Xiaohongshu 618 Marketing Preparation Strategy

The situation varies from brand to brand, so the content is for reference only.

1. Impact of the epidemic on brand merchants

Because no one knows how long this situation will last and whether it will get better? still……

Therefore, we provide some more practical response measures to the impact of the epidemic on brand merchants at this stage.

1. Impact

The epidemic has now caused express delivery to be unable to ship/deliver in many places, which has led to

1) After-sales problems

2) Store points lost

3) Financial/cash flow problems for some brands

4)……

2. Countermeasures

1) For express delivery/delivery issues, you can

a. Communicate with different express logistics companies to see if the goods can be shipped?

Eg. JD.com, SF Express, Post Office...

b. Increase shipments from multiple warehouses and relocate warehouses to avoid concentrating them in the same area.

2) For after-sales issues, the team can communicate and discuss solutions. After the solutions are determined, unified training will be provided to customer service staff to actively communicate with customers in the suspended areas.

Recommended solutions:

Contact the customer via SMS/phone, show concern and greetings, explain the courier problem, direct the customer to WeChat, and provide relevant gifts/discounts, even if the customer requests a refund.

Secondly, after adding customers, relevant videos of package disinfection can be posted on WeChat Moments to reassure customers.

For customers who can delay delivery, the "delay negotiation" function can be used to guide customers to report, etc.

<Negotiated delivery> Function Operation Manual Instructions

Link 🔗 https://www.yuque.com/docs/share/c6f41473-a9d8-4fc0-80aa-f16dc39e1d14?spm=a211vu.11758832.0.0.5d0a49e2hY3pCc#/

3) For other issues, I can only recommend that you conduct a detailed review, control the relevant cost ratios, communicate more, stay calm, and then survive.

2. Is there any need to prepare for/carry out 618?

Of course there is.

It’s just that the situations are different for different brands, so the necessary prerequisite is to survive.

As for this, only the brand merchants can analyze and judge it by themselves based on the current situation.

3. Interpretation of Xiaohongshu’s current policies

1. Panda Project

1) Introduction

The "Panda Plan" means protecting the intellectual property rights of community users and brands just like protecting the national treasure panda.

The platform will strictly deal with marketing accounts involved in "fake traffic diversion" in the community, and will cut off traffic and block accounts once discovered.

2) Control mechanism

We adopt a three-review model of "machine interception + manual review + reporting response", use technical identification methods such as OCR models and text models to conduct in-depth analysis of the content, continuously manage problematic notes and accounts, and immediately ban marketing accounts that engage in false sharing, induce traffic, and sell counterfeit goods once discovered.

3) What kind of accounts will be suspected of violations?

a. Suggestive words related to counterfeiting: Such accounts will contain words such as "high imitation", "stall", "last order" in their usernames and notes, or highlight counterfeit goods by comparing real and fake goods to imply that they are selling counterfeit goods.

b. There are a large number of big-name product releases: This type of account is not an official registered account, and the registration time may not be long, but it releases a large number of product notes of the same or different big brands.

c. There are different ways to divert traffic: Such accounts will guide users to third-party platforms for communication and transactions through private messages, multiple accounts interspersed diversion, comment area diversion, etc.

2. Operation Clear

1) Introduction

Operation Qinglang is an abbreviation that comes from a working meeting on "Qinglang: Special Campaign to Rectify Chaos in Operation of Internet User Accounts" held by the Cyberspace Administration of China. In order to respond to this action, Xiaohongshu platform started to carry out special rectification on the site since the second half of 2021, and this year's measures are more stringent.

2) Main control measures

Since the community launched the Qinglang Action, it has arranged the following types of special governance work:

a. Severely crack down on acts such as ghostwriting and posting, and fabricating real consumer experiences.

b. To vigorously combat unnatural increase in followers through hiring internet trolls and other means, the platform has established a complete anti-cheating mechanism. Through the "machine review + human review" multi-model algorithm, cheating behavior is blocked in real time. At the same time, combined with user feedback, online inspections of existing cheating behaviors are conducted every day.

c. Further strengthen the rectification and clean-up efforts against bad behaviors such as traffic fraud, black public relations, and online water army on the platform. We will address the problems of traffic fraud such as inflating scores and reviews, inflating the number of followers, inflating orders and reputation, and inflating rankings to canvass votes in different stages.

d. Carry out special governance actions targeting medical beauty products.

• Cancel the professional certification of private medical aesthetic institutions. Professional certification is only open to public tertiary hospitals and medical aesthetic doctors of tertiary hospitals;
• The medical beauty notes produced by ordinary users will be reviewed and cleaned up, and the content and accounts suspected of marketing diversion and illegal medical beauty activities will be removed from the shelves, blocked, and downgraded.

