How can marketing promotion achieve results beyond expectations?

A good marketing strategy is to minimize the conversion loss at each step and improve the conversion rate at every link.

Xiaoma Song is a well-known marketing expert. He was once a creative partner of Baofeng Mojing and co-founder of the Ninth Classroom. He also worked in large advertising and public relations groups such as Ogilvy and Blue Label. He won the Bronze Lion Award for Integrated Communications at the Cannes Advertising Festival and was the best writer of Huxiu.com in 2016...

Recently, I had a conversation with Mr. Xiaoma Song, discussing how to name a brand, how to reach users at multiple levels, etc. I personally gained a lot from this conversation, and today, I would like to share its content with you.

1. A good name should reduce the cost of communication

Teacher Xiaoma Song said that although naming seems small, it is actually very important.

Naming is the starting point of marketing. Once your brand name is not well chosen, all subsequent actions will be much more costly.

Why?

Because in marketing, the most important thing is communication. If you want to achieve better communication, the first step is to choose a name that is easier to remember, so as to reduce the brand's communication costs.

Teacher Xiaoma Song gave an example. If you were to name the used car market, there are three names:

1. Guazi Used Cars
3. Uxin Used Cars
5. Renren Car

Which name do you think is more likely to be spread?

The one that is more likely to spread is definitely Guazi Used Cars.

Why?

If you only hear it once, which of these three names is easier to remember?

Of course, it’s Guazi and Renrenche, as for Uxin , you may have to hear it three times before you can remember it.

Therefore, if the communication cost of Guazi.com is 10 million, then the communication cost of Youxin.com may be 30 million, which will invisibly increase its own communication cost to three times that of its competitors.

What about Renren Car?

Although Renrenche is easy to remember, it has another problem, which is that you don’t know what Renrenche actually sells. Are you selling a used car? Or selling a new car? Or rent a car? Even if you remember the name Renrenche after hearing it once, you don’t know what it sells. You still have to ask or check, which invisibly increases the communication cost.

Then should it be called “Renrenche Used Cars”? This name seems to be wrong...

Therefore, in comparison, "Guazi Used Cars" is easy to remember and contains the name of the category, so its communication cost is the lowest.

For example, there is a brand of a listed company called: Holaker . You be the judge, is this a name that is easy to spread?

First of all, the name Holaker is not easy to pronounce and the tongue easily bends. Secondly, when you hear the name Holaker, you don’t know what the three characters mean, nor do you know what category it is in.

Therefore, it is not a name that is easily spread.

But this boss also founded another brand and the company was listed on the stock market. The name of the brand is: Haotaitai Clothes Rack . This name is very good. It can be remembered after hearing it once and can be easily spread.

A name is a carrier of communication. Choosing a good name can reduce the cost of communication and make it easier for others to remember you. It will be easier for others to remember you and help you spread the message to more people. In this way, you can reach more users and bring in more revenue with the same marketing cost.

2. A good name should integrate industry attributes and product value

Reducing communication costs is a basic feature of a good name, but it is not good enough.

An excellent name should also incorporate industry attributes.

For example, the Guazi used cars and Haotai clothes racks mentioned above are good examples. You can immediately know what they sell by their names.

For example, there is a snack brand that sells chicken feet in the Sichuan and Chongqing regions, called Jianglong Claws . You can guess as soon as you hear it that it probably sells chicken feet.

For example, Three Squirrels is also a good example. From the name you can tell that it is likely to sell nuts.

In addition to integrating industry attributes, there is an even more important factor, which is to integrate one's own product value .

For example, six walnuts . The name Six Walnuts is not only easy to remember and spread, it also makes users feel that there are really six walnuts in a bottle of drink. It integrates the value of its product into the brand name. It does not require any additional explanation, advertising, or slogans. Just the four words "six walnuts" are enough to make users feel the value of the beverage. This is a very good name, which further reduces the brand's communication costs.

Xibei has also launched similar new brand names, such as Yuanqi Zaogao , Super Roujiamo , etc., which also integrate the product value into the brand name.

7-11 is also a good name.

Today's 7-11 convenience stores are open 24 hours a day, but in the past, 7-11 convenience stores were open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. People could know its opening hours just by the name, which was very convenient.

As for Xiaomi mobile phone , although the name is easy to remember, it is difficult to tell whether it is good or bad from the name because it does not have the value attributes of a product.

Toyota previously had a car called: Land Cruiser . The English name is: land cruiser. This is a particularly good name, easy to remember, very visual, and also incorporates the value of the product. But later, Toyota changed its name to: Land Cruiser . Land cruiser is transliterated here. Compared to the Land Cruiser, the Land Cruiser is too difficult to remember, and its industry attributes and product value are hard to see.

