Methodology: 99% of brands have poor product selling points

Through this article, you will have a very systematic understanding of selling points: especially when there is no major differentiation in products, how to discover selling points, refine selling points, optimize selling points, assist selling points, express selling points in human language, strengthen selling points to build user minds, extend selling points, and contextualize selling points.

In the e-commerce industry, everyone knows that selling points are important, but why do many people say they are not good? ——The traffic that was attracted with great difficulty has a bad selling point and a low conversion rate, so it is wasted.

The selling point is " giving consumers reasons to buy that match their needs ." So is there a set of methodology that can be used as a good selling point?

Of course! ! !

Starting with my experience of buying lip balm, Lao Wang will share with you systematically: How do e-commerce brands “explain the selling points”?

Many brand owners will encounter the following problems:

The products are produced by OEM factories, so you have what others have, but you also don’t have what others don’t. Finally, a price war developed.

The two key elements of the selling point are:

1. Find selling points that users care about;
2. Secondly, speak human language.

Please note that it is the selling points that users care about, not the boss, not the marketing department, and certainly not the product features that are listed one by one.

Take lip balm as an example

Winter is coming, and I am going to buy a lip balm. I opened Taobao on my mobile phone and looked at the selling points of lip balms in various flagship stores. Basically, they are:

• Hydrates and moisturizes;
• Deeply moisturizing;
• Gentle and skin-friendly;
• Reduce lip lines;
• Repair of cleft lip;
• Exfoliate;

There are even some that are "refreshing and heat-removing" (what does Wang Laoji think??)

The basic ingredients are:

• Squalane
• Natural beeswax/palm wax
• Various vegetable oils
• Vitamin E
• Natural plant essence (olive/aloe vera, etc.)
• etc.

I looked at a lot of products and the prices varied, ranging from 19 yuan to over 300 yuan. There was basically nothing that left an impression on me.

Take the lip balm in a Tmall flagship store as an example to start today’s sharing:

Advanced 1: Selling point extraction

This lip balm costs 69 yuan, which is above average in terms of price. L'Oreal, Nivea and Mentholatum are all less than 29 yuan. If there is no selling point that attracts consumers' attention, why should I pay for it?

The overall details page doesn't have many highlights. It's a cookie-cutter template, moisturizing/nutritious/non-greasy , and there's also a "skin renewing with black" , but to be honest, I don't understand how black can renew the skin?
A mistake that many brands make very easily when it comes to selling points is to criticize all kinds of selling points.

The product just mentioned has 6 selling points. Let’s look at two more products:

Screenshot of the details page of 2 lip balms

One of the selling points is: helps improve lip lines, long-lasting makeup effect, soft and soothing, hydrating and moisturizing, plant nourishment, and deep repair.

Another selling point is: cooling lip balm, outdoor sun protection, lasting moisturizing, long-term hydration, and prevention of dryness and cracking.

Everywhere you look, you can see a bunch of selling points, just like a bottle of shampoo telling you: anti-dandruff and anti-itching, soft, shiny and smooth, deeply moisturizing the scalp, nourishing hair roots, and controlling oil.

You listed a lot of them, but you still can’t remember what its most outstanding function is?

why?

Because the speed at which people browse the details page is about the same as the speed at which HR reads resumes. They just browse quickly, and if they are not impressed, they will quickly jump out.

Therefore, the first thing is to extract 1-2 main selling points: points that other similar competing products do not have or have not promoted, or points that are not well stated, and explain them thoroughly!

There are several main methods:

1. Function/Quality

The main selling point of fragrance shampoo is the fragrance, the main function of lip balm is to moisturize the lips, the main selling point of various skin care products is whitening, moisturizing, anti-acne and hydrating, the main selling point of fruits is the moisture/sweetness/origin, etc.

2. Ingredients/Raw Materials

Amino acids in amino acid shampoo, niacinamide in HFP, 100% raw milk + high-quality milk protein from Adopt a Cow, aloe vera, essential oils, oligopeptides, etc. that are the main products of some skin care products;

3. Packaging/product design

Everyone loves beauty. Products and packaging with a sense of design are easier to be perceived than long and large new adjectives such as delicious, skin-friendly, and good to the touch, and they attract the attention of consumers, especially girls.

4. Others

Special product forms and methods of use (Baijiahei), ultimate service (Haidilao), and ultimate cost-effectiveness (Xiaomi) can all become selling points of a brand.

