8 promotion and monetization techniques, which one do you pick?

Today I will share with you the 8 most common monetization cases in the "Marketing Monetization" section. I hope it will bring you some inspiration and enable you to draw inferences about other similar situations.

Mind map of product marketing skills:

What is marketing?

It refers to the behavior of enterprises discovering or exploring the needs of potential users and bringing economic value to users through a series of communication and dissemination activities; in this process, enterprises convert products/services into equivalents to achieve their own profit goals.

In many MBA business courses, marketing is an important subject that must be taught, which shows the importance of marketing.

Price Theorem: It is not the cost that determines the price

Here, we will not discuss too many macro theories, but only share some reusable cases at the operational level.

Appendix: Historical article: "To understand users, you need this "User Psychological Needs Table""

1. Limited time and limited quantity

1.1 Definition

Limited time and limited quantity generally refers to an activity in which operators use a certain number of popular products or products/services with relatively controllable costs as rewards to attract users to conduct transactions within a limited time.

1.2 How to Play

This gameplay is most common in e-commerce. Generally, when merchants are controlling the cost of goods, they attract a large number of users to participate in activities in a short period of time and make profits from it by limiting time and quantity. In financial products, they generally attract users to invest by raising interest rates for a limited time or giving away free gifts.

1.3 Examples

A. Limited time and limited quantity coupons

By launching limited-edition hot-selling products on a daily basis, which triggers a buying frenzy among users, we can increase revenue while also activating platform users.

Relevant cases include: financial products that reward users by issuing interest rate coupons in a limited time and quantity, which can be used when the user's investment amount reaches a certain amount. This is also a good way to encourage users to make new investments.

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Screenshot of interest rate hike activity

B. Grab limited edition random gift packs

The author's operation team once planned an investment event with the theme of "Back to School Season Starts" for the start of the new school year. In the two days from September 3 to 4, 2018, the new investment amount reached 8 million, of which the average loan per person was 7,000 and the highest investment amount was 400,000.

The specific way to play is that if you make a new investment in the event, you will definitely get a random surrounding gift package, and you will also have a chance to share a large amount of experience money. This is a typical case of using the reward of "must win + random grand prize + sharing incentive" to stimulate users to continuously make new investments.

Screenshot of the "Start Grabbing" event

1.4 Summary

Limited time and limited quantity are the most uncommon marketing cases, which mainly take advantage of users' psychological needs for safety and getting a bargain. This is a similar principle to the "limited time flash sales" commonly used in e-commerce. By using hot products as bait and limited-time and limited-quantity methods, a tense marketing atmosphere is created, forcing users to participate in the event as soon as possible. Its core is the question of how to balance the cost of investment and the added benefits.

2. Bundling

2.1 Definition

As the name suggests, it is to use the hot spots of a certain product as bait, integrate two or more products with higher user transaction costs and bundle them together.

2.2 How to play

In financial products, you can invest in short-term and long-term targets at the same time, and both targets can obtain a certain interest rate increase at the same time; this gameplay is based on the same principle as the buy a certain amount and get a certain amount free in e-commerce, and can achieve good results in a certain period of time, but because it is not very novel and has limited appeal to users, the effect will decline significantly after the novelty wears off.

2.3 Examples

Long-term + short-term target combination

In Internet financial management products, long-term and short-term products are sold in combination, and the yield of short-term financial products is increased as a gimmick to attract more users to invest.

Similarly, this method usually achieves good results in the early stages, but any activity will become boring to users over time.

2.4 Summary

Do you know what psychological needs of users these activities mainly meet?

In general, it only satisfies users' low-level needs of greed and fear of losing. Therefore, the author believes that this type of activity is a relatively elementary activity, and its effect in terms of dissemination and repeat purchase will not be very good.

If we look carefully here, we can find that this type of activity has also evolved from the so-called traditional marketing activities. That’s because our operational work has great marketing characteristics. However, if we simply copy the traditional marketing routines, we may not be able to succeed. We can generally design more creative ways of playing based on product features and brand attributes to help users make transactions in a pleasant activity atmosphere.

