Formula for brand marketing and promotion!

"Bringing goods" has become a topic that marketers pay the most attention to and are most worried about in the current budget shortage.

From the perspective of the complete "AIPL" marketing chain, the view that "all marketing that does not bring goods is hooliganism" seems to make sense, because truly effective marketing has always been the opening of a marketing closed loop, rather than just creating a topic event or online interaction.

Back to the topic of "bringing goods", we all hope that our brand's marketing activities can bring sales. This is also the concept that has been brought up in the past two years, called "brand and effect integration". However, most marketing often does not bring much goods in the end, and it is considered very good if it can achieve an ROI of 1:1. Moreover, most marketers don’t know why the marketing activities they run don’t bring in sales.

On the one hand, this is limited by the traditional organizational structure within the company: often the marketing department and the channel sales department are two separate departments. The former says that the latter's sales operations cannot keep up, and the latter says that the former's marketing is not done well. In any case, no one is willing to take the blame for the final "no goods".

On the other hand, there are indeed too many factors that determine the final sales: in the current fragmented and decentralized marketing environment, the consumer shopping chain has become more and more chaotic. The consumer chain of traditional AIDMA or AISAS in the early Internet era has long been outdated, and it is difficult for marketers to find out which user chain has a problem.

What should I do then? Has the question of “why not bringing in goods” become a black hole in the marketing world?

Let's borrow the sentence structure of "...are all the same, but...are all different"

I venture to draw a conclusion:

The reasons why marketing does not bring goods may vary, but the core of bringing goods is the same

Why?

Because there is a universal formula in the retail industry, called:

Transaction amount = customer flow * conversion rate * customer unit price

This formula is not only applicable to traditional retail, but also regarded as a guiding principle by Internet retail operators.

All cases with good sales performance in the end undoubtedly put a lot of effort into these three decisive factors.

In this case, why don’t we think the other way around:

The fundamental reason why marketing fails to bring in sales is that 1-3 factors in this formula are not done well.

Therefore, this article will start from the three decisive factors of sales and analyze the reasons why marketing fails to bring sales.

I hope it will be of some reference value to brands when they carry out marketing activities.

1. Marketing without sales? Analyzing the reasons from the perspective of passenger flow

Customer flow, as the name suggests, refers to the flow of people entering the store. According to the previous formula, if the store traffic is low, the final marketing effect will not be very good.

When it comes to store traffic, many people may understand it from a media perspective, that is, the amount of traffic brought to the store is determined by the number of media spots purchased. For example, if you are rich enough, you can buy the advertising spots of all popular apps, which will definitely bring in a lot of traffic.

This understanding is actually incomplete. First, it ignores the fact that communication is actually composed of "media + content". If the content has no penetration to consumers, no matter how much media investment is made, the store traffic brought in will be greatly reduced. Secondly, relying on media to attract traffic is not only based on quantity, but more importantly, the "quality" of the media in terms of matching the target audience.

Based on this, I have summarized the following 4 factors that will greatly reduce the effectiveness of your marketing from the communication stage to store traffic. Some are at the level of marketing content, and some are at the level of media touchpoints. You can check whether your own marketing activities have similar problems.

Users don’t get the selling points from your marketing content;

Users don’t get the buying point from your marketing content;

Your media touchpoints are asymmetric with your target user touchpoints;

Your media touchpoints cannot form a closed loop of user traffic;

1. Users don’t get the selling points from your marketing content;

Many brand marketers have this doubt: We have spent so much time and effort to polish out a creative marketing work, and the audience response is also very good, and it has even been all over the circle of friends. But why is there so little traffic actually directed to the store?

At this point, you have to think about this: Can users get the selling points of the brand, product or event from your marketing? If not, they won’t take the next step of clicking to enter the store.

