Product traffic operation strategy!

Product traffic generation is always the most important issue for operators, and general advertising is a relatively effective means. But what to do when the budget is limited? The author of this article shares the operational strategy of using "traffic-generating products" for everyone to learn and refer to.

1. No one uses the product. Besides advertising, what other ways are there to bring in traffic?

The above problem is a nightmare that many people will encounter. This problem not only bothers product managers, but it will also work if you replace the word "product" with shopping malls or bars.

• If you spend money to build a shopping mall but no one comes to shop there, all your investment will be wasted.
• Even if you carefully design the decoration of a restaurant, if no one comes to dine there, all the money will be wasted.
• If you put a lot of effort into developing a new digital product but no one uses it, your investment will have no return at all.

Therefore, those who have advertising budgets think that they should place advertisements to attract attention. So for those who lack advertising budget, how can they solve the problem of "insufficient traffic"?

Instead of relying on advertising, you can rely on “traffic-generating products”.

If the traffic problem is not solved, shopping malls will go bankrupt, restaurants will close, and products will be taken off the shelves. If you know how to use traffic-generating products, you can solve this tricky traffic problem at a lower cost.

I have used the "traffic-generating products and profit-generating product combination" in Liu Run's "5-Minute Business School" to find existing traffic-generating products without adding any additional costs, and create reasons for users to "come to this App."

By changing your business perspective and starting with traffic-generating products, you can solve business problems. Let’s start by understanding the concept of “traffic-generating products and profit-generating products combination”!

2. What are traffic-generating products and profit-making products?

Traffic-generating products, as the name suggests, are items that "attract traffic".

Traffic-generating products must be accompanied by profit-making products, because traffic alone is useless. It must also be able to be effectively converted into profits for the business model to work.

So, what is a "profit product"?

Profitable goods, as the name suggests, are goods that "bring profits".

The purpose of using profit products is to make money through "collateral" traffic. Let consumers come because of the attracting products, and "incidentally" buy something else, which ultimately allows the merchant to make money.

1. How to use traffic-generating products and profit-generating products?

Buying advertisements brings in traffic, and the business logic behind it is "trading cost for traffic."

For businesses that cannot afford advertising costs or do not want to rely solely on advertising to attract traffic, they can change their mindset: instead of exchanging costs for traffic, they can exchange "profits" for traffic.

The difference is that the former uses the money paid to exchange for traffic, while the latter uses the less earned money to exchange for traffic.

Traffic-generating products exchange profits for traffic.

Since traffic-generating products exchange profits for traffic, generally speaking, you should choose low-cost products as traffic-generating products.

Finally, let’s go back to the definition of lead generation products and discuss a small detail that was not mentioned just now.

Traffic-generating products, as the name suggests, are items that "attract traffic". The definition I use here is "item" rather than "commodity", why?

Because traffic-generating products are not necessarily commodities that sacrifice profits, items provided free of charge can also be used as traffic-generating products.

For example, 7-11 convenience stores offer free WiFi (30 minutes per session, 3 connections per day), which is also a traffic-generating product.

Take myself as an example. Before I used the all-you-can-eat online service, when I needed to download an app or consume more data, I would go to 7-11 to use the WiFi, and usually buy a bottle of drink by the way.

In this process, free WiFi is the traffic-generating product, and beverages are the profit-making products that bring profits to 7-11.

In other words, traffic-generating products are not necessarily commodities. They can also be items or services, as long as they can give consumers a reason to come.

2. Business cases in daily life

Once you realize the existence of drainage products, you will find that they are everywhere. Let’s look at some business cases in real life.

Next to Taichung Railway Station, there is a New Era shopping mall. In the basement of the mall, there is an area with a Carrefour store.

Why do shopping malls have sales floors?

Because the store sells daily necessities, and consumers have a high frequency of demand for daily necessities, they need to be purchased frequently.

Setting up a store in a shopping mall can attract a high frequency of traffic. People who come here to buy daily necessities are likely to eat, drink coffee, or go shopping for clothes.

For a shopping mall, the store selling daily necessities is its traffic generator, while the counters in other shopping malls are its profit generators.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that since business changes are always very fast, "shopping malls as traffic draws" was a very common phenomenon in the past. Now this practice is gradually disappearing because shopping malls are not as attractive as before.

