Promotion analysis of the hottest marketing campaign!

Behind the popularity of grass-roots marketing is the common choice of users, brands and KOLs. In this article, the author analyzes grass-roots marketing from the perspectives of these three parties and expresses his own thoughts on the current problems.

“Existing mobile Internet users spend most of their time with giants, and the rest of their time is almost all spent on KOLs.” This point of view is raised in the book “Traffic Thinking is Dead, Content and Interaction Live Forever”, which shows the popularity of KOL marketing.

Recently, a new buzzword, KOC, has emerged and dominated all major media.

What is the relationship between KOC and KOL?

Yi Buer of Mantis Finance believes that KOC is essentially a subset of KOL. When a person expresses his opinions on a product he has used and can influence people around him to buy it, he is a KOC, and he himself is also a consumer of the product; but when his influence gradually expands and he begins to speak for various brands, he becomes a KOL, and he himself is not necessarily a consumer of the brand.

However, whether it is KOC or KOL, the purpose is to influence consumers' purchasing decisions. What lies behind this is the popularity of grass-roots marketing.

How popular is grass-roots marketing?

The beauty god PONY has 7.72 million followers on Weibo, and his Taobao store has more than 100,000 followers in one week; Zhang Dayi launched 20,000 homemade lipsticks, which were sold out in two hours, with sales of nearly 1.8 million yuan; and in the live broadcast industry, there are also "Lipstick King" Li Jiaqi and "Viya" who "sold a house overnight"...

The grass-planting economy is booming, and major brands have quickly followed suit with grass-planting marketing, making "grass-planting" a symbol of consumerism in the new era. So, why can the fire of planting grass spread across the prairie?

1. Users: The “cultivated” physique that is easy to be attracted to

According to iMedia data, 68.0% of users are willing to accept recommendations, among which 70.7% of users will purchase the recommended products based on actual conditions, and 26.2% of users will almost always purchase them.

"Everyone has a prairie in his heart, it just depends on whether he has money in his pocket." Mantis Finance found that there are three reasons why consumers are prone to being tempted.

1. The mobile Internet era has greatly shortened the consumption process. From planting to pulling out the weeds, it may only take a few minutes.

"Buy it!" "It works as I've proven!" With just a few words from celebrities and influencers, thousands of consumers have completed rounds of the process of planting and weeding out products.

Compared to going to the mall, the Internet's convenient path from purchase to payment to delivery is a fertile ground for planting grass.

2. Consumers are easily influenced by products because they trust the word-of-mouth of acquaintances, follow the influence of Internet celebrities, and seek self-identity.

According to a Forbes survey, about 81% of respondents said that comments from friends and family would directly influence their purchasing decisions; and data from iResearch Consulting also showed that 41.8% of those born after 1995 would recommend good brands to their relatives and friends, which has also led to the current popularity of KOC.

The bandwagon effect is more likely to lead to product popularity. Behind the recommendations of internet celebrities and the same items as stars is the herd mentality of consumers, and the self-comfort of expecting to "be as good as her". Otherwise, why are the skin of beauty bloggers always so tender?

When recommendation becomes a lifestyle, consumers can find groups with similar tastes or interests through the same color, the same sneakers, etc., and gain a stronger sense of identity.

3. Whether it is a public account push or a live broadcast, KOLs usually provide discount information when promoting products.

In the live broadcast of Viya's cooperation with KFC in June, there were 30,000 electronic coupons for 45% off trendy hamburger meals, and a large number of 1 yuan flash sale coupons. Compared with directly going into the store to consume, Viya's recommendations have greater discounts; and most of the products recommended by other KOLs also have exclusive prices.

Over time, consumers will develop a mentality of "I will buy if there is a discount."

2. Brand: In the era of fragmented social media, attracting attention is the key

In the second half of the Internet, the emergence of social media has made information highly fragmented, and the big players want to keep users in their own private traffic pools, causing consumers' attention to be dispersed everywhere.

“Brand advertising needs to reach consumers more than six times in a month in order to change their minds.” But this requires a budget of over 100 million yuan to reach consumers, and there may not be any conversions.

Consumer behavior studies believe that in the consumption process, consumers first form cognition, then generate emotions, and finally make consumption behaviors. Compared with traditional advertising marketing, which takes several days or even months from forming awareness to completing conversion, grass-roots marketing can attract consumers' attention in a short period of time and complete the consumption closed loop from awareness to conversion.

This is vividly demonstrated in beauty brands.

Before the trend of promoting Perfect Diary became popular, how many people were consumers of Perfect Diary? But when some of its products entered the popular lists of platforms such as Weibo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu, the situation changed dramatically. According to Kas Data, Perfect Diary has successfully become a first-tier domestic brand with sales of over 1 billion in the past year and a half.

