Want to plan hot marketing in August? You may overlook these two details.

At the beginning of June, I joined a new company. Its target user group is mainly between 30 and 50 years old, with a certain economic foundation and financial investment needs. It focuses on small business owners in second- and third-tier cities. By the way, it is not P2P . Okay, now that I have introduced the background, let’s start telling the story.

At the beginning of July, an intern came to the department, let's call him Xiao P. There was no urgent matter at the time, so he was asked to work on the hot marketing plan for August. Unexpectedly, such a job took this kid two weeks, and he revised 8 versions. He is truly a model of the intern spirit: if he lacks ability, he can make up for it with attitude.

First Edition: Hot spots follow the solar terms, you have it, I have it, and we have it all ( Marketing Nodes)

Less than two hours after the work was assigned, he sent me a PPT file. "So fast?" I asked him. "Well, please take a look and see if there is anything you want to add," he said.

When I opened the PPT, there was only one page, which was the picture above. "The PPT is well done, and you can use Boolean operations. Are you the legendary PPT expert?" I praised him, and he made a proud expression. "Come to the meeting room," I said.

When we got to the meeting room, I saw him smiling slightly, and I asked him, "What was your idea for making this calendar?" "I particularly like to read Durex 's Weibo, and I also follow many WeChat public accounts in the advertising industry. Every holiday, all major brands will release posters, and my favorite is Jiang Xiaobai ..."

Little P became more and more excited as he spoke. He kept gesturing with his hands and told me a lot of things very seriously, but what the hell was he talking about? "Redo!" As soon as the two words came out, the atmosphere instantly became awkward. His hands, which were flying in the air, slowly fell on the table. His eyebrows, mouth corners, and nostrils all drooped down. After a moment of silence, he said, "Okay."

"Why don't you ask why?"

"Then... why?" He made a common mistake that many newcomers to the workplace make. They do things without asking why or for what purpose. They often despise their work but pay extra attention to their leaders.

As for why we need to redo it, it is because he ignored our target audience and the purpose of doing these hot marketing.

What is a hotspot? To put it more officially, a hot spot is market sentiment that has attracted nationwide attention and discussion due to special factors. To put it bluntly, it is just craning your neck to join in the fun . So what does it mean to take advantage of the popularity? Riding on the hot topic means letting the brand join the discussion, interacting with users through common topics, and increasing the brand's presence. To put it bluntly, it's just trying to get close to people and find topics to talk about.

So, to summarize the idea of ​​hot marketing in one sentence is to meet the right person at the right time, talk about the same topic and confirm eye contact. If you want to meet the right person, you must know who you want to talk to and what topic to talk about. Hot marketing plans like this one that follow festivals and solar terms are really something that we both have.

Do you talk about National Fitness Day with a 40-year-old small business owner who runs a mom-and-pop shop in a third-tier city? It's effortless for a brother to carry a bucket of mineral water to the fifth floor. Are you going to tell him that carrying buckets is bad for his waist and that he should strengthen his biceps and waist and abdomen? I make 50 cents for carrying a bucket of water, and it costs 500 for a private lesson. It’s a miracle that they can even chat with you.

So, how to choose hot marketing nodes becomes the key to the second edition revision.

Second Edition: There are nodes but no events, and the brand is hard-wired (marketing planning)

Two days passed after our chat, and there was no news from Xiao P. When I was about to get off work, I asked him how the plan was going. Xiao P looked up at me with a look of pride and confidence in his eyes, and said he would send it to me early the next morning.

The next morning, when I woke up, I received a new PPT. After opening it, it still had only one page. It was this:

Along with the PPT, there was also a paragraph about this:

"Boss, since our target users are people aged 30-50, their first characteristic is that they have children, and the focus of the family is on the children. So there are two nodes in August. One is the summer vacation when you can take the children out to play, and the other is to prepare for the start of school.

The second characteristic of the target users is that they are small business owners in second- and third-tier cities, so they have a certain economic foundation and are more concerned about people's livelihood policies and economic conditions. The third characteristic is that they are mainly male, have families and children, and will have life pressure.

Based on the analysis of users, I plan to follow 6 hot spots in August, and designed activity ideas and communication paths, trying to make the activity plan related to the brand and promote the company's products. Do you think this will work? ”

Oh my, this kid learns really fast. In just a few days, he’s already using user portraits and population characteristics to fool me? It has some potential, but it still made two mistakes, which are also the mistakes that most brands make when doing hot marketing.

The first mistake: there are nodes but no events, there are topics but no themes.

This is a Great Heat poster screenshot from a template website. There is nothing wrong with it as a template, but many companies make hot marketing posters that are not much different from this template. You can just change the logo and use it directly.

