Marketing promotion: How to make users become your fans!

Today I would like to share with you a small topic: how to look at marketing from the consumer's perspective.

I had dinner with some friends this afternoon and found that everyone looks at things very differently. It turns out there are so many perspectives in this world.

When we do marketing, we are particularly prone to making the mistake of taking our own perspective as the consumer's perspective.

Preface - Observer Bias

Please imagine in your mind, if you write the letter "E" on your forehead, how would you write it?

Is it E from your perspective or from someone else's perspective?

This is actually the "self-perspective" that we often fall into.

If it is the former, congratulations, I guess you are a leader, because most leaders have a special self-perspective.

This is because the leadership position causes you to have a self-centered perspective, which is biologically called "brain damage caused by power."

The longer a person is a leader, the more self-centered and arbitrary his perspective will become, but his ability to empathize will be particularly poor.

The so-called empathy is the mirror image of the original cell, which is the ability to consider problems from other people's perspectives.

In psychology, there is an explanation called "observer bias", also known as the "pregnant woman effect" , which means that when you are pregnant, you will find that there are a lot of pregnant people on the streets, and your family members will also find that there are a lot of pregnant people on the streets.

We always think that there are a lot of people like us, but in fact you may be a minority.

Just like the Xiaoguan Tea that everyone has been discussing a lot these days, many people don’t like it and have a lot of complaints about it, especially those who know a lot about tea, who say that Xiaoguan Tea is garbage.

But I say that in the eyes of those who make hand-brew coffee, Starbucks is also garbage. You can't look at a mass brand from your perspective.

For example, there are a lot of people around me who have master's degrees, but in fact only 5% of people in the country have bachelor's degrees. This means that only 5 out of 100 people have a bachelor's degree.

This is observer bias.

If you do marketing, and you do marketing for products you like, then there is no problem, you are a consumer.

But if the target consumer of a product is not you, you must look at the problem from the consumer's perspective in order to discover what the market is really like.

We have a client who makes cakes and is an online cake brand. He visited several second- and third-tier cities and found that many people in county-level cities did not know how to use WeChat Pay.

But before that, he believed that WeChat Pay had been basically popularized in county-level cities.

Therefore, the most important ability for a marketer is to instantly become a user and look at the entire purchasing process from the user's perspective.

1. Four stages of marketing services from the perspective of consumers

There are four stages of contact between consumers and products: before purchase, during purchase, during use, and after use.

In these four stages, consumers play different roles. Since they play different roles, we provide different services based on different roles.

1. Before purchase: audience

What is before purchase? That is, consumers don’t even know the brand, they just receive your brand information inadvertently, but have no intention to buy. The role of consumers at this stage is called the audience.

At this time, we need to provide corresponding services to this role - information services, that is, information about the products, so that this audience can remember our products and our brand.

But as an audience, the consumer does not know what the product is, so the relationship between the consumer and the product needs to be transmitted through a third party such as the media.

For example, the most traditional advertising, such as news, public relations, circle of friends, flyers, etc., also includes a lot of things on social media.

We will use different media to expose consumers to products.

For example, the Peppa Pig that was all over the screen a few days ago was spread from the circle of friends. I may not have known Peppa Pig before, but I knew it when I clicked on it.

At this time, I received a message. As for the content of this message, it is what we need to consider at this stage——

What kind of information services should we provide to consumers?

When we consider what kind of information services to provide, we must first consider the characteristics of the consumers at that time.

Generally, consumers at this time will have two characteristics: confusion and oblivion.

You have to know that there is no very close connection between consumers and products. They are just audiences who unintentionally receive information in the process of doing their own things.

At this time, the information service you need to provide is to help him overcome the two characteristics of confusion and forgetfulness.

The first is confusion.

Consumers are not specifically looking for information about your products because they will never go out of their way to watch an advertisement or look for an advertisement. They are just audiences who receive information by chance.

At this time, what we need to do is to wake up the audience from their confusion.

