Brand marketing trends in 2020!

2019 has passed by quickly, but it has left many classic cases in the marketing world, which are thought-provoking both positively and negatively.

This year, in my opinion, seems to be a watershed - the marketing entities are undergoing a transformation. In the past, enterprises were the main participants in the entire process, whether it was marketing planning , cost sharing, or marketing implementation. However, with the development of technology, the enrichment of communication channels and product forms, it is increasingly found that the marketing subject is shifting from enterprises to the general public. More and more people are participating in this grand personal marketing, and the trend is intensifying.

Everyone can become a brand, a product planner and designer. In 2020, the following marketing methods will become the foreseeable main battlefield.

1. Livestreaming

With just one sentence “OH MY GOD”, Li Jiaqi sold 15,000 lipsticks in 5 minutes, which is something even Jack Ma can’t even compare to. During the live broadcast event on "Double 11" this year, the number of views in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room exceeded 24 million times, and the transaction volume is conservatively estimated to exceed 1 billion yuan. Behind this phenomenon is the semi-immersive experience brought by live streaming.

As the e-commerce industry has developed to date, the relationship between users and products has not undergone any qualitative changes. Take Taobao and JD.com, the current leaders in the e-commerce industry, for example. When users shop online, they can only get a general understanding of the products through the product details page.

This static display method is more like an indoctrination of information for users, and there is no fun in shopping at all. This is an important reason why online shopping cannot replace online shopping malls, that is, online shopping cannot provide the immersive experience brought by offline shopping.

Live streaming sales has solved this problem to a certain extent, although it has not been completely solved. The essence of live streaming sales is to solve the trust problem, which can be solved from two aspects:

①. Bringing consumers and merchants closer together . The fan circle established by top influencers and the sense of belonging it brings to fans in the circle have established a natural trust relationship between fans and influencers. In the traditional purchasing relationship, there is a direct link between users, merchants and products. The relationship between users and merchants has always been hostile. This is related to people’s deep-rooted perception that “there is no business without fraud.” The intervention of big Vs has changed the relationship into user-big V-product-merchant, which is like a layer of lubricant, shortening the distance between users and products.

②. The live broadcast method strengthens the trust relationship . In fact, most traditional TV commercials also invite popular stars to shoot, but the results are often not very good. The reason is that although big Vs can narrow the relationship to a certain extent, when it comes to shopping, consumers still trust their own judgment more, as seeing is believing. With the development of technology, live streaming can present products in a more dynamic way. Live streaming by big Vs can allow users to directly immerse themselves in the live streaming scenario and feel the effect of using the product, which is unmatched by other methods.

I believe that live streaming sales will become more popular in 2020, and the gameplay will be more diverse. However, the main participants in live streaming sales are still the top Vs who have their own traffic aggregation effect, which is not very friendly to ordinary people.

2. From big Vs leading to the participation of all people

The development of short videos has directly driven the national marketing boom. Whether on Douyin or Kuaishou, you can see an ordinary person sharing some tips on life everywhere. There will be a shopping entrance in the lower left corner of the video. This is currently the main way to sell goods through short videos. Among all the ways of monetization, selling products through short videos is the one with the most potential and development potential. Data shows that in the e-commerce ecosystem, the conversion rate of short video products is 20% higher than that of traditional e-commerce text and image models.

Behind this phenomenon is the reshaping of traffic and attention distribution brought about by short videos . In the age of Weibo, each of us is concerned not only about ourselves but also the lives of big Vs. Every day our attention is focused on these people, but we pay no attention to the lives of other ordinary people. However, the emergence of short videos has broken this pattern. By shooting interesting and informative videos and uploading them to short video platforms, they can gain more exposure through the platform's traffic distribution mechanism.

The difference between short videos and live streaming sales is that short videos are more time-sensitive and provide viewers with an instant experience. However, it is this instant experience that caters to impulsive consumption, making the consumer feel at the moment of consumption that "this thing is useful to me, I want to buy it." The climax-like production style of short videos will make this feeling even stronger. Therefore, short videos make it a very feasible way to promote them to the whole people by allowing ordinary people to discover interesting and informative life scenes and interspersed with related products.

Monetization is the most important part of a content platform and a very important means to ensure user stickiness, especially for top users. Short video platforms are bound to invest more energy in optimizing shopping paths and traffic distribution. National sales promotion will also become an important promotion trend in 2020.

3. High-value traffic channels are more popular

Today, the Internet's demographic dividend has disappeared. Whether it is online or offline traffic, the cost remains high and will only become more expensive in 2020.

Some marketing keywords that have risen in 2019: private domain traffic, KOC, conversion fission, Growth, etc. Behind every company’s desire to break through the circle is the anxiety about the low-cost promotion ideas of the past.

Compared with the past, pure brand exposure marketing and performance marketing ideas are not suitable for high-cost delivery strategies, and the ROI of promotion is very low. The company's operational ideas begin to focus more on purchases and conversions. For example, brands will become more and more cautious when faced with the tycoon strategy of spending millions of dollars on large outdoor screens, and will instead look for small and beautiful channels. If companies have been spending money to buy traffic in the past few years, and the effect of the delivery is to let users know the company's brand, then in 2020, how to choose efficient delivery channels to make users who see the advertisements make purchases and even repurchases will be the top priority.

You can check how many large outdoor screens still exist and how many of them have advertisements on them.

For marketers in 2020, spending money is important, but how to make every penny count is even more important. High-value traffic channels will become more and more popular. It is foreseeable that in the future, channels with high user fit and high vertical content professionalism will be our main choices.

4. The era of quality recognition may have finally arrived

Quality has always existed in the marketing industry, but its true value has not been realized in the past.

The film industry in 2019 went to two extremes. Under the collective bombardment of netizens, "Shanghai Fortress" was rated as one of the worst movies of 19. There are also many movies that have seemingly strong casts but end up in a mess. However, movies like "Nezha" and "The Wandering Earth", which do not have the support of popular stars, have become the most successful movies in 2019, setting new box office records.

The reason behind this is the public's recognition of the quality of the film.

Marketing guru Kotler mentioned in "Marketing 4.0" that consumers switch between two very typical purchasing decision-making modes. In the past, consumers’ purchasing path followed the 4A model, including cognition, attitude, action and re-action. But now, with the enrichment of communication channels and the deepening of consumers' awareness of quality, the purchasing path has also been iteratively updated from 4A to 5A. The specific contents of 5A include awareness, appeal, inquiry, action and advocacy. The most critical part is asking.

Consumers have gotten smarter. In the past, when we watched a movie, we would look at who the leading actor was, but now we check Douban’s rating first. In the past, when we wanted to buy a product, we would refer to who the endorser was, but now we go to Xiaohongshu first to see if it has been recommended by many people. Behind this simple phenomenon is a microcosm of consumers' pursuit of quality.

For marketers, we need to pay attention to two points:

First, traditional content communities will gather more and more professionals, whose influence will gradually match or even surpass that of celebrities, so there will be more choices in the selection of KOLs. As mentioned above, small and beautiful channels may be better.

Secondly, it is nonsense to talk about marketing without considering quality . Its essence is still a means of conveying brand value more efficiently, and the quality of the product is the key to success.

2020 is the beginning of another decade. Technology is developing and industries are being reshaped. How marketers can see trends in the changes and follow the trend will be the key to corporate success.

Author: Xia Huren

Source: PR Home