How to analyze user thinking and do good brand marketing?

In the past, everyone has always talked about traffic thinking. We need traffic online and offline. However, with the development of the Internet and mobile Internet , competition has become fierce, traffic has become less and less, and traffic has become more and more expensive. Most of the traffic is occupied by the top giants. Thus, Xiaomi’s fan mentality and APP user retention mentality came into being.

As they transition from a traffic-oriented mindset, companies are paying more and more attention to fans and retention. At the same time, various word-of-mouth effects are also generated. Companies hope to achieve word-of-mouth effects through their own loyal users and then carry out fission marketing .

Fan thinking, retention thinking, word-of-mouth effect, scenario-based marketing, extreme thinking, etc., are actually all thinking about marketing issues from the user's perspective, but the stages and angles of thinking are different. Some are from the product perspective, some are from the consumer perspective, some are from the communication perspective, and some are from the operation perspective. This brings us to the user thinking that this article will talk about. This is also the core thinking of marketing and is involved in all stages of marketing.

What is user thinking?

User thinking is the thinking of "thinking from the user's perspective", or more broadly speaking, it is to think from the other person's perspective and think from their perspective.

User thinking is a kind of impressive thinking. Successful Internet products often grasp the needs of the "diaosi group" and "grassroots group". This is an out-and-out long-tail market. "Diaosi" is not only reflected in the living conditions, but also a mentality. They are humble but pursue recognition. They seek a "sense of existence", "sense of belonging" and "sense of accomplishment". User thinking treats losers as friends, makes them a part of the product, and connects the product with them. This is user thinking.

For example, in the case of Xiaomi, Xiaomi started building its own user community and user community before any products were launched on the market. It attracted a large number of users by launching the Xiaomi system, and learned about what kind of mobile phone products the market needed by going deep into the users, and learned about the real-time dynamics of the market through users. Only then did it develop Xiaomi. When Xiaomi mobile phone came out, it dominated the online sales of the new Internet marketing model, allowing users to leave the mobile phones in the mobile phone stores and queue up all night to buy Xiaomi mobile phones on time.

This is a verified case of user thinking. First of all, you must have a direction, use the direction to acquire users, obtain market dynamics, face consumers directly, and understand users by standing at the center of the user.

At which stages of marketing can user thinking be used?

We combine various aspects of marketing to think about how user thinking can be used.

• From the product perspective, through user thinking, we can discover user needs, find the user's product pain points, and maximize the product's functions and experience to meet their needs;
• From the perspective of publicity channels , we use user thinking to find the gathering points of potential customers and the places where potential customers play. We only carry out large-scale publicity in the precise places of potential customers and focus on core users.
• From the perspective of promotional copywriting , knowing what readers care about and what problems you want to solve for them can help you generate better interest, retention, and conversion .
• From the perspective of marketing scenarios, through user thinking, we can understand the thoughts and questions of potential users, form relevant marketing words, and quickly achieve transactions;
• We will provide a detailed interpretation according to these stages, which is also the focus of each stage of this user mindset implantation marketing.

Analyze user thinking from a product perspective

Ma Huateng once said:

"The most important ability of a product manager is to make himself a fool." Zhou Hongyi also said that "a good product manager must be in an idiot state."

A product manager’s ability to switch his or her brain from “professional mode, expert mode” to “user mode” or “fool mode” at any time is a reflection of user thinking. You must be able to forget the industry knowledge you have accumulated over a long period of time, as well as background information such as the product's sophisticated operating methods and implementation principles.

Zhou Hongyi once shared a case. When 360 was making routers, engineers discovered after some research that the antennas on traditional routers were not necessary. Existing technology could have achieved zero antennas, and the signal would not be affected at all. So, they confidently developed a router that didn't even have an antenna, thinking that this would be a surprise success. However, they didn't expect that once the product was launched, almost no one was interested in it.

Later I found out that users don’t care about the technical principles behind zero antennas. What they really care about is that the more antennas there are, the stronger the signal. A router with four antennas is better than one with two antennas. Such an impression has been solidified at the bottom of cognition and cannot be solved by so-called "innovation" at all.

Here is another case of an air purifier: the lack of user thinking of the air purifier resulted in ineffective purification.

Philips has an air purifier that comes with four layers of filters when you buy it. However, these four filters are not packaged separately, but are installed in the machine in advance. In this way, after the user gets the device, it is natural for him to directly plug in the power supply and turn on the switch, and then he thinks that it has started working. Little did they know that since the plastic covers of the four layers of filters were not removed, they had no purification effect at all.

This problem will not be detected when the machine is working, causing many users to discover it only when they replace the filter after using it for a few months.

Although the designers also did a job of informing users: they pasted a small yellow label on the power plug and reminded users in the product manual to remove the plastic cover of the filter first. But the problem is that users can easily overlook the small yellow label, and few people read the instructions carefully before using the product.

These two products are typical examples of user experience problems caused by insufficient user thinking. Therefore, when companies are making products, they need to implant user thinking, come from users and go to users.

Analyze user thinking from the perspective of publicity channels

Many companies fail to think from the user's perspective when promoting through various channels.

When choosing communication channels, many start-ups like to follow the industry leaders in their communication efforts. For example, HaiLan Home, a company in the clothing industry, does brand advertising on Baidu. The newly established clothing industry followed suit and also started to do brand advertising on its own websites. A huge amount of money was spent, but in the end there was no effect.