Case: TV commercials

When we watch TV, we immediately change the channel as soon as we see a commercial break, or go directly to our phones, go to the bathroom, or do other things.

In short, I won’t stare at the advertisement.

So how can we make the advertisement wake us up immediately and make us stare at the TV screen? This is what we need to consider when providing information services.

The first step is to screen consumers.

For example, in an advertisement for stomach medicine, I don’t need to use a particularly magical scene to keep you. I just need to say that if you have bloating, stomach pain, or stomach acid, please use Metoclopramide.

Those who do not have stomach problems can check their phones, go to the toilet, or change channels, but people with bloating or stomach pain will immediately react by saying, "I want to take a look." This is called awakening them from their confusion.

What to do next? Metoclopramide to help.

In fact, all stomach disease advertisements are the same, no matter which brand they are. There is always one or more people touching their stomachs. People with stomach problems can understand it at a glance.

This is looking at the problem from the consumer's perspective.

At this time, the most effective communication is to stimulate the audience's instinctive reflexes.

What you provide to consumers must be something that is of interest to them, so that you can wake them up from their confusion.

Secondly, he must remember something.

If you want consumers to remember something, the first second is to arouse their interest, and the second second is to make them remember something.

When we do traditional advertising, we want the audience to find that the ad is relevant to them and highly relevant in the first second.

It is not enough to be interesting; it must also be relevant.

Because when consumers' interest is aroused, purchase will not happen immediately, so we need to make consumers remember a piece of information, which is what you want consumers to remember.

In Ye Maozhong's words, a brand must appear at least three times in a 15-second TVC, because brand awareness is above all else.

Because this is the principle of advertising, it is called the exposure effect:

The more we see it, the better it seems to us, even if it says nothing else.

We have some experiences in life, for example, when you arrive at a new company, you will find that everyone looks quite average. This is because half of the people's appearance is always below average.

But a year later you will find that your colleagues have improved in appearance and feel that they are getting better and better looking. Why? It's because you see him more often that you think he is more handsome.

The same goes for brands. The more you hear about it, the better you think it is. This is the advertising exposure effect, and it is also the principle of how advertising works.

There is actually a long way for consumers to go from listening to your advertising information to purchasing your product.

Maybe I saw the Guazi used car advertisement today, and then sold my used car five years later.

It is very difficult for you to make him remember at this time. The audience is not only confused, but also easy to forget.

Today we watched an advertisement and thought the slogan was very good and catchy, but we will probably forget it tomorrow.

Let me give you an example:

When I was young, I particularly admired the copywriting master Xu Shunying. Her copywriting was so wonderful. For example, if you don’t buy clothes for three days, you will feel your face is ugly, and if you don’t shop for three days, your soul will feel ugly.

This sentence is very well written, but we don’t say it and we don’t talk about it in normal times.

What would we say?

Guazi used cars have no middlemen to make a profit from the price difference.

When we advertise, we want consumers to remember something that is easy to remember. That is, the information package you provide them should be taken away by them and they should not forget it when they walk out the door.

What we need to do at this time is to repeat it constantly, because only by repeating a slogan constantly can it be easy to remember.

For example, we already remember the word "guazi", but if it is changed to "youxin", we may not remember it.

Because the word itself does not exist.

The same goes for Xiaomi mobile phones.

For example, when you are considering immigration, you see an immigration advertisement that says that for only US$200,000, a family of four generations can settle in Greece and own permanent real estate.

Then this may be relevant to you, and this is relevant to me.

In the first stage, the consumer is an information recipient, so we provide him with an information package that includes product value and purchase instructions , and the advertising slogans we provide him should also include these two categories.

What does it mean?

That is, the advertising slogan you provide to customers should reflect the value of the product or give consumers action instructions.

For example: if you feel sleepy or tired, drink Red Bull; if you love her, treat her to Haagen-Dazs, etc.

2. Purchasing: Buyer

Before a consumer makes a purchase, he remembers the information about a product, such as if you are afraid of getting a sore throat, drink Wanglaoji.