I believe everyone remembers the "Scrambled Eggs with Tomato" video that went viral on WeChat Moments in 2017. It tells the story of an international student who was learning how to make scrambled eggs with tomatoes through online videos with his parents who were far away in China. The fact that the student couldn't cook away from home easily aroused the young audience's sense of involvement. Even though many people have not studied abroad, they can still understand it. Is the story a good story? certainly.

But what is the connection between this story and the brand behind it, China Merchants Bank Credit Card? Does it reflect any selling points of China Merchants Bank or the credit card itself? It seems like none. So what do you expect your audience, who are not real consumers (this supplementary credit card for international students is for parents), to do after watching this video? Go to an offline branch to apply for a card? Not likely! Maybe in a few days, they will still remember this touching story, but will have long forgotten the China Merchants Bank credit card behind it.

In this regard, what is worth learning from is a series of marketing cases done by NetEase using similar techniques. Many of the cases they have worked on not only go viral, but also bring in a lot of in-store traffic and even direct sales.

So how did they do it? Take the H5 video "Pig Brain Triggers NetEase's Major Public Relations Crisis" that they launched to promote the Black Friday Foreign Goods Festival as an example. Their original intention was to promote the activity benefit point of "Select 6 items for 99 yuan". In order to package the story more interesting, they created a new character series called Zhu Xiaomei. What did it do? Just like her name, Zhu Xiaomei is also confused: she mistakenly set the price from 99 yuan for 6 items to 99 yuan for 16 items. For this reason, a series of stories were unfolded, such as watching Zhu Xiaomei's last day at NetEase and NetEase's major crisis public relations, which are the kind of stories that consumers like to watch. According to internal data, this video H5 brought nearly 7 million sales conversions to NetEase Kaola, with an ROI of nearly 35.

What is the difference between NetEase’s approach and the above-mentioned China Merchants Bank credit card? Although both are about creating interesting story content, their starting points are actually completely different. The starting point of China Merchants Bank’s credit card is to earn the tears of consumers; and the starting point of a series of NetEase products are based on the selling points of marketing activities and then unfold the plot of the story. The essential difference is that "Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes" is still a complete story if it is separated from the China Merchants Bank credit card; but "Pig Brain Triggers a Major Public Relations Crisis for NetEase" is separated from NetEase's Black Friday selling point, and the story has no beginning.

The revelation to us is: if you want your marketing content to be effective for consumers, try to separate the brand-related selling points from the creative ideas and see if they can still exist independently? If they can, it means that users are still some distance away from understanding your selling point, and naturally they are still some distance away from becoming store traffic.

2. Users don’t get the selling point from your marketing content;

When you see this subheading, you must have a new doubt: After finally integrating the selling point into marketing and spreading it, how can you come up with another buying point? What is the difference between this buying point and selling point?

Isn’t it just an explanation of the same interest point from the brand perspective and the user perspective respectively?

The first half of the sentence is correct about different perspectives, but the second half "the same interest point" is not necessarily true, because the brand selling point and the user buying point are sometimes quite different. For example, in the story of "selling a comb to a monk", the selling point of the comb itself may be that it is sandalwood and hand-carved, but the monk obviously does not get this selling point, so the monk creates the selling point of making the comb into a "token of incense".

The selling points are fixed, but the buying points will be dynamically adjusted according to differences in users and even occasions. For example, when it comes to flowers, the selling point for couples is the sweetness they convey, the selling point for singles is the sense of ritual in life, the selling point for daily flower purchases is the freshness and beauty of the flowers themselves, and the selling point for concert flower purchases is purely to support idols.

Therefore, whether or not you can capture the user's buying points becomes very important for marketing to attract traffic to the store and even bring in goods.

As the most playful biscuit company, Oreo has set a very good example for us: from the earliest "twist, lick, and soak" to now simply making the concept of "food and play" the core of their marketing. Obviously, this is in line with the buying point of this generation of young people, mainly Generation Z, for casual snacks: not only delicious, but also fun. Therefore, there are a series of "food and play" marketing operations: the biscuit music box that has been made for several years, the imaginative Oreo hot pot, the "Aoaoao" without the "Li", the "Lilili" without the "O"...