3. Brand Violation Point Deduction Mechanism

1) Introduction

2) Point deduction penalty

3) Regulatory Mechanism

My guess about the regulatory mechanism of Xiaohongshu's soft-text advertisements is just a guess and may not be correct. It is for reference only.

a. Xiaohongshu established an initial monitoring list of brand merchants through professional accounts, Dandelion and other in-site brand marketing tools;

b. The content on the site is exchanged with Taobao to supplement the brand merchant monitoring list;

c. Monitor the brand merchants’ voice and sales volume in the entire domain (TikTok, Kuaishou, Bilibili, etc.) and feed back to the site;

d. Establish a marketing/violation account content library through machine review + manual review + report response, and conduct secondary analysis on the marketing/violation account content and all violation/limited content during the review process, identify the mentioned brands and merchants, and supplement relevant data;

e. Considering the cost of brand merchants’ marketing tools on the site and the changes in overall voice, is it reasonable to judge whether the changes in the amount of notes of brand merchants on the site are reasonable? Does the relevant illegal/limited content exceed the standard? …

This explanation may be a bit complicated. In simple terms, it is actually a bit similar to the logic of a credit card, that is, Xiaohongshu will give you a certain credit limit based on your "credit", but you need to continue to spend money and save money to increase the credit limit.

Credit, etc., refers to the brand merchant’s voice and sales volume;

Spending money refers to soft-text advertising by brand merchants;

Saving money refers to the consumption of brand merchants on brand marketing tools;

…

4. Countermeasures

1) Understand Xiaohongshu’s demands and follow relevant rules/regulations;

2) Cooperate with high-quality bloggers and avoid cooperating with illegal accounts, such as marketing accounts, mutual warming accounts, etc. Pay attention to the product competition period;

3) Strengthen content control, especially the reasonable placement/exposure of products and the compatibility with the blogger’s previous content;

4) Control the pace of delivery and avoid an unconventional surge in the number of notes, unless there is a related event/activity marketing collaboration;

5) Increase the ratio of commercial filing and interest declaration, with commercial filing + interest declaration being at least 40%;

6) Communicate more with the official network and understand the community trends;

7) Rationally plan the amount of advertising and the number of bloggers, and appropriately reduce meaningless advertising by amateurs.

As for the rest, just discuss them in a targeted manner. Don’t panic or scare yourself. Measure and evaluate based on your current investment volume.

Finally, the reason why Xiaohongshu is like this is not to make money, but to comply with national policies and gradually standardize, just like Douyin, WeChat..., which were all beaten down little by little in this way.

Therefore, don't rely on luck, be down-to-earth, follow the rules/regulations honestly, and lay a good foundation.

4. Xiaohongshu 618 Marketing Preparation Strategy

1. 618 e-commerce time node

The 618 rhythm of Taobao/Tmall this year is tentatively scheduled to be

1) Pre-sale

5.24 20:00 – 5.31 Pre-sale deposit

6.1 0:30 Start the final payment

2) A good start

5.29 – 5.31 Opening warm-up

6.1 – 6.3 Good start sales

3) Category Day

6.4 – 6.13

4) Carnival Day

6.14 – 6.15 Warm-up

6.16 – 6.20 Sale

2. Clarify Xiaohongshu’s 618 goals

Generally speaking, Xiaohongshu is just one of the many off-site channels for brands and merchants, so before clarifying Xiaohongshu’s 618 goals, it is necessary to clarify the brand merchants’ 618 goals this year.

To clarify the goals of brand merchants for 618 this year, we need to consider these dimensions

1) Market environment

a. Industry trends and market data

b. Competitive product data

c. External environment

d. ……

2) Strategic direction

a. Development plan/direction

b. …

3) Brand status

a. This year's GMV target and breakdown

b. Brand stage/volume

c. Are there any hot-selling products?

d. Existing channels and their contribution ratio

e. Last year’s 618 data

f. ……

After clarifying the goal, planning and decomposition will be carried out, breaking the goal down into various detailed indicators and assigning them to specific channels and persons in charge; the person in charge will then calculate the budget costs required for the implementation process based on the corresponding detailed goals.

In this way, the goal of Xiaohongshu 618 is clear.

Tips: When breaking down goals, you cannot only consider different channels from a single effect dimension such as cost, sales, and ROI, but also need to combine multiple dimensions such as UV value and brand voice.

3. 618 Xiaohongshu Conventional Strategy

Because different brands and merchants have different demands/situations, we will only explain the general strategic planning of Xiaohongshu for 618 for reference.

1) Water storage period

When: April – early May

Budget: 25%

Bloggers’ recommendation: effective advertising = 8:2

Purpose:

a. Comprehensive testing content and products;

b. Develop content/hot article models and hot products/potential hot products;

c. Accumulate high-quality notes for subsequent use in advertising;

d. Screen bloggers who will be needed for subsequent cooperation in advance to avoid lack of schedule.

content:

a. Product selection

When selecting products, it is recommended to classify existing products and make choices based on actual demands/current situation.