The only drawback of this type of activity is that the investment is large, and the investment cost needs to be strictly controlled before planning the activity.

3. Additional purchase

3.1 Definition

This is also a way to increase revenue. While a project/activity is in progress, users can be stimulated to continue trading through periodic rewards.

3.2 How to play

This is also a way to increase revenue. While a project/activity is in progress, users can be stimulated to continue trading through periodic rewards. Let me give you an example that is easier to understand. This gameplay is like the process of a rocket launch, with periodic reward stimulation, just like each booster gives the rocket the force to rush out of space.

3.3 Examples

Related Cases:

A. Collect treasure chests for all: Add investment, unlock treasure chests, and get rewards

During the event period, users who meet certain conditions in a single investment in designated products can obtain a corresponding treasure chest, and can receive additional cash rewards by completing tasks. (For example, financial experience funds/interest rate coupons/bonuses) can not only reward active users, but also encourage users who have not met the conditions to make additional investments in order to achieve their goals and receive rewards.

As shown in the following "Double 11 Carnival: Everyone Collects Treasure Boxes to Share 200 Million Experience Gold" event, the profits obtained can be withdrawn, and rewards are used to stimulate users to increase investment.

B. Rich List: The one who lends the most will receive a gift package + experience money

The gameplay of the Rich List is actually a way to encourage users who are participating in the event to make new transactions through rewards. Only the details of the event have changed, such as the amount of rewards/ranking rules, which are now measured based on yesterday's earnings.

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3.4 Summary

In what areas can this kind of gameplay generally be used? In fact, if we expand a little, there are still many scenarios where it can be used. For example, activities with longer cycles, such as Double 11, Double 12, Spring Festival, May Day/National Day Golden Week, 618 Investment and Financial Management Season, etc., its characteristic is that a booster is added to an existing activity to promote users to further engage in transactions.

Looking back, we can find that the activities satisfy users' psychological needs of greed, fear of loss, conformity, and comparison. If the gameplay can be made more creative, that is, if the user's psychological needs such as love of play and curiosity can be met, the marketing effect will be more obvious.

4. Anchoring Effect

4.1 Definition

Anchoring effect: When people need to make a quantitative estimate of an event, they will use certain specific values ​​as starting values. The starting values ​​constrain the estimated values ​​like anchors. When making decisions, we unconsciously give more weight to the first decision we receive.

4.2 How to Play

This effect can also be applied in marketing. The key is to use rewards to anchor the information at the moment when the user receives it. For example, if you buy one and get two, people usually think of "getting two items" instead of caring about whether the price or value of getting the two items is expensive or worth it. Therefore, the purpose of the anchoring effect in marketing is to attract the attention of potential users to the greatest extent possible and to capture the users’ minds with the benefits of the product.

4.3 Examples

1 yuan anchor, reducing transaction costs

Users can get a discount of up to 688 yuan for 1 yuan, and 1 yuan can anchor potential users. I believe many users will be interested in this move.

This can greatly reduce marketing costs, but attention must be paid to the balance between the total consumption of the reward and the user's expected gains. In simple terms, it is necessary to pay attention to the rationality of issuing rewards and obtaining rewards to avoid user dissatisfaction.

Think of it another way, isn't this just a price reduction? The cleverness of this gameplay is to use 1 yuan to anchor users. This 1 yuan is a cost paid by users, rather than a simple big promotion or big price cut, so this gameplay is more advanced.

B. Free hot products, one move to anchor

Give away popular products for free (i.e. products that users consider to be expensive and classy, ​​and the experience exceeds their expectations) to lure users to the store or divert traffic.

For example, 5 oysters for 1 yuan is free for users, but for merchants, customers have paid 1 yuan, which is a great way to attract customers. Most customers will not only eat those 5 oysters, but will inevitably spend more. Some people may ask, "Won't this be a loss?"

This is a good question, because fresh oysters cannot be sold at 0.2 cents each, so these 5 oysters are the activity costs paid by the merchant to attract users to consume in the store. So whether there will be a loss or not is mainly a question of measuring whether there is a surplus between the difference between the activity cost and the average unit price per customer.

