As long as you do a good job of short-term user experience marketing, why worry about not being able to sell good products?

I believe everyone has heard this sentence, "Consumers buy solutions rather than products." I often say this, or use it to remind myself that whether we are making products or doing marketing , we must help consumers solve problems. Only when the consumers' problems are solved will they be willing to pay for them.

Consumers buy water to solve their thirst, spend money on skills training courses to find a good job, buy diet pills to lose weight, buy branded clothes to show a better self, buy health products to have a good body, and I write articles to force myself to input and connect more friends...

Many products are very good and can help consumers solve problems, but consumers are often unwilling to pay for them. What is the reason? Everything has a cause and effect relationship. Only when we understand the reasons can we get the desired results.

Since the product is designed to help consumers solve problems, then it involves the issue of timeliness. In other words, the feedback the product brings to consumers. According to this factor, it is usually divided into short-term feedback products and long-term feedback products. Mineral water is a short-term feedback product, and just one sip can relieve thirst; health supplements are long-term feedback products, and it takes a certain amount of time for the body to react.

Products with short-term feedback are easier to promote, and consumers are much more willing to buy them because they can tell whether they are effective or not by trying it. On the contrary, products with long-term feedback are more difficult to promote. It’s not that the product is bad, but that the good of the product cannot be seen by consumers in a short period of time.

Consumers are smart. They will weigh the pros and cons before buying. They will place an order only if the pros outweigh the cons. However, they often only see the pros and cons in front of them. Therefore, long-term feedback products are not very popular with consumers. The reason is that they cannot prove the benefits they can bring to consumers in a short period of time.

There is a popular saying in the copywriting world, which goes something like “ Before writing copy, you must assume that consumers don’t understand your product.” Why? The purpose is to prevent consumers from not being able to understand what they write and from falling into a state of self-satisfaction. For example, if one wants to write about a laptop with low noise, he might write "The ultimate in creativity and peace of mind".

The same applies to our marketing. We have to assume that consumers are not interested in our products and are unwilling to buy them. Only in this way can we continue to improve our products and marketing strategies.

Therefore, our products must be able to bring short-term feedback to consumers. Even if it is a long-term feedback product, we must create some short-term feedback information so that consumers can feel that the product can indeed help them solve their problems . If you just search online, you will find many crash courses, such as “7-day crash course”, “21-day crash course”, etc., which are very popular among consumers.

Before talking about specific methods and analyzing related cases, I would like to talk about a few common events to help everyone better understand short-term feedback and long-term feedback.

1. Three events about short-term feedback and long-term feedback

(1) About weight loss and fitness

Anyone who has tried to lose weight should have a deep understanding that the most difficult part in the weight loss process is persistence. Of course, the weight loss method mentioned here is to achieve the effect of fat reduction through exercise and sweating. If you insist on doing a certain amount of exercise every day for a long time, you can achieve the effect of weight loss.

However, there are few people who can really stick to it. I have several friends around me who were very energetic in the first few days, but often after a few days, they were like a deflated ball. The reason for this phenomenon is largely because they cannot get short-term feedback in the process of weight loss, because body thinness cannot be reflected in a day or two, and weight changes cannot be measured once or twice .

The only thing that can give you feedback in a short period of time is the sweat after exercise, but this also requires a certain amount of exercise. If after you exercise, someone says to you sincerely, "Wow, I feel like you've lost some weight again," you may be able to persist longer. If this person is someone you like, it may be even longer.

Fitness is also a long-term thing that will only give you feedback. Many people give up halfway. I wanted to build a muscular body a few years ago, but I still have nine-pack abs.

(2) About Writing

Writing is also something that requires long-term persistence. Some people write for several years or even decades, while others only write for a few months or even a few days. In addition to some internal factors, what may be more important is the feedback from the outside world.

I feel this deeply. I wrote my first article in September this year, and it has been three months. Including this one, there are a total of ten articles. I am very glad that I am still persisting. The ability to persist is inseparable from the feedback from the outside world. These feedback information include the number of readings, readers' comments, likes, collections, exchanges with friends, the increase in the number of followers of the public account, the remuneration from the Public Relations Home platform, etc.

If no one views, likes or comments on the articles I write, and there is no short-term feedback, even if I know very well that as long as I persist as always, there will always be some effect, I don't think I will be able to persist.

(3) About games and TikTok

Why are games addictive for so many people? It is inseparable from its feedback mechanism . Every operation you make can get corresponding feedback information immediately. You click a button, a sound comes out immediately, and the people in the picture also make corresponding actions. You kill an enemy, your points go up, and there may be cheers. You pass a level and immediately enter the next level.

In short, every operation you make in the game can get feedback in a short period of time, which makes it hard not to be addicted. In addition to the short-term feedback information in the game that makes people addicted, the algorithm mechanism of Tik Tok is also addictive, which can actually be regarded as a short-term feedback mechanism .