Like the New Times Shopping Mall in Taichung, the Dajiang Shopping Center in Zhongli was also a large shopping mall with a Carrefour store in the past. However, for today's consumers, "famous restaurants" are easier to attract traffic than shopping malls. Therefore, Zhongli Dajiang Shopping Center recently converted the shopping mall into a food court and introduced more famous restaurants to attract traffic.

In other words, for shopping malls, using lower rents to attract well-known restaurants will be a more effective way to attract customers than opening a store.

Nightclubs often hold activities where "girls are free, boys are charged", which is also a combination of traffic-generating products and profit-making products.

Girls are free, which can attract girls to nightclubs, and they are the ones who attract male traffic. Through boys' consumption, the boys' traffic is converted into profits, and these profits are used to subsidize the cost of free activities for girls.

In this example, "Free for Girls" is a traffic-generating product, and "Paid for Boys" is a profit product.

During the COVID-19 epidemic, people need to go to nearby convenience stores and shopping malls to pick up masks after booking masks online through the real-name system.

Consumers only need to pay NT$7 for shipping when they receive a mask. There is no profit to be made for convenience stores. Then why are the four major convenience stores, PX Mart and other distribution channels joining the ranks of "mask pick-up points"?

Because masks are the most effective "drainage products" at the moment.

The reason consumers go to convenience stores is to get masks.

People who originally did not go to convenience stores to buy things now have to go to convenience stores to get masks; people who originally had the habit of buying things at convenience stores have increased the frequency of going to convenience stores to get masks.

By attracting customers through the mask pickup service, there is a greater chance of selling other products. Masks are such a great traffic-generating product, no wonder all major channels are striving to "serve the people."

In addition to competing to see who is the first to join the ranks of mask pick-up points, major channels are also competing to see whose "joint discounts" are the most attractive, and have successively launched offers such as free upgrades to extra-large cups of coffee, or buy-one-get-one-free deals on cookies and drinks.

Should you buy some discounted items when checking out?

By combining traffic-generating products with profit-making products, not only merchants benefit, but consumers also benefit.

Taking the mask pickup service as an example, masks are the convenience store’s traffic-generating products, while other commodities are the convenience store’s profit products.

In order to obtain more traffic, subsidies for mask shipping are provided

3. How do I find and use lead generation products?

For event platforms, what is the lowest-cost traffic-generating product?

After understanding the combination of traffic-generating products and profit-making products, I kept thinking about the above question.

Some activities are not for profit, but for marketing, publicity and promotion. For events like this, ticket prices are either very low or completely free.

In other words, the quality of these activities will not be reduced because of low prices or free of charge, because the purpose of holding the activities is not to make a profit.

The event platform where I work has always provided services for "free events". Since the tickets are free, there is no way to charge service fees from these free events.

I suddenly realized: "Since free activities are already there, and many users often enjoy finding these free activities, why don't I use these free activities to attract traffic?"

In this way, without any extra cost, I found the traffic source of the event platform - free activities.

After launching a special area for free activities, the traffic performance in this area is very good.

As a result, these activities have more registrants, increasing the well-being of the organizers; consumers have more choices, increasing their well-being; and word of mouth attracts more consumers to use the products, increasing the well-being of the platform.

Consumers, organizers and platforms are all happy.

In this example, the free activity is the traffic-generating product, while the paid activity is the profit-generating product.

By combining traffic-generating products with profit-generating products, we can come up with solutions other than advertising for traffic.

By using low-cost goods or items that can bring convenience, we can create a combination of traffic-generating products and profit-making products to improve the efficiency of business operations.

The most important thing is that the combination of traffic-generating products and profit-making products can not only benefit merchants, but also consumers. This advantage is also the reason why the combination of traffic-generating products and profit products is so attractive to me.

3. Let’s review today’s content

Traffic-generating products, as the name suggests, are items that "attract traffic." The corresponding ones are profit goods, which, as the name suggests, are goods that "bring profits".

The combination of traffic-generating products and profit-making products means exchanging profits for traffic, and then earning profits through consumers' "collateral" consumption behavior.

Limited discount for the day, increase the rate of joint promotion

You can look for profitable products that suit you from the two perspectives of "low cost" and "convenience".

Proper use of the combination of traffic-generating products and profit-making products can not only improve the situation of merchants, but also enhance the well-being of consumers.

Finally, you can leave me a message to share your experience in using the combination of traffic-generating products and profit-making products, or share the combination of traffic-generating products and profit-making products that have impressed you.

We hope you can use the perspective of traffic-generating products and profit-making products to improve your ability to understand business opportunities.

Author:Daniel

Source: Daniel