Marketing promotion: How to refine product selling points?

Distilling selling points is the key to selling a product well.

If the selling point is not found correctly, the sales volume is likely to drop to zero, and a tens of millions-level hit will become an ordinary product.

Selling point refinement is also the core of product communication.

It builds on the product strategy - because if you want to find the right selling point, you must first figure out the market segment selection, target population selection, competitor definition, and sort out the value system of the entire product.

Next is product promotion - before the selling point is created, I don’t know how to make and what content to output various promotional materials for the product, such as product posters, detail pages, product introduction videos, tweets, and grass-planting notes.

But in today's era of homogeneity, it is becoming increasingly challenging to extract good selling points for products.

I believe that friends who are engaged in product operations have the same feelings, or have experienced such confusion and difficult moments - the products they are responsible for feel that there is nothing unique about them, and that other companies also have the same functions and selling points as their own, with only slight differences in the trademark logo, product appearance and packaging design; they even feel that compared with competitors, their own products are a bit backward and insufficient, and lack competitiveness.

So before I explain the methodology for combing the product value system and extracting the core selling points in today’s article, I would like to first tell you a major premise.

The premise for extracting product selling points: once you tell us a selling point, it is yours.

Many people have a misconception that my selling points are also shared by other companies, so there is nothing to talk about; and selling points that everyone has cannot be talked about.

wrong!

From a competitive perspective, everyone has it, but others haven't mentioned it, so if you mention it, it's yours. Once you talk about your competitors, you won’t be able to talk about them anymore. If they talk about them again, it would be like they are imitating you and helping you promote yourself.

The first product theory in advertising history, the USP theory (Unique Selling Proposition), has three main points:

Theoretical points

USP Unique Selling Proposition

1. Every advertisement must provide consumers with a proposition to let them know what benefits they can get by purchasing the product in the advertisement;

2. The proposition must be unique, something that competitors do not have or cannot do, or something that competitors have but have not said;

3. The proposition must be sales-oriented and focus strongly on one point to impress and move consumers.

These three points are so classic that I suggest you collect and memorize them. They can be said to be the core guiding ideology for product promotion. The USP theory summarizes the truth of all product communication in just three sentences. You cannot remove any one of them, nor can you add an extra one. If you add one point, it will be too long; if you subtract one point, it will be too short.

Rosser Reeves

A famous master in the advertising industry, one of the five advertisers who won the honor of "New York Advertising Hall of Fame", he was the chairman of Bates Advertising Company and proposed the famous USP theory

The first one has two meanings.

The first half of the sentence clarifies the product’s subjectivity and communication purpose. The goal of advertising is to persuade consumers to accept your (brand) point of view and recognize your (product) selling points, thereby changing their attitudes and influencing their behavior. Advertising that doesn't convey a message is a waste of money.

The second half of the sentence explains the direction of selling point extraction, which is consumer orientation. The extraction of product selling points should start from consumer interests, user needs and feelings, rather than from product functions. This is exactly the core point I will talk about in the second part of this article. It doesn’t matter who you are, what matters is what you can bring to consumers.

The second is to emphasize uniqueness. Either the competitor doesn't have it, or the competitor hasn't said it. You said it, so this selling point is yours. In fact, you can be more relaxed and it doesn’t matter what your competitor says, as long as you can drown out his voice.

The third is to emphasize singularity. Many categories of products have a large number of selling points, such as function, technology, raw materials, craftsmanship, origin, quality, cost-effectiveness, etc. Companies always want to have as much as possible and want to tell consumers all the selling points. But the more you talk, the less effective it becomes, and the less consumers will understand and remember. Therefore, the product sales proposition must focus on the most core point. Simplicity is the key to sales power.

After reviewing the theoretical part, let me give you an example.

In the past two years, at the end of the year I would recommend what I think is the best marketing case of the year. At the end of last year, I recommended OATLY oat milk (I specifically talked about it when I live-streamed the 2021 marketing inventory on Video Account during the Spring Festival, but I didn’t write about it on the official account), and at the end of 2021, I recommended Cadillac.

Cadillac launched a campaign in October 2019, "Without rear-wheel drive, it's not luxury", and in June 2020, it launched a second wave of "The second time you buy a car, you will know: rear-wheel drive is the standard configuration for luxury."