Then when he remembers this sentence and walks into the supermarket to buy the Wanglaoji product, he transitions from the audience before purchase to the buyer during purchase.

At this time, the consumer is an information seeker in the purchasing environment.

At this point, consumers face two challenges: the first is a complex discovery process, and the second is a difficult decision.

The complex discovery process includes:

First, when consumers specifically want to buy a product, they have to look for it row by row after entering the supermarket and only find it after finding the beverage category;

Second, when consumers do not make a specific purchase and see a lot of drinks when they enter a supermarket, what exactly should they buy?

There are two things we need to do at this time:

(1) Reduce consumers’ discovery costs

Your products must be visible at a glance in the supermarket, your storefront must be visible at a glance on the street, and your thumbnail must be visible at a glance on JD.com.

My book "Top Students in My Circle of Friends" originally had a very literary cover, with red letters on a white background, and the letters were very small, because the smaller the letters, the more advanced they appear, but also the less likely they are to be discovered.

(2) Helping to make decisions as quickly as possible

The packaging of authentic Coco Tree brand coconut juice has been criticized by countless people, and it feels like it was made with a PPT. But why does it sell so well?

Because it is a salesman, other coconut juices are not. It clearly states on the packaging:

Non-coconut pulp flavor is prepared by squeezing juice from fresh coconut meat, without adding flavor. It is a specialty of Hainan.

We cannot say that its success is solely due to this, but it must have played a role here.

If you are making a website on JD.com or Taobao, then your persuasion process will be very complicated and require a very long introduction. How this introduction convinces consumers to buy will test our persuasion skills.

3. After purchase: User

In the third stage, when the consumer purchases the product or walks into a restaurant, he or she becomes a user and experiencer.

At this time, consumers need to be guided and recognize the value of the product, and they need to have a good experience.

What services will we provide?

For example, in Sichuan hotpot, the meat I use is lamb from Inner Mongolia. How can I let people know?

The hot pot base we use is Nongfu Spring. Is the hot pot made with Nongfu Spring more delicious?

Not necessarily, maybe purified water tastes good too.

But how do you let people know that your product is valuable?

At this time, you need to provide consumers with a better product experience and usage experience, and you also need to guide them to understand the value of your product.

How to design a good product experience?

For example, where should Hermès be located? Taikoo Li.

Opening a store in Taikoo Li is to tell the public that we are the best. We can afford to rent the most expensive store. We sell things in the most central area of the city, and the store proves our value.

This is a lot like buying a diamond for a girl when you get married. So, are you marrying the diamond or me?

You can't say that, because this is called proof of work, which proves that you love me. The value of diamonds lies in their high price. Only an expensive thing can show that you love me. This is actually also a product experience.

Product attributes can be both perceptible and intangible.

For example, if a cup of milk tea doesn’t taste good, people will never buy it again. This is perceptible.

For example, the porridge at our home is made with Nongfu Spring, and the porridge at our home is made with Evian mineral water. How can I reflect my value? This is difficult to perceive.

When your product is good but consumers think it is not good, this is a problem with your product design, not the consumer's problem.

Therefore, only when your product is good and consumers also think it is good, your product design is complete. Otherwise, your product design is flawed.

There are three principles for product experience design: look good, work well, and produce good results.

It is best to have all three, but if you can't satisfy all three, satisfying one is also good.

Case: "Thirteenth Aunt" Chaoshan Congee

It’s made from Nongfu Spring, but I can’t tell the difference. What should I do?

It has to let me know that it is made with Nongfu Spring. The easiest way is to just write a big word on the door: This store uses Nongfu Spring to make porridge.

But this is not enough.

I went there once and was halfway through my porridge when the waiter came up and said: "Sir, this is the mineral water you use to make the porridge. Half of it is left. You can drink it or take it home."

In fact, it was not meant for me to drink it, he just wanted to show you that it was brewed with Nongfu Spring.

The service experience design measurement standards for products in different industries are different.

