18 knowledge points about content marketing

Content seeding, this word has been on our lips for the past two years. Do you know the logic behind it? Do you know what kind of products are suitable for content seeding? Do you know what kind of content is most effective for seeding? Do you know how to choose a KOL who can promote your products?

In response to these questions that everyone has to a greater or lesser extent, I have compiled 18 knowledge points about content seeding marketing. I hope it will be of some reference to everyone!

01

What is content seeding? To put it simply, first make a product popular, and then quickly build awareness for the entire brand. This is exactly the opposite of the logic of the traditional marketing model. Traditionally, we build the brand first and then promote the product. Content marketing provides many opportunities for small and medium-sized brands, because they don’t have to spend so much marketing budget on branding. As long as your product has something popular, it can be quickly recognized in the market. I personally think that what this reflects is actually the change in consumption motivations of the rising younger generation of consumers (those born in the 1990s and Generation Z), from consumption of brand value to consumption of the unique value experience of the product itself.

02

Not all products are suitable for content seeding. This sentence is to remind all marketers, whether they are on the client side or the contractor side, not to think that content seeding is a "dog-skin plaster" that is effective wherever it is applied. As mentioned in the first point above, the logic of content seeding is to be able to promote a single product, which requires that there must be a very different "seedling point" at the product level. The scarcer this "point" is and the more it can meet consumer demand, the lower the cost you need to pay will be. In fact, most of the products are available everywhere in our daily life and there is nothing special about them. At this time, if you want to "follow the trend" and create content, the cost may be very high, and you may not receive much positive feedback. 

03

The content-seeking marketing model is not exclusive to cosmetics and fast-moving consumer goods. In other words, it can be tried by consumer goods in any industry as long as you can convey the unique value of the product to the target audience. For example, for some 3C, home furnishings, and industrial products with relatively long decision-making cycles, the value of content seeding lies in creating an "individual evaluation" environment, allowing users to immerse themselves in the value of the product, thereby speeding up their next decision, rather than being in a "joint evaluation" transaction environment where they can see various products of the same type and then compare parameters, prices, etc. one by one, resulting in huge losses between the final purchase and the order.

04

As mentioned in the second point above, the most important thing in content seeding is that the product must have a unique "seedling point". We can create this point from two dimensions: the pain point needs of user evolution and the itch point needs of users, or recreate it on the original basis and then refine it.

05

Let’s talk about the first dimension first - creating products that can meet the evolving pain points of users.

To give you a real example, I saw an amino acid toothpaste on Xiaohongshu before. After reading its introduction, I was attracted to it. Why? In the past, when we chose toothpaste, we focused on selling points related to teeth, such as whitening, fresh breath, and anti-sensitivity. However, as our care needs become more in-depth and detailed, care of the oral cavity, such as gums and gaps between teeth, has also been put on the agenda. This amino acid toothpaste is designed to repair the gaps between teeth: as we age, something called "black triangles" will appear between our teeth, which is intolerable for people who pursue refinement, because it not only exposes age, but also affects the appearance like tooth stains. This toothpaste with added amino acids can help repair the "black triangle" between teeth. This is a product created based on the evolved needs of users. Obviously, the "planting point" of this product is effective for me as a potential user.

But there is also a problem. This point is still unique at present, so it can attract users' attention and purchases when used in content planting. However, if users' needs for interdental care are fully educated in the future and various businesses also launch amino acid toothpastes, this "planting point" will become ineffective. For example, if a laundry beads brand promotes content like "it can replace manual pouring of laundry detergent, just throw one into the washing machine and it's done", the effect is probably not very good, because this does not really meet the user's evolved needs. After all, too many brands have launched laundry beads so far, and this demand is already very common in first- and second-tier cities.

06

Then let’s talk about the second dimension - creating “planting points” that can meet users’ itch needs based on existing products.

This is also what most businesses do when promoting content, because there are only a few products that can meet the evolving pain points of users. Let's first talk about what users' "itch points" are. For example, when buying milk tea, people often choose to buy it not because it tastes good, but because of the appearance of the cup, Jay Chou has drunk it, or the interesting menu name; when buying facial masks, people buy them because they produce a lot of bubbles when applied on the face; when buying snacks, people buy them because of the cross-border gift boxes...

These are all considered the "itch point" demands of users, and sometimes the purchasing power they bring is even stronger than the pain point demands. When it comes to content seeding, if you feel that there is nothing interesting about the product itself, you might as well try the following methods to scratch the user's "itchy" needs.

07

Following up on the above point, let’s talk about how to create “grass-planting points” based on the product itself to scratch the user’s “itchy points”.

The first is to redesign the product packaging. For example, if you search for toothpaste on Xiaohongshu, you will find all kinds of high-value toothpaste packaging. Some of them have beautiful outer paper shells, and some are even as exquisite as cosmetics in product shape, making you want to have a tube.