Cadillac has been promoting "rear-wheel drive", and this wave of "rear-wheel drive" advertisements was actually ridiculed and caused a lot of controversy when it was first launched.

One reason is that rear-wheel drive cars are not unique to Cadillac; they are too common in the automotive industry. In the luxury car circle, BMW and Mercedes-Benz are both rear-wheel drive, so why is Cadillac still advertising for its competitors?

Second, rear-wheel drive and front-wheel drive each have their own advantages and disadvantages, which does not mean that rear-wheel drive is necessarily better than front-wheel drive.

The third is the relationship between rear-wheel drive and luxury. In fact, Wuling Hongguang is also a rear-wheel drive car, so is Wuling a luxury brand? Of course, Cadillac’s word game only says “without rear-wheel drive, it is not luxurious”, but does not say that having rear-wheel drive means it is luxurious. Just like what Wanglaoji said, "If you are afraid of getting a sore throat, drink Wanglaoji", there is no guarantee that you will get rid of the sore throat after drinking it.

So why is Cadillac still obsessed with promoting "rear-wheel drive"?

This is determined by Cadillac's marketing strategy. It doesn’t matter if Wuling Hongguang is rear-wheel drive, it doesn’t matter if BMW and Mercedes-Benz are rear-wheel drive, as long as the Audi A4L/A6L, Lexus ES, Volvo S60/S90, Lincoln Continental/Lincoln MKZ are front-wheel drive.

Cadillac wants to put itself in the same camp as BMW and Mercedes-Benz, and then attack other competing models, snatching Audi from above and suppressing Volvo, Lexus and Lin from below.

Moreover, the advantages of rear-wheel drive are handling and power, which are more in line with the car experience that today's young people want. This is also in line with Cadillac's goal of making its brand younger and seizing the young market.

From this case, we can see that it doesn’t matter if the selling point you come up with is common in the industry, and it doesn’t matter if other companies have it, as long as it meets the needs of your users and is in line with your market strategy.

Moreover, from a creative point of view, the advertisement centered around the single appeal of "rear-wheel drive" is not only vivid and interesting, but also successfully creates a social issue, sparking the attention and discussion of consumers.

On the other hand, from the consumer's perspective.

Although some selling points are known to everyone and are common knowledge in the industry, consumers do not know them. Consumers are not industry experts and do not understand this industry. As long as the selling points you pick can help consumers make decisions and provide them with reasons to choose you, you can talk about them.

When we stay in an industry for a long time and interact with colleagues, peers, and industry insiders every day, it is easy for us to fall into an internal perspective and think that consumers have the same amount of information as we do, and that they will make rational decisions like professionals, based on a full understanding of the products and the pros and cons of each company.

In fact, consumers may know nothing about your products. They may buy from you just because they happened to see your products on Taobao, or even just because your brand name and product appearance look more pleasing to the eye.

When doing marketing, we need to “think like an amateur and execute like an expert” and look at our own products from the perspective of novice users.

In fact, this is also the reason why Party A companies hire advertising companies. Advertising companies do not understand their own products and the industry they are in better than companies do, but the natural advantage of advertising companies is that they can look at issues from the consumer's perspective.

Advertising guru Claude Hopkins also encountered such a moment.

He was once invited to advertise Schlitz beer, which was ranked fifth in the world at that time. Before starting, Hopkins did some research and found that all the beer companies on the market were selling "pure" beer with the same selling point. The word "pure" on the beer bottles was printed in extra large size.

In fact, the same is true for the Chinese beer industry. In the early years, the products sold by these domestic breweries were all pure draft and fresh beer, and the advertising slogans were a combination of the words "fresh", "refreshing", "clear" and "pure". "Tsingtao Pure Draft, Fresh Life", Yanjing Beer "Refreshing and Touching the World", Harbin Beer "Indulge in Every Moment, Refresh to the End", Liquan Beer "I am so happy that the whole world is so happy", and the most awesome Nanchang Beer "Without the first shot, there would be no happiness in the whole world".

In order to write good beer copy for Schlitz, Hopkins first went to beer school for training to learn the scientific principles of brewing beer, but he found that he could not help at all.

So he visited the brewery again and saw some interesting processes he had never known before - a transparent glass room filled with filtered air; beer pipes that had to be cleaned twice a day to prevent pollution; each beer bottle that had to be cleaned four times by machine; pure water from 4,000 feet underground; yeast that had been refined through 1,200 experiments...

