4 steps to teach you how to do brand marketing promotion!

A good brand can only be reflected through good communication. For many years, business owners have spent huge amounts of money and effort on brand information competing for a place in the minds of consumers. Entering the minds of consumers is the only way to gain brand loyalty and achieve high sales.

How to make your brand quickly occupy the minds of consumers? After reading this article, Chen Chunhua, professor of management at the National School of Development at Peking University, gives you four tips.

01. Strengthen consumers’ initial impression

Although the company has produced high-quality products with core interests that are enough to impress consumers, in this era of commodity oversupply where "even good wine needs to be hidden if it is not marketed", if there is no creative brand communication, the products may really be "hidden in the boudoir and unknown to everyone".

It is true that a new brand launch requires a large-scale communication campaign, including advertising. However, this campaign should not be blind or impulsive, but rather three-dimensional and focused. The core technology here is to understand the manufacturer's target consumer group's views on the product and the deep-seated needs of consumers for such products.

Secondly, manufacturers need to find out the possible contact points between the target consumer groups and the brand. Finally, based on these foundations, manufacturers can design appropriate brand information and disseminate it to the target consumer groups at appropriate contact points. At this time, the communication strategy needs to concentrate firepower and launch a powerful offensive against the target consumer groups, so as to strengthen the initial impression of the brand on consumers.

Case: Procter & Gamble 's "Three Musketeers"

Procter & Gamble is a well-deserved expert in this regard. Its shampoo does not adopt the brand strategy of "one brand cures all diseases". Instead, based on the increasingly mature consumers' personalized needs for the functions of shampoo products, it designs its shampoo products into three products: anti-dandruff (Head & Shoulders), hair care and nourishment (Pantene), and smooth and elegant (Pantene). It has formed a brand combination that completely monopolizes the personalized functional needs of shampoo and calls it the "Three Musketeers".

For the launch of these three products, P&G identified several communication touch points after conducting research on the target consumer groups in order to concentrate its firepower and launch a powerful communication offensive.

Procter & Gamble delivers clear and consistent messages to its target consumer groups at every contact point through radio avant-garde bands, TV advertising , fashion magazines, public relations events, talent shows, product deliveries, trials, POP advertising, store promotions and other activities.

This is very important. The functional benefits and emotional excitement of the product you want to convey must be simple and clear. Avoid trying to combine all functions, big and small, into a panacea. If you do this, consumers may not remember any of them in the end.

At the same time, it is necessary to emphasize that the product must affect and involve the terminal, because this is the contact point with the greatest force on consumers and the final place to achieve product sales.

Examples of failure are not uncommon. Some companies have invested a lot of money and effort in advertising, but the result is that after a lot of promotion, consumers rarely see the products at the terminal. After this happens several times, consumers are likely to lose patience. In this case, the company's advertising expenses are wasted and it ends up in failure.

Therefore, it is very important to achieve sufficient distribution rate before launching a communication offensive . According to the experience of many multinational companies, a new product must maintain a distribution rate of at least 70% ACV to achieve better results, otherwise all work may be in vain. A lot of advertising is spent, but in comparison, the cost of executing the entire marketing strategy will appear inefficient and expensive.

It should be noted that the appeal points of brand communication strategy are not static . In addition to maintaining the brand's core interest appeal points, we should also focus on timely communication appeals that follow the dynamic needs of the target consumer groups.

We see that, under the premise of maintaining its core brand appeal, Coca-Cola in the Chinese market will constantly adjust its timely communication appeal according to the occurrence and changes of Chinese folk customs and trend events, keep up with consumers' ever-changing preferences, and thus achieve excellent sales results.

02. Compare with strong brands

This strategy will tell us how to make our brand stand out from the vast sea of ​​brands. When small and medium-sized manufacturers are still small brands or new products, they are submerged in the crowd like thousands of small brands and new products.

Although standing out is the hope of every brand, it is very difficult. So how can we make our brand stand out?

For a long time, many companies have fallen into a misunderstanding, focusing too much on the brand itself, the so-called development of the product itself, strategy formulation, etc. When they are exhausted and still have poor performance, they can only sigh and lament their fate. So they will find a lot of reasons to excuse it as God's will, such as limited funds and lack of human resources.

It is recommended that brands pull themselves out of this misunderstanding and let us take a closer look. As a brand owner, have you observed and studied your competitors very carefully? Especially the top competitors in the industry. In fact, learning from competitors is a very high level of business strategy.

Case: 7-Up and Two Joys

The well-known soda brand 7-Up is a brand that borrowed the ladder built by others and became as famous as the brands of Coca-Cola and Pepsi , the two major global soft drink manufacturers, by comparing itself with strong brands.

