8 hot topics in marketing in 2020!

What I want to share with you today is: In the current environment, no matter whether our company is currently facing problems or is in a good development trend, we need to find more new opportunities in the new environment and in the transformation.

1. Changes in the market structure in a three-dimensional environment;
2. The relationship between products and customers;
3. Maximizing customers and customer value;
4. Loss of connection and link;
5. Community retail and community group buying;
6. B2B and channel digitization;
7. Converting new communications is just converting communication channels? It is still necessary to build a new marketing system with communication as the main line;
8. Certainty and uncertainty.

1. Changes in market structure brought about by three-dimensional space

Some time ago, I invited Teacher Shi Wei to come to the group to share with everyone the new marketing theory system he founded: three-dimensional space, trinity. The three-dimensional space brings very important insights to our understanding of the current changes in market structure and to our clarification of why we need to make corresponding marketing transformations.

In recent years, many companies have been considering: Should I go online? Do you want to create a community? Why do it online? What kind of planning should be done for such a new thing? This is the aspect that I understand people are currently confused about.

Through Professor Shi Wei's analysis of the entire market structural changes, the entire market is divided into three spatial structures: offline, online, and community. This provides us with very important insights into the current market structural changes.

Because the entire market structure has changed, it has changed from the single offline market that we are very familiar with to an offline plus online market. In recent years, with the rapid development of WeChat social networking, a new community space has emerged, and the three-dimensional space constitutes the current complete market structure.

Now, if we want to define the entire market, it is definitely not enough to just focus on the offline market, because the market pattern and market structure have changed.

No one should have any doubts about the online market so far. It wouldn't have been possible 10 years ago. Not to mention us, even the big guys like Wang Jianlin and Jack Ma once made a bet. But to this day, no one denies the existence of the online market.

In the current development of the community space, many companies may still have doubts about how to understand and position themselves. However, judging from the overall trend, the community space will definitely become a very important market space in the future.

Therefore, from the current perspective, offline + online + community constitute a complete market structure.

Therefore, as an enterprise, whether it is a brand, distributor, or retailer, when positioning your market structure, you must make a complete system plan in three dimensions. It is definitely not enough to only consider the offline market, nor is it enough to separate the online and offline markets. We must consider organically integrating the three spaces of offline, online and community, which is the reasonable choice for overall market planning now.

The most critical thing is that in response to the emergence of the current three-dimensional space, the entire channel form, including the retail form, has changed from the original single offline channel to three channel forms: offline channel, online channel, and social channel. The three channels and three retail formats have already created very important value in the current market.

Therefore, all three channels must be tapped. A single channel may support the development of small businesses. But as a large enterprise, we must pay attention to three channels.

In a three-dimensional environment, there are three delivery methods: in-store delivery, home delivery, and community delivery. Delivery has become a very critical factor in the entire marketing process.

The previous marketing system mainly revolved around in-store delivery, but now we must pay attention to home delivery and community delivery. In the past, we have been focusing our main marketing resources on in-store delivery, but now we must pay attention to home delivery and community delivery. Changes in delivery methods will definitely bring very important impacts and changes to the industry.

Regarding community delivery, Lian Jie told everyone in the group some time ago that in terms of cost and efficiency, community delivery should be the lowest cost and most efficient delivery method.

Under the current circumstances, it must be made clear that omni-channel is already an objective reality. We can no longer simply focus on offline channels or study only the single method of going to stores. With the changes in the three-dimensional market structure, omni-channel is already an indisputable reality.

Another key factor is that the choice of omni-channel is decided by users, not by the company. Because the consumers we currently serve are in this three-dimensional space.

In the future, omni-channel integration will be the main direction. We need to focus on user needs and meet their consumption needs in every aspect through in-store, home and community delivery. This is definitely a very important direction.

New channels must bring new opportunities. In fact, the entire offline channel has been moving downward in recent years, and new channels must contain huge new opportunities. It is recommended that business owners pay special attention to this, as they will definitely find new opportunities in new channels.