After watching all this, Hopkins was shocked. He had never thought that the brewery would be like this, and he suggested that the brewery show this in its advertisements. Next, I will quote Hopkins’ original text in the book “Scientific Advertising” to illustrate this conversation between Party A and Party B:

I went back to the office and was shocked. I suggested, "Why don't you tell people this stuff? Why don't you just compete with everyone else to see who can shout 'pure beer' the loudest? Why don't you tell people why your beer is pure?"

“Why should we tell everyone?” they answered, “We use the same procedures to make beer as everyone else. Only these procedures can ensure the quality of beer.”

"But," I told them, "no one has told anyone this. Anyone who visits your winery will be amazed. If you print this out, everyone will be interested."

So I took pictures of the glass room and every piece of equipment involved in purifying beer and printed them out. I am simply telling you a fact that all brewers know, but which no one has ever known: I give meaning to the purity of beer.

Schlitz beer rose from fifth place to a brand on par with the first place in just a few months. This ad is still one of my biggest achievements, but it also inspired me to do other campaigns.

What I keep telling you are simple facts that are familiar to all manufacturers in the industry - facts that they forget to tell you because they are so familiar with them. But these facts can make the product leading in the industry and at the same time have unique advantages.

What may seem commonplace to business people may seem refreshing to consumers. What business people think is old news may be the key to motivating consumers to place orders. Therefore, business people must learn to change their mindset and look at issues from the perspective of consumers. It doesn’t matter if everyone has a selling point. As long as it can impress consumers, you can talk about it boldly.

Another common misunderstanding that business people fall into is called "proprietary paranoia."

When refining product selling points and communication appeals, you must find a point that is unique to you. The selling point copy and advertising slogan must be something that can only be used on you and cannot be used by others.

When I was making proposals to clients in an advertising company, I often heard them say, "The slogan you came up with can also be used by other companies."

At this time, I will patiently explain to them that it doesn’t matter if other people can use it, because once you tell them it’s yours. If others say the same thing, they are plagiarizing you and are just advertising for you.

Nike’s “just do it” can also be used on Adidas, Li Ning and Anta. But once Nike used it, it became a part of Nike and became Nike's most important brand asset.

(In fact, my inner OS is: it’s OK to use the slogan on other companies, because it’s OK to erase the logo of your product and replace it with someone else’s brand)

After talking about this premise, we will now formally introduce the process and methods of extracting product selling points.

The first thing we need to do is to organize product information, understand all aspects of the product clearly, classify them into categories, and form a complete product value system.

In my article interpreting the core tool of the advertising industry, the brief ("Doing a good job in brief is the basic ability of all advertisers. Yes, not just AE"), I mentioned three strategic items and three creative items. The three creative elements include: brand proposition, benefit, and support.

The three creative items mean that when you are working on product ideas and communication plans, you must first know what the core benefits of the product are for consumers, or what the reasons are for consumers to buy from you.

Then find the product elements that support this consumer benefit/product function, that is, the supporting points. This is the key to why consumers will believe in you.

Finally, the core appeals and brand propositions are extracted, and advertising and communication plans are created.

On this basis, let's expand it a little bit and look at the complete items included in a product value system. Let us illustrate this with an actual case.

A few years ago, a classmate who added me as a friend through a public account asked me on WeChat how to refine the selling points of a product he was responsible for. I told him that it seems that many people have doubts about this issue, so I will do a live video broadcast to explain it to you, so this article appeared on our Kongshou official account.

The product he is responsible for is a hair care essential oil spray. We will use this product to operate. First, let us sort out the value system of this product.

1. Find its main product features. Product function refers to the main utility and performance of the product.

(Hair care essential oil spray product) Description: Improve rough and dry hair and make hair smooth.

2. Convert product functional points into consumer benefit points. The interest point refers to what benefits the product brings to consumers and what problems it helps consumers solve.

Tips: Just one spray will give you smooth hair instantly without having to worry about rushing out to work or a date.

3. Find the supporting points of product functions. Support points refer to product elements that support and realize functions, such as ingredients, technologies, processes, raw materials, core components, etc. The support point is also the reason why consumers trust you and achieve the product functions.

Illustration: The above-mentioned hair care essential oil spray can make hair smooth and smooth, and has two major supporting points.