Sichuan is a province with a rich food culture. In the catering industry, we have three service experience standards:

(1) Degree of seriousness

For example, when you order food at Xibei, the waiter will immediately put his hand on his chest and assure you that all the products will be served within 20 minutes, and there will be no charge for overtime.

(2) Degree of intimacy

If you want to train waiters to be very friendly, it is very difficult.

But why is Haidilao doing so well? You can see how their service is, but you just can’t learn it. You can’t be as friendly as the Haidilao waiters.

(3) Speed

The speed is easy to understand, all products can be delivered in 20 minutes.

This is very obvious service and standard that can be perceived. Whether the food is delicious or not is another matter.

Let’s talk about another topic. What does clean mean?

A god-like figure in Japan's cleaning industry mentioned two standards. Cleanliness can be summed up in two words: dry and clean .

Dry means no water, and clean means no dust. No matter how clean the table is, if there is a drop of water on the floor, you will not feel it is clean.

When you are working on a product experience, you must know what the standards are so that you can design a good product experience.

For example, when we turn on 360, it will show: Your computer speed has beaten 90% of users in the country.

Because you cannot feel how fast your computer boots up, but it gives you a direct prompt and visualizes the boot speed, which is an imperceptible thing, and then you will suddenly feel that this is pretty good.

Case: Hometown Chicken

This is a brand from Anhui. It now has nearly 600 stores, including fast-food stores in Jiangsu and Anhui, mainly selling chicken soup.

The first time I went to eat it was in Nanjing. It has two characteristics. The first is that the water is Nongfu Spring, and the second is that the chicken is old hens from Feixi, Anhui.

Nongfu Spring is simple and crude, it is just a big signboard, and the chicken soup in this restaurant is stewed with Nongfu Spring.

How do you know I used an old hen? Can you tell the difference between a rooster leg and a hen leg?

The first time I ate it I knew it was a hen because there was always an egg in the soup whether it was a portion for one or two people.

It is the egg in the belly of an old hen. They put an egg inside it. You can tell it is from an old hen as soon as you eat it. It makes you feel that it is stewed by an old hen.

This is also product design, very interesting.

Case: "Two Eggs" Pancake

A month ago I went to Guangzhou and ate a pancake called "Two Eggs".

I think its product experience is well designed and it is convenient to eat because it defines Jianbing Guozi as a street snack. All the stores are stalls with almost no seats and you just take it and go.

Traditional pancakes are square in shape, but this one is made into long strips , which makes it easier for you to hold and eat. The outer shell of the pancake can be torn off layer by layer, which is a very good experience.

4. After use: Disseminator

After consumers experience a product, if the experience is good, they will become disseminators of the product.

But when consumers become communicators, there is a problem: no word of mouth, no understanding of sales talk, and lack of tools.

There is no word of mouth because our products are not good enough.

The reason why consumers don’t understand the sales pitch is that they just know that the product is good but have no way to introduce it in detail.

At this time, we need to create a message for him that the consumer can spread to others so that he can introduce it. For example, Sanpangdan’s original flavor melon seeds only select 2 taels out of 10 kilograms of melon seeds.

There is a lack of tools. Some people want to share but cannot because there is no such function.

So how do we solve these three problems?

(1) Build word of mouth

Improve perception and lower expectations.

For example, a good speech or a good course is not actually completed by the lecturer alone, but by the lecturer and students together.

To think that a class with a good reputation is good, you must first lower your expectations.

Word of mouth = perception - expectation. The better the perception, the lower the expectation, the greater the word of mouth.

For example, if we have a particularly famous brand, we have very high expectations for it, but when we sit down to eat it, it seems to be just so-so, and as a result, it has no reputation.

(2) Create a new storyline

Provide dissemination convenience.

First, create the communication content, then provide the communication tools, and then establish the identification system.

Create content that consumers are willing to forward. Just like what Hua & Hua said in "Super Symbols Are Super Creativity":

An advertising slogan is not something I say to consumers, but a sentence designed for consumers to pass on to other consumers.