The second way is to create gift boxes through cross-border, IP cooperation and creative forms. You should have seen a lot of cross-border and IP cooperation, so I won’t give more examples. Let me give you an example of the Christmas countdown gift box that many cosmetics brands have launched recently. The exquisite packaging has 24 grids with different products, which means that from December 1st to 25th, there will be a gift every day during Christmas. I believe that many girls will be tempted after seeing this;

The third is to create product usage scenarios or methods that are different from conventional ones. For example, the guy at Haidilao tosses noodles on the spot, and various Internet celebrities eat noodles in different ways. The bubble mask of Bolaya tells you that the more bubbles you put on your face, the cleaner it will be.

The fourth is to cooperate with celebrities and top KOLs to create an endorsement that all celebrities/influencers are using, such as Yang Mi’s same outfit, Li Jiaqi’s strongly recommended lipstick color, etc.

The fifth is to personalize the product to create a differentiated or noble shopping experience. For example, two brands are both selling cookies. One of them can customize the product packaging (just like Oreo did in the past), while the other one is talking about delicious snacks. The effect of these two brands of cookies in creating content should be self-evident.

08

Product content based on user "itch point" needs is not as effective as pain point in terms of lasting effect. Think about it, if we buy an internet celebrity ice cream just because we like it, this liking will not last long. Maybe one day another brand will come out with a better-looking one, and you will buy something else. Therefore, companies cannot rely on this form of content seeding for long-term marketing. Unless you have the ability to continuously produce a variety of popular online products, otherwise "itchy point" demand seeding can only be your way to attract traffic in the short term. In the end, you still have to return to the core consumer motivation of the product. For example, ice cream should return to good taste, facial masks should return to good maintenance effects, and toothpaste should return to oral care effects...

09

It is best to focus on 1~2 core points of the product when it comes to seeding content. I have met some clients who, when the brief agency was writing the content outline for the influencer, were always worried that there would not be enough selling points. They felt that they had finally paid the influencer to write the content, and they hoped that the product could be praised from all angles, so that consumers would naturally think the product was good and buy it. In fact, it is best not to do this in terms of content, otherwise your product will be difficult for the audience to remember, because they look at this information like HR looks at resumes, basically scanning it in 1-2 seconds. If there is nothing special, they basically won't read it carefully. Therefore, at this time, you need to focus on 1~2 core "pain points" or "itch points" in the content. And if there are many different KOLs posting content together, it is also necessary to control these people to convey these 1~2 core points instead of saying their own things.

10

If possible, give your product a nickname. Why in the cosmetics industry, there are various product nicknames such as Red Waist, Little Brown Bottle, Black and White Bandage, Magic Water, etc. The most important function is to allow consumers to have a clear memory of the product. For example, Shiseido had been promoting an essence called "Tsundere Essence" before, but it never became popular until it was called "Red Waist" in the purchasing circle and became popular. Then girls began to remember it and it gradually became popular.

The principle of giving a product a nickname is: first, it must be based on a certain selling point of the product, and then it must be carried by popular images that have a sense of scene or picture in life, and it is best if this selling point is somewhat related to the image, so that consumers will remember it.

11

After determining the "planting point", the next step is to convert it into "human language". Because the main body of content seeding is KOL, unlike traditional marketing where the brand is the main body, the content posted by KOL is essentially communication with fans, so what they need is content that is a dialogue between people, rather than "pipelining". In this regard, you can learn to write grass-planting copy from Li Jiaqi, the No. 1 lipstick seller. For example, when talking about a lipstick shade that is very versatile, he would say, "A color that is fearless"; when talking about a classic color, he would say, "The balance on your bank card can change, your boyfriend can change, but 999 cannot change"; when selling perfume, he would say, "The smell of a forest after a light rain"; when trying out colors, he would say, "Ah, so shiny! A five-carat mouth." Therefore, there are several rules for converting product selling points into "human language": adding scenes, analogizing similar images, and incorporating the words of KOL personalities.

12

Expert recommendations are still based on trust, so the content should be as trustworthy as possible. The more trustworthy forms of content recommendations are: product reviews and personal usage experiences. Especially for some products that cannot influence consumers through appearance, such as ingredient-oriented skin care products, it is best to combine the KOL's own usage experience to convey the efficacy of the ingredients; for example, some small household appliances can demonstrate their functions through on-site demonstrations or reviews. Remember not to let influencers just post branded content, such as TVCs and posters, because this is no longer content seeding, but rather a form of media promotion.

13

It is best to create a pyramid matrix when deploying KOLs. There needs to be a star at the top, whose role is to increase product awareness through star effect endorsement, pave the way for subsequent publicity, and produce materials for subsequent dissemination. Further down the pyramid are the top KOLs. Due to the celebrity effect, top influencers will value products endorsed by well-known celebrities. After all, they have their own traffic, so when brands negotiate cooperation with them, there will be more room for premium. Their role is to produce marketing content and bring goods. With traffic endorsement, mid-level bloggers will follow the trend of celebrities and top influencers, and it will be natural to start cooperation.

14

Content seeding can be done in a long-term always-on form or in the form of a wave of activities. I personally suggest that you can first do it according to the rhythm of the activities, because this will allow you to better understand and control the role of content seeding in the effect, and can also provide guidance and suggestions for subsequent long-term investment.