First, the ingredients: multiple essential oil ingredients are added to the product to repair hair, and small molecules are better absorbed.

The second is technology: the product has core hair care technology that can form a protective layer on the surface of hair. Spraying it before blow-drying your hair can resist high temperature damage and slow down the loss of dyed hair color.

4. Find the sweet spot of the product when in use.

Sweet spot is a professional term in golf. It means that the head of each club has an optimal landing point for hitting the ball, which can produce the most "sweet" and beautiful feeling when colliding with the ball. So we use the sweet spot to refer to the wonderful experience that a product brings to consumers.

The sweet spot refers to the good feelings and sensory pleasure that the product can bring to consumers during use, and the highlights of the product experience design.

Illustration: Spray design, no need to apply, free your hands; product texture, delicate rain mist texture, non-sticky; product fragrance, magnolia fragrance, elegant and pleasant.

5. Look for product endorsements.

Endorsement refers to the guarantee and assurance of product function and quality, which makes consumers believe in your product.

The difference between it and support points is that support points are physical support for product functions, while endorsement is a credit guarantee for product, brand, and corporate strength. Generally speaking, endorsements include the following:

Category status:

The brand's position in the industry/category. For example, I say that this hair oil spray is an internationally renowned brand, or a major domestic brand, and is an industry-leading brand.

Sales:

Products with leading sales and products that everyone is buying are of course trustworthy. For example, I said that this product is the top 3 in sales in the hair care essential oil category on Tmall.

Origin/History:

This type of product produced in a certain place is of high quality, well-known far and wide, and has a long history. Such as Swiss watches, French red wine, Italian clothing, German cars, Guizhou sauce-flavored liquor, Heilongjiang Wuchang rice, Xinjiang Aksu apples, and 300-year-old brands.

Authoritative media and institutions:

For example, it is a brand listed on CCTV, selected into the "National Brand Plan"; or it is a sponsor of the Winter Olympics, or a designated hair care product for the national team)

Celebrity endorsements or other authority figures:

When a popular movie star serves as the spokesperson, it can be seen as a big brand at first glance; or if the product packaging is designed by the famous Japanese designer Kenya Hara himself.

Awards and Honors:

For example, I said that this product won the Rayli Beauty Award.

By organizing this product value system, we can clearly understand the organization and priority of a large amount of product information, and understand what to prioritize and what the core selling point is when conveying product information to consumers.

Some subsequent promotion work will be easily solved, and we will know how to carry out the work, such as how to design the product details page.

The design sequence of the product details page is as follows:

Product features – benefit points – support points – sweet spots – product endorsement.

First explain the product functions, and then use typical consumption scenarios to illustrate the consumer benefits. In what scenarios, what problems can the product solve, and what benefits and advantages can it provide to users. (Seeing this, consumers begin to consider whether they should buy it)

Then provide support points to further tell consumers how we did it and how great my product is. (Seeing this, consumers further increase their willingness to buy)

The second is to show the sweet spot of product experience, telling consumers that our products are not only powerful, but also very comfortable, pleasant and convenient to use, so that consumers can be further attracted (stimulating consumers' willingness to buy into consumption desire, making consumers feel that the product is worth buying)

Finally, add product endorsement to tell consumers that our products are reliable and our brand is strong, so you can buy with confidence (dispel the customer's last doubts and enhance their confidence in buying)

Seeing this, you may have realized that we have missed a connection point, right? For those who didn’t notice it, it means you didn’t read the article carefully enough.

The connection point is outside the product. It represents the product’s psychological satisfaction with consumers and its connection with consumers’ emotions and spiritual world.

I once said: What is a brand? A brand is about helping consumers become who they want to be. What consumers consume is not just the product itself, but also the meaning behind the product.

For example, the psychological connection point of the above-mentioned hair care essential oil spray can be said to be to maintain the most beautiful hair at all times and live out the goddess style in your mind.

The benefit point is solving the problem, the sweet spot is the sensory experience, and the connection point is psychological satisfaction.

A brand's appeal is usually extracted from these three, or in other words, the brand's appeal includes three aspects: benefits, experience, and psychological satisfaction.