This approach is obviously more effective than those lamb skewers at 0.99 yuan per skewer, because 0.99 yuan per skewer is a low-price promotion and does not serve as an anchor for "in-store consumption" like 5 oysters at 1 yuan. According to practical data, the sales through the activity of 5 oysters for 1 piece is 5 times the usual amount.

4.4 Summary

In Case B, although both activities use low prices to satisfy users' greed and desire to get a bargain, the underlying logic of the two activities is completely different. The core function of the anchoring effect is not to make customers feel that the product is cheap, but to guide them to consume in the store.

Assuming this gameplay is designed to be played online, how do you play it? For example, in a fruit shop, we can sell 2 kilograms of bananas for 1 yuan. There are two ways to do it: one is the offline way of picking up the goods in the store, and then you need to add the WeChat account or follow the WeChat public account (to lock in potential customers).

The second is to play online, where you need to pay the express fee, but if you want to waive the express fee, you have to buy a kind of fruit, that is, use the anchoring effect of 1 yuan for 2 kilograms of bananas to generate other transactions to achieve the purpose of balancing profits and losses.

5. Free food and drinks

5.1 Definition

When it comes to "free food and drinks", the cases in this part do not mean that you can enjoy the corresponding products or services without spending a penny, but that it is free in a certain definition under certain rules.

5.2 How to Play

When we promote activities externally, users receive huge benefits and the activities are extremely tempting. The gameplay generally includes buy one get one free, recharge 200 and get 200 free, etc.

5.3 Examples

A. Spend 200 and get 200 and another 200

You can become a member if your consumption reaches a certain amount, and you can recharge 200 yuan to your membership card for free, and you will also receive a 200 yuan shopping voucher or gift.

How to use the 200 yuan in the membership card?

In the subsequent secondary consumption/repeat purchase stage, customers can only deduct a certain amount from their accounts. This amount can be deducted based on the consumption ratio or a fixed amount. In fact, it is a disguised discount, but the effect is definitely better than a discount.

What about gifts or shopping vouchers worth 200 yuan?

These shopping vouchers and gifts are also rewarded in subsequent consumption, which can firmly lock in users.

Speaking of free food and drinks, it reminds me of Luckin Coffee’s subsidy war. Luckin Coffee was founded on October 31, 2017 and was listed on the Nasdaq on May 17, 2019.

B. Free Luckin Coffee

Luckin Coffee was founded on October 31, 2017, and began a massive subsidy war until it was listed on the Nasdaq on May 17, 2019, issuing 33 million ADSs at the same time.

A coffee brand that has been established for less than two years has been listed on the Nasdaq, which surprised many people. But this phenomenon is not surprising at all. Even if there are rumors that Luckin Coffee has been operating according to listing indicators from the beginning, it cannot prevent us from observing and learning from its product operations.

The free drink, invite one get one free, buy two get one free, which have never been taken off the shelves, to the buy five get ten free offer on Double Eleven, to the year-end gift package of 5 tickets at 28% off. This series of crazy and screaming activities by the wealthy Luckin Coffee makes you feel that even if you never drink coffee, your colleagues will even help you to place the next order.

Supplement: I was finally identified by Luckin Coffee as its accurate user portrait. Here is a wave of advertisements that were recommended to me in my circle of friends. With the extremely lethal slogan of "free, 6 50% off coupons" and 4 product pictures that are hard for ordinary people to resist, I downloaded it directly and finally got a box of coupons.

From WeChat Moments advertising to downloading the APP to participate in the event

5.4 Summary

The free things in the world are often the most expensive. The core of the free food and drink game is not to increase user activity without subsidies, but to attract customers to transfer to private domain traffic as much as possible within an appropriate cost, so as to provide satisfactory services in the future and cultivate their loyalty.

In subsidy activities, we can analyze based on the "User Demand Distribution Table" that this simple and crude activity incentive satisfies users' psychological needs in terms of taking advantage, following the crowd, fear of loss, and personality.

