How to use data for brand marketing?

In this era, data-driven thinking is a quality that every marketer must possess.

1. “New” Marketing in the Digital Age

How is this era different from previous ones?

1. Consumers’ choice arrogance

Jack Trout, the "Father of Positioning", once proposed a famous "Law of Binary Value":

In a mature and stable market, consumers' minds can often only accommodate two brands . If your brand isn’t number one or number two in its category, you need to rethink your strategy.

To put it simply, in a category, there are usually only two brands that can enter the minds of consumers.

For example, I saw some people in the audience brought in take-away coffee. When you think of coffee brands, what brands come to your mind?

(Everyone in the audience said loudly: Starbucks ).

What about another brand?

(There is no consensus, some say Nestle, some say Costa, and some say Luckin Coffee , but everyone’s response is still very fast)

What about the third one?

(Everyone’s reaction speed was obviously much slower, and the volume in the audience was also much lower).

In other words, the number of brands that can leave a deep impression on people is very limited in a category.

What this means for brands is that if you cannot rank in the top two in the minds of your target audience, your image will be very small and often ignored and not remembered.

Especially in the current market environment, because consumers are arrogant in their choices.

I was born in the 1980s. When I was a child, materials were relatively scarce. At that time, if we wanted to buy a bicycle, there were not many brands to choose from.

But today, when we want to buy a product, there are too many brands to choose from in its category. I can choose from many, many brands.

Consumers are like emperors; they can flip the cards at will.

As mentioned earlier, they can only remember two brands in a category, and the third one is a bit difficult.

So why should they choose you?

The survival environment for brands is now even more severe. If you cannot quickly enter the minds of your target audience and make them feel that you are the right one for them, you will lose.

Did you find it?

In the past, consumers bought whatever products the brands produced. The brand is the protagonist. It’s up to you to buy it or not. Consumers have very limited choices.

It’s not like that now. Why do you see the trend of product customization becoming more and more obvious? More and more brands will allow consumers to participate in product design, allowing consumers to come in and do it together?

For example, customized clothing, customized jewelry, customized services...

Because brands need to establish a deeper emotional connection with consumers so that consumers like and prefer it and choose it.

Therefore, the overall environment is more difficult and severe for brands. There are so many competitors. If you don’t do a good job of differentiation and positioning, consumers will still not choose you even if you spend a lot of money on promotion .

They will choose the brands they like, the ones that are in their preferred style.

2. Communication environment: too many channels , consumer attention is extremely diluted

As an ordinary consumer, think about how many advertisements you see every day? Is it too much?

Various embedded ads that you see when you open your eyes and browse your phone.

• When you take an elevator, you see advertisements inside and outside the elevator;
• You go out to buy breakfast and there is an advertisement on the package;
• When you take the subway, there are advertisements all over the walls and on the ground.
• You arrive at the company, turn on your computer, and all kinds of ads pop up...

We see all kinds of advertisements every day, but how many of them can you remember?

Seeing does not mean looking into.

But those brands that you ignore also spend money.

You may be the target audience of this brand, and you may have seen the advertisement but not been able to get into it.

In other words, for consumers, if your advertising does not capture their inner pain points, they will ignore you.

The same is true for the entire information environment. Today’s media environment is flourishing, with a variety of media platforms flourishing.

But let's think about it, when each of us goes home, whether we watch TV or videos, we have more than a hundred channels to choose from, but are there more than five channels that you often watch at home?

(Everyone in the audience shook their heads, many said there were only three)

So, why are the top resources in the media circle so concentrated when we look at them? Why are there so many variety shows that cannot be named and cannot receive advertising fees, while the advertising fees of the top ones are higher every year than the previous year?

Because consumers tend to be arrogant in their choices when watching media and content, and are too lazy to evaluate the quality and content of so many programs themselves. They will choose those programs that are particularly well-known and recognized as being particularly well-made, or those that are relatively vertical and well-made within the scope of their own interests.

So some brands think that although my marketing expenses are limited, I should not put all my eggs in one basket. I can invest in more cheap variety shows.

In the end, not a single one turned out to be successful and all the money was wasted.

In the current environment, it is more difficult to place investments than before, and you can’t just make investments on a whim.

3. Marketing environment: boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred

So, looking at us marketers as a whole, what changes have taken place over the years?

That is, work boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred.

In the past, if a brand wanted to hold a press conference, it knew it had to find a public relations company. To make an advertisement, you need to find an advertising company. Everyone’s responsibilities are clear and the boundaries are well-defined.

But now, the integration is so strong that public relations people and advertising people no longer call themselves that. They are all called marketers.

For brands, they will not split a project into public relations, advertising, digital and then assign it to different companies.