Different products have different brand attributes and target groups, so different points can be chosen when making appeals. Generally speaking:

Popular products: benefit point > sweet spot > connection point

High-value products: connection point > sweet spot > benefit point

Daily necessities: sweet spot > benefit point > connection point

For general products, when choosing the direction of communication to consumers, the first thing to talk about is the benefits, what the product does, and how to solve consumers' life problems. The second is the pleasure and good feelings of the product experience design, and finally the emphasis is on psychological satisfaction.

However, for high-value products and high-end brands, the psychological satisfaction that the brand brings to consumers is very important. Therefore, you can consider giving priority to the emotional connection point, emphasizing the brand's resonance with consumers' self-expression and spiritual world; secondly, high-end products pay more attention to product experience and meet consumers' aesthetic preferences; compared with these two, product functions and consumers are only the basics of the brand.

As for daily necessities, since they only meet the basic life needs of consumers, in terms of product functions and benefits, everyone is similar, so product experience is the priority. For example, for facial tissue, each brand focuses on the scent and touch of the paper as selling points, but the functional benefits of tissues are all the same, and as a basic item in life, tissues do not provide much psychological satisfaction.

This is from the perspective of brand communication, but when it comes to the refinement of product selling points, it is another consideration.

1)

When promoting products, the first thing to do is to talk about consumer benefits, because if you want consumers to buy from you, you have to give them a reason to buy from you.

Therefore, in the brief of an advertising company, some companies may write this item as “Benefit of consumers”, while others may write it as “RTB reason to buy”. RTB is the abbreviation of Reason to buy, which means what is the reason why consumers buy from you. The two can basically be equated.

2)

If your product is compared with your competitors, the consumer benefits you provide are similar. After all, similar products all provide similar functions.

Then, you should see whether the supporting points of your product are stronger, and what is special about the core technology, process, raw materials, and production process of your product that makes consumers more willing to trust you.

3)

If there is no significant difference in the product features and the supporting points behind the product.

Then you need to see what is unique about your product in terms of product experience. Because the products may be consistent in function, but each company still has differences in product details and product appearance design, so the experience brought to consumers may also vary greatly.

4)

If the functions/benefits are similar and the product experience is similar, the products are too homogenized and the only difference between the companies is the logo.

Then you can crush your opponent with your corporate strength and brand power, and talk about product endorsement, such as category status, sales leadership, big-name endorsements, and authoritative certification. Tell consumers: "For the same product, you can't go wrong by buying a bigger brand."

5)

If the products are the same, the brand power and corporate strength are not as good as those of competitors.

Then you can only focus on the psychological connection points, talk about consumers' emotions, personality, attitude, and image, and make consumers like you more.

This is the correct order to refine your product’s selling points. The product is the starting point, consumer satisfaction is the end point, and competitors are your reference system on the long-term road. Specifically, you need to do the following things well:

1. Familiar with products and industries

2. Understand consumers’ decision-making patterns and what information most impresses them when they make decisions

3. Understand your competitors, compare them and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of your own products.

4. If there are advantages, talk about them. If there are no clear advantages and disadvantages, find the points that can most impress consumers.

It can be seen that in product promotion and selling point refinement, the core is consumer interest. If product promotion is elevated to the brand level or the creative content level, the key becomes the brand appeal. Only by being able to extract good appeal points and good creative concepts can you create good content.

Here we summarize the methods of refining interest points and brand propositions.

In most cases, we are accustomed to equating product functions and consumer benefits and often use them interchangeably. This is because the two are closely linked. However, there are still some differences between the two, mainly due to the different perspectives on the issue - talking about product functions starts from the product itself, while talking about consumer benefits starts from the user group.

When refining a product's selling points, you must consider the interests and feelings of consumers, and not just talk about functions. Only focusing on the product and not caring about what consumers want or want to hear is just talking to yourself and entertaining yourself.

The key to transforming product functions into consumer benefits is to start from the user scenario. The "field" is the hub connecting people and goods. Expressed in a formula, it is called -

Product function + user scenario = benefit point

The summer before last, I saw an advertisement for Panasonic air conditioners in the community elevator. The copy roughly said that children can do their homework with peace of mind because the air conditioner is not noisy.

From this advertisement we can infer that the main product feature of this Panasonic air conditioner is its quietness. What benefits does silence provide to consumers? At this point, we need to put the mute function into the consumer's life scenarios to understand it. For example, if I want to target white-collar workers, then I would say that they can sleep peacefully at night and be more efficient during the day; if I want to target families, then I would say that it will not interfere with children doing their homework.