(3) Create communication tools

The product "Get" later launched a function called "red envelope". If you ask 10 friends to read it, you can be the first to read it. This actually provides a communication tool.

Also, if you see a very good sentence, you can copy it and then generate a picture to share it on your Moments, which provides a tool for dissemination. In 2018, Dedao users shared it 40 million times.

Establishing an identification system and your symbol system can give your product the ability to spread itself.

For example, when a call comes in, you can tell that the person is using an Apple phone because Apple phones have their own incoming ringtones.

For example, when we wear clothes, it is easy to see what brand we are wearing, and when we drive a car, it is easy to see what brand the car is.

Like a BMW, what do you see most easily? It's the air intake grille.

What brand of coats are easiest for you to spot? It's Adidas.

Why is Adidas more recognizable than Nike? Because its symbol is larger, it has three extremely long bars that go from the waist straight down to the heels, so its identification method is long, big, and wide.

Adidas gets a special advantage when it sponsors a team, but Nike can't because the Nike logo is too small.

2. Changes in catering channels from the perspective of consumer demand

I have been doing a lot of catering this year, and I have observed the changes in consumer demand from the perspective of catering.

An insight into the huge changes in the restaurant industry is:

The catering industry seems to be a particularly traditional industry, but it fits our social progress perfectly, and its channels have undergone a huge change.

1. Banquet era

From 1990 to 2000, eating out was called going to a restaurant .

I just want to eat something delicious, usually at a banquet. I would only go to a street shop when I'm entertaining people.

The most famous shopping malls in Beijing are Xidan and Wangfujing, but there is no food in Xidan and Wangfujing, so you have to go home to eat after shopping in the malls.

There were no restaurants inside the shopping mall. All the big restaurants were on the streets, and they were particularly large stores, like Quanjude, South Beauty, etc. At that time, they were called street-side restaurant banquets.

2. Supermarket Era

In 2002, I heard about supermarkets for the first time. Since then, shopping patterns and consumer demands have changed. The catering industry has also changed along with it. It is no longer a banquet restaurant.

As we enter the supermarket era, you will find that the catering industry has shifted from banquet meals to formal meals . The familiar Green Tea and Waipojia both appeared in the supermarket era.

For example, when we go shopping or have a meal with our family, what we are satisfying is the meal needs of three or five people, not a banquet.

So Xibei changed from a banquet meal to a full meal, from 120 dishes to 20, from a big table to a small table, from the original Kung Fu fish and other big dishes to side dishes and special dishes.

This is all because consumer demand has changed, channels have changed, and products have changed accordingly.

3. Takeaway era

Take-out food began to appear in 2012.

After the emergence of Meituan Waimai, Ele.me, and Baidu Waimai, you will find that the channels have changed and consumer demands have also changed.

At this time, another increase appeared in the catering market, that is, the shift from eating formal meals to eating work meals. People used to cook their own work meals, but now they no longer cook their own meals, but order takeout, so it has entered the era of fast food.

At this point, you find that the brands that were suitable for regular meals may not be suitable for takeout , because there are many Chinese dishes that are not suitable for takeout, such as candied sweet potatoes, which are only suitable for dine-in.

Many dishes lose their flavor if you don’t eat them within five minutes, and this is true for a lot of Chinese food.

But some dishes are suitable for takeout, such as pizza. Many takeout meals in foreign films are pizza. At this point, you need to adjust your product to adapt to the takeout market.

For example, which one is more suitable for takeout, rice noodles or noodles?

Rice noodles. Because rice noodles are not clumpy, but noodles are.

Yunhaixiang’s first profitable restaurant was opened in a supermarket in Zhongguancun. After discovering that it was making money, they opened more and more restaurants.

Yunhaixiang is actually a full-course meal, but when the take-out era came, it made a change and launched a new brand "Half Chicken Rice Noodles".

