Marketing industry advice for 2020!

This article will be divided into three parts. The first part will write about the trends and ideas in 2020. The second part will be some ideas and suggestions for brand marketing in 2020. The third part will be what we think brand marketing should and should not do in 2020.

1. Predictions on marketing trends in 2020

Due to our interests, we are more concerned about changes in marketing content. We don’t pay much attention to things in the marketing technology sector, and we don’t understand them very well, so we won’t mention them too much.

In addition, although marketing automation, online and offline integration, no more screen swiping, and the rise of vertical categories are still major trends, we have already mentioned them in the previous article. It is difficult to see what is unique about 2020, so we will not mention them too much. As for 5G, frankly speaking, it is estimated that there will be little impact on marketing in 2020. (You can refer to "Seven Major Marketing Keywords in 2019")

1. KOLs break the barriers

Recommendation algorithms are clearly the mainstream traffic distribution mechanism in the future. Under the recommendation algorithm model, the Matthew effect and the anti-Matthew effect coexist.

Taking Tik Tok as an example, the Matthew effect is that the more popular the content is among users, the more traffic it can get from platform recommendations, resulting in a huge contrast in data between popular videos and ordinary videos. The anti-Matthew effect is that Tik Tok uses algorithmic recommendations for content rather than the account itself. The traffic is in the hands of the platform. Even if you have tens of millions of fans, the number of views cannot be guaranteed.

This has resulted in the phenomenon of KOL breaking the barrier, that is, the differences between the top, mid-level and tail-level KOLs have been leveled out. Even a big V with tens of millions of fans may not be as effective as an accidental hit by a mid-level KOL. This platform mechanism will also affect the brand's delivery strategy, with the importance of scale decreasing and the importance of the content itself increasing.

With the application of recommendation algorithms on various platforms, mid- and low-end KOLs will still be the traffic pool, which is also the reason behind the KOC concept this year. However, how brands can ensure both quantity and quality when cooperating with KOLs requires further thinking and practice.

2. Live broadcast innovation

Live streaming will obviously continue to develop in 2020. It has become a sales method that brands cannot ignore, and it has also become an entertainment option for users. Although we cannot make a specific judgment, there will definitely be many new ways to play live streaming.

Currently, live streaming is more well-known to the public for selling beauty products. Next year, there may be more sales kings in more categories, but the new categories will most likely still be centered around female consumption, such as household consumption, fashion consumption, and women's products.

There may also be new ways to interact with users in live streaming, such as more interaction with users, more gamification, etc. A large number of long-tail anchors are not very efficient in selling goods, and this efficiency may be improved through new interactive ways of playing.

The rise of new vertical live streaming will create more influential anchors. In addition to the "Lipstick King", there may be "Kings" in various other categories in the future. However, judging from the overall influence of the entire network, it is probably impossible for new anchors to reach the level of Li Jiaqi.

3. Instant conversion

With the development of technology, the entire behavioral path of users from contact with materials to consumption conversion will be greatly shortened. If you cannot shorten the conversion path from touchpoint to consumption, your users may be "intercepted" by competing products at any time.

The shortened exposure-to-conversion path allows users to make purchases instantly. For example, if you see an ad space with different faces for different users, you can click on it and directly jump to the order page to make a purchase, which means “what you see is what you get”. You can even share the ad space and attract new customers after purchasing.

The picture comes from the Internet

This kind of "instant conversion" is already very mature in Taobao Live, but there are still user experience issues on other platforms. We expect that short video platforms and information flow advertising platforms will be able to improve the system construction of "instant conversion" next year.

The instantaneous conversion of user touchpoints will bring about two impacts. One is that the "brand touchpoints" that could not be directly converted in the past will be transformed into "effect touchpoints" with detectable conversions, which will also lead to increased brand marketing investment; the other is that users' impulse consumption and impulse retention will be further amplified, and scenario-based stimulation conversion will be more practical than brand output.

4. Brand appearance

“Weibo, Weibo and Douyin” have become the standard channels for brands to express their opinions, and the next one to become standard may be live broadcast operations. Brands may need to personally take part in the creation of their own live broadcast content.

In other words, it will become the norm in the future for brand marketing staff to appear in videos and live broadcasts. Marketers may become the first group of people other than anchors to face the camera, and live streaming skills may become standard for marketing staff just like writing for official accounts.

The picture comes from the Internet

Text, graphic messages, picture posters, videos, live broadcasts...all require the brand's marketing department to personally participate in content operations. Generally speaking, the brand's voice should appear where users pay attention, which also tests the brand's marketing department's ability to operate in a diversified manner.

In fact, in the e-commerce field, a large number of businesses have already started "live streaming operations". If the product functions of WeChat live streaming become more mature next year, a large number of brand new media will enter the live streaming industry.