So why is Panasonic air conditioner so quiet? It may be because it uses Panasonic's original compressor, which can reduce the sleeping volume to 21dB. This is the difference between product functions and support points.

Because the advertisement was released during the summer vacation and in the community, Panasonic finally chose the scene of children doing homework to promote it, with not disturbing the children as the core consumer benefit point.

If I were to magnify this benefit point further, I would make quietness the core value of the Panasonic air-conditioning brand. In other words, Panasonic hopes not only to run an outdoor elevator advertisement to promote its products during the summer vacation, but also to launch a massive campaign to make more consumers aware of the "quietness" of Panasonic air conditioners and enhance the reputation and image of the Panasonic brand. What should be done?

This is my creative idea, let me introduce it to you.

Starting from the interest point that silent air conditioners "silently support your work and life", I integrated it into more emotions and stories in family life, extracted the emotional option of "silent support", and then created a big Campaign - "Thank those who love you silently."

In order to impress consumers, I first shot a long version of the video, the storyline is as follows:

Thank you to your mother who loves you silently. In the morning, while you are still sleeping, your mother will quietly get up to prepare breakfast for you, and close the kitchen door tightly to prevent any sound or light from leaking out, for fear of waking you up.

Thanks to your father who loves you silently. In order not to disturb you doing your homework in the room, dad watches TV in the living room without turning on the volume, and watches Xiao Yueyue's crosstalk show as a pantomime. He walked around the living room on tiptoe.

Then I will sublimate it a little bit, thanking more strangers who silently protect you, the sanitation workers who get up at four in the morning to clean your way to work, the courier who puts the package at your door at seven in the morning and then sends a text message to remind you, and the community security guard who is still patrolling after you fall asleep in the middle of the night...

"Silent operation, no interference" is the consumer benefit point, and "Thank those who love you silently" is the brand proposition, or it can be said that this is the appeal point, creative concept, and brand concept. Anyway, they are all the same. So we got another formula -

Benefits + Ideology = Brand Proposition

I also said something about this: brand proposition and declaration are the ideologization of product selling points and benefits, which incorporate the brand's values ​​​​and humanistic care.

Another example is the classic JEEP Cherokee slogan “Children who have seen the world are stronger.” Off-road is the product's functional point, taking children to play and see the world is the consumer benefit point, and "Children who have seen the world are stronger" is the brand's proposition. It incorporates a family education concept and puts forward a view of life and values.

Many years ago, I also served in the launch promotion of an SUV model. At that time, the product definition we proposed for this car was "parent-child SUV" and the product appeal (advertising slogan) was "parent-child and nature".

The advertising copy on the main plane of the series includes "Adventures during the day are the best storybooks at night", "Swings are not set up in yards, and forests do not grow in communities", "Play with children in nature and turn yourself into a child", etc.

As I just said, for SUVs, off-road performance is a basic product attribute and function. However, we found that the real use scenario for consumers who buy off-road vehicles is not to go to Tibet or to go off-road on the western prairie, but to take children on a weekend outing.

Therefore, based on this user scenario, we proposed the "parent-child SUV", combined with the parent-child relationship and children's education concepts, and put forward the brand proposition that parents should let their children get closer to nature.

Therefore, for the same car with the same functions, the product strategies, selling point copywriting, and creative copywriting produced for different target groups and usage scenarios will be very different.

Off-road performance + driving to the western scene = broaden your horizons and mind, and enjoy the self-driving experience.

Broaden your horizons and mind, enjoy the self-driving experience + the life view of self-expression = transcend freedom, live out the edges, live thoroughly, life is not complete without stories, define yourself with experience

Off-road performance + weekend outing = opportunities for children to explore, discover, and get close to nature

Give children the opportunity to explore, discover, and grow up close to nature + family education concepts, children's growth values ​​= children who have seen the world are stronger, and parents and children are close to nature

This is called——

Product function + user scenario = benefit point

Benefits + Ideology = Brand Proposition

In this final part, I would like to add one very, very important point: the selling point of a product is to dig downwards, not to refine upwards. This is the biggest pitfall that too many companies and too many advertising agencies have fallen into when refining their product selling points.