When you see a video on TikTok, after you finish watching it, it will immediately recommend similar videos to you, one after another, and maybe by the time you stop, several hours have passed. Its feedback is very quick and accurate. If you don’t see the videos you want to watch for a long time, you are likely to quit the platform.

Through the above three small events in life, I think it is not difficult for everyone to see the great impact of short-term feedback on us, especially when we use money to exchange another item, we must see the effect. If there is a kind of water that takes several hours to quench your thirst, you will not buy it anyway.

2. Two common methods for creating short-term feedback information in long-term feedback products

(1) Adding other short-term feedback substances

When your own product really makes it difficult to provide consumers with feedback information in a short period of time, you can try adding other ingredients or functions to the product that can provide short-term feedback information.

For example, the earliest toothpaste did not contain any flavors or mint ingredients. After brushing your teeth, from a user experience perspective , it felt like you hadn’t brushed your teeth at all. Although clinical research at the time showed that brushing teeth is good for health, the feedback cycle was too long and many users simply could not stick to it, so the toothpaste naturally did not sell well.

In order to solve this problem , mint and spices are added to toothpaste. After the user brushes his teeth, the stimulation of the mint and spices suggests to the user that his teeth have been clean. As a result, the sales of toothpaste are boosted . In fact, from the perspective of efficacy, there is no substantial change. The added mint and spices just provide a short-term feedback information.

If knowledge-based communities and social platforms did not provide functions such as liking and commenting, I think it would be difficult to retain so many users. If no one likes or comments on a post, users will not receive attention or feedback, and will eventually leave over time. In the early days, many platforms hired a group of staff and only assigned them one task, which was to leave comments and like users’ posts.

Similarly, the Yu'ebao function in the payment system settles profits once a day, " making the profits visible every day ." When you open Yu'ebao every day and see yesterday's profit of xxx, are you excited? On the contrary, if the income is settled only once a month, your interest in saving money will probably drop significantly.

(2) Feedback information that diverts consumers’ attention

Sometimes you are unable to improve the product, you can find ways to divert consumers' attention from feedback information so that they focus on the short-term feedback information that you can provide.

For example, if you are doing fitness training, one of the big problems you face is that students may not be able to stick to it, because a good figure cannot be achieved in a day or two. In that case, you can set up rewards for meeting targets, such as how much reward you will get for completing certain tasks every day, or you can get a certain title, or you can set up task progress. When students see their progress increasing every day and get corresponding feedback, they will be more motivated to persist .

For example, if you are selling health supplements, it is often difficult to attract consumers if you keep emphasizing the efficacy of your products, because the effects will not be seen in one or two days. Then you can promote it in other aspects, such as "taking health supplements is to avoid adding more burden to your children" and so on, so that consumers can get short-term feedback more easily.

3. Two cases to see how to create short-term feedback information

(1) Didi Taxi

Taxi-hailing apps such as Didi Chuxing not only solve the problem of passengers not being able to find their taxis, but also solve the problem of taxi drivers running around without knowing where their passengers are. They are tools that are inherently more beneficial to both parties.

However, such taxi-hailing software encountered great difficulties in its initial promotion. Many drivers were used to driving around looking for passengers and were too lazy to learn the software; many passengers were also used to waiting for cars at intersections and were too lazy to open the software and use GPS positioning before posting their needs to find a car.

At this time, it is difficult for Didi Kuaidi's sales staff to convince drivers by emphasizing the advantages of the platform, because these benefits of the platform are not immediately available . They require downloading, registration, certification, learning, etc., and are not "visible" incentives .

So later Didi Kuaidi directly started a large-scale subsidy plan, where passengers could get a 10 yuan discount for each ride, drivers could get 10 yuan for each pick-up, and so on, and thus gained a large number of users.

Here, Didi and Kuaidi used subsidies as a form of short-term feedback information from their products to users . At the time, subsidies were an appropriate strategy because online ride-hailing was a new thing and the benefits it could bring to consumers were not immediately felt, and it was difficult for consumers to accept them in a short period of time. Subsidies, on the other hand, were visible and immediate.

(2) New Oriental Mageson

Teacher Li Yunlong talked about such a thing in his book "Growth Thinking".

For some time, my partner, Teacher Zeng Nan, wanted to find an English training institution for his three-year-old child. Because she wanted to cultivate her children's English thinking from an early age and teach them the correct English pronunciation and expressions, rather than learning Chinese English mechanically like we did when we were young, so her screening criteria was to find native English-speaking foreign teachers to teach throughout the entire process.

However, after trying courses at six or seven well-known chain institutions, she always felt that the results were poor. The foreign teachers' pronunciation and expressions were undoubtedly authentic, and their interaction with the children was also very good. The children had a lot of fun, but the gains after class were always meager. It seemed that they could not absorb what was taught in class, and they could not even learn a single word.