Assuming there is a hit product, the recommended budget planning for different types of products is:

Hot sale: potential sale: supplementary sale = 3:6:1

Assuming there is no hit product yet, it is recommended to focus the budget on potential products.

b. Refine product selling points

I won’t elaborate on the product selling points.

c. Determine the content direction and brief

Plan at least 5 content directions suitable for the product based on the product selling points and the current popular trends on Xiaohongshu; then write relevant briefs around different content directions.

d. Screen and contact bloggers for cooperation

Select suitable bloggers for cooperation based on content direction and budget planning.

Content Direction → Blogger Type

Budget Planning → Blogger Level

During the water storage period, it is also necessary to screen in advance the bloggers who will be needed for subsequent cooperation with Jianlian to avoid the bloggers having no schedule or being unable to meet the relevant plans.

e. ……

2) Sprint period

Time: Early May – 05/24

Budget: 30%

Blogger recommendation: effective advertising = 5:5

Purpose:

a. Continue testing content;

b. Run the content/hot article model;

c. Accumulate/amplify existing high-quality notes.

content:

Organize the water storage period data for review, adjust the content direction, etc.;

According to existing high-quality notes to enlarge the fries, or reinvest in cooperative business reporting.

Standard for high-quality notes: click rate > 15%

Reinvestment standard: 30%

• The data of collaborative notes is good;
• Willing to cooperate in commercial reporting;
• High degree of cooperation and coordination.

If you are not satisfied, just enlarge it through French fries;

If the conditions are met, the business cooperation report will be resubmitted. The content of the notes can reuse the original high-quality content with simple minor adjustments. This allows for scalability through performance advertising.

Traffic type notes → Information flow advertising

Conversion Notes → Search Ads

Of course, if you have some notes with great potential, you can also buy French fries to enlarge them, and just keep adjusting them during the enlargement process.

Potential Notes Criteria:

• Click-through rate > 10%;
• The content feels good and there is room for optimization.

Finally, starting from mid-May, the proportion of content related to the 618 shopping list can be appropriately increased.

3) Weeding period

Time: 05/24 – 06/20

Budget: 40%

Blogger planting: performance advertising = 2:8

Purpose:

a. Zoom in on existing high-quality notes for weeding;

b. 618 related direction notes continue to be released to cooperate with weeding.

content:

Arrange the water storage period data for review;

Only the content/hot article models that have been successfully implemented and the 618 related directions will be released, and no further testing will be carried out;

Amplify the fries based on the existing high-quality notes, or reinvest in cooperative business reports and use performance advertising to amplify them.

4) Return period

Time: 06/21 – 06/30

Budget: 5%

Blogger recommendation: effective advertising = 5:5

Purpose:

a. Enhance user mindset;

b. Lay the foundation for subsequent deployment.

content:

Arrange relevant data and review 618;

Resume regular/new product launches;

Start increasing the proportion of unboxing/review content.

4. Others

There is not much other content mentioned in the strategic plan, so I will add some targeted content.

1) Although Xiaohongshu’s professional brand accounts can now reprint bloggers’ notes, the review of performance advertising for reprinted notes is relatively strict and the probability of passing is not high, so the strategy recommends re-investing in bloggers for commercial reporting.

Business reporting notes can be directly amplified by delivering effective advertising.

2) Regarding budget allocation, this is just my personal experience and is for reference only.

3) Because content/bloggers strategies need to be developed around brand budget, product average order value, product selling points, etc., they are not mentioned much.

Product selling point/average order value + platform content trend + consumer insight → content strategy

Content Strategy → Blogger Types

Brand budget + product unit price + consumer insight → blogger level

4) Keyword strategy

Because different brands and merchants have different demands/situations, I will only explain some misunderstandings that many friends have about keywords.

a. It is not necessary to mention the brand/product words in the content. If users want to buy, they can be guided through the comment area.

Secondly, the content in the comment section is also included in the note search, so there is no need to worry that the content will not be included in the brand/product words if it does not mention the brand/product words.

As for whether it can appear at the front of the brand/product word search results page, this depends on a comprehensive consideration.

b. The keywords understood by most friends are actually different from the keywords understood by the system.

Eg. Recommending lipstick as a gift to a girlfriend. Most friends would think that this is a long-tail word and a whole, and should be put together when mentioned in the content.

But in fact, the keywords understood by the system are like this. It will segment the so-called long-tail word "lipstick recommendation as a gift to girlfriend" into "lipstick", "recommendation", "gift", and "girlfriend".

Therefore, for slightly long keywords, it is not necessary to integrate them as a whole. Instead, you can segment them first, just like the system segmentation, and then embed these keywords into the content multiple times in a scattered manner.

In the actual implementation process, it is necessary to pay attention to

a. Timeliness

b. Task scheduling conflicts

5. Final Thoughts

Generally speaking, during big promotions like 618, Double 11, etc., traffic/effects will decline due to the surge in content, so I don’t recommend low-budget (618 budget is less than 300,000) brand merchants to join in the fun.

It is better to maintain the usual placement, do not increase the budget, and do not stop placing the campaign at all, just maintain stability;

Focus your main time and energy on content delivery and Taobao/Tmall site optimization.

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Author: LinQ

Source: LinQ