In actual work, the biggest difficulty in extracting product selling points is not that we cannot extract strong selling points, but that there are too many selling points given by company leaders and client parties, and we don’t know how to complete them in a graphic or a promotion plan.

The boss always wants to mention every selling point in the communication: leading technology, first-class performance, outstanding appearance, reliable quality, and super cost-effectiveness... He wants all of them, without missing a single one.

What should I do if I encounter this situation? Advertisers have invented a clever way to deal with this problem - summarizing the numerous selling points and packaging them into a more abstract and grand concept to encompass all the selling points.

For example, the earliest slogan of Six Walnuts was “Six Walnuts, good at six points”. This sentence summarizes six selling points, but consumers don’t know what these six points are, and they have no interest in understanding them.

Another example is real estate. We all know that a property has many selling points, including location, location, transportation, supporting facilities, school district, apartment type, environment, garden, quality, decoration, property management, etc.

With so many selling points to talk about, the main appeal of the product can be refined into "good, good, good". For example, for properties targeting the general public's basic needs, sell "happy life"; for properties for middle-class improvement, sell "aesthetics of life" and "good life"; for luxury properties targeting high-net-worth individuals, sell "realm of thought" and "family inheritance".

In a happy life, good housing type, good supporting facilities, good environment, convenient transportation, school places and good location have all become an organic part of a "happy life". This is called upward refining.

The appeals and propositions refined upwards seem to establish an image for the product, or to create a group of user images that are more idealized than the consumers' real selves, giving the brand a tone and personality. But it’s terribly empty and disconnected from the product; and it doesn’t really impress consumers, who aren’t interested in abstract concepts.

The communication and content produced based on this kind of appeal and concept have no sales power, so I say it is a pitfall and we must be vigilant.

The real selling point of a product should actually be explored in depth, digging deep into product details and talking about specific functions and benefits.

The classic Rolls-Royce advertisement of that year, "At 60 miles per hour, the loudest noise inside this Rolls-Royce comes from the electronic clock," is still recited today.

Another example is Xiaomi. Xiaomi Mi 2 was released in 2012. During the launch of this product, it was the Xiaomi Mi Box brothers that attracted public attention.

Xiaomi found two strong employees, who hugged each other and stepped on the small outer packaging box of the Xiaomi mobile phone, but the packaging box remained intact. You see, the choice of this point is very small and very deep. Who would have thought that the information that creates a huge viral effect is not mobile phone technology or screen size, but a small packaging box? Moreover, its role in the Xiaomi mobile phone brand is self-evident. Even the mobile phone packaging box is so solid and thoughtful, how can Xiaomi mobile phones be bad?

In May of the same year, the Xiaomi Youth Edition mobile phone was launched. When this new phone was launched, Xiaomi created a campaign called "150 grams of youth". "150 grams" refers to the weight of the phone, and "youth" refers to the target group of this phone, which is college students. The combination of these two has sparked a wave of publicity. The exploration of the selling point of 150 grams is also specific and detailed, with vivid details.

It can be seen that Xiaomi is very good at touching consumers and triggering dissemination from the details of its products. This is the true spirit of the Internet.

Let’s go back to the real estate we just talked about.

There is a classic work in the history of real estate advertising, Beijing Galaxy Bay. Galaxy Bay is a famous luxury residential complex and high-end real estate brand. As for a luxury house, what best reflects its luxury is not the 200-300 square meter floor area, nor the magnificent exterior facade, but the details. A luxury house requires careful attention to even the smallest detail.

What is luxury? It is spending a lot of money on something that is unimportant.

Galaxy Bay has a set of classic print advertisements that focus on these small details.

For example, there is an article called "Five special trains quietly enter Beijing...", which talks about how the landscape stones used in Galaxy Bay are all yellow wax stones transported from thousands of miles away; "Overnight, all the manhole covers in Beijing disappeared", the road surface is paved with a special process that reduces noise by 80% compared to conventional roads, and there are no manhole covers on the road;

"She is 400 years old, in her prime", a rare South American tree species, the dense palm, shipped from Chile; "Border issues are solved entirely by pebbles", more than 8,000 tons of pebbles create a three-dimensional garden;

"Two years ago, someone buried a huge sum of money underground", an international-level underground municipal pipeline sewage discharge system was implanted into the ground two years before construction, and a water-scattering and soil-staining system was implanted into the ground two years before garden planting.

