Conventional and unconventional methods for product operation and promotion

When we do competitor analysis, we look at the competitor's strategy from an outsider's perspective. Based on the public information available online, we try to figure out the competitor's gameplay routines, and then borrow (copy) them for our own products. Many times we see other people's practices achieve good results, but when we do the same approach ourselves, the results are often not ideal. Why? Combining many years of experience in product operation and promotion , I found that there are actually two types of product operation and promotion: conventional and unconventional. What we see is just the conventional play, but the effect is brought about by the unconventional play that we cannot see.

As the name suggests, conventional strategies refer to strategies that are known to everyone and used by every company, such as thinking of a catchy slogan and covering all channels within sight; unconventional strategies are very interesting. They are unique to each company. In the process of operating and promoting products, they are very unconventional but very effective strategies that are explored by themselves and are unknown to outsiders. A small company can grow into a large company often by relying on unconventional strategies, while a large company can grow into a giant company by relying on conventional strategies.

Here I will give you some examples of the conventional and unconventional strategies that I have used in the many products I have made. Perhaps it will give some inspiration to those students who are overwhelmed and at a loss with operations and promotions all day long.

The benefits of conventional play

Conventional play is similar to universal values, which everyone knows. When a newcomer enters an unfamiliar field, he often starts with conventional tactics. When I was doing product operations, I also started with the modules of users, data, activities, and content. The operation of these modules is a conventional approach, and all product operations are inseparable from these modules.

Later, when I was promoting products, I also followed the conventional strategy of two Weibo and one Douyin, creating official accounts, Weibo and Douyin, as well as other platforms that could gain exposure. Basically, this is the way to do promotion, it will never be wrong, the popular one is the most correct.

Disadvantages of conventional play

Since it is a routine, the implication is that you and I can do it, and it is difficult to highlight one's personal abilities. Being an ordinary person in the workplace is the most dangerous. When encountering a slight adverse change in the external environment, the first to be laid off are the replaceable employees. There are so many people who know how to play conventionally, we don't need you.

Examples of conventional play

Here are some examples of common playing methods to see if you know how to do them. If you can't even do these common playing methods, then you should reflect on what you are busy with every day at work. Here are a few examples of the timeline of product development, product launch, product promotion and product optimization.

Product development: The purpose of product development is to solve a single problem: what product users like most.

Our usual approach is to find out the best-selling and most user-friendly products on the market, about 4 to 5 of them, analyze the opponent's design, packaging, team, user group, price, etc., and then see whether to make an identical replica and surpass the opponent with our own better operation and promotion capabilities, or to make a differentiated product. These are the conventional strategies, and this is how everyone develops new products.

Product launch: There is no need to say much about this. As long as there is a channel, it must be launched. The channel will not stop unless the earth explodes. As long as it is a channel, there will always be a little bit of exposure, and even a small amount of exposure is still meat.

Product promotion: There are so many ways to play here. The conventional way is nothing more than making advertising materials, placing them in major media, or finding KOLs to promote the products. Taking live streaming as an example, which is the most popular form of selling goods now, we see those transactions worth millions, which seem to make a lot of money for the company. However, we also try the same method and find that we have lost everything.

Don't be fooled by this conventional way of playing. You don't know why others are losing money. Just like the last time a self-heating hotpot restaurant sold 10,000 servings at a loss, its purpose was to increase offline sales. As a result, one thing gained while the other lost, which is a bit of an unconventional approach.

Product optimization: There is no need to say much about this. We optimize and adjust the product based on background data and user feedback. This is how everyone does it.

Disadvantages of unconventional play

Since it is an unconventional way of playing, it must be kept hidden and not known to others. Moreover, some unconventional playing styles are on the edge of violating the rules. If you are not careful, you may not see tomorrow's sunrise. As the saying goes, the big money-making businesses are all written in the criminal law.

Examples of unconventional play

Because it happened a long time ago, it is still okay for me to reveal some of the unconventional methods I used to operate and promote products. It does not count as revealing company secrets. If you ask me about the unconventional approach of my company, I will definitely use Tai Chi to tell everyone: It doesn't exist, we are all serious people.

Here are a few examples based on the timeline of product development, product launch, product promotion and product optimization.

