How to do influencer marketing? Analyze 3 tips!

Internet celebrity marketing is a very interesting phenomenon. A single Weibo post, a short video , or an article placement from them can sell out a product. But why does this effect occur?

Recently, the fifth season of the popular show "The Rap of China " has started airing. The return of Gao Xiaosong, the participation of internet celebrity economist Xue Zhaofeng and genius Li Dan have also made this season more anticipated. From 2015 to date, "The Debaters" has been broadcast for four seasons and has made many "talented and wonderful" people famous, including Jiang Sida, Qiu Chen, Ma Weiwei, Fan Tiantian, Yan Rujing... These internet celebrities now have great marketing value.

Internet celebrity marketing is a very interesting phenomenon. A single Weibo post, a short video, or an article placement from them can sell out a product.

Why are users so receptive to it?

Another very interesting phenomenon is that live streaming and short videos have almost become standard features of e-commerce platforms, and Tmall ’s new retail layout aims to turn all offline shopping guides into live streaming entrances . However, it is difficult for live broadcasts and short videos on e-commerce platforms to produce phenomenal internet celebrities, and it is also difficult to say what the conversion effect of external internet celebrities entering e-commerce platforms will be.

Taobao has been working hard to change this phenomenon and turn it into an entertainment platform for "shopping". However, compared with the typical e-commerce model of picture and text lists, the conversion effect of live broadcasts and short videos is still much better, but they are only more advantageous in the way of conveying product information.

Why is this happening? Is there an "invisible hand" behind these behaviors? What are the key psychological factors in marketing influencing user behavior ? This article hopes to explore some of these issues.

How marketing influences user behavior: Four key psychological factors

1. Motivation

Will users take the actions you expect after seeing your marketing content?

The first key psychological factor is "motivation".

What is motivation?

When the need becomes strong enough, it becomes a motivation.

Eating when you are hungry, sleeping when you are sleepy, drinking water when you are thirsty, etc. are all motivations. What motivations does a microscopic individual have?

Generally, we will use Maslow's five levels of needs as a reference, and we can apply them as follows:

When we access the content of internet celebrities, our motivation is generally " social needs ", while when we access the live broadcast or video content of e-commerce platforms, it is "shopping needs ". Of course, buying different products corresponds to different levels of "shopping needs". Motivated by "shopping needs", people will pay more attention to relevant information about the product itself, such as: whether the use value of the product meets my expectations, whether the price is too high...

This psychological process is a typical five-stage process:

When we come to the e-commerce platform with a relatively clear or vague shopping motivation, the information transmission media of live broadcast and short video will bring users a better experience in the search plan/plan evaluation/purchase decision-making stage, and will help improve conversion.

As analyzed above: Under this motivation, users are concerned about whether the product-related information matches their shopping needs. Therefore, it is very difficult for e-commerce platforms to produce phenomenal internet celebrities. The value of external internet celebrities doing live broadcasts or short video marketing on e-commerce platforms lies more in the information transmission link. For example, users can more directly see the clothes worn by the internet celebrities, which stimulates users to make purchases.

But when a person enters the content of an internet celebrity with the motivation of " social needs ", the psychological state is quite different (of course, in many products, people enter the live broadcast or short video related content of internet celebrities with the motivation of " physiological needs ", such as: Momo's live broadcast).

Take the example of the Meipai celebrity “Miao Daxian” that a female friend has been following:

This is a girl who yearns for freedom and a wonderful life . Her videos often incorporate some very suitable brands , such as Starbucks . Compatibility refers to the consistency between the brand or product and the video story and the internet celebrity's personality. For example, "Meow Daxian" is wearing youthful and beautiful clothes, holding a Starbucks cup of coffee and walking on a spacious street with a smile. This plot itself can stimulate your motivation to buy. Because you also want to live a fulfilling life like your favorite "Cat Master" .

The motivation for being exposed to marketing content is the first key psychological factor that determines what behavior will occur.

2. Cognition

Will people who see the same marketing content with the same motivations behave the same way?

The answer is no, it also has to do with human cognition. Cognition refers to people's views on things, which is closely related to their education level, past experience, etc.

For example, the following marketing content:

Also because of the motivation of " security needs ", the behavior of elders and us may be different when seeing this marketing content. I will think that this is deceptive content and unscientific, and I will " automatically ignore " it, while the elders will " forward it to their children, friends and share it on WeChat Moments ".

Different cognition is the second key psychological factor that determines what behavior is generated. Even if users with the same motivation see the same marketing content, the resulting behavior may not be the same.

3. Learning

Learning refers to changes in individual behavior due to experience, and most human behavior is learned .

Suppose you were to buy a Dell computer. If your experience confirmed that the purchase was worthwhile, then your reaction to Dell and computers would be positively reinforced. In the future, when you want to buy a printer again, you will think that since Dell can produce good computers, it can also produce good printers. You have now generalized your response to similar stimuli.

From the above concrete description, we can see that users’ learning is based on inference or interpretation of results . Even if a user has a bad experience because they misread the instructions, they will form a poor learning impression of the product. This is very obvious in Internet products and consumption processes. For example, if the customer service of a third-party merchant insults consumers, it is very likely that users will have a bad impression of the platform.

Similarly, users will infer their good impression of the internet celebrity to the product. They will think: since Ali (a famous contestant on "The Rap of China")'s English is so good, the English learning institution he recommends should be good.

Different learning experiences are the third key psychological factor that determines what behavior is produced. For marketers (as well as Internet product managers and operators ), we should get the following inspiration: marketing is not a one-time behavior. The best marketing is every user experience , because a user’s bad learning experience will be inferred to all other things related to you.

4. Memory

What behaviors users will have in response to marketing content is also affected by memory, and memory points are another switch that triggers behavior .

However, people do not remember all information and things completely accurately, usually just some memory fragments. Concrete, experienced, and story-like things are easier to remember. For example: It is difficult for us to remember Newton’s calculus formulas, but we can remember the story of Newton and Leibniz’s long-term arguments over calculus.

Therefore, the key revelation for marketers is: it is necessary to evoke users' memories through marketing content. The memories may be beautiful or sad, it doesn't matter. The more the marketing content can trigger the memories, the more likely it is to make users behave the way you expect.

So we can see that many internet celebrities’ marketing content is very lifelike, integrating products into stories because this can trigger people’s memory points.

Let’s take the example of a video placement by “Meow Daxian”. This is a breakfast food that is integrated into a love story between her and her boyfriend Xia Liang - making breakfast for her boyfriend. Many people have had such an experience or have seen similar plots in idol dramas, and have such a memory point in their minds.

Therefore, this advertisement placement can trigger memory points more easily, which is very helpful for users to generate purchasing desire. In addition, the purchasing channel is posted at the end of the video - Tmall. With Cainiao 's efficient supply chain, you may be able to receive it the next day, making purchase very convenient.

Efficient supply chains and purchasing methods are the weapons that influencers use to market in this era. For example, the clothes/bags worn by influencers can be circled in pictures on Instagram, and users can purchase them directly by clicking on a link.

Is it random what actions marketing content will cause users to take?

No, there is an "invisible hand" at work behind these behaviors, and motivation, cognition, learning, and memory are four very critical psychological factors. We can always keep them in mind when doing marketing and user experience to guide our practice.

Source: "Hiroshige-sama"