Xiaohongshu Marketing Creates Hot Products from 0 to 1

The budget is not enough. How can we do a good job in the first wave of Xiaohongshu marketing and then increase investment after seeing the effect? A question from a friend from a well-known domestic home appliance brand: She has already launched a single product, but the number of visitors was less than 200 in a month. She feels bitter, but she doesn't say it.

Brand: I feel that it is a bit difficult to operate on Xiaohongshu now

Zhuang Jun: It’s not that marketing on Xiaohongshu is becoming increasingly difficult.

But there are more and more professionals.

In 2019, when I went to an e-commerce community to share my experience, a brand manager said that the bonus period of Xiaohongshu had passed. But now it seems that this does not prevent so many brands from doing cold starts and detonating categories on Xiaohongshu.

In 2018, some bloggers said that the bonus period had passed. At that time, the blogger born in 1994 who shared with me had only 180,000 followers, but now he has more than 1 million followers. No opportunity has ever passed. The best opportunity is always ten years ago, and the second best opportunity is now.

Let’s first define what counts as a “hot product.” Is a product that sells 3 million in a month considered a hot product? Let’s discuss it in the comments section

│Table of Contents│

1. Don’t talk too much, Xiaohongshu brief notes require you to write first

2. Organize 100 popular articles in the same field (within 3 months)

3. Testing the A/B plan of Xiaohongshu marketing

4. Find a blogger to communicate with to test the selling points

5. Xiaohongshu corporate account replacement, good product recommendations

6. Why do bloggers actively seek free replacement from brands?

7. Five elements to strengthen the comment area

8. Modify product words to strengthen user memory

9. If you find a hot article, vote for it

01 │Don’t talk too much, write the brief notes requirements of Xiaohongshu first│

There are requirements for writing brief notes. This doesn’t cost money, but it does require some effort. You need to find out what is your most outstanding feature among many peers.

When I was communicating with the brand, they wanted to highlight that similar types of coffee machines all cost several thousand yuan, while theirs was only a "big and affordable" one at the hundreds-yuan level. You will definitely encounter many problems, and then look up information from various angles and start writing from the content strategy.

Things like the amount of text and the color of the picture are not very important. The most important thing is the direction of content planning, and it is not about using templates without research and in-depth thinking, otherwise you will not get good data.

Why should I write the brief first?

Just like playing chess and then going back to look up chess records, writing a brief really requires immersion and deep thinking.

How should brief notes be written?

The core lies in the direction of content selection! Look down

02 │Collect 100 popular articles in the same field within 3 months│

So which direction should we choose? After you have collected 100 popular articles and conducted in-depth analysis, you will find that choosing a topic is easy.

Brand: The data of the collection of popular articles is good, but it is difficult to convert. However, I heard you say before that the conversion rate of horizontal evaluation is high.

Zhuang Jun: It is not necessarily difficult for a collection of popular articles to have conversions. Moreover, it cannot be just horizontal evaluation. Collections are divided into vertical life and multi-product collections. No matter which one, we must pay close attention to the comment area.

It’s confusing, right? Then look at the third point

03 │ Testing the A/B plan for Xiaohongshu marketing│

We have also studied many cases of brand placement on Xiaohongshu, but in the end we are still confused about what kind of methodology is suitable for us. When you are very confused, you can use the ab testing solution.

1) Choose a mid-level blogger or start as a small amateur

Don't worry about it. Find a group of amateurs to try it out, and find a few mid-level bloggers to try it out, and the answer will naturally surface. But if you insist on your own opinion, you can continue to test the original idea.

2) Choose more soft articles and less reporting, or more information flow

Don’t worry about it. After understanding the situation of your peers in the market, you will find different ways of playing. It’s better to test it on a small scale. But I still have to say here that the reporting ratio and information flow are still necessary.

3) Focus on vertical bloggers or choose general bloggers and fine-tune content planning

Choosing vertical bloggers for small home appliances can increase trust, but if the budget is limited, for example, home bloggers seem too expensive and there won’t be many bloggers to invest in. You can choose a food blogger to try. Don’t worry about it, you will know after you try it.

Every time node and every stage is different. For example, you see that Perfect Diary’s content is so good, but due to the different stages, it is useless to imitate the external form.

The gap in cognition needs to be filled with many heated arguments and money.

————Jobs Zhuang

04│You can only test the selling points by communicating with bloggers│

Think of bloggers as the tentacles of our brand. After all, bloggers are on the front line and have a more sensitive touch, whether it is facing content or users. Find 10 target bloggers to communicate with and have them talk about their opinions on this product and their experience using it.

1) Categories and styles

I have seen categories or styles of goods piled up in brand owners’ warehouses, which are not what bloggers like, and it can even be said that users don’t like them. But the categories or styles that are not overstocked are what bloggers like.

2) Selling and buying points

Talk to 10 experienced bloggers and ask them what they think about the product and how they feel about using it. Is our brand's understanding of the product selling points still a vague concept, such as fully functional and very convenient? These are all vague selling points.

Take masks as an example. Manufacturers or traditional e-commerce companies that are usually unfamiliar with Xiaohongshu marketing understand the selling points as full functionality and high-quality ingredients or materials. However, female users of Xiaohongshu care about whether the mask makes the face look smaller, whether it does not smudge makeup, and even whether the design matches the style of clothing and is unique.