The reason for this is still the lack of user thinking. First of all, startups have no fans or users, and brand advertising is just a value-added service. You need to think about a few points from the user's perspective:

1. Will my potential users search for brands or products on Baidu?
2. Where will my potential customers buy from? Tmall ? JD.com ?
3. Where do potential users appear offline? Supermarket? Shop? Downtown mall?
4. Where do potential users appear online? Which platforms do you like to visit?
5. What software do potential users commonly use?

By determining these points, we can then determine the communication channels, which is also user thinking. A big reason why many companies fail to achieve results when doing marketing communications is that they fail to analyze platform users and then select the right channels for precise promotion .

Analyze user thinking from the perspective of promotional copy

Many copywriters or marketers fall into a blind spot when writing promotional copy: corporate thinking.

When writing copy with a corporate mindset, one always starts from one's own perspective, telling users how great the company is, how good the products are, and how cost-effective the company is. These copywritings highlight advantages, feelings, etc. However, the conversion effect of these articles is very poor, and the reason is also user thinking. User thinking needs to be perceived by users in the copywriting, and it should be described from the user's perspective to resonate with consumers.

Li Jiaoshou also wrote a widely circulated article about "X-type copywriting" and " Y-type copywriting ". The general idea is that "X-type copywriting" is "self-indulgent" and describes the product completely from a self-perspective, so it is difficult to resonate with consumers. Therefore, he advocates "Y-type copywriting", using simple and straightforward language to influence user experience. This is also user thinking.

Take fitness as an example. For many fitness apps, most of the slogans are like this:

• Professional mobile fitness coach, tailor-made training plan.
• Lose weight, stay fit and take control of your life.
• Start precise health management.

The above three copywritings are all quite standard. Let’s take a look at KEPP’s slogan: Self-discipline gives me freedom.

This slogan immediately impressed users, and the use of the first-person pronoun "I" gave users a sense of immersion, eliminating their wariness of advertisements.

There is also a widely circulated advertising copy: If you are afraid of getting a sore throat, drink Jiaduobao ; if you want to give a gift to your elders, drink golden wine; if a distinguished person comes, drink golden Moutai; if you are hungry, have a Snickers bar. These are all copywritings thought out from the user's perspective.

Let’s take a look at the copywriting of the OPPO mobile phone:

For example, “OPPO mobile phone, charge for 5 minutes and talk for 2 hours!” directly highlights the benefits and value points that the product brings to users, and immediately captures the user’s urgent need to solve the problem of insufficient battery in smartphones.

When thinking about user thinking at the copywriting stage, we mainly consider two points: 1. What issues do readers care about? ②Can our article solve readers’ problems?

I have given so many examples. There are also many guiding articles on the Internet on how to write copy from a user perspective. You can read them carefully.

Analyze user thinking from the perspective of marketing scenarios

By understanding the thoughts and questions of potential users through user thinking and forming relevant marketing strategies, transactions can be completed quickly. The scenario-based marketing, which has been very popular recently, is the application of user thinking.

We must understand that all marketing activities we do are a series of guesses about consumer behavior. Now, we are just making our guess concrete. For example: What scenarios are consumers in now? Is it a purchasing scenario, usage scenario, work scenario or life scenario? What problems will occur in this scenario? What chances do we have? Then we are working on design and promotion.

Scenario-based user thinking is:

1. What scenarios will cause problems?
2. How do we solve these problems?
3. This question is how consumers can participate.

We must deeply understand the consumers' consumption scenarios, treat ourselves as consumers, and then provide perfect experience and perfect solutions in every scenario of consumers.

Here I would like to give the example of Three Squirrels . Starting from the perspective of user thinking, Three Squirrels has taken the scenario-based experience to the extreme.

(1) Communication experience, zero distance between consumers

When customers come into contact with Three Squirrels for the first time, they will be left with an indelible impression, especially the three cute squirrels - Shu Xiaojian, Shu Xiaoku and Shu Xiaomei.

The “cute” marketing of three cute squirrels is only the superficial reason. The brand is directly personified, and the relationship between owner and pet replaces the traditional relationship between merchants and consumers. This is the essential meaning of Three Pines.

The customer service staff communicates with customers in the tone of a pet squirrel. The customers become the owners and the customer service staff become the pets. Therefore, customer service can act coquettishly and use a unique language system to form a more vivid image in the customer's mind.

(2) User experience

Every time Three Squirrels sells a corresponding product, it provides tools for cracking pine nuts, as well as paper towels before and after consumption, garbage bags for the shells , etc. By providing these supporting tools, users are saved a lot of trouble, thereby improving the user experience.

(3) Emotional experience

Replicated word of mouth by creating a super IP. Around this super IP, Three Squirrels continues to create content and develop peripherals. For example, Three Squirrels is producing some animations and animated dramas, and achieving cross-border integration with animation industries such as Aofei Animation to drive the continuous upgrading of the "Three Squirrels" IP.

Three Squirrels has also invaded the upstream of the animation industry chain to prepare some animated films , and will later get involved in promoting some animated books, illustrations, and picture books that children like. Through this emotional bundling, we can control the emotional stickiness of consumers.

I gave the example of Three Squirrels to tell you that only by using user thinking to analyze every scenario of consumers can we do a good job in marketing.

User thinking is very important at every stage of marketing. Use user thinking to produce good products that meet user needs and pain points, use user thinking to find marketing channels that are suitable for users, use user thinking to write copy that users want to read and is beneficial, and use user thinking to go deep into every consumption scenario of consumers.

By doing this, your marketing can be more effective.

Source: Miao Liwei