In 2020, Bilibili may be the most worthwhile marketing channel

Marketing channels that bring dividends are worthy of brand owners’ time and investment. Do you agree with this statement?

Perhaps you will say that different products are suitable for different channels. This statement is of course true and not wrong, but what is true is often nonsense and will not provide you with any effective guidance when you are faced with a choice.

In the early days of Taobao, there were many buyers and few sellers, and there was an imbalance between supply and demand. The first batch of sellers made a lot of money, and a large number of Taobao brands were born, such as Han Du Yishe.

In the early days of public accounts, there were many authors but few brand owners who published soft articles. The early brands that took the lead in publishing soft articles on public accounts grew rapidly, and many new consumer brands emerged.

What are dividends? That’s the bonus.

The bonus is a temporary imbalance between supply and demand.

Channels and platforms with bonuses are places where you get excess profits if you come into contact with them first and enter the market first without changing your abilities.

Almost all new brands that have been able to grow rapidly in recent years have started by betting on channel platforms with bonus characteristics. For mature brands, it is absolutely impossible to miss a platform that is in its bonus period.

At present, there is an imbalance between traffic and marketing density on Bilibili, and an imbalance between the number of users, activity and brand owner marketing activities.

So I say that Bilibili may be the most worthwhile marketing channel to invest in in 2020.

Come, let's do some research and look at some objective data.

Bilibili’s latest quarterly financial report shows that the number of active users increased by 42.1 million from the previous quarter, and the average monthly active users has reached 172 million . At the same time, the popularity of related keywords in Baidu Index Bilibili also reached a peak this quarter.

B station keyword Baidu index

From a subjective perspective, I have discovered that the big Vs in various fields that I had followed before have recently begun to settle in Bilibili, such as Jiang Cha Cha in the marketing circle, Pengmen Zuodao PPT in the design field, Banfoxianren, etc. Among them, Banfoxianren has attracted more than 4 million fans in just a few months.

Compared with these high traffic and high growth data, the number of brands settled in the market is less than 5,000, which is a blue ocean.

Brands that settled in early on are now thriving, such as new domestic brands like Perfect Diary, which will be discussed in detail later.

To sum up, Bilibili is currently in the stage of " high traffic growth + low marketing density " , which brings huge channel dividends to brands.

You may wonder, why was Bilibili’s marketing density relatively low before, but now you can enter the market?

Regarding this, the reason is actually a bit similar to Zhihu, that is, the community culture and atmosphere.

Both Zhihu and Bilibili have gradually expanded from niche circles. In the early days, community content was mostly generated by users' love, built brick by brick, and they were relatively averse to commercial advertising. In the past few years, many Zhihu big Vs would be "beaten up" by so-called fans when they posted an advertisement, and the situation with Bilibili was similar.

However, as people's concepts change, they gradually begin to understand how difficult it is for UP hosts to create content. They also have to make a living. On the contrary, people will be happy for UP hosts to receive advertisements.

I recommend you to watch the advertisement for OnePlus mobile phone made by the B station UP host "Hello, teacher, I am He Xuexue". The comments are very interesting, and many people shouted "OnePlus is awesome, pay more!"

Of course, in addition to the increasing acceptance of commercial advertising among users in the general environment, what is more important is "Bilibili's official attitude" - Bilibili has significantly increased its pace of commercialization this year.

After a long period of exploration, Bilibili has developed the three-pronged integrated marketing approach of "brand marketing" + "performance marketing" + "content marketing". From brand exposure, content seeding to effect conversion, it has formed a complete set of marketing capabilities. In addition, brands can accumulate content and fans in the corporate car account and ultimately complete the construction of brand assets.

In the long run, brands will cultivate Bilibili as an important marketing base and form a closed marketing loop on Bilibili, which will enable them to reach the new generation of young people more efficiently.

However, you should note that although the east wind has come, the community atmosphere and the official B station are very receptive to commercial advertising, and various external conditions are complete, but do you have the ability to do marketing at B station?

Now I will focus on what you should do to seize the dividends of Bilibili?

Step 1: You need to be as familiar with the ecosystem of Station B as possible

At present, Bilibili has become one of the most frequently used platforms among young people. According to statistics, the average time spent on Bilibili by users is 87 minutes per day, and the average number of videos watched by users is 16 per day.

1) What do Bilibili users look like?

At present, most of Bilibili users are young people born in the 1990s and 2000s. They are the backbone of the current mobile Internet and have common topics and circles.

Another notable feature is that it no longer relies on social interaction among acquaintances, but is more based on interest-based social circles. Currently, Bilibili has more than 2 million cultural tags and more than 7,000 core circles.

"One out of every two young people is a Bilibili user"

2) The foundation of B station's prosperity: active creative ecology and interesting barrage culture

Bilibili has invested heavily in building a creative ecosystem for UP hosts, which is what makes Bilibili stand out from other video platforms and why it is often referred to as the "Chinese version of YouTube" by the financial community.

In the "Houlang" video that was all over the screen some time ago, two of my favorite UP hosts also appeared, the film and television UP host "Film and Television Hurricane Tim" and the digital UP host "Hello Teacher, My Name is Mr. He". I recommend them to everyone.

It is excellent original UP hosts like them who piece together the colorful world of Bilibili, shot by shot. They choose this because from circle culture to barrage culture, Bilibili has an inclusive community atmosphere. To exaggerate a little, it is the only one of its kind in China.