A brand may be a very specific appeal:

I am a start-up brand. Now that the product is out, I need to quickly gain popularity. It is difficult for me to figure out what means to use to achieve this demand. As a professional marketer, please help me accomplish this through a combination of means.

So, now you will find that everyone needs to know and do everything related to marketing, and the boundaries are very blurred.

Because the marketing demands of an enterprise are complete, we need to consider what kind of marketing methods should be allocated to them based on the demands of the enterprise. This is what a professional public relations person should do.

We now have more and more things to learn.

More importantly, this requirement can now be better achieved because the data environment is becoming more mature.

4. In the digital age, data is the helmsman of marketing

The data environment is becoming more and more mature, which means I can spend less money and use data to help me see the truth of some facts. This is particularly beneficial to the development of the marketing industry.

To summarize, the data environment has changed in two aspects:

• First, more and more data can be obtained, and the types are becoming more and more diverse.
• Second, the cost of obtaining data is getting lower and lower.

This will also bring two changes to marketers:

First, the types of decisions that can be supported are becoming more diverse, ranging from strategic to tactical.

This can help us marketers get rid of the past history where we sometimes had to make judgments based on our intuition, intelligence and experience.

Second, they are relatively more able to take responsibility for the results.

When I say being responsible for the results, I mean the marketing activities that we are responsible for. Based on the flow of data behind it, I can more clearly judge whether the work is done well, whether the money is worth spending, and how to better optimize it.

For example, ten years ago we held a press conference, invited many media outlets and issued many public relations releases, but we had no idea what the final effect would be.

We only know that XX media outlets have published the information, but we don’t know how many people have seen it, how many of them are target users , and how many of them actually read it. However, today we have more abundant means to help us figure out the answer to this question.

2. How does ineffective/inefficient marketing happen?

We have served so many brands and found that the reason why brands’ marketing efficiency is often low and content promotion effects are not good is due to the companies’ “self-satisfaction”.

Last year, I published a book called "No Ineffective Marketing". The English title of the book is: NO "Self-high" Marketing. There is no such word. This is a self-created chinglish (Chinese English). I used this word to express this concept: inefficiency often comes from self-satisfaction.

Brands think that what they provide is particularly good, but consumers just don’t buy it because what you think is good is not what they think.

Behind this is the difference between the brand perspective and the consumer perspective.

Let me tell you a case. There is a Sichuan cuisine brand, which can be said to be the conscience of the entire catering industry.

Why is it the conscience of the industry?

The boss said that he particularly couldn’t stand the fact that many catering brands kept raising prices and thought it was wrong, so they hadn’t raised prices for many years. Moreover, they attach great importance to the quality of dishes and ingredients, and are very pursuing quality.

But what is the result?

However, consumers are moving further and further away. Young consumers seldom go to their restaurant to eat, and the stickiness of old users has obviously decreased compared to before, as can be seen from the data. What exactly happened?

Although their biggest highlight is the reasonable pricing of their dishes, we surveyed their existing consumers and found that when consumers make recommendations, the proportion of them recommending cost-effective dishes is very low.

We have already given so much profit, but this cannot form an important driving force for users to recommend the product. At the same time, everyone thinks that good quality and low price are good things, but it is not very important for consumer choices.

During the research process, there is a focus group interview. In a one-way mirror room, the host interviews consumers one-on-many, and we and the customers observe in the observation room.

The client couldn't sleep that night.

There is one user who consumes this brand as many as four times a week on average, which makes him a heavy user. But ask him why he comes to eat so often.

He said that because our unit has been in operation for more than ten years, the daily meal allowance has been more than 40 yuan, and it is still more than 40 yuan now, and it has not changed. Our company is in Wangfujing, and this is the only restaurant in this area where we can eat well with the meal allowance.

Another consumer expressed concern for the brand. On the one hand, he selfishly did not want the company to raise prices, but on the other hand, he felt that the business might die if it continued like this as the profits were too low. More importantly, if he were to treat friends to a meal, he would definitely not choose this restaurant.

First of all, the environment is average, and then when the bill comes, it's 50 per person. Friends will think that you are so mean. I traveled so far to have a meal with you, and you are so stingy.

So we investigated the important factors that influence consumers' dining out choices.

The first is taste, but this is a basic need, so this is the default option and must be available. In addition to taste, the most important option is the environment and atmosphere.

Especially young consumers, many of those born in the 1990s, go to a restaurant for topics. I can take a long time to drive to a restaurant, and they need to satisfy many of my abstract needs, such as creative restaurants and theme restaurants.

As a company with a very low average customer spending, it has not been able to optimize and upgrade the entire environment and atmosphere because its profits are too low.

During the interview, some people said, "I am indeed dissatisfied. The tablecloths in their homes looked like they were from five years ago, the air conditioner was still dripping, and the entire arrangement of the tableware and the quality of the tableware did not give a sense of aesthetic pleasure."