When takeout came into being, Xibei created a brand called "Super Roujiamo". Both of them are fast and suitable for takeout delivery.

Case: "Panda Never Leaves" Birthday Cake

This birthday cake has been made since October 2017. We have no experience in catering, but in the past year, we have achieved a daily turnover of 500,000.

It has no stores and only operates online. Its turnover doubles every three months, and now it has a daily traffic of 500,000. It is called Five-Star Cake. The difference in this cake is that it uses better fillings, better ingredients, better fruits, and better flour.

We wrote an advertising slogan, which is "When giving a gift to an important person, of course you should give a better cake."

I thought this insight was pretty good, and the client said it was amazing, so we started advertising and promoting it.

After running for three months, I reviewed the matter and found that although we had created a difference, I felt that there was a problem.

What's the problem?

(1) Circle of competence

This client of ours had never made cakes before, but he poached the head chef of a five-star hotel and the director of a production plant.

I said you can make a cake that scores 80 points, but you can definitely not make a cake that scores 90 points. It is difficult to get from 80 points to 90 points, and it is even more difficult to get from 90 points to 100 points.

Because it takes twice as much effort to get from 80 to 90 points, our team cannot get 90 points, or it may be particularly difficult for you.

In addition, it is difficult to be particularly good. The real five-star cake is Holiland or Black Swan. It is obviously a five-star cake at first glance, but we can't do that.

It's a question of our capabilities, and right now we're just better than most of our peers.

(2) Birthday Cake Trap

As a person born in the 1970s, I lived in an era of material scarcity. We really wanted to eat a cake on our birthdays.

But when we reach an era of material abundance, we long to celebrate birthdays but not to eat cakes.

There is another problem with birthday cakes. When you make it 80 points, you can’t tell the difference between 80 points of deliciousness and 90 points of deliciousness.

It means that you have spent twice the effort, but the consumer's perception has only increased by 5 points, or even no point at all. I define this as a birthday cake trap.

Because of this insight, we look back at the behavior of consumers in such a drama, because birthdays are a drama, and the process is the same:

Insert candles, light candles, make a wish, blow out candles, divide the cake, and eat cake.

What happened to the protagonist in this play and what props does he need? This brings us to the second insight.

Because we discover that the heart of the birthday cake drama is the celebration, not the eating of the cake.

This means that the cake plays the role of a prop in a birthday party, and its purpose is to help you complete the entire process of celebrating your birthday.

So, our goal is not to make a better-tasting cake for consumers, but to give them a more fun and happier birthday.

So, we are considering whether we can add some extra steps to make the birthday person have a happier birthday.

Isn’t it called “Panda won’t go away”?

Then use a panda as a gift, which looks like a panda and can perform magic, sing and dance.

In this way, we have partially realized the consumer's real idea of celebrating his birthday by providing him with a happy birthday.

In this case, our candles changed. We made a big firework and a small firework to create the atmosphere.

The tools used for taking photos have also changed. For example, we have made the crown to be worn more delicate and better-looking, and we also provide you with a bubble machine.

You will find that your product design has changed. We are a company that provides birthday services, not a company that customizes birthday cakes.

So, it grew very fast.

But these are actually very easy to copy, and copycat versions have appeared in many places.

I said we are not afraid of copycats because the market is so big. We drew a map of the country and found that there are more than 2,000 counties and hundreds of cities in the country. We only need to take over 100 cities.

The market is big enough, you only need to worry about how you can provide better service to customers.

So, our slogan was changed to "A panda comes to deliver goods, singing and dancing happily."

Want to get a video like this? You only need to spend 200 yuan to buy a cake, and it was really recorded by Daniel Chan.

For only two hundred yuan, Daniel Chan will record a happy birthday message for you. Do you want it?

The cake is ready, and we also have a very important research and development direction, which is how to provide you with better services.

There is a cake for 1999 yuan on its official website. Is that cake delicious?

It's ok, the important thing is that there are six pandas dancing. They are also constantly creating surprises to make your birthday even happier.