This is a negative example.

To sum up, the most important thing about a good name is to reduce the cost of communication. Deliver the most information at the lowest cost.

First of all, it needs to be memorable, and it is best if it can be remembered after listening to it once. For example, Guazi Used Cars is a passing name.

Then, it would be best if it could also include industry attributes. For example, "Dragon Claw" is a good name.

Finally, it would be best if it could incorporate production values. For example, Six Walnuts, this is an excellent name.

3. Marketing is to improve the conversion rate at every stage of reaching consumers

Choosing a good name can immediately help you save “hundreds of millions” in advertising fees, and this is just the starting point of marketing. When companies do marketing consulting, they generally have two types of questions:

The first type is improvement-type questions.

What are improvement questions? That is, this company was doing quite well, but with some marketing suggestions, it will do even better.

So from which aspects should we give suggestions to enterprises? He said we need to help him improve conversion rates at every stage of reaching consumers. There are countless links in marketing, and every link will result in loss of conversion.

A good marketing strategy is to grasp every detail and minimize the conversion loss at each step. In this way, by accumulating small improvements in every detail, you can eventually achieve great improvement.

Teacher Xiao Ma Song gave us a classic case: he had a client who sold melon seeds. How can we help them increase their sales of melon seeds? Teacher Xiao Ma Song designed a slogan for them, which is: Choose two taels out of ten pounds of melon seeds , and it achieved particularly good results. When customers first come into contact with this brand and see the slogan "Choose 2 taels out of 10 pounds of melon seeds", they invisibly receive a message: out of 10 pounds of melon seeds, we only choose the best 2 taels to sell.

(Of course, this information is true, because their best melon seeds are selected based on this standard.)

This makes it particularly easy to impress and persuade customers, making them feel trustful, and greatly lowering their consumption threshold . This is the stage before purchase, which increases the conversion rate.

Similarly, the brand Jianglong Claws we mentioned earlier has very small storefronts and signs in each of its stores. How can we increase the conversion rate in the pre-purchase stage?

There are two secrets to running a street shop. One is to make passers-by slow down in front of your door, and the other is to make passers-by look into your shop. This is the key to doing business with passers-by.

A typical example is the thing that keeps spinning at the door of a barber shop. It is not only easy to identify, but also allows people to know at a glance that there is a barber shop here. Another function is to attract others to look here, because moving things are more likely to attract other people's attention. So, they made the four words "Jiang Long Claws" particularly large on the sign so that consumers could see it from a long distance. At the same time, the product picture was printed on the sign, and a slogan was written, "It melts with one sip", so that the essence of the product is clear at a glance.

In this way, consumers can notice the Dragon Claw among many signs at a glance, which actually increases its exposure and brings it more traffic. Then, after seeing the product pictures and the “melts in one sip” effect, consumers can instantly appreciate the value of the product and make a purchasing decision right away. This increases conversion rates.

These two actions are both before the purchase to increase the conversion rate.

4. Marketing is about being “at your fingertips”

After hearing this, I think Teacher Xiaoma Song’s point of view makes a lot of sense. This actually coincides with the "corporate energy model" that I have been talking about before.

What is an Enterprise Energy Model?

Imagine a person pushing a boulder up a hill. Making products means pushing this heavy stone to the top of a mountain to gain the greatest possible potential energy, and then pushing it down from the highest point, using marketing and channels to reduce resistance, converting potential energy into maximum kinetic energy, and achieving the most extensive possible user coverage.

Marketing is about occupying the minds of users and making them "remember" you; and channels are about making your products accessible to users and allowing them to "buy" you.

To sum it up in eight words: lingering in the mind and within reach. This is the only way to reach as many users as possible and as far away as possible, which actually means improving the conversion rate at each link, and ultimately accumulating higher sales.

I have summarized a formula: Sales = Traffic * Conversion Rate * Average Customer Price * Repurchase Rate

Jianglong Claw enlarges the words on the photos so that consumers can see them from a long distance, thereby improving the conversion rate in the "traffic" link. “Choose two taels out of ten pounds of melon seeds” and “it melts in one sip” are about improving the “conversion rate” (you can also understand it as purchase rate).

So how can we improve the conversion rate in terms of "average order value" and "repeat purchase rate"?

Teacher Xiaoma Song also gave several examples.