In fact, users’ buying points are more sales-oriented than brand selling points. Marketing that can grasp users’ buying points will often not have a bad final effect. If marketers want to accurately grasp the user's buying points, the most important thing is not to limit their thinking to the brand's selling points themselves, but to boldly understand the multi-dimensional needs of different consumer groups at different times and occasions, and then combine the relationship between the brand/product and the user's buying points. Only in this way can the marketing done not lead to "You are right, but I just don't listen."

3. Your media touchpoints are asymmetric with your target user touchpoints;

The above two points analyze the marketing content level. Users either fail to understand your selling points or fail to understand their own buying points, resulting in a gap in the process from marketing communication to entering the store.

We said above that communication is an organic combination of "content + media", that is, effective content needs to reach consumers through effective media to inspire them to take the next step of entering the store, thereby bringing traffic to the store. In fact, sometimes when we choose media touchpoints, we easily end up playing a good hand badly. The reason is that the selected media touchpoints and user touchpoints are asymmetrical.

This situation is related to the fact that nowadays, “WeChat, Weibo and Douyin” occupy the minds of most marketers when it comes to media selection. It seems that the only media channels in everyone’s mind are Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin. For example, there is a brand that sells high-end fitness equipment. Generally, the people who buy their products are a small elite group who own large villas. But they want to make Douyin, and the result can be imagined. Putting aside whether Douyin can sell these fitness equipment which basically costs 50,000 to 100,000 yuan, from the perspective of target user touchpoints, this choice is also extremely asymmetric. How many people who use Douyin will be their target consumers? Even if you spend more money on it, it won’t bring much traffic to the store.

Similar to this is the current popularity of celebrities or internet celebrities promoting products. At this time, these people themselves become media touchpoints, and we have to think about: whether this person’s image can effectively reach the target users, and the degree of overlap or correlation between his fans and the target users. For example, some celebrities are very good at promoting products in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, but if you ask them to promote high-end luxury goods, the effect may not be good, because the touchpoints of the two groups of users are very different.

4. Your media touchpoints cannot form a closed loop of user traffic;

When the content is attractive enough to users and the media can accurately reach the target users, the marketing at this time is still one step away from attracting users to come to the store to take a look: whether the media touchpoints can form a closed loop of user traffic, that is, whether users can reach your store directly from the media touchpoints. To put it simply, people have been invited and are about to come, so it depends on whether the final step is a smooth journey. "Smooth journey" means forming a closed loop of user traffic.

For example, when a user sees a video on Weibo and thinks a product is good, and just wants to buy it, the link on Weibo can take him directly to the product details page, which completes the user traffic closed loop. However, if WeChat needs to copy a Taobao password to link to the Taobao platform, or Xiaohongshu cannot link to other e-commerce platforms, these user traffic closed loops will most likely be difficult to form. This is why many brands have micro-stores and mini-programs on WeChat, flagship stores on Xiaohongshu, and Douyin stores on Douyin. One of the reasons is that they hope that the traffic from these platforms can directly flow into the store to form a closed traffic loop.

Some people may argue that a closed traffic loop does not necessarily require a direct click to go to a store. Users may also actively search for and go to a store after seeing the store. But at this point, the difficulty becomes whether your marketing is sensational enough to attract users to actively search and enter the store? Are there any products in the store that can only be snatched away like the cat claw cup? Or are there some celebrities with tens of millions of fans out there calling you to search for them? If none of these are available, then the probability of forming a closed loop of user traffic through active search is probably not very high.

2. Marketing does not bring goods? Analyze the reasons from the perspective of conversion rate

If you break down the customer flow and find that none of the four problems mentioned above exist, then congratulations, you have brought a good amount and quality of customer flow to your store, and you have completed the first half of the marketing mission. But if the final sales volume is still not good, then it is actually a problem at the store operation level. There are two main problems leading to low sales at this time: one is the low conversion rate, that is, the proportion of customers who finally buy something is not high; the other is the low average order value, that is, each customer who buys something does not buy much.