I went to BBK a few days ago and had a discussion with General Manager Wang Xiangjie. BBK launched Better Shopping in July, and currently the proportion of home delivery has accounted for more than 10% of store sales. Li Ling, general manager of Xinle Supermarket, introduced that after the cooperation between Xinle and Duodian, the proportion of home delivery has reached 10%. The proportion of home delivery of Bubugao’s milk products reached 25%. Wang Xiangjie said that the future home delivery target is to reach 30%.

A while ago, I visited several companies that were doing group buying, and among the group sales, low-temperature frozen products accounted for 40%. Categories like low-temperature frozen goods may have great advantages in the group buying model in the future.

2. About the relationship between products and customers

What is the relationship between products and customers? Is it products first or customers first? In the end, should we put product management first or customer management first?

Recently, I have seen the opinions of many bosses, who still say that as long as the products are good, there will be no problem with the business. This view requires some reflection.

The simplest truth here is: Is it the products that create value for the company, or is it the customers who create value? If we calm down and think about it, it is the customers who create value for us, not the products. If customers don't pay, all the products cannot realize their value.

There are several reasons why we have only focused on managing commodities for a long time: First, in an era of shortage, we do not need to pay attention to customer needs, we only need to organize the commodities. This marketing perspective continues to this day. However, in the current environment where commodities are extremely abundant, if we still focus our main efforts on merchandise management, there may be problems.

• It turns out that we didn’t have the means to manage our customers, which means that we had no way of keeping statistics on how much customers bought from you. But now it’s different. All the consumption of your customers can be accurately measured.
• I have visited many markets and many stores in the past few years, and my general feeling is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate products. Under the current circumstances, it is not easy to find products that can truly impress customers from the product side.

In my opinion, the entire marketing process needs to undergo a fundamental transformation: managing customers first, managing products second, and providing a good transaction delivery experience third. We need to redefine marketing by placing customer service at the most important position. At the very least, you should now position customers and products as equally important.

What does it mean to manage customers? It is not the vague idea that customers are God as we used to say. What we need to do is to build a new marketing system to manage customers. It is about building a customer management system centered around how to maximize user value and customer value.

Originally, brand owners and retailers, especially brand owners, focused on big single products and had a system for managing big single products. Now they must switch to a system for managing super users. Retailers used to talk about category management, but now they must develop a customer category management system, figuring out how to manage your super users, general users, and potential users well, how to maximize the user value of super users, and how to use a system to convert potential users into super users.

User management is a very important marketing conversion at present. In future operations, maximizing user value is an important direction of marketing. How great the customer value can be achieved can only be achieved through a management system.

3. Maximizing Customers or Maximizing Customer Value

Our marketing focus has always been on maximizing our customers. This marketing model is used by both brands and retailers. However, a transformation is needed in the current environment.

For example, if we want to do a business worth 1 million now, how do we achieve this business worth 1 million? To achieve a business worth 1 million, we may have to find 1 million customers and use this method to achieve a business worth 1 million. Now if you need to convert, you need to find 100 customers and find a way to achieve a user value of 10,000 for each customer to realize this 1 million business.

Why do this?

First, it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract new customers, no matter whether it is a brand owner. Brand innovation has entered a very active period. Various new brands are competing for the market, and this trend will continue in the future. In terms of retail, there are more and more stores of various types. All retail formats will find it increasingly difficult and costly to attract new customers.

The second is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate products. What are the differences between the products of 711 and FamilyMart? How big is the difference between McDonald's and KFC's products? It is difficult to distinguish for general users. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly difficult to build a brand simply by differentiating products.

The third is that the middle class has become the main force driving the future development of the industry. The main consumer groups we are facing have changed and their demand characteristics are no longer the same as before. The new middle class has new demands. Serving the middle-class market requires a new model.

The fourth is to operate around user value, with technical means to ensure it. Linking can be used to achieve more accurate and effective user management.

Enterprises must achieve a transition from traditional marketing models to creating super users. Super users not only contribute to sales, but also have enormous value in marketing communications and other aspects.

We need to build a new user management system and marketing system around creating super users. Super users must be managed using a set of management systems.

4. Loss of connection and link

How do we recognize loss of connection and connection?

Recently, more and more industry friends and experts have begun to pay attention to links.