Many brand misunderstandings:

Selling points should be refined from the perspective of consumers. Many brands like to expand or transfer product benefits to consumers, but do not know how to connect with customer needs.

For example, most consumers buy your product because of the faint scent of lip balm, but you keep saying that it is moisturizing. Consumers place an order because of its appearance, but you keep talking about the ingredients. This is a typical mismatch in demand.

Back to the example above, there are actually two points in the details page that have the potential to be explored and become the selling points of the product:

1. Avocado Butter
2. Canadian Marine Polysaccharides: Alternate Single Cell Fermentation Extract

People are very familiar with avocados. Through Baidu search:

Avocado is high in protein, minerals, vitamins and fatty acids and is very nutritious. In the World Encyclopedia, avocado is listed as the most nutritious fruit, with the reputation of "one avocado is equivalent to three eggs" and "the cream of the poor".

Compared with other vegetable oils, avocado butter contains the highest proportion of fat accompaniments, especially nutrients necessary for growth: vitamin E, vitamin A, etc., and is rich in nutrition. It can prevent skin moisture loss and has good affinity with human skin. It is easily absorbed by the skin and prevents chapped lips. It is a very rare natural skin care ingredient.

Therefore, the selling point of avocado butter should not only be mentioned in a larger font, but also in more length to highlight it.

Regarding this, we did it: saying what others didn’t say.

A typical example is Wang Laoji:

Advanced 2: Strengthen selling points

Why was the ingredient (avocado butter) chosen as the main selling point?

Some product functions and ingredients seem to be selling points, so how do we determine the main selling point?

——See if this selling point is extensible.

The so-called ductility refers to whether the main selling point can be strengthened through different dimensions. If it cannot be strengthened, it will not be possible to form a strong impression on users.

If the main selling point of a lip balm is deep moisturizing, then ingredients such as avocado butter are there to support that main selling point. However, many brands are doing this, and even if you do the same, consumers still won’t remember it. Because most brands extend their main selling points in this way.

The best approach is to use "avocado fat" as the main selling point, expand on it, and strengthen the selling point through multi-dimensional evidence.
After having the main selling point, you can use auxiliary selling points to provide flanking support and capture the minds of consumers. You must not leave the current selling point unfinished before adding another one, as this will cause consumers to forget the current one.

The path diagram is as follows:

For example, phytoremediation:

So how do we strengthen the selling point of "avocado butter"?

There are several ways (research and development needs to be tested):

1. If you find that others haven’t done well, optimize the selling points by researching competing products. Points that can be optimized include endorsement, origin, usage, and even repetition to deepen user memory, so that when users think of you, they will think of avocado butter. What needs to be matched here is the brand strategy, which will not be expanded for now.

1. The proportion of avocado butter is increased, which is xx% more than other lip balms. Just like niacinamide, the final competition between different brands is the concentration of niacinamide.

1. Dynamic packaging, which highlights the image of avocado.

Take an avocado mask as an example

1. Avocado color: The paste enhances the avocado impression.

Tips:

Marketing forces product production:

The above includes ways in which the marketing end forces the supply chain. Nowadays, many businesses produce their products and then hand them over to the marketing department for promotion. The product side doesn’t know which product is more likely to attract users in terms of marketing, and the marketing side doesn’t know what products are being developed. It’s a complete separation. The consequence is that if things go well, everyone is happy, but if things go badly, everyone blames the other side.

Therefore, if the marketing end can be involved at the same time as the product is being produced, such a product can easily become a hit. It has its own topics, and it is not limited to Taoke.

Advanced 3: Auxiliary selling points

At the same time, another selling point can be added, 1+1>2, which can be Canadian marine polysaccharides or something else. The ideas are the same and not repetitive.

There should be 1-2 main selling points, not more than that, and then there can be auxiliary selling points to add icing on the cake , but they must all revolve around the user's expected usage of the product.

Advanced 4: Speak human language

Now that we have the selling point, it’s time to speak in plain language.

The selling points of the product must be understandable and clear to consumers, so that it can be easily spread. Remember:

Plain language is a great art .

This is not a college entrance examination essay, so there is no need to use fancy words at this time.

After reading a lot of lip balm copywriting, you will find the same phenomenon:

When it comes to the presentation of effects, the emphasis is repeatedly placed on "moisturizing" and "non-greasy". Consumers have no physical sense of such adjectives. There is even "awakening skin energy". You ask consumers to close their eyes and awaken skin energy. What is energy? How to wake up? How do consumers feel awakened?