We can see that when it comes to dining out, people see different things from the perspective of consumers and brands.

Moreover, we see that among the eight major cuisines in 2017, only Sichuan cuisine is declining. Why?

The whole Sichuan cuisine gives people the impression of being unhealthy, high in oil, with a bad environment, noisy and spicy. So this is inconsistent with the current consumer demands for consumption upgrades.

They want dining out to be healthier, lighter and more enjoyable.

Under this premise, we found that this brand has strong inherent strength and it would be great if it could change its image and upgrade itself.

This often means opportunities, which can not only leverage the market, but also change some of the old and wrong perceptions people have about this cuisine. Because authentic Sichuan cuisine is not oily or spicy, but emphasizes the various flavors of each dish.

The difference behind this is the difference between the brand perspective and the consumer perspective.

As marketers, we hope to find the direction of strategic output, which is the intersection between these two circles. We call this intersection the marketing perspective under the data-driven thinking system.

Why is it so important to do consumer research in this era? Because it is difficult to truly consider issues from the consumer's perspective through your intelligence.

In the current environment, there are many types of data that can help us find the answer to this intersection.

For example, massive behavioral data that is collated and analyzed based on the massive behaviors of netizens, and traditional small data (referring to survey data) can help us gain insights into consumers efficiently and quickly.

3. How does data-driven thinking help brands make efficient decisions?

How does data help us make decisions at many important strategic and tactical nodes?

Today I would like to briefly share the following three aspects:

• First, data helps brands position themselves in the market;
• Second, data helps brands anchor competitors;
• Third, data helps brands find target groups and corresponding marketing methods.

1. Data helps brands position themselves in the market

Market positioning is a very large topic, and data can often help us make unexpected and fantastic discoveries.

Last year, I served an online fat loss camp brand whose founder was a very strong expert leader. The satisfaction of students in the historical fat loss camp was also very good, but the business expansion was very slow.

And differentiation has always been a difficult point:

When they explain to users why they should choose their brand, it is difficult for them to clearly explain the difference between them and others.

Because there are a lot of fat-loss camps online, the working methods behind them are very similar: check in on diet in WeChat groups , upload photos, record weight, complete exercise tasks, etc.

Moreover, for everyone who wants to lose weight, there are many ways to do it, and online fat loss camp is just one of them. Why must we use this method?

So he felt that the positioning was vague and wanted to optimize it.

We later found the answer by combining traditional research with comprehensive analysis of secondary data and online data. The most critical insight here was discovered using small data.

When we conducted industry analysis at that time, we found that the weight loss and fitness market was a relatively mature market with fierce competition. However, consumers' overall needs are not well met.

At that time, the consumer research was conducted in two lines. One line was the research on the brand's existing user groups, and the other line was the research on the mainstream users in the entire weight loss and fitness market. We compared the situations of these two groups of people.

Then I found that there is a very critical question: What kind of help do you need most in the process of losing weight? What are you most dissatisfied with?

The answer to this question leads to an important insight.

For most people, they are very distressed that they spend a lot of money but still can’t lose weight.

But their worries are not because they don’t have money to go to the gym, nor because they don’t know the correct fitness posture, nor because they don’t have time. They have time.

But why am I still worried? Why can’t I lose weight?

The core problem is that he can neither control his mouth nor move his legs, nor can he go to bed on time every day as the teacher requires. He understands the theory, but cannot put it into practice.

Therefore, in the help needed, the result of the entire data is that the proportion of "no one helped me to overcome the psychological barriers" is 42.55%, which is very high.

Behind this is a very vertical field with a very broad market, called weight loss motivation consultation, or weight loss psychological counseling.

Later, we conducted an experiment and added 5 minutes of fitness motivation consultation every day to one group of users, and the results showed obvious changes.

Everyone was very happy to see this service. However, when the students who were not assigned to the experimental group learned about it, many of them were even very angry and asked why we couldn’t do the experiment? I'm willing to pay for this service.

You see, this is the empty space in the consumers' minds. By adding this service, the brand's differentiation will immediately emerge.

The type of positioning behind this is called market niche positioning.

A market nicher usually refers to a company that chooses a specific, relatively small market segment as its target and uses it as its business strategy.

They focus on certain market segments that are ignored by large companies and gain profits through specialized operations.

Especially in the weight loss industry, which is a huge competitive market, it is very suitable for small-scale enterprises to choose this method.

What we helped him find was such a vertical segment. The target population of this segment is very large. Big brands don’t value this area, but consumers still need it.

Therefore, as long as the brand is professional and in-depth enough, it can fill an important gap in this market.

2. How does data help us target our competitors?

How does data help us do competitive product analysis ?

Competitors may not necessarily be in the same industry, they may be from different industries.