The link I define is mainly to use technical means to actually establish your user links. The key is to have technical means to establish links, which is the core.

What is marketing in a disconnected environment? Simply put, once a customer buys something, you can no longer find him. The most typical example is retail: after customers buy something and pay, they just leave and there is nothing you can do about it. This is called loss of contact.

Now, more effective means can be used to establish customer links and eliminate user loss.

The characteristics of the link are real-time and online.

Why real-time online? Because Chinese society has become a connected society, every one of us now lives in a connected society. Therefore, marketing must adapt to changes in the social environment. Society is already connected, but our marketing has not yet achieved connection, and has not yet achieved connection with your customers and users. It is no longer realistic.

Today, our understanding of connections is still at a relatively early stage, and is based on connections in the 4G environment. The 4G connection is the connection between people and people, and people and information, while the 5G connection is the connection between people and things, and things and things. We still need to observe what kind of changes it will bring.

From now on, the most realistic value of links is to generate user activation. Once you connect users, and after they buy your products, you can find ways to encourage them to repurchase and activate them. Only with activation can marketing have important value.

We need to build links in three aspects: first, the company must connect to users. Whether you are a brand or a retailer, you must connect to your users. This is a basic norm in the future. The second user wants to link to the product. Third, information can be linked to users and reach users.

Through links, we need to achieve five online things: users online, products online, transactions online, marketing online and teams online. These 5 online aspects will be the marketing norm in the future link environment.

To establish links, we need to build three platforms: the first is the technical platform, the second is the content platform, and the third is the social platform. Technical platforms include APPs and mini-programs, and content platforms include official accounts, Douyin, Weibo, WeChat, etc., because they all have a follow function that can connect your users with the content platform, allowing your users to continue to pay attention to your information. The third is the social platform, which currently mainly includes WeChat Moments and WeChat groups.

These three platforms are integrated with each other. The technical platform is the underlying layer, and it is the underlying architecture that must be built. The content platform is about finding ways to attract more users and realizing the value of finding users, connecting users, and educating users. Social platforms are centered around connecting users to generate more valuable and effective user education and user influence. These three platforms must play different values ​​and cooperate with each other.

This also leads to a new topic. I believe that the core element of business operations in the future will be APP, not just going to the store. You need to run a good store, but a very important means to connect with and manage users is on the APP. APP is a real-time online tool that is always at hand, and companies must seize it.

Some friends are also worried. What if users don’t download the APP or the user activity is low? The key is what content you create? Can the content you create create more value for users?

Does anyone still think that companies need to link all users? My point needs to be. Enterprises are not afraid of having many users. As long as you connect users, you will be able to manage them, influence them, and convert them. If you don't establish links, you will definitely not have the opportunity to manage and influence him.

5. About social retail and community group buying

My opinion: In a three-dimensional environment, community retail is a very important retail model. Group buying is a means of social retail and a means of promotion. Community retail is a model, and group buying can only be defined as a means.

Enterprises should plan the value of the community retail model from three aspects:

The first is user connection, which is the core. The purpose of establishing user connections through communities is to improve user operations.

The second is to solve the problem of communication. Because current communication is basically new media communication + social communication, social communication is a very valuable way of communication.

The third value is selling goods. From the perspective of brands, retailers, and distributors, it is very important not to define social networks as a sales channel all at once. The core should be placed on user connection, user operation, and marketing communication.

In my opinion, the competition among the entire community retail and community channels in the future will be about the quality and ability of building groups. Now we need to calm down and redefine community retail clearly, how to position it in the future, and how to improve the quality around the group.

In the future, all companies will participate in community retail, and I agree with this view. Many brands are now starting to experiment.

6. About B2B and channel digitalization

B2B and channel digitalization, in the end, the most direct understanding is to find a way to transform the current order model into a mobile phone order.

Now we all feel that mobile phones have solved many problems. We must allow our customers to use mobile phones to solve their ordering problems. This efficiency will definitely bring about great changes.

There are two key aspects of value. The first is order efficiency. To put it simply, the original salesperson who visited once a week has changed to users placing orders 24 hours a day. This efficiency is of great value.