3. Consumer insights from catering cases

In 2017, Luo Zhenyu mentioned a brand in his speech called Gu Ming Milk Tea. It exists in Chongqing but seems not in Chengdu. It is called "Business in Strategic No Man's Land".

It’s mainly about strategy, but I think a large part of it is consumer insights.

I am their consultant , but most of what I talk about is what they have done before, so I didn’t play a big role in the Gu Ming incident.

Perhaps my greatest contribution was to tell Luo Zhenyu this story, and then Luo Zhenyu told it.

Gu Ming was a store that opened in 2010. After 8 years, it has opened about 2,000 stores. It is now mainly operating in four provinces, namely Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Chongqing, because its four cold chain warehouses are in these four provinces and cities, and Fujian does the best among these four provinces.

This store is a street-side store in a county-level city, with an area of 20 square meters and a business of two million a year. It now has 2,000 stores.

In 2017, Meituan conducted a statistic that there were 180,000 new beverage stores opened across the country, and 180,000 beverage stores closed across the country that year. However, Gu Ming had 1,300 stores in 2017, and only 7 stores were closed. Its business in the entire milk tea industry is very good.

Why did we choose the milk tea business?

Because milk tea is equivalent to coffee in the United States, and the consumption of milk tea is definitely much greater than that of coffee , so milk tea shops make a lot of money, but coffee shops make very little money.

Why?

First of all, we don’t like drinking coffee. Of course I go to a coffee shop to work, so I sit there all day and spend 30 yuan a day. With such a turnover rate, can I make money?

So, two years ago we registered a brand called "Not Selling Coffee" because the purpose of going to a coffee shop is not to drink coffee, but to sit down and chat with people.

So we just don’t sell coffee, we can just sell something else, because we might make money by selling something else.

Milk tea is something we consume very easily in our daily life, so it happens repeatedly, so we think milk tea is a very good business. So the slogan I wrote for Gu Ming is "Drink one cup a day, never get tired of it."

This market is large enough, the frequency is high enough, the quality is easy to judge, and the startup cost is low.

It is normal to drink one cup a week; as long as the milk tea is well made, it can be easily distributed; a small shop is enough to start.

Gu Ming's shop is actually quite rustic, but it is still quite profitable despite being so rustic. I think Gu Ming mainly did a few things right.

In 2010, they opened their first store in Daxi Town, Zhejiang Province, and opened their second store a year later.

In 2012, they opened 27 stores, in 2013, there were more than 100 stores, in 2015, there were 300 stores. I became their consultant in 2015. In 2017, there were 1,000 stores, and in 2018, there were 1,700 stores.

Its franchise is very strict. Only one store can be opened for every 20 applications because the company has to guarantee its quality and also ensure that the boss can make money by joining - because some bosses do not make money by opening a store, such as the second generation of rich people - so its review is particularly strict.

What is strategy? Strategy is about giving up and choosing.

Heytea’s strategy is first- and second-tier cities and high-end coastal cities, but Guming has chosen county-level cities and currently only franchises in county-level cities and towns.

The disadvantage of this is that the brand influence is not enough. Because it is not in first-tier cities, no one knows about it after it opens two or three stores.

But the good thing is that the competitors are too weak, so as long as you do a little better, you will be able to stand out.

So, I call it "strategic no man's land", which means entering a market where there are no competitors.

Moreover, it does not make money from franchising, but lets each franchise store make money, while it makes money only by supplying goods. This is called a strategic choice.

He gave up a lot of things. First, he gave up the first, second, and third-tier cities and only joined in the fourth-tier cities.

Secondly, he gave up the market north of the Yellow River and the quick franchise model and chose the supply model. He only franchised to places where my cold chain could deliver. In other words, he did not make money by franchising. He said the best strategy is to let franchise stores make money.

When there were only 70 stores, his voice was still very weak, so all he could do was give up his profits and let you use his.

Now that I have the final say, my purchasing volume is large, so my costs must be low. In addition, many of my products are exclusive and you cannot buy them anywhere else.

