Basic skills of brand marketing planning: integrated communication

The 4P theory of marketing tells us product (product) price (price) channel (place) promotion (promotion).

The title of our article is "Integrated Marketing", which is the last P in the 4Ps. This P refers to the last Promotion, but the official translation given in "Marketing Management" is promotion, which is somewhat incomplete.

Promotions give people the feeling of discounts. For example, something that costs 10 yuan in the supermarket is suddenly sold for 8 yuan. This is what people commonly understand as promotions.

I think it is more appropriate to translate Promotion into integrated marketing communications.

Since it is communication, there must be a scenario. In what scenario do you communicate? That is to say, where to reach customers.

The so-called integrated marketing communications can be simply understood as integrating as many touch points as possible to establish communication with customers.

We have roughly classified the communication scenarios.

Traditional advertising: outdoor billboards, subway/bus body advertising, TV/radio station advertising, elevator advertising

Digital advertising: search engine bidding/brand advertising, information flow advertising (various apps such as Toutiao and WeChat Moments), online video stickers (such as iQiyi and Tencent video opening or inserted ads), short video advertising (TikTok, Kuaishou, etc.), various vertical platforms (Autohome, classified information network)

Own media: official website, official APP, official public account, official Weibo, official Douyin and all other official media.

Third-party interactive platforms: Weibo celebrities, Zhihu celebrities, Xiaohongshu celebrities, WeChat public accounts

Digital trading platforms: Tmall, Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo

The above classification does not completely exhaust all kinds of scenarios, but there are already many. Even a little confusing.

With so many platforms, what is the logic? Which ones should we do and which ones should we not do? Which ones should we do first and which ones should we do later? If there is no logic, then it will be a mess.

Fortunately, we have a basic AISAS model that can help us sort out the order. This model was proposed by Dentsu and is an upgrade based on the AIDMA model.

As you can see, although we have listed many different scenarios above, each scenario has its specific functions and effects, and covers different population scenarios.

Let’s analyze each of them based on a typical white-collar worker’s day.

Notice

Get up in the morning and go to work

If you drive yourself, you will have the opportunity to listen to the radio (traffic broadcast).

In public transportation, you will be exposed to advertisements on the bus or subway.

interest

Whether you are listening to the radio while driving or watching advertisements on public transportation, you will be bombarded with a huge amount of information.

But our brain will not receive all of it, but will selectively receive what we are interested in.

For example, the New Year is coming soon, and you are thinking about buying gifts for your parents. At this time, you happen to see a gift advertisement that attracts your attention.

search

The new generation of consumers will not buy just by seeing. Be sure to search, searching means learning more.

Everyone has different preferences.

Some people use Baidu to search, some go to Zhihu, some choose Xiaohongshu, and some may go to a specific big V (such as a well-known reviewer).

A true story: When Lao Wu bought his first car, he particularly trusted the reviews of YYP (a big V in car reviews). So when I like a car, the first thing I do is go to YYP to search to see if he has reviewed the car. I particularly trust his reviews.

action

After searching and learning, we have established a certain understanding of the product (this understanding may also be a prejudice), and combined with our own purchasing power, we finally decided to buy this product. That means taking action. Common action scenarios include the convenience store downstairs from your home, shopping malls in your nearby business district, Taobao and JD online stores, etc.

True story 1: When Haoji Soy Sauce first started advertising in Dalian (in office building elevators), I wanted to buy a bottle. I went to the convenience store downstairs from my house in the evening, but found that this brand of soy sauce was not available. I went to JD.com to search for the product, but it was out of stock locally and I couldn't buy it. A few days later, I found that my wife bought a bottle of Haoji soy sauce on Duoduo Maicai.

True story 2: I saw the planning of a brand of instant noodles in the case of a certain big boss - Lucky Brand instant noodles. So I became interested. But I went to several supermarkets and couldn't find it. Later I bought it on Taobao. After tasting it, I found it good, so I often repurchase it online.

Of course, the closer the products are to consumers, the better. It would be best if they are in a convenience store downstairs from the consumers or in a large supermarket like Walmart. However, for most brands, the entry fees or construction costs of these channels are extremely high. 100% coverage is not possible. It’s just like Lao Wu’s experience of buying soy sauce, he wanted to buy it but couldn’t.

Lao Wu recommends that brands must establish official online stores, such as JD.com’s official flagship store and Tmall’s official flagship store. Because you don’t know where or when your potential customers will want to buy your product. With an official flagship store, you can sell products anywhere at any time.

In addition, the official flagship store guarantees "authenticity". Some branded products are also sold in some small online stores, but small online stores have no brand names, so consumers may have doubts. Worried that he might be fake or a knockoff. But there is no such concern in the official flagship store.