It is just a few lines of advertising slogan:

The Little Blue Cup invites you to taste for free

First cup free for new customers + 6 50% off coupons

Time: April 22-April 30

Seize your little luck

It can meet the psychological needs of users. I have to admire Luckin Coffee’s copywriting level!

6. Group Buying

6.1 Definition

The earliest definition of group buying does not refer to online shopping, so what does it mean? Let's take a look at Baidu Encyclopedia's explanation:

The full name of group travel is a travel group composed of individual travelers. The members of a tour group are gathered together to form a tour group heading for the same tourist destination. The number of registrations is provided by each travel agency and is not restricted by any region. That is, when the departure city has received a certain number of people to enjoy the low price, it is necessary to collect the number of people from other local travel agencies or travel agencies in the surrounding areas in order to meet the standard for dispatching a group.

To be precise, what we now call online group shopping is group buying.

Group buying, also known as group buying or collective purchasing, is generally carried out through an Internet platform. Professional group buying service agencies organize consumers who intend to buy the same product to form shopping groups, and purchase in large quantities from manufacturers and suppliers. Under the premise of ensuring quality, they enjoy group purchasing discounts lower than the market retail price and can also jointly protect their rights.

Group buying has been very popular in recent years. Just look at Pinduoduo, which has been thriving with the help of group buying. Are you also brainwashed by the following magical slogan?

“Pinduoduo, Pinduoduo, the more you work, the more you save~”

So what is the general gameplay path for group buying?

6.2 How to Play

A. Group Play Path

B. Types of group play

C. Group buying

Here the author would like to expand his thinking. Group buying can actually be associated with traffic generation, 1 point for group buying + lottery. This type of gameplay is purely aimed at attracting new customers. You can join a group for 1 cent or participate in a lottery.

The regulations stipulate that all users can start a group, but only new users can join the group. Old users’ participation is invalid. For example, if an old user invites 3-5 new users, he can enjoy shopping for 1 cent, and the remaining users can participate in the lottery.

Alternatively, there is no restriction on new and old users to start and join groups. After a group is formed, a lottery will be held. The lucky user will win the product, and the remaining users will be automatically refunded (if participation is not free) and given coupons.

This new user acquisition method where everyone wins a prize is also quite popular among users, because there are few participants and only 1 out of 5 people wins. The 20% chance will significantly increase user participation, and even if you don’t win, you can still get shopping coupons. Overall, the winning users will get greater benefits, and the non-winning users will not feel disgusted. At the same time, coupons can be used to stimulate user consumption.

6.3 Examples

Speaking of group buying, who of us all thinks of the most popular Pinduoduo? In fact, in 2010, with the rise of mobile Internet, there was a platform that pioneered the group buying marketing method. Do you all know who I am talking about?

Yes, it is Meituan.com.

Meituan.com is a group buying website established on March 4, 2010. Meituan started out by targeting consumers who had just entered the mobile Internet era through group shopping (mainly in the vertical areas of food, drink, play, and entertainment in life). There is no doubt that its marketing model of quickly acquiring users through group shopping was correct. Later, Meituan's business empire expanded further, from eating, drinking, playing and having fun to the largest life service platform in China.

Looking back, let’s take a look at Pinduoduo. We all know that Pinduoduo is the mainstream mobile shopping app in China.

The APP was founded in September 2015, 5 years later than Meituan. However, Pinduoduo mainly serves the lower-tier users domestic’s third to sixth-tier cities through its powerful supply channel advantages.

Pinduoduo's marketing model is that users initiate group purchases with friends, family, neighbors, etc., and purchase goods in groups at a lower price. Aims to gather the strength of more people, buy better things at lower prices, and experience more benefits and fun.

The author believes that Pinduoduo is a platform that maximizes the "long tail effect". It should be noted that in 2015, the mobile e-commerce platform was already very competitive, and there was basically no blank market in the vertical category classification of goods. However, it meets the consumption needs of low-end users by innovating its gameplay, that is, taking advantage of the massive user base of WeChat, the domestic social giant, and providing them with a social group-buying gameplay where "there is no lowest price, only lower prices".

