How to use online traffic to sell goods?

1. The key to the current counter-trend growth: user operation and monetization

We can see in this formula proposed by Einstein that goods multiplied by customers squared equals revenue. In other words, the more customers we have, the more important they are, and the more possible value these customers can bring to us, the greater our profits will be. But many companies ignore this point. Fortunately, now more and more companies are beginning to pay attention to user operations.

During the epidemic, many companies had nothing else to do but post some messages on WeChat Moments and official accounts, and mobilize all employees to disseminate some information, such as editing WeChat Moments texts and pictures for publication. However, this is also useful. If the company's old customers can be effectively accumulated on WeChat, more new customers can be quickly brought to the company through methods such as reaching, influencing, sharing or distributing old customers. Many companies have not done this kind of accumulation before, so it will be difficult to get started when their stores are still unable to operate or resume work.

Why mention WeChat? Because WeChat has 1.1 billion daily active users. Where there is traffic, there are business opportunities. Now everyone who knows WeChat has their own WeChat, especially adults, who are almost inseparable from WeChat. The opening rate of public accounts is very low now. Everyone is checking their Moments and almost no one uses text messages. Therefore, it is very necessary for us to operate our WeChat customers in depth. Everyone must remember that customers are not cold Excel spreadsheets or phone numbers, but real living people who exist in our WeChat.

Let’s use a picture to quickly explain the concept of private domain traffic. On the left is public domain traffic, which refers to large traffic platforms such as JD.com, Tmall, and Taobao. In the future, the cost of promoting and acquiring traffic on these public traffic platforms will become higher and higher. Although promoting private traffic also costs money, the method may be different from that of promoting public traffic.

In the promotion of public domain traffic, we usually pay advertising fees, while in the promotion of private domain traffic, we are more likely to give benefits to old customers and let old customers bring us new customers.

So there is an essential difference between the two. However, private domain traffic has an advantage: it can be operated and reached repeatedly, and it is free and identifiable.

More and more business operators are starting to have their own Douyin accounts, Kuaishou accounts, etc., stratifying and labeling customers in their own way, and then conducting group operations and push.

During the epidemic, the essence that we should pay more attention to is: user operation and monetization. When we were running a store business before, we often talked about the people who came into the store, how much money they spent, and how many things they bought. These were our core concerns.

What is different now is that our shopping guides play a key role in this process, and the point of their role is that they have established a very good social relationship chain between us and our customers.

In this way, it becomes very important for us to treat our customers as real people and operate their core value. Because from the moment a customer enters your store and starts their experience to completing their purchase, it is only if the customer feels that your service and experience are good that he or she may become your fan and help spread the word about you. Only then will he or she bring his or her friends and circles, and bring us more customers.

Because of the epidemic, consumers now basically stay at home. In this regard, we have to consider changing the original "in-store" model to a "home delivery" model.

Judging from the total social retail sales of the retail industry in the first quarter of 2020, the growth rate of online clothing transactions was very slow, because everyone stayed at home and did not need spring clothes, so they jumped directly to summer styles. Therefore, it is necessary to establish consumer demand centered on "staying at home".

2. Learn to use tools: build store mini program + same-city delivery

The epidemic has forced companies that do not have their own official brand website to build their own mini-program mall with transaction and interactive capabilities, and support delivery and in-store pickup. It can be said that in the future, the official website of a corporate brand may be your mini program. With the mini program, we can provide different services for different people, with different interfaces in different stores, and the headquarters can manage it in a unified manner.

When we were running our business before, we needed to open the stores, but we found that now the store’s business hours have been greatly shortened, and the efficiency of shopping guides is very low. So we need to set up a shopping guide shelf for sales staff and a 24-hour online shelf. Shopping guides also need to make money, but there are very few customers now, and the headquarters has not given shopping guides the ability to sell online. Therefore, if the store is still open when the performance and results are not particularly good, it may be a loss. The 24-hour online shelves can increase our online time and space. What I want to emphasize here is that we need to quickly generate the mini program, edit the product information, and mobilize the shopping guides and store staff to work together.

To sum up, we need to change from the original "in-store" to the current "home delivery". Since we want to deliver services “to homes”, we must have certain Internet capabilities, and mini programs are a very important point. Today, local e-commerce and community e-commerce have gradually emerged, and more and more businesses are beginning to flock to manage their own old customers.

3. Online store business: WeChat ecosystem online marketing upgrade, + shopping guide commission drives enterprise self-help

Many companies now know that they need to do some marketing on WeChat, but they lack the ability to operate the system, and their commission-driven approach for shopping guides is not particularly good. The commission and profit drive of shopping guides are very critical, so we need to find a way to solve this problem.

