How to start promotion from scratch?

From Internet to Mobile Internet

At a time when smartphones and 4G networks were not yet popular, limited by data traffic, phone speed, touch screen experience, etc., today's popular videos, live broadcasts, mobile games, and mobile information were not very popular at the time. There is no self-media and no circle of friends. Traffic is mainly concentrated on the PC side, and most companies place their promotions on traditional search engines such as Baidu, navigation, vertical websites, forums, communities, etc. At this time, PC Internet traffic was already very expensive, especially for Baidu. Fields like medical care, education, and tourism had soared from a few cents per click in the early days to several yuan, and popular keywords could reach hundreds of yuan.

With the rise of mobile Internet , traditional PC giants have begun to plan and transform, and have carried out large-scale mergers and acquisitions. In July 2013, Baidu acquired 91 Wireless for a whopping US$1.9 billion, marking the gradual maturity of mobile Internet and gaining unanimous recognition from capital and giants. Earlier in April 2013, Alibaba invested nearly 600 million US dollars in Sina Weibo , and the technology industry commented that the mobile Internet has entered the social era.

It was not until the rise of WeChat that the mobile Internet began to become social and self-media. More and more companies are promoting their brands and services by registering official Weibo accounts and WeChat public accounts , and corporate promotion has entered the era of self-media.

At the same time, the full outbreak of mobile Internet has brought about new changes. In the PC Internet era, people, time, geography, habits, and network environment are relatively fixed. The mobile Internet era is just different, showing fragmented characteristics. For enterprises, there are many options to choose from, whether it is promotion channels, forms of expression, or interactive methods, but the more choices there are, the greater the difficulty.

Mobile Internet promotion is imperative

"Wherever the user's attention is, there the advertisement is." Although the mobile Internet has brought difficulties to corporate promotion, it is imperative.

The early mobile Internet promotion effects were poor, on the one hand because native advertising had not yet emerged, and on the other hand because of a combination of factors such as user quality, usage habits, network environment, and interaction methods.

Today, enterprises doing mobile Internet promotion can be roughly divided into the following categories in terms of channel selection:

1. Social channels: WeChat, Weibo, Momo, Zhihu

2. News channels: Yidian Zixun, Jinri Toutiao, Tiantian Kuaibao, and the four major traditional portal news clients

3. Video channels: Youku, Tencent, iQiyi

4. Search channels: Baidu, 360, Sogou, Shenma

5. Tool channels: Moji Weather, WIFI Master Key, PUSH

6. Other channels: Meipai, Kuaishou, Inke , various mobile alliances /DSPs

7. App Store : Apple Store, 360, Baidu, App Store , Xiaomi, Huawei

In terms of traffic, Tencent ranks first. Not only does it have a huge number of daily active users (mostly in the billions), but its users also stay for a very long time (a typical example is WeChat). In terms of effectiveness, search still ranks at the forefront, mainly because keyword targeting can lock in high-intent groups, but search traffic has declined sharply due to the rise of social apps. Judging from the trend, native and video ads are quite trusted.

In terms of expression form, videos are increasingly favored by companies, H5, brand stories, and soft-text implantation are also becoming more and more popular, and content is regaining attention. In order to allow users to "discover" advertisements, Facebook has even developed a new form of advertising. Users can only see the advertisements when they click on the brand icon of the business owner, and they also have the right to choose whether to close it. The Moments ads launched by WeChat also use a similar mechanism, and users can click "Not Interested" to choose to close the ads. In terms of presentation, advertising platforms and business owners are beginning to agree on a common position, which is to make users fall in love with advertising.

Compared with PC Internet, the interactive forms of mobile Internet promotion are more diverse:

1. Phone: Invite users to make a phone call

2. SMS: SMS participation

3. Information: Fill in the information directly on the page

4. Registration: Register to become a member

5. Download: Download the APP directly

6. Purchase: Click to enter the purchase directly

7. QR code: Scan the QR code

8. Follow: Follow WeChat or Weibo

More importantly, all forms of expression, whether it is video, graphics, H5, or mini -games , can be shared on your WeChat or Weibo, including with your friends. Sharing further amplifies the effect of communication.

During my years of experience in the Internet market, I have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising. I have experience in market management for large companies, as well as experience in cold start-up of small companies from 0 to 1. Regardless of the cost, the core of marketing promotion should always be based on KPI, resources, and evaluation to make decisions.

At this time of national entrepreneurship , I feel deeply the difficulty of market promotion for small and medium-sized enterprises, especially in the fragmented era of mobile Internet, when new media and communication methods emerge in an endless stream. How to formulate a promotion plan, how to choose and evaluate the price and value of channels, how to formulate promotion content and forms of expression, and how to optimize interactive methods require a more systematic chapter to provide guidance.