The core logic of promotion on channels such as Baidu and Douban

Previously we talked about the definition of third-party promotion channels and their common types. Then let me explain below, what is the common core promotion logic of these channels? What strategy should we use to develop and operate?

Basic methods of promotion and marketing

I will use a case to explain to you some basic points and basic ideas that you should pay attention to in promotion and marketing work.

3 core keywords for promotion and marketing

1. Exposure

Exposure means how many people can see the information about our products. This depends on the channels we choose, the basic traffic of the platform, and the number of times our product information is displayed on this platform.

To give a straightforward example, if we post a promotional post in a Douban group with millions of members, how much exposure can we get? First, what work you did in it; second, the position you got in it. Therefore, during the promotion process, we need to consider the rules for information display on each platform and what operations I need to perform on each platform to get more exposure.

2. Click

The second thing is clicks. After exposure, you have to attract users to click on your ads. If they just glance at them and swipe past them, no conversion will occur. Only after they click can it be said that the ad is effective.

3. Conversion

After clicking, some users will not be able to become your registered users. These three steps will form a conversion funnel model.

During the entire promotion and marketing process, we only need to focus on these three things.

Case - Baidu Promotion

These are the two advertisements I see when I search the keyword “refrigerator” on Baidu. The top one is from Haier, and the bottom one is from JD.com. Here, Haier and JD.com have both placed advertisements for this keyword on Baidu, thus giving them the opportunity to be displayed under this keyword. In other words, the number of exposures they receive is equal to the number of people who search for the keyword "refrigerator" every day.

Once we are attracted by this information from JD.com and click on the link to JD.com, we will be redirected to the result page for the keyword "refrigerator" of JD.com. When the user selects a model on this result page and clicks in, and then sees the display of that refrigerator and pays, the promotion is considered to have successfully converted a user and earned revenue.

Promotion and marketing are the top priority

After reading this case, we have to bring up a very important thing, that is, the "conversion process". For promotion and marketing, the process from the step when users see your exposure to the final conversion must be clearly organized. Only after it is clearly organized can you determine which links in this process are crucial. I can influence my users, including getting clearer clues when I evaluate the promotion effect.

Case: JD.com’s conversion process of promoting “refrigerator” through Baidu

Let's sort out the entire process of this case:

1. Users search for relevant keywords

2. User clicks on a display ad

3. The search results for the keyword "refrigerator" on JD.com are also

4. Click on a certain brand of refrigerator display page

5. Choose a certain model of refrigerator

6. Enter the details page of the refrigerator model

7. Enter the order process

8. Register/Login

9. Complete payment

You can see that from the time a user searches for a keyword to the time you are able to complete the conversion, there are at least 9 steps in total. Once we sort out the process, you will find that the entire process is like a chain, and it is very clear.

Three common optimization ideas

Now that we have a clear chain, if your promotion effect is not good, we need to optimize it. How can it be optimized? At this time, the common ones are nothing more than these three types of optimization ideas:

1. Optimize traffic

The reason for poor promotion results may be that the initial opening traffic is not large enough. For example, if there are only a hundred people, and only a few of them place orders in the end, how can the effect be good? Taking Baidu advertising as an example, what we need to optimize is "user search related keywords". We need to think and work hard on both keywords and rankings. We want to occupy more keyword search results and get an ideal ranking among these search results. Of course, this also depends on the cost and ROI. We need to find a balance between cost and entry traffic.

2. Optimize or shorten the process

What does this mean? We already know that the entire promotion process is like a chain. The longer the steps in the chain are, the higher the possibility of users losing in the middle. Because every time you ask users to make a judgment and perform an operation at a step, it is a cost for the user, so logically, every time you add a link, you add a step of loss to yourself.

So when our promotion effect is not good, another direction we think about is that the chain may be too long, and whether we can shorten the chain a bit.

Okay, let’s look at the case of JD.com. If the promotion effect is not good, then which of the above steps is redundant? Do users have to choose a brand after clicking on JD.com’s search results page? Is this a thinking process for users? If he doesn't have any particular favorite brand, he has to think about which brand is better, which increases his risk of leaving. So is it possible that a potential idea is to remove the fourth link?

Logically speaking, the conversion process should not exceed 5 steps from the time the user sees the product to the time the user converts, unless absolutely necessary. This is basically a critical point. If it exceeds 5 steps, the effect may be very poor.

3. Improve the conversion rate of specific links

We have actually mentioned the concept of conversion rate before, so what does it mean to improve the conversion rate of a specific link? Let’s go back to JD.com’s process. In fact, you will find that there is a specific conversion rate between each step and the next step.

Assuming that your data monitoring is detailed enough and you can calculate the conversion rate from each step to the next step, you can now probably identify which link has the lower conversion rate, and we need to prioritize solving the problem in this link.

Some reference figures and standards about conversion rate

In fact, when it comes to conversion rate, we need some relative standards to evaluate whether it is good or bad, so I will give some preliminary reference numbers and standards here. It should be noted that the conversion rate will vary depending on your product and the industry you are in, so the numbers I give are for reference only.

1. The normal conversion rate of a detail page is usually between 1% and 4%.

2. The click-through rate of a single WeChat graphic promotion is usually around 8%-10%.

3. For APP, the download conversion rate of general traffic platforms is around 1%-2.5%.

4. The download conversion rate of learning apps is around 1%-1.5%

Author: Xu Xiongxiong

Source: Xu Xiongxiong