5A Brand 4-Stage Growth Strategy

First, let me say the golden sentence:

From the perspective of consumer behavior

Describes the strength of the behavioral relationship between consumers and brands

A1:aware: understand (the exposed population)

A2: Appeal: Attract (shallow interaction group)

A3:ask: inquiry (deep interaction group)

A4: act: action (purchase)

A5: advocate: support (fan user)

New Brands VS Old Brands

The biggest difference between new consumer brands and traditional consumer brands lies in “entry” into the market. In the past, consumer brands "entered the market" through offline channels, in towns and counties, provincial capitals, first-tier cities, and core cities. A typical penetration strategy is one that focuses on channels. Whether it is surrounding cities with rural areas or driving rural areas with cities, it is all about relying on original channels, opening up original markets, establishing model markets, and then gradually penetrating regions until a joint sales body of enterprise + channels is established.

New consumer brands are just the opposite. They "enter the market" online, where channels are replaced by scenarios, content creates traffic, and brands awaken consumption. Through content, traffic, fans, live broadcast and self-broadcasting, the brand can make the leap from stage 0 to stage 1. After obtaining the brand trust online, it can then move on to the offline scene. Note that what is mentioned here is the scene rather than the channel. The biggest turning point of the times is the change in the way consumers shop, from shopping in the window to using mobile phones.

5A logic, establishing user perspective

We have never understood consumers as well as we do today. In the past, consumer self-portraits were based on region, occupation, age, and income. Today, there are labels for consumer self-portraits that you can’t imagine: small town youth, sophisticated moms, otakus, technology geeks, ingredient parties - wherever they go, they will leave traces.

Multi-dimensional consumer labels mean that new brands have more dimensions to reach potential consumers. 1 million fans means 10 million sales. Content is traffic, and traffic is fans. From 2015 to 2020, every change in traffic has brought about an iteration of brand creation. Content + traffic has become the only way for new consumer brands to achieve the transition from stage 0 to stage 1.

Content is traffic; traffic is fans; fans are sales

1 million fans means 10 million sales

5A: From the perspective of consumer behavior, describe the strength of the behavioral relationship between consumers and brands.

A1:aware: understand (the exposed population)

A2: Appeal: Attract (shallow interaction group)

A3:ask: inquiry (deep interaction group)

A4: act: action (purchase)

A5: advocate: support (fan user)

Brands expose, reach, interact, convert, settle and activate target consumers by initiating actions (pictures, texts, short videos, advertisements, news, etc.). In this process, the users' behaviors are triggered from the exposed group, the shallowly interactive group, the deeply interactive group to the purchasing group and the fan users.

Brand Growth, a Four-Stage Strategy

Phase 1: 0-10 million, single-point single product, efficient conversion, traffic into sales

Phase 2: 10 million to 100 million, product line expansion, channel penetration, and deep cultivation of user minds

Phase 3: 100 million to 1 billion, cross-border endorsement, breaking circles and user retention

Phase 4: 5 billion club, supply chain, category penetration, two players, one shake, one focus

01Phase 1: 0 to 1 verification, single point breakthrough, single product penetration

When new products and new brands first enter the market, the problem they face is not a brand issue, but finding traffic and increasing sales. By improving and eliminating differentiated selling points of single products and single points, we can gradually increase conversions and run the content conversion path from traffic to efficiency.

Method: On-site + off-site, free + paid, stock + incremental

Image and text promotion + brand self-broadcasting + top product promotion + mid-level KOL investment + e-commerce conversion

The brand strategy at this stage focuses on potential consumers who have a favorable impression and interest in the category. At the same time, because new brands have relatively low awareness, they need to rely on category awareness or bonuses + unique differentiated selling points of products to convert consumers within the category. Focusing on the A2-A3 population, we will increase interest through differentiated product content, strengthen interactions to establish connections, and promote orders and purchases.

What is the 0 to 1 verification phase? That is: in the product verification stage, the measurement standard is (conversion efficiency) sales. The biggest problems at this stage are the adaptation between products and demand, products and content, products and media, and the efficiency of investment and conversion.

Usually this stage starts with a single point or a single product, using the single point as a pilot and the single product for penetration. During this stage, you should have a brand mindset but definitely not build the brand immediately with great fanfare. We still have to focus on this product and solve the problem of product sales, that is, effectively extracting the unique and differentiated selling points of the product.

