15 thoughts on copywriting, marketing, and life!

1. There is a marketing operation trick called pixel-level imitation

If you use TikTok, you will once again see a super trick of marketing operations - pixel-level imitation.

When something becomes popular, a batch of very similar popular Douyin videos will immediately appear on Douyin. Whether it is the format, music, scene, or the words, expressions, actions, etc., they are all surprisingly consistent. There are also some that can make secondary innovations based on this, and many of them will become popular.

We say that imitation is simple, but if you can seriously find high-quality cases and learn to imitate them at the pixel level, that would be awesome! Pixel-level imitation requires you to think about every detail about why you do it, how to do it better, and what you can do. It would be even better if we could add some personalized micro-innovations!

2. Poverty will limit your marketing imagination

When developing marketing and promotion strategies, don't always focus on cost budgets. Even if your company has budget constraints, don't always worry about costs.

One worries that it’s too expensive, another worries about burning money… They’re all hesitant to think of any marketing strategy. This is a typical cost perspective. If they don’t even dare to think about it, what creative ideas can they come up with? Not to mention actually doing it.

It is recommended that every invisible person break away from the cost perspective and, on the one hand, think more about marketing strategies from the perspective of "investment-return". On the other hand, think about creative ideas first, open your mind, and then make alternative plans based on the cost. Rest assured, almost all big ideas have great alternatives.

3. Reduce the tendency to self-justify

Many times, we learn a certain method not to truly improve our behavior, but to first have a certain behavior and then look for a corresponding theoretical method to justify our behavior, that is, self-justification.

It seems that everyone has this tendency because everyone has a need for cognitive closure.

That is, when people face ambiguous questions, they have a very strong desire to find a clear answer. When we are in a state of high cognitive closure need, we will want to quickly get a seemingly reasonable answer that can convince ourselves, and we are often unwilling to accept new ideas or other ambiguous information.

4. Can you make a fool of yourself at any time?

Zhang Xiaolong once said in a sharing session: "The reason why Steve Jobs is so great is that he can turn into a fool in one second. Ma Huateng needs one minute, and I need about 5 to 10 minutes to prepare."

This is first of all Zhang Xiaolong’s art of speaking. In addition, the "stupid" here does not mean becoming dumb, but adopting the same cognitive perspective as ordinary users when making products, and gaining insight into what users really care about and need.

Many people are used to judging others based on their own cognition and experience, but when this self-perspective thinking is used in marketing, products, and copywriting, the things produced may not be understood, liked, or needed. Not every professional scientific researcher can write an article that goes viral. It has nothing to do with professional ability. It may just be that you can’t allow yourself to become stupid at any time!

5. Belated bonuses are fun

There is a very interesting theory of "delayed bonus" in economics.

You can be given a monthly salary of 4,000 to be Jack Ma's assistant, or a monthly salary of 10,000 to be a manager of a small company. Which one would you choose?

I guess many people will choose to be Jack Ma’s assistant. Although the salary is temporarily low, it doesn’t matter. They will feel that being Jack Ma's assistant has greater opportunities, will definitely get more, and will receive a "belated bonus".

Therefore, the "delayed bonus" we predict is often more valuable than the immediate benefits and will directly affect our decision-making. For example, what “late bonuses” does your product have?

6. Negative risk commitment, do you dare to try it?

Recently, I came across several cases of purchasing negative risk commitment marketing, and the results were quite good.

Everyone knows about the zero-risk promise, which means you can return products and get a refund. The negative risk commitment is even more amazing. It means that if you are not satisfied with the product after buying it, you can return it and I will compensate you some money. For example, if the original price is 100 yuan, I will refund you 110 yuan. What’s more, the product is kept and the money is returned to the customer!

This marketing strategy may seem silly, but in fact, in the cases I have come across, the return rate was very low. The negative risk commitment became a strong selling point, and the final conversion rate was very good.

Charlie Munger said: "To the man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." We always tend to use past experience to deal with things, but in fact many of the things we come into contact with are not absolute, which will limit us.

When doing marketing, you need to dare to try. If you give it a try, you will see more points that you might not have discovered before. What’s important is that the value of many things does not lie in whether they are useful or not, but in how you use them.

7. The magic of flashbulb memory

In 2001, after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the American psychological community noticed an impressive "flashbulb memory" phenomenon.

Researchers found that even three years later, people who experienced the 9/11 attacks still clearly remembered many trivial things that happened on September 11, including what they ate that morning, who they met that day, what they said to whom, and so on.

Psychologists call this type of very vivid memory, which is caused by a striking and significant event happening in the surrounding environment, flashbulb memory. These memories are rich in details and last very long, just like a flashbulb, in which not only the flash is impressed, but also the area illuminated by the flash is remembered.

So, this is probably why chasing hot spots has become a trend now, because everyone is under the "flash light".

8. Right bullshit & bad questions

I often answer questions on my official account or other platforms. To be honest, sometimes I will answer some "correct nonsense", that is, everyone knows that the answer is correct, but it cannot bring any specific and valuable guidance to others.