For content seeding in the form of an event, the overall rhythm does not need to be too long. For example, content seeding for the launch of a new product is usually scheduled for about 3 weeks. The first week is used to create topics, including leveraging celebrities/popular variety shows, planting "seeds" in multiple circles, and establishing scenario-based content; the second week is used to spread topics, using big names in the circle and top KOLs to dig out seeds for the previously planted topics. The first half of the third week is used for product evaluation. Different KOLs are invited to conduct collective usage evaluations on the products to build word-of-mouth. At this point, the preheating stage of content planting has basically been completed, and then it enters the explosive stage. At this time, big promotions are usually used to complete the "finishing touch" to attract more consumers to buy products, which is regarded as "mowing the grass" after planting the grass. This is not the end. Next, we need to encourage consumers to post their orders and create a trend among the whole nation. On the one hand, this can help to generate another wave of follow-up sales, and on the other hand, it can also serve as a content layout that will be deposited on the platform for a long time for user searches.

15

Earlier we mentioned that the main disseminator of content is KOL, but in fact, brands also need to cooperate and take action. Two of the most important ones include: controlling comments outside the site to guide conversions, supervising the direction of public opinion, and related e-commerce keyword searches within the site. It is easy to understand how to control comments outside the site. It means to make sure that the comments are not "distorted" and to let fans spread the expected information about the product as much as possible. Associating e-commerce keywords within the site means that, for example, the keywords you associate when promoting products on Xiaohongshu must also be optimized for SEO/SEM on the e-commerce side. Otherwise, it is very likely that the traffic you have worked hard to attract will have no destination or be snatched away by others. For example, the bubble mask was originally made by PROYA, but later when users searched for the keyword "bubble mask", they found many other products also called bubble mask. At this time, it was obvious that the traffic brought by the grass-roots promotion was a blessing for others.

16

When promoting content on Douyin, the most important thing is to look at the content tags, rather than the number of followers of the KOL you are promoting. Because the current traffic distribution logic of Douyin is still decided by "the top". To put it bluntly, Douyin determines how much initial system traffic to allocate to you based on the interestingness of your content. This initial traffic is the basis for whether you can become popular later. Therefore, it is usually recommended that when brands are promoting Douyin content, they can first let different KOLs publish content with different labels, such as workplace scheming, daily life silly, scheming sisters, etc., to see which label has the best initial effect, and then increase the delivery of this content through information flow advertising to make it a hit. This is the delivery logic designed based on the TikTok traffic algorithm.

17

The most important prerequisite for promoting content on Bilibili is that the content must be based on the UP host’s own personal context, because Bilibili is a platform where fans can let bloggers “eat food” blatantly, provided that the UP host’s content is high-quality enough. Different from the general aversion to marketing, these young people in Bilibili are very pragmatic. They are not like other communities, who are naturally wary and resistant to content as long as it has marketing purposes, regardless of whether the content is good or bad. For example, there is a UP host on Bilibili named LexBurner, who may be the only blogger on the entire Internet who increases his followers through advertising. There are advertisements in almost every video of Lex, but fans are happy to see it. In his videos, users interact through barrage and marketing content, and advertising has become a feature of Lex and even a kind of fun.

18 

KOLs are responsible for content promotion, while anchors are responsible for sales. The rise of e-commerce live streaming has brought many live streaming hosts who sell goods into the public eye, such as Li Jiaqi and Viya from Taobao, Xin Youzhi from Kuaishou, and Niurou Ge from Douyin, etc. However, I have always felt that there is a difference between these live streaming hosts who sell goods and the KOLs we usually talk about.

KOLs are more like content creators. They output interesting content in their respective fields, such as knowledge, jokes, emotional chicken soup, comics, film reviews, outfits, etc.; while anchors are more like salesmen. They rely on product explanations and sales skills. In the past, it might have been one-to-one sales in offline shopping malls, but now it can be one-to-many online.

In a sense, both KOLs and anchors can sell goods because they all have a certain influence among their fan groups, but the premise depends on how you understand "selling goods." I think there are actually two types of product promotion: one is direct sales like Li Jiaqi, and the other is promotion. For example, you hired a KOL to promote your products. Although it did not directly lead to significant sales, you found that the product discussion volume on social media, search index on Taobao, number of store fans, number of added carts for designated SKUs, and number of collections all increased. Does this count as bringing in products? Of course.

KOLs’ promotion of products is more focused on dissemination and promotion, rather than directly driving sales like e-commerce anchors, because as mentioned above, KOLs are essentially content creators. The reason for mentioning this point is that I want to tell those friends who have a certain budget and want to try "marketing with goods" to have clear goals and expectations in mind before launching. If you are clear about harvesting sales, then finding e-commerce anchors to do live broadcasts will definitely be more effective than finding some KOLs outside the site; and if your goal is to plant grass, such as a new product that has just been launched, and you want to quickly gain consumers' awareness and trial, then you can try to find some KOLs on platforms such as Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, etc. to do topic dissemination and good product recommendations.

Author: JS Planner

WeChat public account: JS Planner (ID: powerpluspoint)