Let’s first analyze the reasons why marketing fails to bring in sales from the perspective of conversion rate.

You can imagine this scenario in your mind: a group of customers who were originally motivated to buy by your external marketing come to your store and look around, but in the end, few or no customers actually pay for the purchase. Do you know what they are thinking? It can be roughly divided into two types:

One is disappointment: the marketing outside says it is so good, but when you get to the store you find that it is not the case at all. To put it more professionally, there is a gap between marketing communications and store operations.

One is hesitation: it feels good, but is it worth buying now? How about coming back and seeing it next time? There is a lack of a “final touch” conversion mechanism at the store operation level.

No matter which situation occurs, it will lead to a low transaction conversion rate. Let us explain it in detail below:

1. There is a gap between marketing communications and store operations

Before I go into details, let me share a real consumption experience of my own. McDonald's launched an H5 for couples to share photos on 520 this year. Users only need to upload their avatars to generate a couple certificate, which they can then exchange for two cranberry ice creams at offline stores for 13.14 yuan. In itself, it was a pretty good marketing opportunity, but when I went to McDonald's offline dessert station to redeem the photos generated by the H5, the waiter was confused and didn't even know about the event. The store manager happened to see this at this time and muttered to himself: It seems that the marketing department of our headquarters is indeed holding this activity in the past few days. I was so embarrassed that I finally decided to give up since it’s not like I couldn’t afford the full amount.

Although it was a small matter, I felt that there was a clear gap between McDonald's marketing communication and store operations this time. Similar problems are common online: brands use various marketing gimmicks outside the site, but when users click through the link, they find that the store is deserted and lacks even the most basic event landing page to match the marketing theme. The store display remains the same as usual. Imagine this situation, how high can the user conversion rate be?

The store launches an activity page corresponding to the marketing theme. This is actually the most basic operation to connect the marketing communication and store operation. However, in order to further improve the transaction conversion rate, it is also necessary to cooperate with other aspects such as goods and shopping experience throughout the entire marketing main line.

For example, the previous #kindle盖面面更香# is a complete integration from social to products; for example, many clothing brands make H5 on their sites, which is a complete integration from personalized customization interaction to product customization; for example, Be & Cheery offers a free hug when you buy "Hug Fruit", and some fast-moving consumer goods brands with just basic needs have launched "contracting your xxx for a year" and then really send it to you on time every month. These practices are a complete integration from marketing gimmicks to shopping experience.

2. Store operators lack a “final touch” conversion mechanism

The “last-minute push” mechanism is often a “booster shot” or “catalyst” for users who have a strong intention to buy after shopping in a store but are hesitant about whether to place an order immediately. There are two types of conversion mechanisms that can achieve this effect:

One is a driving mechanism based on practical interests. The simplest way is various direct promotional methods, such as posting a "50% discount only once a year" promotion, which should make it difficult for users not to place an order. But many brands may not be able to do this, nor are they willing to do so. At this time, you need to add some creative gimmicks. For example, a baby diaper brand has set up a "diaper bank" to stimulate mothers to place orders and stock up. As long as users place an order during the event, they can open their "bank account". Not only can they enjoy discounts, but they can also start their baby's "after-sleep income": extra diapers purchased here will generate interest, and 1 pack may become 1.5 packs after 3 months.

If the above principle is to make users feel that "if you don't place an order, you won't be able to enjoy this benefit", then a more advanced approach is to make users feel that "if you don't place an order, you won't be able to get this social currency". Of course, popular social currencies like cat scratching cups, limited edition AJs, and co-branded UTs are not so easy to create. Brands need to invest their energy in marketing first, and sometimes there is no trace to follow. But some simple practices can help you enhance the social attributes of your products: such as cross-border gameplay, blind box gameplay, GWP gameplay, customized gameplay, etc. This will be further illustrated in the next section on how to create high-quality products and increase average order value.