This made Teacher Zeng Nan fall into self-doubt: Is the child too young? Or is it that learning is a gradual process that requires patience to wait for the results? Until one day, she took her child to try out Magson's class. Unlike previous institutions, classes at Mageson are mainly taught by Chinese teachers, which do not meet Teacher Zeng Nan’s selection criteria.

But what surprised her was that after the trial class, the child immediately learned to hum a simple English song and could sing along with two key words in it. Why? Because the teacher is Chinese, he can have instant two-way communication with the children, capture the children's listening reactions, and then accurately guide their learning. Mageson is a sub-brand of New Oriental. The English level of Chinese teachers is good enough and the effect of English teaching throughout the course is also good. So after the trial class that day, she immediately decided to place an order.

What made Mr. Zeng Nan place an order immediately? Obviously, it was because her child learned to hum a simple English song immediately after the trial class and obtained short-term feedback . If her child did not receive any feedback after the trial class, no matter how capable Mageson was or claimed that "in the future, any child may become an English genius", I think Teacher Zeng Nan would think twice before acting.

Is it difficult to let the children hum a simple English song after the trial class? It should not be difficult. Just choose simpler songs, teach more patiently and approachably, and adjust the progress and methods of teaching according to his immediate feedback.

Parents do not expect dramatic improvement after the trial class, but just hope to get some feedback to ensure that subsequent courses can help their children make progress. However, many institutions have not noticed this point, and always think that they can get parents to place orders if they can bring results in the future.

4. Common Misconceptions about Long-term and Short-term Feedback

After reading the above analysis and cases, I believe you already know the power of short-term feedback. Whether in life or in marketing, short-term feedback affects us all the time . However, everything has two sides. Only by taking advantage and avoiding disadvantages can we use it for our own benefit. Below I will talk about how to balance the relationship between long-term feedback and short-term feedback from two perspectives.

(1) In daily life

We expect that every voice we make to the outside world will be responded to in a short period of time. We hope to hear an echo when we shout into the valley; we hope to have people like and comment on what we post on WeChat Moments; we hope to apply the knowledge in the books we read immediately; we hope to get a raise immediately after working overtime a few times; we hope to lose weight after exercising for half an hour .

This is indeed understandable, and society is constantly driven by feedback and improvement. However, over time, if we pay too much attention to short-term feedback, our focus will only stay in the present, and we will not be able to see the beauty in the distance. We will be confused by some of the temptations in front of us and will not know how to move forward.

The reason many people fail is that they care too much about short-term feedback and do not have a long-term goal. They care too much about the immediate salary, the current fun, and the praise of others. Little do they realize that they are just enjoying themselves in a cage. Only when you jump out of the cage can you see a more beautiful scenery. The success of many people often comes from a long-term goal. As long as you keep on the road, it doesn’t matter even if you go slowly or even if there are no flowers or plants on the roadside, because the destination is beautiful.

Without short-term feedback, it is difficult for us to persist. Without long-term goals, short-term feedback is meaningless. Short-term feedback must serve your long-term goals. When you deviate from your long-term goals due to complacency due to short-term feedback, correct it immediately.

(2) Marketing

If short-term feedback is compared to creating effects, then long-term feedback is creating a brand . Regarding the current effects and brands, most business owners tend to pay more attention to effects, because the effects are immediate and the input-output ratio is very obvious. However, it will not work if you only focus on effects without building a brand.

If we count the brands that only focus on results, few can go far. The secret answer tea and Huang Taiji pancakes delivered by Mercedes-Benz were once popular, but have now been abandoned by the market .

It is not enough to only focus on branding and not care about the results. One reason is that building a brand requires long-term investment. If you only spend money but don’t make money, the company will inevitably fall into financial difficulties. Another reason is that if there is no effect, it is difficult to ensure that the direction of branding is correct.

The correct approach is to treat the brand as a long-term goal and the results as short-term feedback. While ensuring that you do not deviate from the correct direction, you should work on the results, let the brand guide the results, and the results feed back to the brand, so as to achieve synergy between brand and results. Brands such as Haidilao, Heytea, and Three Squirrels are all good examples.

I can't help but think of those people who go fishing, they often cast a long line and a short line. The long line is used to catch big fish, with a long feedback time, while the short line is used to catch small fish, with a short feedback time. Only when the long and short lines work together can you catch both big and small fish. If you only cast the long line, you may come back empty-handed, and if you only cast the short line, you will only catch small fish.

The more chaotic the environment is, the more you need to keep yourself steady. Although there are many temptations in the outside world, they may not be suitable for you. Remember, consumers will not abandon brands that truly solve their problems.

Summarize

Products are tools that consumers use to solve problems. Consumers will pay close attention to short-term feedback. If they want to sell products, they must be able to provide some short-term feedback information.

Short-term feedback information serves the benefit of subsequent products. The short-term feedback information created must not deviate from the long-term feedback information. There must be a beginning and an end, a good start and a good ending as well.

You must have a long-term goal and look a few years into the future or even further. Immediate interests are important, but the one who laughs last is the king.

Text: Qi Shao

Source: PR Home