From the consumer's perspective, whoever competes with me for users is my competitor, so sometimes competitors are not even in the same industry.

The correct angle for us to judge competitors should be from the user's perspective.

Here are the dimensions we use to help brands choose competing products, for reference only:

From a marketing perspective, we hope to:

Sooner or later, we will help brands turn the people behind competitors' products into users of our brand. This is the ultimate goal of our research on competitors.

This is the correct research goal. The reason why a brand is my competitor is because the consumers behind it should become my people in the future.

According to the length of the timeline, we can look at it from the following three aspects:

(1) Enterprise level: Who has the same mission and strategic goals as me?

Maybe they are much more powerful and well-known than you now, and they cannot compete with you at all, but our long-term development is the same, so what they are doing now is of reference value to us, and of course we should study it.

(2) Product level: Reverse analysis from the perspective of product purchase

Maybe they choose within a certain price range, maybe they adjust from the perspective of working principle, or maybe they choose from the perspective of product popularity. These dimensions are the thinking logic we use to infer our competitors’ products.

(3) User level: infer from the perspective of user demands

Find out what demands users want to solve when they buy your product, and infer your competitors’ products based on these demands.

For example, a brand of formaldehyde removal purifier may have its competitor be green ivy, because customers now use green ivy to solve their formaldehyde removal needs.

Let me show you a small case study to show you how data can help us find competitors.

The left picture shows the whereabouts of lost users behind the Tmall store of an air purification brand when we served it:

It refers to users who stayed on the brand's flagship product page for more than 80 seconds but did not purchase the product. Which products did they buy later?

Watching for 80 seconds means that people read the content of this page carefully.

You looked at it so carefully, which means you really wanted to buy it, but you didn’t buy me, what’s wrong? Who did you buy? The bigger the brand name in the cloud map, the more consumers buy it. The cloud map for this month looks like this.

We were all very surprised at the time. How could it be Changhong? This brand was not in our analysis database before. But this is the answer that the data told us, and it is the fact. Users didn’t buy our brand, they bought Changhong instead.

3. How does data help brands find target groups and corresponding marketing methods?

At the beginning of last year, we provided data consulting services to several main creators of Qi Pa Tian Tuan (Miguo Company) based on their paid knowledge works on the Himalaya platform.

At that time, they had a hot-selling product called "Speak Well", which was very successful. In 2016, this product was the best-selling paid knowledge product on the entire Himalaya platform.

They had a question at the time. This product was already the best-selling one on the Himalaya platform (most of the users had been harvested), so if they wanted to continue selling it, should they prepare some advertising fees and promote it on other platforms?

Later, after we looked at the user data, we advised them not to spend the money.

Why?

Because by analyzing their user data, we found that among their influential people (people who like the main creators, recognize their ability to speak, have the habit and budget to buy paid knowledge products, and want to learn how to speak better), only about half of them bought it, and the other half did not buy it?

So why didn’t you buy the remaining half? Would it be more efficient if we expand this half of the people?

We conducted in-depth research on this group of people and found that there is only one key difference between them and users who have purchased products, and that is their different consumption concepts: those who have not purchased products are rational consumers.

This product was sold while being broadcast. Users had to first pay to buy the entire series, and then it would be serialized every week, with 5 episodes released, each lasting 6 minutes.

That is to say, during the entire broadcast process, users cannot see the entire catalog; they can only see the themes of the completed episodes.

For a rational shopper, I like you, but if you ask me to spend less than two hundred yuan now, and I can't even see the entire catalog, then I'll wait before buying.

But at that time, they had already completed the publication of "Speak Well" and the catalog was complete. So I suggested that they try again using the old channels. Don’t spend money to expand other channels yet.

They went back and tried it, and sure enough, this time this part of users was converted smoothly and efficiently.

So you can see that data-driven thinking can support brands in making various types of decisions, from strategy to tactics.

So, when we do marketing data analysis for brands, what is the most core evaluation criterion for effectiveness?

Whether we are helping brands with positioning, user profiling , or endorsement evaluation, we only have one evaluation criterion, which is whether we can provide a clear, directly executable solution.

If data is only used to present facts, it is of course useful, but it is not good analysis. A good analysis will eventually lead to a solution.

Tell the brand what you should do, how to optimize the brand, how to improve the product, how to choose the channel, and what direction the content should take.

It must be very specific and feasible. Any plan that cannot be implemented is just a scam.

I have always emphasized the use of data-driven thinking to do things. The key to data-driven thinking is actually to find the patterns behind the phenomena, such as some kind of connection, or laws and rules. It is these laws that control what we see.

Whether it is data, tools , or thinking models, they are all means and the bridge for us to understand the truth and make insights.

I believe that in this era, data-driven thinking is a quality that every marketer must possess.

Source: Wang Zeyun