Just for fun!

For example:

If you say this person is very tall, no one can feel it. But if you say he is as tall as Yao Ming, you will immediately feel it.

When you say a product is cheap, users don’t feel it so strongly. If you say it’s the same price as radishes, I think it’s really cheap.

Here are two simple techniques :

1. Metaphor: Moisturizing, the mouth feels like hyaluronic acid injection
2. Digitalization: The moisturizing time can last for 8 hours, and you can be moisturized from work to work.

Another before and after comparison picture would be even more perfect:

Metaphors are related to consumers' existing strong cognition, and consumers can get the effect instantly.

Digitalization is very easy to use in terms of intuitive visual aspects, and numbers have certain "artistic significance".

Of course, digitalization has more applications for many businesses. This is a basic skill and will not be elaborated here.

The second example of speaking human language:

Many brands will talk about "jojoba seed oil". Dear consumers, can you tell me, do you know what this means?

So I continued to Baidu "jojoba seed oil"

Obviously, jojoba oil is:

Originated from Mexico, it is known as "liquid gold". It is rich in nutrients, its ingredients are similar to human sebum, and its absorption rate is very high.

The further extension of the routine is the same as above, so I won’t elaborate on it.

Advanced 5: Selling point extension

Lip balm selling point extension

I think the marketing of lip balm is still at the 0-0.5 stage of shampoo marketing. It has not yet reached the 1.0 era, let alone the 2.0 era that shampoo has already reached.

Shampoo development stages:

• Stage 0 : Everyone is concerned about whether the shampoo washes the hair cleanly.
• Stage 0.5 : People focus on the specific functions of shampoo: Head & Shoulders focuses on dandruff removal, Rejoice emphasizes smoothness, Vidal Sassoon focuses on professional hair care, and Pantene focuses on nourishing hair.
• Phase 1.0 : Consumers began to pay attention to the safety of shampoo, so ingredient parties emerged;
• Phase 2.0 : People begin to pay attention to their emotional needs and whether they like the product, including the scent and appearance of the packaging.

These four stages are also iterated as the user's cognition increases.

You will find that these 4 needs basically meet Maslow's needs:

By the 1.0 and 2.0 stages, people no longer cared much about whether the shampoo cleaned the hair thoroughly.

Why?

Because everyone has formed the perception that shampoo must be able to clean hair, otherwise how can it be called shampoo?

In the early days of e-commerce, merchants could use "free shipping" to attract users. Today, it is almost impossible to see merchants using this feature anymore. Because consumers have already assumed that all goods are now free shipping, there is no point in saying "free shipping" anymore.

The current stage of lip balm is:

Many businesses are emphasizing that lip balm moisturizes lips. If a lip balm does not even have the basic moisturizing function, is it a corn cob?

Therefore, we need to extend and segment the selling points:

• Extended functions: deep moisturizing, repairing, lip nourishing, etc.
• Ingredients: avocado lip balm, amino acid lip balm, etc.

Extend the selling points, jump out of the parallel dimension, and attack by reducing the dimension.

Taking a certain lip balm as an example, the selling point is created by highlighting the content of vitamin E. But unfortunately, there is no explanation of the benefits of high concentration for consumers. It would be better if it was extended.

Advanced 6: Selling point scenario

Some lip balm merchants have already adopted scenario-based selling points, which is basically the same as the ambiguous scenario marketing between couples in many previous fragrance shampoos (to learn how to do scenario marketing well, click >>> to learn these 3 points and easily master scenario-based content marketing). Caters to the needs of young people.

It seems that the emotional needs scene is really good.

Advanced 7: Further Reading

Selling points are very important. Now everyone is talking about traffic, but it would be a pity to waste the traffic that has been attracted with great difficulty. Therefore, the basic work of the product must not be ignored.

Selling points are not just words. For e-commerce merchants, they also involve competitor research, visual design, communication point design , target audience’s concerns, and user evaluation feedback (sometimes merchants rack their brains to come up with selling points, but users end up buying your product just because the packaging looks good. This is a typical selling point that is out of touch with consumers).

There is a lot that can be written about selling points. Behind a purchasing behavior, there must be one or more reasons for purchasing that drive customers to place an order.

If you want to sell your product well, you must first make it sell well.

Author: Marketing Lao Wang

Source: Marketing Lao Wang (ID: wltx-2015)