After reading these details, you will sincerely believe that this property is really luxurious and high-end.

In addition to talking about details, Xinghewan also gave itself a high-end brand proposition - "Xinghewan has created an era of full-finished products for Chinese residence", and another sentence added: "End the semi-finished product status of Chinese residence".

Let’s analyze this sentence. It mentions a concept of "full finished product". This word is much more advanced than simply saying "We are not selling unfinished houses, but are well-decorated."

At the same time, it is also used to wrap it up with the big words "creation", "time" and "Chinese residence". It is very grand and imposing, and it has suddenly brought the image level of the real estate company Xinghewan to an extremely high level. “

However, if there is no previous set of print drafts and it is meaningless to communicate with consumers by relying solely on this "creating the era of full-finished products". What impresses more is not the consumers, the management of Party A’s customers, and the management of the customer.

This is the biggest difficulty for advertising agencies today:

The advertising works made must be sold both manuscripts and goods. You must first sell the manuscript successfully with the client before the advertisement can be released. Advertising on the street must also impress consumers and be able to sell goods. Only in this way can the advertising company successfully obtain payment and renewal from Party A.

However, the dilemma is that works that can successfully sell manuscripts often do not sell goods, and works that really sell goods cannot be seen by methods and cannot pass the manuscript. It is difficult to impress Party A’s customers and consumers at the same time, because they are not the same species at all.

How to solve this dilemma? Let me tell you four words:

See the big one from the small.

In 2018, my official account wrote an article titled "This may be the ultimate secret to writing good copywriting", and I mentioned these four words in the article. At that time, my official account only had 10,000 fans, but the number of readings of this article exceeded 20,000. There is really no need for more, these four words are enough to summarize all effective copywriting skills.

Zeng Guofan has a classic saying: Focus on the big things and start on the small things.

This is a convenient way to refine product selling points.

Smaller ones, the product sells small details. Impress consumers with small details, make consumers interested and trust.

The biggest one is brand philosophy and great sentiment. Use great feelings to coax the Party A’s leaders and make customers feel high-end, elegant and high-end.

The technical content of this lies in that you have to let consumers feel the big feelings of your brand through this small detail. Small and big should be connected, and you should see the big things from the small, otherwise this big feelings will be a fool and a castle in the air.

When doing strategies and creativity, don’t take the middle part. You don’t rely on both ends and don’t please both sides.

I also followed a property before, and it happened a few years ago. At that time, there was a development trend in real estate, which was to move towards the era of intelligence. Real estate decoration has begun to be equipped with smart locks, air fresh air system, and whole-house water purification, including smart sockets and smart appliances, smoke sensors, gas, water-soaked sensors, etc. Smart life has begun to become the main selling point of major real estate projects.

At the same time, a new consumption concept began to emerge, called consumption upgrading. So when I was working on the promotion plan for this property, I mentioned a direction. The lifestyle of middle-class people has changed. I have focused on quality in the past to the pursuit of refined life.

Because, my summary of the characteristics of consumption upgrading is four points-

Spiritual pursuit: from function to spirit

Aesthetic preferences: from quality to exquisiteness

Interest consumption: from need to want

Self-expression: From the crowd to the outstanding

So in terms of the brand proposition of this property, we have proposed a concept: every inch of exquisiteness. Why use Wanheyi comparison? Because there is a ten thousand words in the name of this property.

In terms of product proposition, we are talking about small details. 1 nanometer of impurities (purified water), 1 micrometer of dust (fresh air), and 1 mm of error (building) are all rejected. This project was created completely according to my own philosophy and methodology, "seeing the big from the small" perspective.

The number of words in this article today has reached 12,000 words. I have written too many large drafts recently.

After reading this article, you will have a holistic understanding of product operation and promotion, as well as specific ideas and methods.

Let's summarize-

1. Prerequisites for refining product selling points

If you talk about a selling point, it is yours.

Don’t fall into “internal perspective” and don’t fall into “exclusive paranoia.”

2. Product value system

Product: Product functions, support points, product endorsement

User: Point of interest, sweetness, connection point

Brand: Brand Proposition

3. Extraction formula for consumer interests and brand propositions

Product functions + user scenarios = points of interest

Points of interest + ideology = brand proposition

4. Advanced methods from product to brand

See the big one from the small

Small details of product selling points + big feelings of brand philosophy.

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