When the 7-Up brand was first launched, it was just an ordinary soda, and was submerged in the ocean of brands along with many other soda drinks. If 7-Up soda had operated according to traditional marketing strategies, it might have become a brand with good sales, but it would be unimaginable for it to become a well-known brand on par with Coke and Coca-Cola.

The two colas have occupied an unshakable dominant position in the American soft drink market. In the minds of American consumers at that time, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have become synonymous with soft drinks.

In order to realize the dream of a strong brand, 7-Up's senior management teamed up with strong external brains from world-renowned consulting firms to conduct numerous discussions on brand promotion and enhancement strategies.

After extensive surveys and research on consumers, 7UP discovered that with many years of operation of Coca-Cola and Pepsi, their brand image and interest points have built a solid resistance barrier in the minds of consumers. If 7UP continues to use traditional brand building and promotion strategies, even if it spends a huge amount of money, it may be of no avail and it will still be difficult to compete with them.

7-UP figured out how to climb up by using the ladder built by Coca-Cola and Pepsi. From the day it launched the general attack, consumers’ vision, hearing, touch and perception all received a simple and clear message: 7-UP is a non-cola drink. This suddenly equated the little-known 7-UP drink with the well-known Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and at the same time, differentiated it from Coca-Cola and Pepsi through its “non-cola” positioning, highlighting 7-UP’s alternative brand personality.

As it turned out, 7UP's analogy positioning strategy achieved unprecedented success. In people's minds, 7UP became the third largest soft drink brand after Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

The alternative personalized emotional color conveyed by 7UP's "non-cola" positioning transcends the two colas and is unique, becoming a brand concept that is as famous as the "Forever Coca-Cola" and "Pepsi New Generation" brand concepts that are always fresh in the minds of consumers.

Since 7-Up adopted the analogy strategy in 1968, its sales performance has grown by leaps and bounds, with the sales growth rate that year reaching more than 200%. It is well-deserved to be the third largest soft drink brand in the world.

If a manufacturer's product is of good quality, why not try using a metaphorical positioning strategy? Adopt an association strategy that links the brand with strong brands in the industry to make it stand out from the crowd.

03. Focus on consumers’ core needs

Give consumers convincing reasons

Influenced by the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) theory, we can now see and hear such slogans in various advertisements, whether we walk into shopping malls, supermarkets or retail stores:

Fengying removes dandruff without damaging hair, Diao Pai transparent soap washes cleanly without fading, Skyworth is healthy only if it does not glitter, BMW provides drivers with enjoyment, Volvo provides safety performance, Mercedes-Benz provides passengers with dignity, and so on.

Each brand has defined its own "unique selling proposition", which is what we usually call the product selling point. Among these brands, some have indeed achieved good sales results by identifying appropriate selling propositions.

However, the vast majority of brands are still doing superficial positioning work. Without accurately grasping the core needs of the target consumer groups, they rely on some assumed or wishful positioning to impose on consumers. But in this buyer's market environment, can consumers be easily fooled?

Case: Coca-Cola and Orange Juice

Advertising guru Ogilvy said: Never assume that customers are not smart. Indeed, we can make this clear by just giving an example of failure. The new flavor of cola developed by Coca-Cola was strongly opposed by classic cola consumers all over the world, who even protested with demonstrations. Finally, Coca-Cola had to succumb to the wishes of consumers and resume production of the previous classic cola formula.

Coca-Cola had to replan and formulate a suitable communication strategy before it started producing new flavors of Coca-Cola. It can be seen from this that even a super brand like Coca-Cola can suffer huge losses because it fails to grasp the core needs and real trends of consumers and its positioning demands deviate from the core needs of consumers.

There is a lot of confusing positioning resource information among manufacturers and brands themselves, which often confuses corporate brand managers and professional communication professionals . To the extent that, without accurately discovering the core needs of consumers, the so-called positioning appeal strategy is formulated based solely on some empty positioning resources.

In fact, it is not ruled out that they still hold some fluke mentality, thinking that as long as I spend more money on advertising, invest more, and make the scene more grand, I can get good results. But this kind of mentality of taking chances often fails to achieve the desired result and results in wasting money on doing sloppy things.

Let’s first look at an example of failure caused by misjudging the core needs of consumers. Marketing personnel from a well-known international company found that consumers were not satisfied with the taste of orange juice sold on the market.

This news reached the company's headquarters and attracted the attention of the company's top management. They believed that as long as customers were dissatisfied with the products on the market, there would be a huge business opportunity. The company then organized a large number of market researchers to conduct a large-scale secret investigation on the consumer groups that consumed this type of orange juice products in the market.