The reason why 90% of products don’t sell well is not because of the product’s problem, but because of the compatibility of the product’s selling points with consumer demand. Before a product is launched on the market, it may have various functions and features, but these are all illusions. If you don’t put your products on the real market, you’ll never know which ideas are the ones that will bring you real results.

Starting from the function, and looking for support in technology and raw materials, the product selling points at this stage should be less empty and more practical - visible, tangible, physically felt, and visual. It is not only about refining the selling points, but also about the presentation form of the selling points. Both the product and the content, the product and the media, whether it is pictures and texts or short videos, can the selling points be brought out, and whether the expressiveness, penetration and perception are strong.

Single point breakthrough, concentrate resources on one medium, one sector under one medium, one type of KOL under one sector, and penetrate with one keyword. For example: Santonban focused on Xiachufang in the early stage, and Perfect Diary focused on Xiaohongshu. If one doesn't work and all of them don't work, but one media works, basically 80% of the methods can be replicated. It is critical to find the right adaptation points for the needs behind them. The rest is replication, amplification, and conversion rate indicators.

For example, Swisse launched blood orange essence. In the first phase of Xiaohongshu, the focus was on the benefits of blood orange and why blood orange can supplement collagen, helping consumers understand the benefits of blood orange. The product was even named after its function: Blood Orange Collagen Liquid (rather than Blood Orange Essence).

The product’s nickname “Collagen Liquid” lowers the consumer’s cognitive threshold, and what you see is what you get; by promoting its efficacy and principles, it helps consumers understand the efficacy of blood oranges.

It should be noted that the matching points and leverage points: the problem of slow acceleration in the early stage is usually that the right points of product and demand adaptation are not found. Once the matching points are found correctly, the leverage points of content and media are found. Single-point breakthroughs, single product penetration, sales of 10 million or 50,000-100,000 orders can be repeatedly verified.

02 Phase 2: 10 million to 100 million, 10 times growth, keywords: enlarging the target population

Expanding from the A2/3 population to the A1 population, if this stage is still centered around the A2/3 population, it will inevitably lead to weak growth in the later stage. By using matrix advertising and advertising exposure methods, we target the A1 population and increase the base of the exposed population.

Usually in the 100 to 100 million stage, most brands do not encounter traffic problems, but the difficulty of how to occupy the minds of users as early as possible and how to deeply cultivate the minds of users. To this end, the second stage is to gradually form actions, routines, and strategies for the brand to occupy the mind and deeply cultivate the mind. If we say that stage one focuses on products + content + conversion, stage two should start to take the brand into consideration.

Note: If a one-dimensional product competition does not have a brand rooted in the minds of users, it will be difficult to escape the traffic curse.

Method: Matrix, advertising, top KOL + celebrities + cross-border collaboration

The law of quantity is the basic law. Exposure, reach, interaction, conversion, and amplifying sales tenfold not only involve secondary reach and conversion of existing users, but the core is to increase the initial value equivalent, expand the basic plate, and release water at the source of traffic. In the first stage, the basic logic and path of reach, interaction and conversion have been implemented, which provides a basic basis for judging the amplification actions in the second stage.

10 million to 100 million, judging from the sales results, it is 10 times faster. How to achieve this 10x speed? There are two key points: 1) product line expansion, 2) channel penetration.

This stage will enter the initial stage of the brand. In the stage of 10 million to 100 million, the brand feeling will be gradually improved, and products will begin to be made like a brand. Industry public relations, SEO, press releases, brand media matrix, etc. need to be gradually improved, but the premise is that the product is hot-selling and product sales growth cannot stop.

Product expansion. The expansion here means only extending the product specifications and sizes upward and downward based on the original best-selling products. A, APro, A-. Instead of making changes to product items, the goal is to expand product offerings, stretch consumer stratification, and meet the needs of consumers at different levels. Product flavoring can also be used to expand products. Whether it is product expansion (A, APro, A-) or flavor extension, the consistency of the items must be maintained, or in other words, the basic tone of the brand must be maintained.

Channel penetration. Channel penetration is not just online and offline, it also includes media penetration. Exposure is a hard indicator. It is best to choose a region with high potential, choose a city with high potential in the region with high potential, choose a channel with high potential in the city with high potential, and choose a terminal with high potential in the channel with high potential.

What is high potential energy? For example: whether a restaurant is a large store, whether it is a chain, whether it is ranked high on Dianping.com, and whether it accepts membership cards. Large stores have higher potential energy than small stores, chain stores have higher potential energy than single stores, stores ranked higher on Dianping.com have higher potential energy than stores ranked lower on Dianping.com, and stores that can collect membership deposits have higher potential energy than stores that cannot.

