more complicated than the above, and it is a three-dimensional design with multiple dimensions and elements.

IV. Conclusion

Finally, let’s summarize.

There are no great companies, only companies of the times.

Again, there is no best method, only the right method.

After mobile Internet, after the traffic dividend of e-commerce, and after the cooling of new consumption, we have entered the post-Internet era. We need to re-understand marketing and find suitable marketing strategies and performance implementation.

There are no products that cannot be sold, only knowledge that cannot be sold.