How to use seed users to drive brand promotion growth?

Many brand companies have realized that to carry out refined marketing, they need to shift from "traffic operation" to "consumer operation."

Simply put: the good days of spending money on marketing are over, and brands have to focus on consumers - find people who are truly interested in the brand, accumulate seed users, and "win big with small" to drive continued growth of the brand.

Faced with the fragmentation of people, media, and information, how can brands capture target consumers? How to build a relationship with him/her?

The distance between brands and consumers is just a community

The social era we live in is an era of "community relations".

Everyone can take a look at their WeChat and see if there are a lot of group chats?

Have you noticed that many of your chats take place not among friends but in WeChat groups? You don't know each other, but you are in the same group, so it is easy for everyone to receive and pass messages to each other and develop further relationships.

The same goes for brands.

"Community" is a bridge connecting brands and target groups, and is an effective way to capture high-value groups and influence consumer decisions. Next, Zhongyin Communication will analyze how brands can use social media for marketing from the following three aspects:

• How to build a community?
• How to activate a community?
• How to continuously transform the value of the community?

1. How to build a community?

• Build communities based on common interests.

A community is a social circle based on common interests and common values. For example, car owners and car enthusiasts will establish a car club; people who love traveling may join a travel group; based on certain identity labels, zodiac groups and celebrity fan groups can also be established.

So how does a brand build a group?

Some brands may try to build their own communities, but they will find that consumers’ lives do not revolve around brands, and that building their own communities is difficult and costly to operate.

Of course, some brands have a fan base and become the focus of users' interest (such as Apple and Xiaomi), so consumers spontaneously establish related communities.

We believe that for brands with sufficient budgets, they can build their own communities by tapping into the best scenarios in consumers’ lives, such as targeting mothers and babies and starting with hospitals. However, for most brands, it is a smart choice to find existing social resources and support the creation of groups or join them.

With the help of the community, brands can communicate, share and build relationships with everyone on an equal footing. In this way, the brand and the customer can gradually get closer around topics of common interest and it is easier to build trust.

Take JackWolfskin, Germany's largest outdoor sports brand, as an example. When the brand found us, it was facing the dilemma of low penetration rate of outdoor sports categories and difficulty in breaking into the consumer circle.

There are obvious interest circles in the "outdoor sports" category. There are some high-value people (such as senior outdoor enthusiasts and club leaders) whose word-of-mouth recommendations have a great influence in the circle. Therefore, establishing relationships with this high-value group of people is a key step in entering the outdoor circle.

Based on brand needs and insights into the outdoor crowd, Zhongyin Communication tapped into outdoor community resources such as hiking groups, equipment groups, and clubs, and facilitated cooperation between JackWolfskin and the community.

2. How to activate the community?

• Identify needs and interests, organize/join community activities

Brands first need to understand "what TA cares about and what TA is interested in" , then find entry points for topics and enhance interaction. In addition to organizing events, if the community itself already has established, regularly scheduled events, the brand can simply implant its concepts, activities, and products.

Take outdoor enthusiasts for example. They can wear a jacket for two to three years, so they only pay attention to the jacket once every two to three years. However, the community organizes activities such as hiking and club gatherings every month, so hiking serves as a landing point for the brand campaign.

• Leverage KOL resources to increase activity

Taking the outdoor community as an example, there are usually three types of people in the community:

1. KOL (opinion leader, such as the club leader, who has rich outdoor experience, has visited many clubs, and likes to research and evaluate equipment)
2. Active User (active users influence many outdoor people through outdoor activities, forums, and their own social circles. They are very active inside and outside the group)
3. General users (occasionally active or long-term divers who want to learn more experience knowledge or participate in outdoor activities)

KOLs and Active Users are content creators, topic spreaders, and shopping guides. Finding them and maintaining good relationships with them are also the keys to building and activating communities.

In the case of Wolf Claw, we provided professional training knowledge before the activity and pre-trip equipment knowledge around the core activity of "outdoor hiking", which triggered a wave of topic interaction.

At the same time, we invited KOLs and core users to try on and evaluate clothes and shoes during hiking activities, and recommended brands and products through WeChat Moments, club communities, and club self-media. Through this high-frequency interactive social method, the brand has built closer relationships with consumers and established consumer awareness of the brand.

3. How to continuously transform the value of the community?

• Community is a tool to bring brands and consumers closer together.

In the past, when talking about "consumer relationships", brands would do CRM (customer relationship management), usually through one-on-one promotion of products and after-sales service through telephone, email, etc.; after entering the social era, everyone is doing SCRM (social customer relationship marketing), and the usual practice has become developing some function menus on WeChat, or one-way push messages.

We believe that communities are a breakthrough in traditional CRM/SCRM, helping brands penetrate consumers and continuously empowering brand growth. (This is also part of the 5C model proposed by Zhongyin Communication (click to learn more) - focusing on consumers and operating brands through Campaign/Content/Channel/CRM)

So, how can brands continue to transform the value of the community?

• Accurately mine user insights to provide a basis for marketing decisions

During the planning stage of a marketing campaign, you can initiate surveys in the group in advance to test, co-create, and optimize theme concepts, activity formats, etc., and then implement them.

In this way, on the one hand, based on accurate insights into the crowd within the community, the brand can truly start from the consumer and provide activities that they are interested in; on the other hand, the activities are co-created by the community, and everyone will be happy to become a facilitator and a word-of-mouth ambassador for the brand.

Taking the Wolf Claw community cooperation as an example, we promote the brand's environmental protection concept through the outdoor community. In the communication with users, we realize that "plastic waste" on hiking routes is a pain in the heart of many outdoor enthusiasts.

Therefore, Wolf Claw launched the "Plastic Free Guests" environmental protection charity event. As soon as the event was launched, the community members became the first to respond and promote the brand event. While the H5 forwarding level is generally only two or three levels, the H5 forwarding level of Wolf Claw’s recruitment of “non-plastic guests” has reached eight levels, greatly improving the effectiveness of communication.

• Cultivate seed users, accumulate word-of-mouth, and promote community fission and new members

The core users who remain in the community after communication and interaction are the users who are truly interested in our brand and products.

In the community, brands can accurately reach TA, continuously maintain relationships, and cultivate seed users. For example, when a brand launches a new product, they can be the first to get a trial and experience it, and generate UGC and word of mouth, thereby driving community fission and attracting new users.

• Continue to connect with consumers and retain digital assets

Brands can use communities to establish two-way, in-depth interactions and connections with consumers and play the role of SCRM, such as disseminating brand information, linking offline activities, and sending preferential benefits.

If a brand has already established a SCRM system (such as an official WeChat account), it can form an organic linkage with the community. For example: forwarding official WeChat information to social group interactions, cooperating with welfare interactions such as guiding attention and binding information, and realizing digital retention of consumer assets.

Conclusion

In addition to outdoor activities, social networking can also be applied to many other categories. For vertical categories with a small target audience (such as infant formula), customers can be acquired through precision marketing in social networks. For categories with a relatively broad target audience, high-value groups can also be found through interest communities to cultivate seed users and build word-of-mouth.

Over the years, Zhongyin Communication has accumulated rich community resources and established in-depth cooperation with vertical circles such as Qyer.com and Youxiake.com. It can provide brands with precise reach and in-depth interactive consumer relationship marketing, and use the influence of circles to improve the brand's input-output efficiency.

Source: Zhongyin Zhixing Salon (ID: mgccinfo)