Analyze each situation specifically. In essence, high potential energy can be felt. When you stand at the terminal and take a look, the atmosphere and feeling are real. Therefore, without investigation, there is no right to speak. The answers are on the spot, and the questions are all wild imaginations.

We started to seize the rhythm online to achieve hot sales, first in category and first in individual product. The first value is to accumulate credibility for the brand. For 618, Double Eleven and New Year’s Festival, plans should be made 3-5 weeks in advance.

The rhythm of leading products should be positioned

Off-site traffic needs to be coordinated

In-site purchases require investment

Brand PR needs to keep up

Cross-border joint venture

for example:

Taking Xiaoxiandun as an example, in 2018, it mainly focused on weight loss and skin care; in 2019, it enhanced the extension of the concept of pregnancy care and anti-aging, and at the same time increased the proportion of skin care products from 28% to 45%. This means that the combination of skin care and functionality is effective.

Focusing on the A2-A3 population, complete the user population portrait, and based on the A2-A3 user population portrait, iterate keywords and penetrate the population.

After April 2019, the scenarios for Xiaoxiandun's advertising began to change. The proportion of "weight loss" scenarios decreased to 11%, and the proportion of "skin care" scenarios was the highest, accounting for more than 45% of the total. The proportion of "pregnancy care" and "freezing age" scenarios increased significantly, and the proportion of "health preservation" scenarios was still at the bottom.

We used super-head KOLs to increase awareness, and used "weight loss", "skin care", "anti-aging", "health preservation", and "pregnancy care" as keywords for penetration. We gradually developed the core keywords: skin care as the main focus, health preservation as the foundation, pregnancy care, and anti-aging as the grass-planting strategy to penetrate the population.

03Stage 3: 100 million to 1 billion

This stage is also 10 times, the same question is where does the 10 times come from? 1) Online + offline, 2) Breaking the circle and attracting new customers, 3) Taking action to a higher level

The core is to rely on the pull of the brand to drive sales growth. In other words, at this stage, simply talking about products, traffic, and conversion is no longer sufficient to support sales growth. It is necessary to combine brand, product, traffic and content together. Only at this stage can we enter the comprehensive stage of integrating product, effect and sales.

The brand's actions expand from brand and category groups to interested groups, attracting interested groups through top-stream product promotion + celebrity endorsements + brand cross-border + advertising and public relations, amplifying the traffic entrance, and gradually transitioning from A2-A3 groups to A1 and O consumer groups. The purpose of cross-border and brand collaboration is to break the boundaries of categories, and the core of cross-border is also to attract new traffic.

During this stage, the amplification of brand actions will bring in more general traffic. For this reason, the integration of brand, effect and sales has entered a critical stage. If the integration of brand, effect and sales is not achieved at this stage, the traffic brought by the brand's cross-border, joint ventures, advertising and public relations will not be converted into sales growth.

Phase 1: Running Effect

Stage 2: Product Promotion

Phase 3: Running in One

Stage 4: Moat

The focus of this stage is on breaking the circle and attracting new customers among the O and A1 groups:

Attract new customers within the category: users who are interested in competing products or the same category

Attract new customers from similar products: Analyze the overlap between the customer groups of this product and similar products, and conduct targeted marketing to customers who have similar products performing well but the customer group needs to improve.

Attract new customers across product categories: Compare with your own 5A customers to see which product categories have higher TGI besides your own product, and target the corresponding industry groups with the product.

Attract new customers by using the scene crowd: Based on personalized demands, we can tap into the scene crowd with a high overlap rate and large scale with the 5A crowd.

From "arithmetic growth" to "exponential growth", when a brand grows to a certain stage, it will encounter diminishing marginal utility. There is often only one reason for this, and it is a fundamental lesson that is often overlooked, that is, insufficient brand power. In the entire life cycle of a brand, only at this stage does brand power become extremely important.

In particular, when growth becomes sluggish, we need to increase new customer acquisition and break through the circle externally, and internally drive repeat purchases and improve conversions. Attracting new customers is the constant action, and breaking the circle is the goal.

From brand users, to competitor users, to category users, to cross-category users, and then to scenario users. Only by constantly breaking through circles can we maintain growth, especially in the stage of crossing the chasm; this is even more true for achieving exponential growth - traffic, breaking the circle, conversion, operation, and sedimentation of the mind.