Taking Li Jiaqi’s recommendation of Perfect Diary’s Metropolitan Lipstick as an example, let’s see how the recommendation process is completed.

• At the beginning, Li Jiaqi focused on showing the "fireworks-like" texture of the lipstick, and at the same time, his infectious tone helped consumers to recognize the Perfect Diary lipstick;
• Then, they started to try out the colors one by one. While trying out the colors of each product, Li Jiaqi would introduce which colors are suitable for which skin tones, occasions, makeup, and even clothes to match them with. He took into account the needs and concerns of consumers in all aspects, which gave them a sense of trust.
• After trying all the colors, we will recommend two of them to encourage consumers to place orders by saying “you can afford it even if you don’t get paid.”

The entire video is less than a minute long, with powerful lines, highly saturated emotions, and beautiful coloring effects. It can not only attract attention, but also trigger emotions, giving consumers ten thousand reasons to buy it. On the Tmall flagship store, the monthly sales of this product have reached over 100,000.

In the context of media fragmentation, grass-roots marketing can reach consumers more quickly, deeply tap consumption potential, and achieve precision marketing.

Compared to traditional media that needs 6 times or more to reach the minds of consumers, grass-roots marketing can capture consumers in less than half a minute. With such an immediate effect, how can it not be pursued by brands?

3. KOL: Not only a seed-seller, but also a “three-dimensional” person who is close to consumers

KOL is not only an important part of brand integrated marketing, but also a key point to reach consumers.

For brands, KOLs are “living advertisements” that attract attention and engage users’ minds; for consumers, KOLs are a projection of self-identity and emotional needs. What carries the entire process from planting seeds to pulling them out is the high-quality content of KOLs, which places three requirements on KOLs.

1. Characters have topics

When appearing on social media as a KOL, one must have a topical personality. Whether it is humorous, witty, or unconventional, a strong personal style is required.

An example is Zhang Yuqi, who once relied on her straightforward personality to gain a large number of likes on Xiaohongshu.

2. The field is segmented

Only by deeply cultivating a vertical segment and continuously outputting high-quality content can you become the king of sales.

To recommend a good store, a food blogger may need to eat at every street corner; to launch a few sets of clothes, a fashion blogger needs years of fashion training. But if a KOL promotes beauty products today and gets involved in food tomorrow, his credibility will be greatly reduced.

3. The content is informative

The reason why “Lipstick King” Li Jiaqi became so popular is not only because he meets the first two points, but more importantly, his content is substantial. In addition to product promotion, Li Jiaqi also posts a lot of practical information in a certain field, such as "The correct steps to put on makeup", "How to use loose powder to set makeup", and some fun and interesting videos, such as the "bottle cap challenge" that was popular on Douyin some time ago.

After being promoted too many times by KOLs, even consumers who have the "Hulunbuir Grassland" in their hearts will get tired of it. Compared with pure grass-planting machines and "live advertisements" of brands, consumers prefer to see the interesting and informative three-dimensional side of KOLs beyond advertisements.

4. Problems behind the grass-planting craze

In the mutual achievement between brands and KOLs, grass-roots marketing has also been exploited by some speculators who adhere to the principle of "profit first", leading to some problems.

1. The quality of grass-growing products varies

If you enter the keyword "planting grass" into the search engine, a large number of related messages will appear, such as "How to protect your rights if there are quality problems with planted grass products" and so on.

The Legal Daily has reported many times on "Internet celebrity" toiletries that don't have any of the three products, clothes that don't match the pictures, etc.

Driven by profit, some brands teamed up with KOLs to push substandard products to consumers. "Some popular online promoters are no longer just making recommendations out of friendship, but are more of a business, earning endorsement fees through recommendations."

2. The content of the promotion is mixed with good and bad

The booming grass-planting economy has led many "experts" to post illegal pictures, texts or short videos to attract attention in order to become famous. It has even spawned a fake "grass-planting" industry chain, with people charging a fixed price to write "grass-planting notes" for others.

The inclusion of grass-roots marketing has put the content at risk of getting out of control, which will not only deceive consumers but also harm the online shopping environment. Last month, the once popular Xiaohongshu had to face the fate of being taken off the shelves for rectification due to content issues, and it has not been put back on the shelves until now.

The effect of grass-planting marketing should not be like this. Being swayed by interests will only make grass-planting marketing "change its taste", seriously damage the Internet environment, and lose the trust of consumers.

No matter which industry you are in, "sustainability" is the way to long-term development. Why do some people not understand such an obvious truth?

Author: Yi Bu Er

Source: Tanglang Finance (ID: TanglangFin)