Sometimes it’s because we’re running out of time, but more often than not this answer is just out of politeness because some of the questions are so lame. The same feeling you get when you hear “correct bullshit” is similar to the feeling you get when you hear a “crappy question.” That is, although you hear a question, you are unable to give any specific answer.

For example, "How to do marketing?", "How to sell my products?", "Old thief, can you help me run my company?", "What should I do if my product sales are not going up?"...

So, when you ask others questions, if you get "correct nonsense" or you ask many people and don't get a satisfactory answer, don't rush to complain. Think about whether you have asked others a "bad question".

9. A true master of emotional intelligence always lives shamelessly

There is a very interesting phenomenon in this era: it is too easy to treat others as our own, but we are too eager for others to treat us as ourselves.

People who often show that they are mature are truly naive. Real masters of emotional intelligence are always recognizing others, but they themselves live shamelessly in this world.

The same goes for marketing. You don’t need to over-show yourself. You need to constantly observe the needs of consumers and meet them. The results will surprise you.

10. A quick way to build consumer awareness

When you are introducing your products and services, a lot of descriptive language and constant introductions can be completely confusing to someone who has no background knowledge.

At this time, one of the most common practices is to use the other party's existing familiarity to explain unknown things, and express them in a more visual way, which makes them much easier to understand.

11. A way to make consumers feel that you are awesome

As mentioned in the previous article, sometimes you need to communicate with users in a language they can understand, and use their existing familiarity to explain unknown things.

After they have established an understanding and become familiar with your products and services, there is a way to make consumers feel that you are great, which is to use professional terms.

If you want your users to understand your product and establish an image of an "expert" in a professional field in them, you must not only use common and unprofessional words. At each press conference, after briefly explaining the product to everyone, Jobs would also introduce a host of new processes, technologies, and improvements, all using professional terms that only people in the industry knew.

Anyway, I don’t understand it, but it doesn’t matter. I think it’s super cool and awesome just listening to it. When he later told me what kind of experience it could bring, I believed it without a doubt.

12. It’s true that everyone likes to daydream!

The human brain's imagined experience and real experience are similar, which means that the actions you imagine and the actual actions you take cannot be distinguished in terms of the brain's emotional experience. At the same time, the experiences of others are similar to your own experiences, that is, when you see someone similar to you doing something, you can get a similar "emotional experience" as when you actually do that thing.

For example, when we imagine ourselves as chivalrous and righteous in the martial arts world, or when we read Jin Yong's masterpieces, we will also get the pleasure of traveling the world with a sword in hand, as described in "Flying snow all over the sky, shooting white deer, laughing at the book of the hero leaning on the green mandarin duck".

Therefore, whether it is marketing or copywriting, we must be good at mobilizing the imagination of consumers, or completing things that consumers want to do but have not done, and saying what they want to say but have not said. This will allow them to have an emotional experience similar to that of actually doing this thing or saying these words, causing a high degree of resonance.

13. Before you envy others, think clearly about what you want?

Last year, NetEase created many popular H5 cases, some of which were more popular than the other. Some people are jealous and ask why my product’s H5 sales are not popular.

There are many problems here, but one thing is that game, testing, news, and public welfare H5s definitely have essential advantages over marketing H5s in terms of user acceptance and dissemination. Of course, this doesn’t mean that product introduction and sales marketing H5s are not good, but there is one thing: the purpose of your H5 must be clear and unambiguous.

To put it bluntly, you have to make some choices when it comes to H5. If you are selling products, services, organizing events, or doing promotions with your H5, and you want actual conversions, then the focus is on sales conversions. If you want to do brand exposure and communication, then think more about the experience and communication mechanism, and don't put all kinds of advertisements in it.

If you don't want to make corresponding trade-offs, then it won't work. If you want to sell goods, sell them well; if you want to spread the word, spread it well. The more focused the goal, the more unified the strategy and playing style will be, and the better the effect will naturally be. You haven't done either one well, but you want both at the same time. Then NetEase should learn from you.

14. A little secret about discounts

For a refrigerator that costs 8,000 yuan, do you think a 20% discount is more attractive, or an immediate discount of 1,600 yuan is more appealing?

I would choose the 1,600 yuan discount and feel like I made a good deal.

For that 20-yuan water cup, do you think a 20% price reduction is more attractive, or is a 4-yuan discount better?

In this case, I would choose the 20% discount, because at this time I feel that "20% price reduction" seems to be more convincing to me immediately.

Although the same product has the same discount amount, the two statements do produce different perceptions. In my opinion:

For high-priced products, it is better to use the actual discount amount to show the price reduction promotion; while for low-priced products, it may be better to use the percentage discount to show the price reduction promotion.

15. We don’t educate consumers

When what you say doesn't fit with what others have already determined to be true, it's almost impossible to change their minds. The same principle applies to marketing. When consumers already have an established understanding of something, what we need to do is to find ways to discover and utilize the facts that exist in the consumers' minds and use their brains to defeat their brains.

There is a saying in marketing that you can write down and think about:

We do not change consumers' perceptions, we do not educate consumers, we simply occupy consumers' existing perceptions and connect them with the demands we want to target.

Does the above inspire you?

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Author: Mumu Old Thief

Source: Mumu Laozei (ID: mumuseo)