The final survey results showed that nearly 50% of consumers expected to drink orange juice drinks with a stronger flavor. After hearing the news, the company immediately began developing new flavors of beverages, positioning the product's core benefit to consumers as "100% natural juice."

Soon after the product was launched on the market, the company commissioned an advertising agency to create a beautiful-looking commercial and carried out a series of large-scale promotional activities in conjunction with terminal stores.

Logically, they could wait to reap the fruits of victory, but unexpectedly, the market response to this new flavor of orange juice was very cold. Although the company carried out a lot of additional publicity, it was ultimately unable to reverse the decline.

What’s valuable is that the company did not give up. They decided to conduct in-depth investigation and research on consumers, and finally they found the crux of the problem.

It is true that consumers were not satisfied with the taste of the orange juice sold on the market at the time and wanted it to taste stronger. However, since they were already accustomed to the taste of those orange juice drinks, they would not completely give up the product they were accustomed to just because it tasted a little stronger.

Moreover, consumers have no doubt that the raw material is 100% fruit juice. They think it is the same as the product they are drinking and there are no outstanding benefits. So, consumers are not lying, but marketers are misdiagnosing consumers’ core needs.

After in-depth analysis and research, the company redefined its communication strategy and changed its original 100% natural juice slogan to the following:

In the end, the company's sales of orange juice rebounded immediately and achieved impressive sales results. The huge profits have also enabled the company to invest more in orchard planting and logistics distribution, better reflecting its "fresh" appeal.

04. The closer to the consumer group, the better

In the process of brand growth, how to narrow the distance between consumers and the brand is a very important task. For a long time, many manufacturers and distributors have spared no effort in this regard, hoping to gain consumers' brand loyalty.

So how can brands get closer to consumers?

As consumers, let us simulate the experience together. When we call the brand for consultation and get a warm response; when the brand's after-sales service staff quickly appears in front of us shortly after we hang up the phone; when we receive an invitation letter from the brand to participate in the experience; when we just learn from the advertisement that the brand is going to give discounts and promotions, and we get the benefits as soon as we step out of the house.

In short, we strive to make consumers feel that the products and services are designed specifically for them. The rewards given by consumers are also obvious. They will favor the brand more, which will enable the brand to achieve better sales performance.

Face-to-face customer service is the least that can make customers feel that they are getting value for money. And then feel the value of the experience process. Therefore, its core mission is to create a pleasant consumption experience for customers. The key point is to focus on the brand's terminal contact points, so that customers have the opportunity to come into face-to-face contact with each source of brand information during the consumption experience.

Customers come into close contact with these contact points consciously or unconsciously. For example: product display areas, shopping guides, sales, promotions, advertising, delivery, and even the image of administrative staff will directly or indirectly convey the brand's message to customers. As long as a brand provides face-to-face services to consumers at every contact point, consumers will feel that the brand is closest to them.

Let us start our analysis from the purchasing behavior process of a customer buying a washing machine: when a customer realizes that washing clothes by hand is inconvenient or needs to upgrade the current washing machine, he or she will have the desire to buy.

At this time, television advertisements, billboard advertisements, newspaper and magazine advertisements, promotional information and word-of-mouth communication of various washing machine products may make him choose one or several washing machine brands and want to buy a washing machine.

Consumers will then make another selection among these brands based on the differences in the functions they need. Consumers at this stage will generally start making phone inquiries or appear directly at the product’s terminal stores. From here, they will begin to experience the entire consumer experience provided by the brand for them (regardless of whether the purchase is successful or not).

Unfortunately, at this time, due to a malfunction in the consultation telephone, the sales staff has only a vague understanding of the product and the customer's product inquiries cannot be effectively answered, making the customer unclear about the performance characteristics of this brand's products and the differences between them and other products.

The sales staff are careless and even have a bad attitude during the negotiation process; the waiting time for payment is too long, which makes customers impatient; the sloppy packaging makes customers have to be cautious; the lack of store transportation makes customers have to move the goods by themselves with great effort;

After a long negotiation, customers only get an ambiguous warranty promise (although there is a warranty card, customers may be afraid that the dealer will be careless and irresponsible and pass the buck between the manufacturer and the dealer), etc., which makes customers feel disgusted with the brand during the experience, and even stay away from the brand and never patronize it again.

China Telecom ’s customer service strategy has a good appeal: communication starts from the heart. It is obvious that bringing hearts closer together is the key to brand strategy.

The sign that a brand occupies the minds of consumers is not simply to make them remember the brand, but to let consumers know what you are, just like Coca-Cola = cola, Xerox = copier, and 7-Up = non-cola beverage. Although it takes a lot of effort and years of accumulation for a brand to reach this level. But it’s something all brands should strive for.

Source: Spring Blossoms