Soon, this social e-commerce group buying platform, which was established less than three years ago, was successfully listed on July 26, 2018, with a market value of US$24 billion.

In 2016, JD.com, a well-known domestic self-operated e-commerce giant, officially launched JD.com Group Buying. JD Group Buying is a tool based on JD merchants that stimulates users' multi-level sharing and fission through group buying and social gameplay, thereby achieving low-cost traffic and user conversion for merchants, and focuses on the concept of "low price but not low quality".

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According to JD.com’s 618 data this year (2019), the number of users placing orders on JD.com’s group buying app in third- to sixth-tier cities increased by 106% year-on-year, accounting for nearly 70% of all users; the number of new users brought by JD.com’s group buying app to the entire JD.com site increased by more than 3 times year-on-year.

Facts have proved that JD.com's Pingou has achieved remarkable results in concentrating its advantages in high-quality channel resources and deploying the concept of "low price but not low quality" in the sinking market, and has shown great potential in attracting new customers. The author believes that this is another way that JD.com’s Pingou strategy differs from Pinduoduo. I believe that they will unleash unlimited potential in the domestic social e-commerce field in the future.

6.4 Summary

This part will talk about the development, gameplay and platform centered on group buying from both macro and micro perspectives. From the perspective of user psychological needs, we can clearly see that the gameplay of group buying has met the user's psychological needs of taking advantage, fear of losing, following the crowd, and personality setting. As long as the group buying service launched by the platform meets users with urgent needs, transactions between them will be a natural outcome.

Let's extend this a little further. I wonder if you have ever thought about the question "Why are the products on Pinduoduo so cheap?" In fact, Pinduoduo is already making money now. There is no such thing as an unprofitable business.

Friends who have had in-depth contact with e-commerce may have a deeper understanding that there is a kind of platform merchants that use the commodity price difference model to do e-commerce. They do not have factories that produce goods nor do they stock goods. So how do they operate?

They search the entire Internet for the lowest-priced products, and then move these products to e-commerce platforms to earn the difference. We always think that Pinduoduo’s products are currently the lowest priced, but that is not the case. These merchants are good at integrating low-price manufacturer resources across the entire network. This is the first reason why Pinduoduo's products are the lowest priced.

Currently, the three major e-commerce giants are Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo. Even the same product has different price differences on the three platforms. why is that? Because this is related to the brand positioning of the platform. JD.com is of high quality and high price, Pinduoduo is of low quality and low price, and Taobao is medium. (Such a simple distinction may not be the most appropriate, but it helps to analyze our problem.) This explains another reason for Pinduoduo's low prices: Pinduoduo's products are of lower quality.

So, do you know why Pinduoduo’s prices are so low?

7. Game guessing

7.1 Definitions

Guessing is a kind of game. As the name suggests, guessing is a probability judgment with competitive characteristics, and participants participate in the guessing activity based on their own knowledge and skills. For example, guessing on sports games, guessing on financial indices, and any event with uncertainty can be presented in the form of guessing, and often comes with corresponding incentives for participation.

Guessing is addictive to a certain extent as an entertainment activity. It stimulates the brain in basically the same area, the cortex, as surfing the Internet, playing games, smoking, drinking, etc., and produces dopamine, which can make people feel happy.

7.2 How to Play

Game guessing is most commonly played in the fields of sports and finance because events themselves are unpredictable.

Just like in finance, the gameplay generally involves guessing whether the stock market will rise or fall, that is, before the market opens, users make their own judgments on the stock market trend and obtain certain rewards. In sports competitions, there are many ways to play, such as football lottery, real-time lottery and so on. If we are making investment and financial products, we can also carry out corresponding marketing activities based on the hot spots of sports events.

7.3 Examples

The 2018 FIFA World Cup is a global sporting event that has attracted widespread attention. The author's operations team has planned a "World Cup Guessing" event with prizes.