The second is marketing efficiency. Originally, there were only a few means of terminal marketing, but now through the online ordering model, there are many marketing methods that can be used. The marketing efficiency and marketing model will undergo tremendous changes.

The entire channel digitalization development path will eventually start from the brand owner's end. In other words, if the real channel digitalization model is to develop healthily, it requires the brand owner to invest corresponding resources to promote it.

Today's B2B companies do still have problems due to lack of resources. It is recommended that brands pay more attention to new platforms in 2020.

7. Conversion of the Communication and Marketing System

Now, many companies are considering the transformation of their marketing communication systems. How to transform the marketing communication system?

Some time ago I wrote an article: Converting to New Marketing – The core is to convert to new communication first. Many companies are paying attention to the views in the article and are also communicating with me.

My opinion is that the first wave of dividends from the transformation of marketing communication is the change of communication channels. The original large-screen projection has now been switched to small-screen projection, and some companies have indeed achieved very good results. However, at present, this wave of dividends from changing channels is gradually disappearing, and in the future we must move towards building a marketing system with new communication as the main line.

Mr. Weng of Hongzhang Capital put forward several viewpoints: in the future, enterprises will gradually move towards media-based survival. We must learn to use media thinking to operate the market and build brands. Connect the company's product resources, disseminate the value chain, build an open platform, and maximize brand communication and corporate influence. An enterprise should strive to become a communicative organization.

I believe that the transformation of the new communication system should focus on several aspects:

The first new communication is centered around the overall market strategy of the enterprise. It is not just a simple change of a communication channel, but a new plan centered around the overall market strategy of the enterprise. For example, what is our company’s overall market goal this year? What breakthroughs should be made in the overall market layout this year? Under such circumstances, a new communication system is used to allocate various resources to help achieve such a market strategic goal.

The second new communication system must be closely integrated with the company's marketing actions. For example, when a new product is launched, how to better enter a certain market is based on a set of market actions, and the relevant new marketing systems are used to coordinate and complete such market actions.

The current communication system has changed, and the entire market action must be planned around new communication.

Under such positioning, transformation to new communication must be the core of new marketing. The entire new marketing system revolves around the new communication system. When the strategic and tactical strategies are determined, we use new communication means and methods to cooperate and complete such market actions.

At present, new communication must become a core capability of enterprises and teams.

To build a new communication system around new communication, companies need to do three things:

The first is to complete the transformation of the team’s new communication capabilities. We need to quickly build up the team's new communication capabilities so that they can use new communication methods to do their current business well. Have the ability to use new communication capabilities to find customers, close deals, and boost sales.

The second is to build a new communication system for the enterprise. Based on the strategic goals that the company wants to achieve, including the tactical actions it wants to take, different communication platforms and different positioning should be used to influence different users and create different values.

Third, we need to build a marketing system with new communication as the main line. We focus on the marketing goals we want to achieve and make this communication and marketing system the main line to promote the realization of marketing goals.

In general, new communication is a set of empowerment mechanisms, and this empowerment mechanism will definitely produce immediate results.

8. On the Relationship between Certainty and Uncertainty

My understanding is that the so-called certainty means that we should continue to stick to the business areas that we are more familiar with; the so-called uncertainty means that we should make new explorations on new things that have emerged.

Looking at the current situation of the entire industry, most companies are still confined to their original model areas. Making new attempts amid uncertainty is a direction that many companies should focus on at present.

Luo Zhenyu also expressed this point in his New Year's Eve speech on the evening of the 31st, and I agree with it: we should now change from elevator mode to rock climbing mode. The elevator mode is the mode we are used to. We should not give up this mode now, but stick to it.

However, in the period of transformation, it is not enough to just stick to one's roots. We must continue to explore new models, new areas, and new spaces.

Recently, I saw an expert’s opinion: In this era, no one knows the standard answer to the future business model. Only companies can invest resources and let the younger generation try.

So, on the one hand, we must do what we should do well, and on the other hand, we must look for opportunities from new changes. The entire model will definitely change in the future. Only through continuous change can we find new models for future enterprise development.

Author: Bao Yuezhong

Official account: Bao Yuezhong New Retail Forum