He has a client named Gu Ming Milk Tea. Most of Gu Ming Milk Tea’s stores are located in county-level cities and towns. Its consumer groups are extremely fixed, and there are very few new customers. Therefore, the repurchase rate is particularly important for it. So, Mr. Xiaoma Song wrote an advertising slogan for it, which is: Drink one cup a day and you will never get tired of it. This increases the frequency of consumers drinking milk tea, thereby increasing the repurchase rate.

Relatively speaking, the milk tea industry is still a relatively high-frequency industry. So for some extremely low-frequency industries, such as the furniture industry, how can we increase the repurchase rate?

People may only buy furniture two or three times in their lifetime, so how can we increase the repurchase rate? The furniture industry can be turned into a service industry.

For example, if a customer has bought a sofa from you, the possibility of him buying it again for a second time is very small. What should you do? You can regularly help customers clean their sofa covers and provide some free services. This way you will have several opportunities to contact and communicate in depth with customers every year, and customers will be more likely to buy more products or services. Even if the customer does not make a purchase, his impression of your brand will be deeper because of the high frequency of your contact with him. In this way, when his friends need to buy furniture, he may recommend you to his friends.

This is to transform low-frequency industries into high-frequency industries through services.

To sum up, there are countless links in marketing, and every link has conversion losses. A good marketing strategy is to minimize the conversion loss at each step and improve the conversion rate at every link.

5. Marketing is not about doing one big thing at once, but about doing a series of small things right

In addition to improvement problems, there is another type of problem: strategic problems.

What are strategic issues?

That is, this company may have problems from the initial product definition, to channel design, to marketing strategy. At this time, you need to design every step from the beginning and clarify the entire strategic direction.

Teacher Xiaoma Song has a client called Panda Buzou, a brand that specializes in birthday cakes. When Panda Buzou started from scratch, there was already a local cake brand that was doing very well. How could it compete with that? At the beginning, Panda Buzou wanted to make five-star cakes, using the best ingredients and making the cake quality better than others. But after a few months, everyone realized that "making cakes better than others" is not actually a particularly strong competitive advantage.

Why?

If someone else's cake is 80 points, and you want to make your cake 90 points, this 10-point improvement may require twice the effort. However, from the perspective of customers, the difference between 80 points and 90 points is actually not that big. Although you know that the ingredients of your cake are better than others, your customers may not be able to sense it.

So later, Mr. Xiaoma Song began to rethink this industry and think about what the essence of users buying birthday cakes is? Although a birthday cake is a cake, customers buy it not to eat it, but to celebrate their birthday. So, birthday cake is not a food, it is actually a prop. Customers buy cakes for birthdays, not just to eat cake.

If you look at it from this perspective, your approach to designing a cake will be completely different.

What you need to do at this time is not to provide customers with a better-tasting and higher-quality cake, but to provide customers with a happier birthday.

So what should we do specifically? Think about how to provide value to customers from all the steps including when the customers receive the cake, open the cake, cut the cake, blow out the candles and make a wish, take photos, etc. The solution then came naturally.

For example, when delivering cakes, the courier will wear a panda costume. After the cake is delivered, the panda will sing a birthday song for the customer and perform a dance, which gives the customer a more surprising experience.

For example, in the session of blowing out candles and making a wish, a very special candle was designed, which looks like a small firework blooming when burning, which is very beautiful; the hats provided to users are not ordinary cardboard, but carefully designed velvet hats with shining lights, which are very delicate and interesting.

Through experience design in every link, Panda Don’t Walk took only 5 months to become the number one in Huizhou. The new store opened in Chancheng District, Foshan, became the number one in the local area in just one month. Birthday cake is not a food, but a prop. This small shift in perspective has a huge effect.

So sometimes, marketing is not about doing one big thing all at once, but about doing a series of small things right.

Final Words

After talking with Teacher Xiaoma Song, I felt particularly moved. In the business world, there are many business models that are instantly successful and soar to fame, disrupting entire industries as soon as they appear.

For example, Tencent’s disruption of the social industry, Alibaba’s disruption of the retail industry, and Toutiao’s disruption of the information distribution industry. However, this is only a minority after all. Most people are in relatively mature industries. At this time, what we need to study is not how to subvert the industry, but how to do better than our competitors.

Being better than your competitors may not sound sexy, but it never goes out of style. Because no matter how mature your industry is, there are always areas for improvement. By finding these areas for improvement and adopting different marketing strategies, you may reap unexpected surprises.

Marketing is not about doing one big thing all at once, but about doing a series of small things right.

If you do these little things right, you may be able to achieve the most unexpected results with minimal cost.

Author: runliu-pub

Source: runliu-pub