Product development: The information we search for on the Internet is public and can be retrieved by everyone. You must know that if a company can make information public, it means there is no need to hide this information. When we promote our products to the outside world, we often use some irrelevant statements. No one will tell the outside world about the real lifeline of the company's development.

When we were developing products, we once adopted an unconventional approach, which was to build a good relationship with the product development of a competitor. Let us make it clear that it was a friendly working relationship and no financial transactions were involved. In order to improve the success rate of product development, we made a special trip to visit the other party's company and sincerely sought advice from them.

People in the Internet industry are actually quite honest and don’t hide anything. That visit allowed us to learn a lot of inside information and avoid unnecessary pitfalls.

Later, when I was making products for other companies, my boss asked, how can I know how others play? I said, just go to the other company and ask. Others scoffed at this, saying it was too unadventurous.

Product launch: I recently switched to fast-moving consumer goods. When I was learning about competing products, what I heard most was that we had to go on Tmall, and if we did a good job on Tmall, the sales would go up. It’s really that simple. There are no small companies in the world. All companies are big companies.

After our previous product was launched, we also followed the usual model of running channels and building customer relationships. After a lot of work, we found that there are always people who are more diligent in running channels and better at building customer relationships than you. What should I do then? Find a way.

We specialize in small and medium-sized channels and long-tail traffic, and do not compete head-on with large manufacturers. As a result, the monthly natural increase in new users is similar to the new users of companies that rely on large channels. This can be considered a successful example of an unconventional approach. Moreover, once you have successfully established your business in small and medium-sized channels, you will get extra points when negotiating resources in large channels. How great is that.

Product promotion: There are too many unconventional ways to promote products. Company bosses keep saying that they can attract tens of thousands of new users with zero budget. In the world of unconventional strategies, this is very easy to achieve. The conventional approach is nothing more than releasing information flow, doing keyword ranking, and spending tens or hundreds of dollars to buy users.

I used an unconventional approach. Once, by adding people to a QQ group in bulk and sending advertisements in bulk, I filled the QQ group with 500 people in just two days, all of whom were potential users.

The requirements for advertising copy here are very high. I first drafted a version and sent it to three or four groups. Seeing that no one responded, I adjusted the copy and finally found a version that could attract about 10 to 20 people into the group as long as it was sent to a group once. The effect was great. Then be active in the group of 500 people and promote transactions. This is really an unconventional way to acquire customers at zero cost.

Another example is an APP I previously operated, which had more than 4,000 new natural users every day, which is simply unimaginable. You should know that the cost of attracting 4,000 people through paid promotion starts at at least RMB 100,000. What do we rely on for natural growth? Of course, this is an unconventional way of playing that is unknown to outsiders.

When doing keyword ranking, we ranked first when searching for a certain keyword. At that time, not many people realized the value of keyword ranking, so we got it first. It’s probably a bit late to do it now. Unconventional strategies sometimes take advantage of information asymmetry.

Let’s take another recent example of promoting products on Xiaohongshu. Do you think it costs money to promote products on Xiaohongshu? Not really. We didn’t spend a penny on promoting our product on Xiaohongshu, and our product was all over the page in minutes. We spent a week finding about 300 Xiaohongshu influencers who could exchange resources for free, let them experience the products, and then post their diaries.

As for how we were able to find so many experts who could exchange diaries for free in such a short period of time, it was an unconventional approach. As the Buddha said, it cannot be explained.

Product optimization: An unconventional approach to product optimization is to find ways to obtain data from your peers. You need to have other people's data to know whether you are doing well or not.

Our Taobao customer conversion rate is 2%. One of my questions at the time was, is this data good or bad? Because I had no reference, I later learned that the data of my peers was around 10%. I realized the seriousness of the problem and quickly made optimization adjustments.

The operation and promotion of a company's products must combine conventional and unconventional methods. Every company has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some have extensive resources, some have excellent designs, and some have sophisticated routines. These are all unconventional strategies that outsiders are not aware of. If you want to understand a company's unconventional strategies, the best way is to infiltrate their company. Combined with the well-known conventional strategies, I built up the company easily.

Author: Tiger Talks Operations

Source: Tiger Talk Operations (ID: laohujiangyy)