Brand layout: How to use the strategy center to do market analysis?

For TOP brands, market analysis is a very important part, which has the ability to predict market trends. So how do you do market analysis? We can guide brands in their new product layout through the strategy center and data bank!

I have briefly introduced the functions and value of the strategy center before:

Unlike data banks, data banks are brand data, and their core value is the refined operation of the crowd. Through the insight and stratification of the crowd, different products can be pushed to different people at different times and channels with different interest points.

The strategy center is responsible for industry data. On the one hand, it can analyze and gain insights into the current state of the industry and competing products, guide brands in attracting new customers and conducting some cross-border marketing activities. On the other hand, it can provide guidance and direction for brand new product development by analyzing and predicting the market.

The strategy center is currently only open to TOP brands, and different categories and permissions will be opened according to the actual situation of the brand. This is due to Alibaba's layout. As a platform, it hopes that these TOP brands can develop new categories and new products by predicting market trends, thereby driving the growth of the entire category business.

I have worked on some strategy center cases before, but because they were rather scattered, I didn’t sort them out systematically. Recently, I happened to have some free time, so I sorted out the cases I worked on. This time we will share how to use the strategy center and data bank to guide brands in new product layout.

1. Market Analysis

1. Market trend analysis

First, look at the market trends in the past three years from 2017 to 2019 to predict the market potential, then look at the market changes in each month to understand the month when the market will explode.

Different categories have different market outbreak times. For example, sunscreen is mainly affected by the season, so it explodes in summer, while categories such as BB cream and liquid foundation are seriously affected by activities, so they usually explode in June and November.

2. Market structure analysis

The previous part mainly focuses on trends, while this step is important to understand the top brands and products in the market, what marketing activities these brands have carried out, the market share of major competitors and your own position in the market, etc.

Taking the liquid foundation market as an example, through the previous market trend analysis, we found that the market growth of liquid foundation mainly comes from the growth of activities, so we went to see the specific situation of the TOP brands and TOP products in the market in order to understand our own situation in the market.

Through market structure analysis, we found that a certain brand has been at the top of the list for two years, while a certain brand has become the biggest dark horse in 2019; based on this information, we learned about the specific situation of the two brands' products and found that the main sales of the brand at the top of the list were brought by a certain product, and this product was endorsed by a popular star; and the dark horse was because a large number of marketing activities were carried out for this product in 2019, and well-known anchors were invited to live broadcast and sell the products, so it exploded successfully.

3. Analysis of consumer concerns

After understanding the market trends and knowing the main competing brands in this market, the next step is to understand what the consumers’ demands are.

This can be analyzed from several aspects:

• First, look at the differences between the consumer portraits of the market and those of competitors, including your own consumers, and the prominent features of the portraits.
• The second is to look at the efficacy and see what the consumers’ demands are for the product, so as to provide guidance for the development of new products.
• Third, from the evaluation aspect, we can see the actual situation of consumers’ purchase and use and the points that can be improved.

4. Market segment analysis

Based on the previous market structure analysis, the market can be roughly divided into several categories, including the Japanese and Korean market, the domestic market, the European and American market and others . With the brand, we can also understand the price range; the strategy center has the function of market segmentation analysis, which can circle out the market according to product prices and product attributes.

At this step, we found that the Japanese and Korean markets were TOP1 in 2016-2017, but their growth was very slow; by 2018, the European and American markets had become TOP1; but the domestic market rose rapidly in 2018-2019 and became the new champion.

Based on this understanding, we analyzed the market structure and the market share of top brands to determine the possibility of our entry into this market. In addition, through market analysis of different price segments, we learned about the growth trend of each price segment and which price range may have better market potential, to provide guidance for the pricing of our new products.

5. Category preference analysis

One of the functions of the strategy center is category preference analysis . Through this part of the analysis, we can understand which category people who have purchased this category will be interested in, what are the competing products in this category, and then analyze the market population portrait, etc., to provide reference for attracting new customers for new products across categories.

summary:

Based on the previous analysis, we already know the market trends, the main competitors in the market, the concerns of consumers in the market, and whether we are suitable to enter these markets. If we enter these markets, what should we focus on, what the content marketing should be like, and how the price can be set; if we want to attract new customers across categories, which direction can we go, and what the people in these markets are like; after understanding these, the next step is what we should do, and this is when we need to combine data banks to do brand analysis.

2. Brand Analysis

The data bank is nothing more than a few dimensions.

1. Analyze the ability to attract new customers and repeat purchases from the perspective of channels and touchpoints, analyze consumer channel loyalty, and formulate launch and operation strategies;
2. Analyze the conversion of daily activities and events to provide reference for long-term brand operations;
3. Analyze the effectiveness of marketing, such as live broadcasting, to see the sales ability of each anchor, and use it as a reference for formulating marketing strategies for new products;
4. Consumer portraits: You can look at the differences in consumer portraits across each channel and use this as a reference for attracting new customers across channels for new products.
5. Analyze specific products, analyze the ability of key products to attract new customers and repeat purchases, and provide guidance for attracting new products.

3. Operational Suggestions

1. Market

Combined with the previous market analysis, we can give brands some suggestions from the market level: for example, the previous analysis shows that the domestic market has a good outbreak and great potential, so we can dig deeper here to understand the main factors affecting the changes in consumer consumption habits, and we can also carry out cross-border activities to satisfy consumers' psychological needs for oriental beauty; in addition, from the price perspective, we can see that the potential of the mid-to-high-end market is quite large, but due to the high market share of TOP brands, it is also difficult to enter this market. As a brand, it may need to adopt a long-term operation strategy, understand consumers' purchasing mindsets, do some content operations, and finally reap the benefits.

2. New and old customer operation strategy

This part is the conclusion drawn from the previous analysis of channels/touchpoints for new and old customers. For example, through analysis, we concluded that old customers have a demand to purchase new products, so we need to focus on strengthening the maintenance of brand loyal customers. Old customers are also a group with high contribution, strong brand stickiness and good communication ability, so we can combine the membership mechanism to strengthen the acquisition of old customers across categories, strengthen the maintenance of loyal old customers, and ensure the contribution of old customers to the brand.

3. Promotion/content operation strategy

In the previous section, we have analyzed the content operation level and specific touchpoints. For example, through content marketing analysis and TOP competitor analysis, we found that the endorsements of traffic stars are unstoppable, and the ability of top anchors to bring goods is also unstoppable. Therefore, brands can refer to new customer acquisition methods, strengthen advertising exposure and content operations, and enhance their own brand power.

I have always wanted to write an article about the strategy center. I wrote mind maps over and over again, but I still couldn’t organize it logically clearly. Today I finally picked up the pen and finished it in fits and starts. After finishing it, I still feel that there are some imperfect points in the logic. I need more experience and successful cases to support it. I will keep working hard in the future.

If you have any suggestions, please feel free to discuss.

Author: Li Tingting

Source: Li Tingting