Traditional video websites such as Youku, iQiyi and Tencent Video are like tools. They are closed after use and people will hardly open them unless there is a drama they want to watch.

Bilibili is like a large community with a strong atmosphere of discussion and communication and extremely high user stickiness. Can you imagine someone watching a drama three times just to see the latest comments? That's how I am, because the comments on Bilibili are so funny.

"If you have any questions, please post them on the public screen and leave a comment."

"Remember to comment and forward three times"

Correspondingly, some UP hosts will take the audience's barrage interaction into consideration when producing content, which means that the audience's feedback barrage is planned as part of the content from the very beginning.

Through the above introduction, everyone should have a clear understanding of what Bilibili is. From now on, it’s all practical stuff, so remember to take notes.

Currently, there are three marketing advertising methods officially supported by Bilibili, namely brand marketing, performance marketing and content marketing. Product promotion sends out high-quality signals, content builds trust, and performance advertising accelerates monetization conversion.

Since most of Aiqi’s readers are advertising optimizers, I will first talk about B station’s performance advertising, that is, B station’s information flow advertising, and then talk about product promotion and content marketing.

Currently, Bilibili’s information flow includes two different terminals: mobile and PC. The mobile terminal is the home base of performance advertising, while the PC terminal can enhance the performance and brand promotion. It is necessary to make rational use of and match resources according to one's own marketing demands.

What are the popular industries that B station is currently targeting?

Currently, the main industries for investment include e-commerce, social networking, online services, games, and education .

Bilibili's unique social attributes, user stickiness and great potential for consumption have also allowed more and more advertisers to see the traffic value and prospects of Bilibili. As a marketer, you must seize this wave of traffic advantages and promotion dividends. I have emphasized this point many times.

Step 2: Enter the market quickly and seize the opportunity

I give you 1 suggestion and 4 small tips.

1 suggestion : imitate first and then surpass, competitive adjustment is essential

Bilibili is different from video platforms such as iQiyi and Youku. It is more like a community with its own unique community culture and aesthetic preferences. If you crudely put advertisements produced on other platforms on Bilibili, it is highly likely that they will not meet expectations.

Therefore, before launching your campaign, check to see if any of your competitors in the industry have already entered Bilibili and see how they are doing it. This way you can avoid many pitfalls.

For example, in the beauty industry, you can search for the keyword "Perfect Diary". The search results page will have about 1,000 videos and 50 pages. Then use the crawler tool to capture the "play volume", "time", "number of barrages", "UP host name" and other fields of all videos and put them into Excel.

Further data analysis will reveal:

Which UP hosts is Perfect Diary collaborating with?

Who do you collaborate with most frequently?

Which UP hosts have the most interactive comments?

The experience of our predecessors is our ladder. Next, you will most likely know how to do content marketing.

Next, let’s take a look at what Perfect Diary’s information flow ads on Bilibili look like?

The picture above is the advertisement that Perfect Diary placed on other platforms, and the picture below is the one placed on Bilibili. Aren’t they completely different?

Creativity largely determines the effectiveness of information flow advertising. Do not directly move creative materials placed on other platforms to Bilibili, as the effect may not meet your expectations.

So what are the creative tips for Bilibili’s information flow?

4 Tips for creative material production:

1. Add keywords to the pictures and use eye-catching fonts and colors

Creative material for a food brand

2. Make flexible use of the hot topics on Bilibili. Hot topics or buzzwords

Creative material for an online education company

3. Appropriately package the advertisement into the UP host video style according to the product attributes

Creative material for an overseas rental APP

Jingdong e-commerce creative materials

4. Use B station design elements to build the picture

China Merchants Bank and China Mobile card creative materials

Compared with surface creative materials, landing page production requires more effort.

On Bilibili, I recommend that you promote the information you are delivering by using videos on the landing page. This is an advertising format that conforms to Bilibili's video-based ecosystem and user experience, and is more vivid and attractive than traditional images and texts.

I have found two cases for you to see. It is obvious that video materials have a stronger impact and are easier to stimulate conversions.

Step 3: Build a moat and keep the benefits

First-mover advantage is not a moat. It just helps you gain the opportunity to dig a moat.

• Build your own brand’s cultural meme on Bilibili, Bilibili’s strongest invisible moat

For example, Pulse has done a great job. By sponsoring Chinese comics, users not only expressed their gratitude to Pulse through barrages and comments, but also developed the "good habit" of watching Chinese comics and drinking Pulse. When new Chinese comics are released, some users will miss Pulse and exclaim, "Pulse is back."

• Build your own brand’s high-quality content pool on Bilibili

The earlier it is, the lower the cost of cooperating with the platform to produce content (whether it is cooperating with UP hosts or cooperating with focus content and major events). Later, as more brands enter the platform, the value of high-quality content will also rise, so it is best to enter the market early now.

• "Buy a house" on Bilibili, establish your own corporate car number, and accumulate brand assets

Open a corporate account on Bilibili, take over all content and traffic, strengthen the account's content operations, and consolidate your own marketing position. After all, what brand can resist the opportunity to speak directly to young people?

Author: Shi San Zhang

Source: Aichi SEM ( CMOcollege )

For advertising at Station B , please contact Qinggua Media

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B station advertising costs, advertising advantages and delivery process

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