Based on consumer portrait labels and sales base data: define the brand's core portrait labels and lock in the A4-A5 core strategic groups: emerging white-collar workers, senior middle-class, sophisticated mothers, small town youth, Gen Z (Generation Z), urban silver-haired people, small town middle-aged and elderly people, and urban blue-collar workers. Based on the A4-A5 portraits, attract new user circles to increase traffic.

That is: the right people (user portraits), multiple levels (5A stratification), multi-dimensional reach (off-site, on-site)

1) Based on the insights of brand 5A people, clear user portraits

2) Produce insight-based crowds and break-circle strategies

3) Implement closed loop through operation

Through the analysis of the 5A of the population and brand users, we can clearly correspond the strategies to the different circles of people. The core of breaking the circle is to attract users other than A4-A5 types, and guide users to gradually settle into A2-A3 users through content, so as to prepare for traffic accumulation for sales conversion.

According to the 5A population level, a reach combination of "brand advertising + content seeding + paid traffic" is formulated to achieve content reach across touchpoints/frequencies.

Off-site: Based on data portraits, select brand advertising to reach the O-A1 population, stimulate conversion of the A1-3 population through short video influencers, and then cooperate with bidding advertising to convert them into the A4 population.

On the site: Super Interactive City and Brand Special Show expose the "O-A1 group" (targeting the opportunity group) and reach new users. Use the Through Train to reach the "A2-3 group" with shopping intentions, stimulate users and deepen their behaviors. Use Diamond Ads to reach the "A3-A4 group" (interested group, purchasing group). Use Pinxiaobao to reach the "A4-A5 group" (purchasing group, loyal group).

04Phase 4: 5 billion club, building a moat

Through long-term operations and content output, the brand improves the ROI of O-A1-A3-A4, strengthens the continuous reach of A5 super users, and drives the long-term compound value of the brand.

Only by taking into account all aspects at the organizational level, from products to marketing, to channels, and finally to the supply chain, and even talent management and financial management, can we build a solid wall and consolidate the moat. At the brand level, we use multiple dimensions, multiple frequencies, and multiple touches to build a full-link brand growth from advertising to content marketing, and then to scenarios, not only online but also including the penetration of offline channels.

1-5 billion, it is time to build a moat. From products, to marketing, to channels, and finally to the supply chain, and even including talent management and financial management, all aspects must be taken into consideration to build a high wall and consolidate the moat.

The method of spending money to buy traffic in exchange for sales may be acceptable in the early stages of a brand. However, if the brand still remains at a low-level operation of relying solely on traffic in exchange for sales in the middle and late stages, the brand will have to work for KOLs and Internet celebrities. In essence, KOLs and internet celebrities are channels, not brands themselves. Selling goods and building brands are two different things. If users trust KOLs rather than brands.

This means that the company’s brand has not really established mind and brand awareness among the target population. Once the consumers’ minds are saturated, it will be very difficult for you to break into them again - the key to seizing the opportunity is the window period of the category. Once consumers are overloaded with a certain type of information, it is difficult for them to remember similar information.

for example:

In 2017, Neiwai began to invest heavily in expanding its offline channels. It is said that the first shopping mall Liu Xiaolu set her eyes on was Shanghai Jing'an Kerry Center, and that "the first Neiwai store must be opened in the core area of ​​Shanghai." Neiwai waited for a year for this location.

In the three years from 2017 to 2020, Neiwai has 110 retail experience stores in 29 first- and second-tier cities across the country, and has strategic partnerships with first-tier owners such as Kerry, Sun Hung Kai, Swire, Hang Lung, and China Resources. On the one hand, choosing a high-potential business district as the location for offline stores can reflect the brand image and effectively form brand endorsement.

On the other hand, as traffic becomes more and more expensive, offline channels can bring brands greater room for category expansion and more development opportunities. With the help of the layout of offline channels, Neiwai has gradually expanded from underwear to home casual wear, dance sports and home products.

The initial single-store model of Neiwai achieved profitability for offline stores, with an average sales per square meter of more than RMB 4,500 per square meter nationwide.

With the help of offline stores, Neiwai has expanded its product categories from underwear to home wear, dance and sports, and home products.

Flagship stores in first-tier cities + standard stores in second-tier cities and even beyond second-tier cities

It effectively avoided the online customer acquisition competition from Bananain and Ubras and established a primary moat for the brand.

The integration of brand, effect and sales should not just be a slogan, but a set of brand combination strategies. This approach is the brand stage strategy for 5A people at different stages of brand development.

Author: New Consumer Brand Research Society

Source: New Consumer Brand Research Institute