This is a marketing method that converts the user's new investment amount into "betting money" at a one-to-one ratio. New investments are made during the event, and the investment amount is converted into betting money at a one-to-one ratio. If you bet correctly, you will receive an experience money reward equal to the investment. (If necessary, the gameplay of football lottery can be further simulated on this basis, for example, users can get multiple rewards if they win).

Screenshot of the "World Cup Guessing" event page (partial)

7.4 Summary

Overall, the entire activity satisfied multiple psychological needs of users at the same time, including six needs: safety, taking advantage, love of play, curiosity, following the crowd, and laziness, and also took advantage of users' gambling nature. In the end, the activity achieved results beyond expectations. The additional investment amount from users was more than three times the amount of gifts given for additional investments at other times. This was a very successful case of leveraging marketing.

Secondly, it should be noted that gambling also takes advantage of the user's psychology. However, there are fewer scenarios that are suitable for this user psychology. In addition to low-frequency nodes such as the World Cup, there are also basketball games and the like. In general, activities with a wide audience and a win-loss outcome can be considered. The author will elaborate on the detailed cases of financial guessing in Chapter 5. Of course, the author also hopes that everyone can expand their thinking - regarding the user's gambling psychology, what other scenarios can be used?

8. Psychological testing

8.1 Definition

Psychological testing refers to the use of psychological science methods and means to infer and quantitatively analyze the psychological characteristics reflected in people's behavioral activities based on certain principles, and to provide corresponding scientific guidance.

However, everyone should note that psychological tests only provide a certain reference. People develop, grow and change, and psychological tests only provide characteristics of an individual's condition at the time the test is taken. Therefore, it is wrong to exaggerate the effectiveness of psychological assessments.

In product operation, the purpose is generally to activate users. We must also closely combine the scientific nature of the test to avoid misleading users.

8.2 How to Play

The specific gameplay is basically based on some well-known psychological tests, such as the Enneagram Personality Test, MBTI Career Test, Jung's Eight Dimension Test, MCDI Workplace Survival Model, etc., combined with product marketing purposes and planned through H5 or WeChat mini-programs as communication carriers. The test questions can be presented in the form of text-choice questions, listening questions, and graphic questions, and can be displayed in the form of video interaction, long pages, page turning, etc. The final test result is generally a mobile phone poster with a QR code of the test activity.

8.3 Examples

If you are given a batch of 55-degree thermos cups, which won the 2018 German IF Design Award (the Oscar of the design industry), your marketing indicator is to increase sales. what will you do?

According to the first chapter of Part Four, creative planning is like solving the "quaternion equation" methodology, diverging thinking, finding the fusion point to cut in, and finally forming a closed loop of thinking.

The author used the "degree" of 55 degrees and a test model of sociability based on MBIT, and planned a personality test with the theme of "Illustrated Guide to Weird Sociability"/"In the Animal World, Who Would You Be?"

Weird Sociability Test Activity Page (Part)

Here is another case. In mid-August 2019, the workplace social APP Maimai also launched an H5 based on the MCID workplace survival test - "Blue Moon Workplace Survival Test".

The main feature is that the test process is a workplace scene, and the test questions are expressed in the form of videos, allowing users to choose answers at key nodes, and finally generate 38 test results.

Test Results

8.4 Summary

After the event ended, the new investment amount of users in the "Weird Sociability Picture Book" event was 30% higher than the usual investment and gift-giving events. The underlying logic is to take advantage of people's curiosity, love of play, personality, dignity and other psychological needs during the test.

Testing is relatively less used in marketing because it is not very compatible with product marketing and it is difficult to drive improvements in business indicators using testing. (Except for those fortune tellers, who essentially make money by fortune telling.)

So under what circumstances can this kind of testing improve marketing indicators?

The author believes that the product being marketed can be closely integrated with the test itself, which can be the scientific name of the test, the attributes of the test results, etc., and then diverge in terms of the product's functions, attribute names, etc., and find an entry point with the test, and integrate and sort it out, and finally come up with a closed loop of thinking from testing to marketing.

Well, if you have any questions about marketing monetization or better cases, you can communicate with us~

Author: Shengjie

Source: Official Account: Operational Evolution History