5. Internet celebrities fade away quickly

The rise of different media forms will lead to the emergence of a wave of new internet celebrities. Short videos and live streaming have created many new internet celebrities outside the era of pictures and texts. While the number of internet celebrities has increased dramatically, their life cycle has also been declining.

Looking back at the internet celebrities at the beginning of the year, we will find that many of them no longer have much influence. For example, Lu Chao and Xiong Ying Gao Fei are no longer as popular as they were in the past, Dai Gulala K is also difficult to find on Douyin, the boring Zhu Yici’s data has also declined a lot, and the wandering master Shen Wei may no longer be remembered by anyone. Users’ interests are changing faster and faster, and any content routine will quickly become boring to users.

For internet celebrities themselves, becoming popular suddenly can certainly bring in traffic quickly, but it also means entering the peak of decline. After all, there are only a handful of internet celebrities who can remain popular for a long time or become popular again, while those who are still in the accumulation period have a promising future.

Behind the rapid decline of Internet celebrities is the rapid shift in user interests. Brands need to constantly chase or predict hot spots in their marketing campaigns. This also shows that there are always traffic gaps in KOL campaigns, and brands need to always pay attention to user interest migration trends.

6. Sports Marketing

Finally, let’s talk about a hot topic that is bound to happen in 2020. 2020 is a big year for sports. Chen Kexin's women's volleyball movie was released at the beginning of the year, and the Tokyo Olympics will be held in the middle of the year. Coupled with the influence of Japanese tourism and Japanese culture, the Tokyo Olympics will become a focus of national attention.

The picture comes from the Internet

But for most brands, there is not much to play with in sports marketing, and most small and medium-sized brands can only take advantage of the Olympic heat. It remains to be seen whether there will be a marketing dark horse like Vatti in the World Cup.

From the perspective of social topics, as sports events progress, a lot of marketing content will be derived, and new athlete stars will almost certainly emerge. In addition, based on the current social sentiments, patriotic sentiments may also be ignited.

2. Some marketing suggestions for 2020

This part of the content provides some personal thoughts on marketing ideas for brands, I hope it can be of some inspiration.

1. Launch test

Before launching a large-scale campaign, it is recommended that brands conduct a small-scale test first, and then look at the data before launching the campaign on the entire network. This A/B testing-like method is relatively mature in the application of Internet products, but many brands do not pay attention to it.

In the future, brands may use algorithms to automatically generate multiple materials for different users for testing before launching, continuously optimize the algorithms based on user data feedback, and then launch them on a large scale. At this time, it is more accurate to say that they are iterating material algorithms rather than designing materials.

In short, it doesn’t take much effort to test the crowd effect before launching the product. It would be even better if you have technical assistance. Testing before launching the product can maximize the effect of the material.

2. Social issues

As mentioned in previous articles, if one wants to create a phenomenal screen-sweeping event today, the communicator must delve into a certain social issue. Only through the fermentation of social issues can one attract free media exposure and stimulate participation and debate among the general public.

Picture from the Internet

There are actually a lot of social issues, and they don't change much. For example, the Spring Festival is approaching, so urban-rural conflicts, marriage and dating, and career development will always be the main focus of people. Similar topics will be discussed on the Internet every year. The key is how your brand can use the public opinion energy of these social issues.

It is difficult to create a stir on social media just by talking about the product or brand itself. Marketers need to consider the brand value in a social proposition to have a chance of breaking out. Of course, they must also pay attention to the public relations risks brought about by public opinion.

3. Single point breakthrough

If you don’t have that much marketing money, don’t try to cover everything. The more scattered the platforms you focus on, the more likely you are to fail at everything. It is enough to focus on one platform. For example, if beauty products can really make good use of Xiaohongshu, the profits will be enough to support a large-scale brand.

The same is true at the marketing execution level. It is already good enough to concentrate limited resources on one or two major activities so that these activities have enough energy to penetrate the circle. If you do a little bit of everything, it will be difficult to achieve a breakthrough. The worse the situation is, the more we need to distinguish the primary and secondary focuses . It is unreliable to do marketing with a betting mentality.

4. User co-creation

The concept of co-creation has actually been talked about for many years. For example, when delivering KOL content, it is necessary to co-create content with KOL. When doing H5 communication, it is necessary to use user thinking to let users co-create content.

The era of screen swiping has passed. The materials that are more likely to cause users to actively share and forward are actually things created by the users themselves or customized. Therefore, we believe that gamified and interactive user creation activities will have a certain explosive power of dissemination.

The picture comes from the Internet

There may be more opportunities in videos next year. Videos naturally require the creative participation of users. Various camera stickers, special effects, and virtual reality brushes will bring greater expressive tension. In terms of marketing visual expression, video props and video beautification techniques are worthy of attention.