First, let’s talk about the logic of operation. After having your own mini program mall:

The first step is to set up the store clerk as a salesperson, and then train him/her to be qualified for the job;

The second step is to let shopping guides sell products from the mini program mall, set a fixed commission ratio, and regularly issue no-threshold coupons to shopping guides, so that shopping guides have greater motivation to stimulate new users to place orders;

The third step is to contact old customers through WeChat and WeChat groups, asking them to place orders online and then pick up the goods in the store or have them delivered in the same city;

In the fourth step, shopping guides can see their own performance and commissions, and the headquarters can rank the shopping guides’ performance. With such a tool, you can effectively manage shopping guides and store staff.

On WeChat, our core operating strategy is to attract fans, convert customers, and bring in new customers. We need to use a lot of gameplay to promote fan acquisition, conversion and bringing in new customers, such as distribution, group buying, discount codes and so on. In fact, most of the online transactions are generated through marketing methods. If you don’t have a marketing strategy, it’s not realistic to get users to place orders directly because there will be no discounts.

4. A free ride for retail companies to “go online”: live streaming

Let’s first look at the live streaming platforms. Common live streaming platforms include Taobao, Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat mini-programs. Each platform has many live streaming tools for everyone to choose from, and there are also many ways to play. You can refer to the picture above to see the characteristics of each platform and choose the live broadcast platform that suits you. Live streaming is actually a long-term thing and it is not something that can be established in a short period of time and will be effective. Many people say that I don’t know how to do live streaming. Don’t worry about that. You can talk about some of the things you usually talk about with consumers in the store. If you are in the clothing industry, do fittings; if you are in the baking industry, take safety and taste as important labels, and you will find the pattern as you go along.

For example, Jin Mengzhuang mobilized its shopping guides to live broadcast at home, attracting a total of 100,000 people into the live broadcast room, and its sales in three days reached 95% of its offline store sales. There are certainly difficulties in transformation, but some people have emerged and found a way that suits them, thus making a comeback. During the epidemic, the promotion and customer acquisition methods we can choose are:

First, the official account. Second, mini programs. Third, WeChat account. Fourth, store QR code. If you are unable to open a store or your business hours are shortened, it is necessary to place the store QR code in a prominent location to let customers know that your store can place online orders.

Fifth, shopping guide QR code. We need to set up coupons and commission ratios in advance and let national shopping guides actively promote it. Sixth, live streaming and short videos. I recommend everyone to start live streaming because it is more real and intuitive than short videos. Seventh, pay for performance-based advertising. For example, three kilometers of WeChat Moments promotion or WeChat Moments advertising.

Let’s summarize the six magic swords for online sales during the epidemic:

First, quickly build your own WeChat mall;

Second, store shopping guide promotion to acquire customers;

Third, the conversion of transactions without leaving home;

Fourth, maintain interaction and retain customers;

Fifth, increase customer orders, repeat purchases, and additional purchases;

Sixth, old employees bring in new employees and share the fission.

If there is no offline traffic, do business online. You must be aware of this. In the future, the online customer acquisition and digital operation capabilities of stores or retail companies will be a very core indicator.

5. Scenario extension: Deepen private domain and take advantage of opportunities

Private domain traffic is very necessary, why? For example, some emerging brands started out by relying on private domain traffic. Because their content is of the dissemination type, they naturally have the ability to spread the word, and thus will definitely drive this wave of people to the store to consume and experience.

1. Typical model of private domain traffic empowering store growth

Model 1: Rapid online dissemination empowers stores and attracts more customers to the store. For example, when one of our merchants opened a new store, they launched a "Blueberry Group Purchase for Ten People for One Yuan" event, and the sales reached 600,000 in three days.

Because the order needs to be picked up, customers must go to the store. After arriving at the store, the staff will guide visitors to register as a member or recharge. By understanding the preferences of members, it also regularly organizes some member activities, and then accumulates WeChat accounts and personal communities online. In this regard, everyone can think about how many members there are in your store? Are we serving our loyal members well?

The key focus of Model 1 is: group buying in stores. Merchants: Select high-quality items and create group buying activities at preferential prices to make buyers feel that the products are really cheap. Then let the buyer initiate a group purchase and invite friends to join. When the number of friends in the group is reached, the order can be shipped. Buyers: In order to obtain preferential prices, buyers can help merchants share and spread information quickly and effectively on WeChat, directly helping merchants obtain accurate customers who are willing to pay for products. Product selection: hot-selling products, low average order value, wide audience/large user concentration, and high demand frequency.

Model 2: Reuse to reduce takeout costs and increase profits

The commission of today's food delivery platforms is as high as over 22%, and more than 60% of the customers are your old customers. It is not the food delivery platform that brings you traffic, but you who bring traffic to the food delivery platform. Because your products and services are good enough, old customers will place multiple orders.

Therefore, if you keep your customers on WeChat, you can not only be closer to them, but also proactively send them information about activities. You can also turn customers into your members, so that they will happily keep buying. In addition, you can also develop a large group of "foodies" to be your promoters and help you sell your products among your friends.