3. Marketing without sales? Analyzing the reasons from the perspective of average order value

If there are no problems with customer flow and conversion rate, but the final sales are still not good, it basically means that there is a problem with the average order value. A possible situation is that many people come in and many people place orders, but the purchase amount of each of them is not high. Normally, the average order value during a marketing campaign should be higher than that during the normal store period. If the average order value from a marketing campaign is not high, what is the reason? Let’s continue with the disassembly.

First, let’s understand its definition. The amount of each person’s single purchase is called the average order value.

In this way, we will know that a user's average order value is determined by two factors: one is the unit price of the product, and the other is the quantity purchased. The reason why the average order value under marketing activities is higher than that under normal circumstances is that on the one hand, marketing means can be used to create "high-end products" to raise the unit price of products, and on the other hand, the number of user purchases can be increased through cross-selling. On the contrary, the low average order value is naturally due to these two reasons.

1. Your marketing doesn’t create “high-end products” that can command a premium

The term "top-notch goods" originated from the field of second-hand CDs. Young people who love music and are keen on collecting CDs often call the hard-to-get, expensive, scarce, master-level, and media-hyped CDs "top-notch goods."

It is now widely mentioned by e-commerce operators, referring to those scarce, hard-to-sell, and expensive goods. These goods are usually an extension of the first half of the marketing communication. The purpose is to create a marketing closed loop to improve the order conversion rate on the one hand, and to increase the unit price of the product and thus drive the average customer price on the other hand.

The reason why these "high-end products" can be priced at a premium is that there are no other similar products like them. For example, there are many brands to choose from for normal biscuits, but only Oreo has a biscuit music box that can play DJs. At this time, users are in a state of "individual evaluation" rather than "joint evaluation" and are not so sensitive to price.

Therefore, marketing to create “premium products” is very important for increasing the average order value. So how to build it?

In addition to launching new products and creating limited editions based on one's own influence, which are suitable for a few brands, I have also sorted out the following common "top products" creation ideas and for reference only:

a. Cross-border gameplay

b. Blind Box Gameplay

c. GWP gameplay

d. Customized gameplay

2. Your marketing does not have a mechanism to stimulate cross-selling

Having “top-notch products” alone is not enough, because these products do not sell in large quantities and their contribution to the final sales is limited. Anyone who works in operations knows that there is a product "pyramid", and the products below the "top products" are what actually contribute to the store's sales.

There is a real case: when Li Jiaqi was doing a live broadcast for a lipstick with a per-customer price of 60 yuan, he ended up selling 10,000 lipsticks, but the sales revenue was only 600,000 yuan, which might not even be enough to cover the cost of hiring him to do the live broadcast. This is a typical case of a store not making a good plan for merchandise sales, resulting in poor sales results.

The core of taking over goods is to achieve joint sales, that is, to stimulate users to buy more when placing an order through direct or indirect binding between goods.

For example, the most common one is that the store as a whole launches a tiered incentive coupon of "spend xx and get xx off";

For example, by binding "premium products" with regular products and directly putting them into a gift box, or indirectly telling users that they can only purchase "premium products" when they spend a certain amount of money;

For example, Shuirong C once launched a collage poster of Zhu Yilong. Every time you buy a box of products, you can get a part of the poster. If users need to assemble a complete poster, they need to buy multiple boxes of products. Everyone knows the purchasing power of fan girls, and in the end this water-soluble C was sold out.

Summarize

Marketing does not bring sales, and there are many factors that influence it. However, we can make a detailed breakdown of the three core factors in the sales turnover formula: customer flow, conversion rate and average order value, and each factor can be further broken down into more detailed influencing factors. Breaking it down layer by layer may help us to have a clearer review of the results of marketing that does not bring in sales, and thus guide the next marketing campaign to better avoid these negative factors.

author: JS Planner

Source: JS Planner