5. Deep Engagement

The marketing department is becoming more and more operational, which means that marketers need to face users directly on a daily basis and directly grasp changes in user needs. Marketers need to be directly involved in the day-to-day work of creating materials or creatives that are relevant to users, and we tend to think that advertising agencies will slowly move into a more executive role.

Especially marketers on the brand’s new media side must personally communicate with users on a daily basis, but almost all new media agency operations fail to achieve success. This also involves the upgrading and iteration of marketers' skills. In the past, they knew how to formulate strategies and make deliveries, but now they also need to know how to interact with users.

6. Sniper Bonus

The rapid changes in the industry mean that traffic dividends continue to emerge, and finding new traffic pools is still a skill that marketers need to master. It is expected that phenomenal brands like Perfect Diary will still appear in 2020, and the main reason for the rise of such new brands is that they have fully utilized the platform dividends.

For example, Pinduoduo. We think there is a huge brand traffic dividend that can be tapped, but according to some of our interviews, we found that very few brands pay attention to this channel. There are also the opening of functions of WeChat Good Things Circle and Enterprise WeChat. These platform changes can release traffic dividends, and marketers need to remain sensitive to snipe it.

7. Vertical TVC

As short video platforms such as TikTok become a major place for users to "kill time", the placement of commercials based on the characteristics of short videos will also become a routine operation for brands.

The picture comes from the Internet

Judging from short video platforms such as Tik Tok, brand accounts are expected to continue to be empowered by business, and the necessity of producing vertical screen TVCs is also increasing. Currently, most of the videos released on Douyin are aimed at selling products and conversions, but vertical screen TVCs directly released by brands may become popular.

Currently, there are not many brands that produce and launch vertical TVCs on Douyin. This may be an opportunity worth considering. Vertical brand TVCs may be more likely to trigger cross-platform discussions, of course, the premise is that the content is solid.

3. What to do and what not to do

1. Things not recommended

1) Long TVC

There isn’t much reason to spend money on a TVC that’s longer than one minute. If you don’t put it on the air, it’s unrealistic to rely on TVC for large-scale dissemination, unless you’re making a major brand transformation.

2) H5 communication

First of all, H5 cannot be spread in the circle of friends. Secondly, if you want to make H5 better, the production cost is not low, and you may also need to do placement. Most of the current H5s are converted in private domain traffic, and it is almost hopeless to attract new users.

3) Hot Spot Posters

There is no need to explain more about this. Nowadays, hot topic posters are basically made for self-entertainment. It has been a long time since I heard of any hot topic poster that has been all over the screen. You can also treat hot topic posters as a routine action, but don’t hold too high hopes.

2. Things you can consider doing

1) Interactive mini-games/game activities

Highly interactive gamified brand activities actually mainly require users to be able to participate in the creation or customization of materials. This trick is always effective, but it needs to be done more sophisticatedly.

2) IP cross-border

Although the IP cross-border effect is not as good as before, it can still attract users' attention. However, the final communication effect will depend on the quality of the cross-border itself. Cross-border joint marketing can also be regarded as a kind of mutual support.

3) Brand promotion of certain emotions

In today's world where results prevail, brand promotion may backlash. In addition to expressing the brand spirit, brand promotion also needs to capture the current social sentiment (this is very important), otherwise it will be difficult to arouse any resonance or response.

3. Suggested things to do

1) KOL recommendation

Planting grass is obviously still effective, but brands need to dig out a list of potential and suitable KOLs on their own. Most brands are actually stuck at this hurdle.

2) Live streaming

Obviously, it is still a bonus, and the categories will not be limited to beauty products, but will spread to other categories. It is worthy of serious consideration by every brand. More well-known anchors who sell goods may emerge in 2020.

3) Event marketing/social public relations events

In fact, it is event hype, linking brand events with social propositions to create things. If it is well planned, it can attract free exposure from Blue V, and there is a chance to achieve big exposure with little money.

4) Community Operation

The opening rate of Moments is declining, and ordinary users are getting more and more information from social networks, and these are semi-acquaintance and semi-open theme communities, but they may only be suitable for specific categories.

5) New media operations

Obviously, "WeChat, Weibo and Douyin" are very important. It is said that the future will be an era of content. If you create good content, you will attract traffic, especially platforms like Douyin, which still have many dividends. WeChat public accounts may also have new distribution mechanism updates.

Conclusion

2020 is just around the corner, and marketing won’t get any easier because of it. To put it bluntly, the above speculations are just speculations, and the above suggestions are nothing more than empty talk. We still need to experience what 2020 will be like.

2020 may be even more difficult, but we won’t know until it’s over.

Author: Zheng Zhuoran, a veteran in the fields of advertising marketing and new media operations, focuses on sharing practical articles and unique insights on marketing, operations, and business.

Source: Official Account: Spread Gymnastics (ID: chuanboticao)