For example, Xingfu Cake used its WeChat official account as its main platform for food delivery. During the epidemic, it launched an activity called "How much money you recharge, how much coupon you will receive", and developed more than 200,000 paying members. Locking in future demand in advance effectively solves some cash flow issues. Of course, many companies are also doing this, such as the long-term pre-sale of hotels. The original price was 900/day, now it is 450/day, and the accommodation voucher will not expire. Would you like to buy it?

So, we need to anticipate future needs.

Mode 3: Build your own “amplifier + reservoir”

Private domain traffic is actually an amplifier and reservoir. An amplifier is one that directs all traffic to a personal account. Because now the opening rate of all traffic carriers on the entire network is lower than that of personal accounts. 80% of people using personal accounts are browsing their Moments, the opening rate of push notifications on WeChat service accounts is below 10%, and the average opening rate of WeChat subscription accounts is below 2%, not to mention channels such as Weibo, Douyin, and Kuaishou that rely on traffic distribution mechanisms. Regarding the reservoir, let’s think about this question: If you have 300,000 followers on WeChat, and you are negotiating an event with a food delivery platform to promote it together, what would you do?

The picture below is a screenshot from the Internet, you can refer to it.

6. Practical guidance: Teach you step by step how to start the path of private domain traffic growth

1. "Copying homework"

No matter what you do, the fastest and most effective way is to "copy homework", because this is the method with the least trial and error and the fastest way. You should look at good cases in the industry, visit other people's shops to see how they do things, and see if you would be suitable to do it yourself.

2. Personal accounts are the most reliable entry point for operations

Large businesses generally have new media teams and operations teams, but many small and medium-sized businesses do not. I suggest that small and medium-sized businesses first build up their personal accounts and WeChat groups, and then have their own mini programs. That’s enough. If you need to make some function binding settings, then choose to create a public account.

3. Three ways to get started as a seed user

First, divert old customers.

For example, in the first picture, the store puts a card with "Follow us and get gifts" written on it; in the second picture, some handicrafts are made to attract some old customers; in the third picture, a QR code is placed on the fruit shelf with "Join the group to enjoy benefits, members can save more money" written on it. At present, everyone is willing to try to follow and add WeChat.

Second, cross-industry cooperation.

Cross-industry cooperation mainly refers to mutually beneficial cooperation with other businesses and enterprises with less competition and high customer overlap.

Third, advertising.

During the epidemic, everyone should pay attention to performance-based advertising and pay according to performance-based advertising. However, in this not particularly prosperous environment, everyone should still use it with caution.

Here, special suggestions are given: start by redirecting old customers; and make sure the input and output of advertising are controllable.

4. Choose mature and stable system tools

Why choose software? Because the methods we just talked about all require the help of tools to implement. The software tool itself is like a shovel. If you buy it and use it well, you can dig out gold; if you buy it and put it aside, it has no value. There is nothing wrong with the tool itself, but what is wrong is that we have not thought about how to use the tool. Here are some special suggestions for everyone: First, when choosing tools, seek the opinions of those who have run a store; second, try and error quickly, take small steps, and get started right away.

5. Focus on “WeChat for Business + WeChat”

If you are a large enterprise with many employees, WeChat for Business is a very effective management tool. For example, after many employees leave, their customers on WeChat are lost. Enterprise WeChat can effectively help us add friends to employees’ WeChat, and we can send messages to Moments and WeChat as usual. No more losing customers due to employee turnover.

6. After the epidemic, the resumption of work should consider the combination of online and offline

After the epidemic, resuming work and operations must consider the combination of online and offline. We need to focus on two points: online customer acquisition capabilities; and using shopping guides as core drivers.

The five points we need to land on are:

First, store mini program + same-city contactless delivery. This must be done.

Second, online marketing upgrades drive store self-rescue. This requires the use of some marketing tools to be implemented quickly.

Third, all employees, including the boss, must become online service personnel and serve clients and consumers well.

Fourth, members are online, store clerks are online, and operations are digitalized. If you don’t expand your sales time and space, and fail to effectively retain your customers, the future will be difficult.

Fifth, the future will be online. After this black swan event occurred, it overturned the cognition of many people. Among them, the most important thing is that if we are not online in the future, we will have no resistance.

During this period, the difficulties are faced by everyone, not just a single store, so everyone must be prepared and adjust their thinking.

7. Five judgments on the future industry

First, future consumers will increasingly be those born in the 2000s and 1995s. This group of young people grew up with the Internet and are the main force of our future consumption.

Second, the world's highest quality supply chains and production lines have already been established in China, with very strong capabilities.

Third, consumers are shifting from “purpose-based consumption” to “scenario-based consumption”.

Fourth, where there is traffic and eyeballs, there are transactions.

Fifth, what you see is what you get. Many consumers buy directly after seeing something. Buying things is a natural thing. Brand value and consumption channels are integrated. That’s all for my sharing, thank you everyone!

Author: Noteman

Source: Noteman