This poster highlights the elements of hot spots. The summer environment is characterized by the chirping of cicadas and green leaves. This is a consensus. It is like when we sit together to watch the World Cup and you say that the football is round, the grass is green, and the Chinese team did not make it to the World Cup. These are things everyone knows. There is no contradiction and no topic.

The correct idea of ​​hot spot planning is to talk about common topics between you and your target users, such as talking to fans about Messi, Neymar, and Mbappe, because they are all fans; you can talk to pseudo-fans about the handsome guys on the German team and Russian girls, as these are people's general attributes of beauty and ugliness, and are also common topics. If you sit together with a group of people who write for new media , you can talk about the pain of chasing hot spots in the middle of the night, talk to marketing dogs about the success of Vatti and Mengniu, and talk to market dogs about the torment of making posters in the middle of the night.

You can say whatever you want to whom you speak, and you can be like-minded if you agree with them, or you can get angry if you disagree, but first you have to have your own opinion, which is the so-called "event."

What is an event? An event is a concrete scenario found by a group of people in a broad topic, which can also be called a contradiction point.

The second mistake: talking to yourself is the most embarrassing, and forcing a brand association

This is a Valentine's Day poster for a nut brand. "Love is stronger than gold, and we will achieve a happy ending" is a common copywriting technique that hides the beginning and the end. However, such a copywriting has a preachy taste. I sell nuts, and your love must be stronger than gold, and we will achieve a happy ending. Then, if we break up, will you compensate me? How can a divorced person eat nuts? Instead of being clever with the copy, it would be better to launch a customized Valentine's Day gift box. After all, for straight men, it is still difficult to find meaningful and inexpensive gifts for Valentine's Day.

During every festival, there are many cases like this where holiday hot spots are forcibly associated with brands. The copywriting techniques of homophony, typos, hiding the beginning, end, and middle, etc. are enduring. This is not copywriting for C, but copywriting for B, where B refers to Boss.

So how can we make the association between hot spots and brands less awkward? Each brand targets different groups of people and has different product features, but there is one principle: don’t talk to yourself. If there is no connection, isn’t it nice to just wish them a happy holiday?

The so-called hot topic chasing is to take advantage of the public's attention to the same event and allow brands and users to interact on the same topic. It’s like when you arrive at the company in the morning and open your corporate email, you find out that the company’s CEO has resigned. What would you want to hear at this time? The first is why you leave, and the second is what might happen after you leave.

Then there will be two types of people who become opinion leaders. One type of people know the reason for the CEO's resignation and spread first-hand information. If you are the first person in your department to know the reason for the resignation, then you will become the center of gossip, that is, the topic leader in the department.

The second category is analytical experts who comprehensively consider the company's form and other circumstances to deduce the reasons for resignation and the successor after the CEO leaves, as well as the possible impacts after the successor takes office. This type of people must have their own unique insights, even if they are serious nonsense, but it's just gossip, who cares whether it's true or not?

Therefore, if the correlation between the hot topic and the brand is not strong, such as the financial industry where I work, which has no correlation with most hot topics, then you can become a topic leader. The hot topics for solar terms can be health knowledge, and the hot topics for winter and summer vacations can be travel guides. Of course, to create these contents, you need to forget about the brand, but keep the users in mind.

Triple Advanced Model for Hotspot Classification

I sent the above content to Xiao P while I was on the subway. Walking in the surging crowd at Guomao Station, I couldn't help feeling a little smug. After getting out of the subway station, I bought two egg-filled pancakes and generously rewarded myself with an extra serving of chicken fillet. When I arrived at the company gate, I met Xiao P, who looked frustrated.

Oops, I seem to have made a mistake. When the employee was trying to do better, I only mentioned his shortcomings, not his strengths. After clocking in, we each held an egg-filled pancake and entered the meeting room again. Just as I was about to give him some praise, Xiao P said, "Boss, I seem to understand what you said, but I don't quite understand it. What should I do?"

While munching on an egg-filled pancake with chicken fillet, I explained to Xiao P a triple-advanced model of hotspot classification, which is the picture below.

There are 24 solar terms throughout the year, 16 legal holidays, and N more holidays that come from nowhere. There is even an Emoji Festival now. With so many hot spots, it is impossible to take each one seriously. You are willing to be a planner, but the copywriter is not happy about it. The copywriter is willing to be a designer, but the designer is not happy about it. The designer is willing to be a promoter, but the promoter is not happy about it.

So what to do? Layer and eliminate hot spots. First, eliminate non-holidays and statutory holidays that are not closely related to your users. It is better to tell young people in third- and fourth-tier cities that 1024 is the day. They really can't think of it as Programmers' Day. Instead, they will think of...