Brands need to establish an unobstructed sales channel between themselves and their customers. Minimize barriers to purchase.

share

There are many sharing platforms, the most traditional one is word of mouth, and now there are online platforms such as WeChat Moments, Weibo, Xiaohongshu, etc.

There are many motivations for sharing. For example, if the product is simply good, share it with friends or family who have the same needs.

Some are a kind of social currency. For example, if you sit in Starbucks, you have to take a photo and share it, showing your Starbucks cup, otherwise your trip will be wasted.

On Valentine's Day, people gave you a big bouquet of flowers, bought you limited edition clothes or shoes, bought the latest iPhone, etc.

There are now some products that are specifically modified for the sharing aspect. When developing a product, we consider how users will share the product.

Through these five steps, consumers go through different scenarios and different platforms from seeing the ad to completing the purchase and sharing.

These platforms are what we need to take into consideration when we create the fourth P. They include both traditional and digital platforms, as well as offline and online platforms.

In this consumer line, we should do the corresponding work in advance to welcome the arrival of consumers.

A word that Internet companies often talk about is closed loop. The so-called closed loop means that I hope consumers can get everything done in one stop.

We have seen that some of the platforms and scenarios mentioned above can achieve a closed loop, while others must rely on other platforms to achieve a closed loop.

Bus and subway advertising must rely on other platforms to achieve a closed loop, because in these two scenarios, only attention and interest can be achieved.

Platforms such as Tmall, JD.com and even Douyin have now achieved a complete closed loop.

TikTok: recommend videos based on interests, generate interest by browsing videos, a small yellow cart (shopping cart) pops up in the video, add to cart, pay, and complete the purchase.

Tmall and JD.com: When you browse daily, you will be ahead of thousands of people and the products you are interested in will be pushed according to your tags. You can browse or search for similar products in the APP to compare and select them. After selection, you can pay and purchase them. After use, you can comment, post pictures and share them.

In this fragmented era, it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to do marketing. But there are also some brands that build small-scale brands in a concentrated closed-loop platform. For example, the so-called Taobao brands or Internet celebrity brands. These are all based on China's huge demographic dividend. Even a small platform has at least several million or tens of millions of users. A medium-sized platform has tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of users. A large platform has a user base of hundreds of millions.

These brands are different from mass brands. Once they are separated from the platforms on which they exist, they have little or no recognition from the outside world.

On the premise that the product, price and channel are basically determined, the last 1P on a specific platform is to study the characteristics and rules of the specific platform.

If your product is placed in an offline supermarket, then your packaging is the biggest media. The packaging should be able to speak for itself and sell itself.

If your product is placed on an e-commerce platform, then the role of your packaging is almost zero (referring only to the role of the marketing link), because the rule on the e-commerce platform is main picture + details page + evaluation.

The basic thinking behind integrated marketing communications is to manage points, connect lines and build networks.

Marking means marking key points in different typical consumer paths, and then performing corresponding key actions at the key points for adaptation. For example, the points of e-commerce are search keywords (direct train), product main pictures (how to increase click-through rate after exposure), and product details page (how to increase conversion rate after browsing).

Connect the dots. There must be a good logic and clues between all the dots. Just like a 200,000-word novel, there must be a main line so that others can read it smoothly and understand it. For example, do you have a unified visual VI that makes it easier for customers to remember and discover you? Do you have a clear positioning so that every communication appeal can accumulate brand assets?

Weaving a net, different lines eventually form a surface. For example, a brand has offline supermarket channels, online official flagship stores, distribution on different platforms, and content on different platforms to establish connections with customers. Eventually a dragnet is formed.

In the past, there was a discussion about whether companies should engage in e-commerce. Looking at this discussion now is completely meaningless. Wherever the consumers are, there the business should be. Consumers are accustomed to online shopping, but your products can only be purchased offline, which invisibly creates a barrier between consumers and products.

What everyone is discussing now is whether to do live broadcast. Lao Wu thinks there is nothing to discuss about this. Whether to do live streaming is not a question; how to do it well is a question.

This is the fifth article on the basic skills of brand marketing planning . Basically, we have completely sorted out everything from market research, market segmentation, brand positioning, understanding the brand to integrated marketing communications. However, due to the length and Lao Wu's knowledge, there are still some shortcomings. Please bear with me.

Brand marketing planning is a systematic project. There are many models, but no fixed formula. Each company has its own policy and each issue has its own discussion. These are our basic principles for doing things.

Author: Laowu Talks about Operations

Source: Laowu said operation