05 │Xiaohongshu Enterprise Account Replacement Good Product Recommendation│

Brand: Good product recommendations. Before replacing the Xiaohongshu corporate professional account, you can choose multiple recruitment channels for recommendations. You can try each platform or channel at each stage (if the budget is sufficient), and the cost for amateur bloggers is very low.

Although the quality of bloggers in the announcement group is not high, if it is a small private circle of bloggers, the quality will be higher. You can also send the edited recruitment form link to the blogger and let the blogger send it to the high-quality bloggers around him.

We can also find the blogger’s email address through a third-party data platform and contact them. Although there will be many problems, it is generally more convenient than contacting them one by one.

But you can't put all your eggs in one basket and put all your eggs in one recruitment channel. This will greatly affect your efficiency and product promotion.

06 │Why bloggers actively seek free replacement from brands│

The incentive for fission propagation is to help Xiaohongshu users or Xiaohongshu bloggers to better "show off". If you can stand in the blogger's perspective and plan the direction of the notes to help the blogger increase fans or increase the amount of interaction, and at the same time be able to ship and sell well, the blogger will be very willing to cooperate. If planning one article doesn't work, then plan two. You have to study the user preferences of Xiaohongshu clearly.

In the content planning of coffee machine, the tutorial of making latte art with coffee machine is easy for users to remember one latte art pattern, so it is necessary to make 5-7 tutorials of latte art, or even

Brand: I can’t find so many bloggers who can make latte art.

Zhuang Jun: Just select a few and take more pictures. You have to know that if you don’t pay attention to the content, you will have to pay attention to the budget. If the budget is not enough, you have to work hard on the content.

Brand: But...

Zhuang Jun: Not so many buts. We will know the results after a small-scale test, but we also need to distinguish the specific circumstances.

07 │Five elements to strengthen the comment area│

The comments section is the biggest salesperson

1) Introduce the brand name and reinforce it again

Generally speaking, brand names rarely appear in the content of notes. If the official detects suspected advertising without reporting, the exposure of the notes will be reduced, and the chance of a hot article will be relatively small. Of course, reporting is another matter. When netizens comment on products in the comment section, they can incorporate the brand name. This can increase the product’s popularity and drive traffic to the brand store. Of course, this is also one of the ways to maintain the comment section.

2) Lead to the purchase address, with clear goals

When a product is attractive enough, netizens will want to inquire about the brand name and purchasing channels. Giving the purchase address or method in the comment area is to let netizens know the direction, so that netizens can avoid detours or buy wrong products.

3) Raise audience concerns and address them

What is the purpose of the comments section? The comment section is a key place to collect and answer questions. It is not only a place to understand and observe consumers' doubts about the product, but also a place for consumers to express their awareness of the product and their experience of using the product. Xiaohongshu platform focuses on real life, where consumers can indirectly understand the product and its performance, thereby promoting transaction volume.

4) Bring out the comments and justify them

To give a simple analogy, I like a pair of fitness pants on other platforms, but there is a comment in a note saying that the thighs are a bit tight, so now the consumer will doubt, "Will it be tight when I wear it?" At this time, the comment in the note starts to play a role, to justify the statement "the thighs are a bit tight"

5) Introduce usage, strengthen selling points and strengthen usage methods

The usage methods and how to use the product correctly should be passed on to consumers in your own knowledge base. They think you are right, or that your method is better, which is also a big trick to promote transaction volume. Consumers will always choose to take a better approach to use the product, and what bloggers need to do is to use good methods to gain the trust and recognition of consumers.

08 │Modify product words to strengthen user memory│

Although brand marketing involves a wide range, it is enough for us to remember three points: 1. Be memorable, 2. Sell well, and 3. Be willing to spread the word. The purpose of modifying product words is, first, to strengthen memory so that users can remember our products when they are looking for them. Secondly, it is to avoid comparison with competitors’ product words and for the sake of uniqueness.

Coffee machine: xx small green box xx small green box small green box

Luggage: Small milk brick large white box

Here we need to discuss with the colleagues in charge of e-commerce, and prepare the secret codes whether it is the closed loop of Xiaohongshu's mall or the product title of the Tmall store.

09 │Vote for fries when you find a hot post│

Don't think about innovation all the time, but continue to iterate on the original basis. Continue to use methods that work until they no longer work. For example, after a hot article appears in the notes, we will consider continuing to invest in French fries. Including bloggers with high explosive rate, if the cooperation is smooth and the data is good, then we can cooperate more times within half a year.

│Final Summary│

The requirement for writing brief notes on Xiaohongshu is to continuously collect feedback from consumers, whether it is blogger communication or user feedback, and optimize this "communication plan" after small-scale testing. Although the framework is important, matching and implementation are even more important.

The comment section must be well optimized. Otherwise, no matter how many popular articles are produced, if the tone of the comments section is not right, all efforts will be wasted. The remaining specific delivery steps are all based on the results of the previous delivery, and we will continuously optimize and make decisions. Okay, let’s adjourn the meeting.

Author: Zhuang Jun

Source: Zhuang Jun