The remaining festivals are stratified according to three methods: describing the scene, integrating into the scene, and creating the scene.

1. Describe the scenario: Forget the brand and describe the node from the user’s perspective

The description scenarios are aimed at some nodes that are not strongly related to brands and products and that users don’t pay much attention to. For example, most solar terms have no meaning other than eating dumplings, watermelons and eggs. Just join in the fun on such nodes, don't take them too seriously, but also avoid talking to yourself.

In terms of marketing ideas, it is necessary to decompose festival elements through decomposition method, find out the connection points with users, and design relevant content. For example, the Great Heat poster mentioned above can be decomposed into related elements such as July, high temperature, cicadas, heatstroke, and heat relief. The element that is most relevant to users is high temperature.

To find the elements, you also need to combine them with the scene. If your audience is urban white-collar workers, then the office building is not hot, but it will be hot on the way to and from get off work in the morning and evening. Sitting by the window will be directly exposed to the sun. These are two contradictory points, but people sitting by the window are a minority after all, so the topic is focused on the way to and from get off work in the morning and evening.

Once you have found the topic, you need to look for the conflicting points. What do white-collar workers hate? If you work overtime, will it still be hot when you get off work at 10pm? It’s not hot anymore, but are you willing to get off work at 10 o’clock just because it’s not hot? Well, now that the contradiction has come out, the topic of discussion has also come out.

Therefore, the hot ideas for describing scenes can be applied in the following way: decompose elements - screen elements - discover contradictions - amplify contradictions or resolve contradictions.

2. Integrate into the scene: bring in the brand and use the product to solve user conflicts

Integration into the scene is to target some nodes that are highly relevant to the brand, combining product characteristics with festival characteristics. A solution that integrates into the scenario is the ideal solution that every marketing planner is pursuing, but it is necessary to find a balance among the product, node characteristics and user needs, and avoid forcing it .

In terms of marketing ideas, according to the planning ideas of describing the scene, it will become a good planning scheme if you only need to use products to solve the contradictions. For example, during the same period of Great Heat, how can white-collar workers solve the problem of heat during commuting to get off work?

The private cars that Didi is vigorously promoting can be described as: "A space with a constant temperature of 20 degrees, a seamless connection between comfort and decency", and the brand of sunscreen and parasols can also solve the problem of heat.

So now the question arises, if Mobike says, riding a Mobike makes you go faster; if Ele.me says, instead of basking in the sun after work, it is better to work overtime and eat takeout, these are not serious words, after all, they are not effective ways to solve the problem.

3. Create scenarios: transform products and provide customized solutions to user conflicts

The creation scenes are aimed at some hot spots that attract relatively high user attention, such as the World Cup, Spring Festival, Valentine's Day, or winter and summer vacations, which are hot spots that are relevant to the whole nation, that is, the so-called big nodes. While the public's attention is high, users' pain points are strong and they are highly associated with brands, such as Double Eleven for JD.com and 618 for Tmall .

For large nodes, companies cannot simply make a poster, but need to develop a series of targeted solutions, which requires changing the production and sales processes of traditional companies.

The production and sales process of traditional enterprises is product-oriented, looking for nodes in the market for marketing. However, to create scenarios, it is necessary to start from the user's perspective and create products according to user needs. Creation can be a complete redevelopment of the product, or it can be a consumer upgrade through packaging, endorsements, etc. For example, Vatti’s World Cup marketing campaign created a marketing scenario where the French team won the championship and a full refund was given.

Another application of creating scenes is to create an experience environment based on the product. For example, in sales meetings, Internet companies often organize sales meetings in the name of knowledge sharing, taking advantage of users' pain points of knowledge anxiety, inviting KOLs to share with the corresponding groups, and sharing their own products at the same time. They collect users' money while promoting their own brands because they have found the contradiction between products and users.

For example, major companies will regularly hold their own technical salons to share their company's technological implementation methods and explain their products.

Conclusion

Can you cover so much ground in the time it takes to make an egg-filled pancake? Obviously not, but don't forget that I am a fat guy who wants to eat two egg-filled pancakes. After we finished eating and talking, Little P looked at me with admiration and asked me: Brother, do you have any other experience?

He rubbed his sore cheeks, checked the time and saw that it was time for the meeting, so he said something that made Little P confused: "There are also promotion channels that need to be stratified. Think about this carefully. According to the ideas we talked about today, come up with a hot marketing plan for the next year."

Author: Zhang Xiaohuai, authorized to publish by Qinggua Media .

Source: Everyone is a Product Manager