The control is very strict. If you don’t comply, I will close the store immediately and not allow you to join.

Therefore, we are thinking about what a small town business should pay attention to from the perspective of consumers. Small town consumers are different from big city consumers, so the business model is also different.

1. The light should be on

The street lights in the town, including those on the commercial street, are very dim, so the milk tea shop in the town must be very bright, and it would be best if it could become the town’s street lights .

This makes it easy to be found, and the brighter the light, the better the consumer experience.

I have a deep understanding of this. When I went home a couple of days ago, I found that in our town, all the restaurants with good business had particularly bright lights. If the business was not good, not only would the lights be dimmer, but they would also turn off half of the lights.

In fact, if you add ten light bulbs and use one more kilowatt-hour of electricity a day, you can make it back by selling one more cup of milk tea, but people can't figure this out.

I would like to remind everyone that the lights need to be on. We talked about the four stages of consumers, and this stage is the purchasing stage.

He first wants to discover your milk tea shop, so your storefront must be big and bright, and your logo must be big. This is correct.

2. Business with familiar people and repeat customers

Taikoo Li may have 20 million visitors a year, so it’s no problem for you to offend 1,000 people. But there are 20,000 people in a town. If you offend all of them, there will be no one left.

In addition, it is right to hold activities for a business opening, but it is wrong to hold activities for a business opening in a small town.

Because your store is not prepared for the opening event, the staff are inexperienced, the reception capacity is limited, and the flavors they serve may not be suitable.

In this case, everyone will think the drink is not tasty after one drink and will never come again. There are only 20,000 people in total, and 2,000 people will be offended at once. It's not worth it.

3. Purchase experience

Provide a better purchasing experience during purchase.

The counters of street milk tea shops in the south are all closely connected to the street. The bad thing is that if it rains or the weather is too hot, no one will line up to buy. Therefore, Gu Ming Milk Tea Shop sets a sixty-centimeter retreat to provide consumers with a good purchasing experience.

The rain can be drained inside, and your air conditioning can be enjoyed by consumers.

Another point is the dining seats. If the boss rents two stalls, then there will be dining seats. With dining seats, they must be placed by the window so that they can attract customers.

A group of customers were sitting by the window drinking, and when they saw someone inside, they would go in.

4. Buy one get one free when opening

From the consumer's perspective, there are many kinds of milk tea, some of which are delicious and some are not.

So when they open, they must require buy one get one free. In case you buy a cup of unsuitable tea and they give you a cup of tea for free, and you find that the free cup is delicious, it gives you the opportunity to taste a tea that suits you. This means there is always a tea that suits you.

5. Queue management

It is crazy that many internet celebrity stores hire people to queue up, but in fact, milk tea shops also need to queue up management.

From the customer's perspective, when I see a strange milk tea shop, I will first consider whether it is delicious or not. The criterion for judgment is whether there are many people queuing up in front.

This is called making purchase decisions as soon as possible , which means you must keep your door line up.

Therefore, queuing management should do this. When there are fewer people, you should do it slowly and when there are many people, you should do it faster .

Therefore, the clerk must conduct training. When there are fewer people, you can ask whether to add honey, whether to reduce sugar, etc. Anyway, chatting more with consumers will be slow, so you must keep your team in a group.

6. Control and training

Milk tea shops come from consumer control, so store inspections and supervision are very strict. They created a concept called Dingding check-in . After hygiene, they have to take photos and upload them to Dingding, and then I will check it.

The same is true for training. They did a survey, which means that the longer the boss trains, the more money he makes.

Because your training has made him a habit, every cup of milk tea he makes is based on the standard of the headquarters, which is delicious.

Author: Notes, authorized by Qinggua Media to release.

Source: Notesman (ID: Notesman)

<<: When will Qingming Festival fall on April 5, 2022? What is the exact time in minutes and seconds? Attach details

>>: We are both doing ocpc, why is yours not producing enough volume and has no effect?