At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, Black Brother couldn't help but write a summary and make a look forward.
In the past two years, the external environment has been difficult to repeat, the epidemic shrouded, capital retreat, tax collection, these have made the brand's marketing budget more and more tight. Correspondingly, the media environment is more decentralized and decentralized, the budget is already less, more should be spent on the blade, where should the limited budget be invested, is it traditional media, brand advertising, or social media? Do you want to do variety shows? Do you want to gamble on content IP? Do you want to catch up with the trend of live streaming with goods? Do you want to engage in private domains? These are both difficult and problematic for brand owners.
So what are some of the new marketing trends that must be learned for 2022?
01 The perception of brand marketing should be upgraded
For brands and marketers, I think the first thing to do is to re-recognize the brand. In the past, when it came to brands, everyone felt that they were traditional brands such as Coca-Cola, KFC, and Starbucks, which eventually allowed consumers to form a perception of the brand through continuous advertising and brainwashing, which required long-term accumulation.
And now, with the popularity of social media and content platforms, brands are rising faster and faster. Brands such as Yuanqi Forest, Perfect Diary, Zhong Xuegao, and Ramen Talk have formed their own brands in just a few years driven by capital and overwhelmingly invested. These new consumer brands, after tapping the vertical needs of users, quickly grasp users through one or two explosive products and quickly form a brand.
Of course, how far these new consumer brands will eventually be able to go is also unknown. Many new consumer brands are losing money and making money, simply relying on capital to fatten, still in the stage of burning money, and have no core competitiveness. For example, the perfect diary of listed companies, the biggest expenditure of enterprises is KOL launch, which eventually leads to huge losses.
No matter how far the new consumer brand eventually goes, the way the new consumer brand plays, the brand marketer should still learn. For traditional brand marketing, in fact, as long as the delivery department has enough budget and finds a monopolistic platform, it can shape the brand. Like brain platinum, get the CCTV advertising period, you can shape the brand. Like Jiaduobao, the chinese voice named Zhejiang Satellite TV can shape the brand.
In the view of Black Horse Brother, the traditional brand promotion department is actually the advertising department. The current brand promotion department, more like the content department, should have a cognition of the content platform of Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Station B, know what kind of content consumers are easy to be marketed, and co-create content with KOLs and KOCs, and finally complete the planting of grass for consumers.
Like new consumer brands, not only to put variety shows, but also to put vibrato, Little Red Book KOLs, but also to find Li Jiaqi to live stream with goods, while planting grass, with goods at the same time, but also to see data and conversion. The current brand marketing department has changed from a simple delivery department to a delivery department, a content department and a data department. It is necessary to choose the platform to launch, but also to co-create content with the platform and KOLs, while also staring at the data and ROI. I have to say that it is more and more difficult to do brand marketing now, consumers' attention is becoming more and more dispersed, there are more and more platforms, KOLs are mixed, and it is too difficult to spend the budget on the cutting edge.
Therefore, in the new year, traditional brands should learn to plant grass and marketing like new consumer brands. New consumer brands should also learn from traditional brands the refinement of brand investment, and they can't always burn money like a perfect diary. Of course, if a brand wants to really go far, it still depends on its own product and research and development capabilities.
02 Short video content entrepreneurship is getting more and more volume
When Zhang was popular, I once wrote an article to analyze that Zhang's popularity showed that there was no chance for short video entrepreneurship. Because now the short video content is more and more involuted, the content production threshold is getting lower and lower, and the requirements for content consumption are getting higher and higher, everyone has aesthetic fatigue for the general short video content. Like Zhang, not only need hundreds of shots, but also need professional shooting and editing, and it is getting more and more difficult to run out of the short video track. Therefore, now more and more MCN companies and Internet celebrities are slowly abandoning short video entrepreneurship, either to live streaming with goods, or simply change careers.
Some time ago, Black Horse Brother communicated with the relevant responsible persons of some large MCN institutions such as front teeth. Although it is becoming more and more difficult to start a short video content business, the head of the MCN agency, especially the beauty MCN, advertising is still showing a rapid growth trend, and many institutions have achieved 50% to 100% growth in 2021. This is all due to the strong commercialization of the Douyin platform in the past 2021 and the outbreak of Douyin live e-commerce, which has also led to the growth of short video talent and information flow delivery.
In 2022, the talent delivery will rise steadily, but with the increase of tax audits and traffic delivery, the GMV of the head MCN agency will continue to increase, but the profit margin will decrease. For small and medium-sized MCN institutions, there are indeed not many opportunities left in short video entrepreneurship.
03 Singles' Eleven is no longer sexy
As an online promotion activity of Taobao Mall, Double Eleven has been carried out for 13 years by 2021, and has been the focus of many media attention for many years, but in 2021, Double Eleven, Ali is very low-key. Because, the inflection point really came, and Singles' Eleven became less sexy.
The reason is because the live broadcast carries goods. Because the original intention of the establishment of Double Eleven is actually because Tmall has created a discount promotion channel for many brands, and every year when Double Eleven is approaching the end of the year, clear the inventory. However, with the prevalence of live streaming with goods, in the live broadcast room of large anchors and brands, anchors are promoting every day and discounting every day. It's like, if you usually stock up on tissues and laundry detergent in Luo Yonghao's live broadcast room, then you will definitely not buy double eleven. At the beginning, Double Eleven was popular because there were few channels and reasons for promotion, and now the anchor is promoted there every day, and that Double Eleven is naturally not so attractive.
Moreover, live streaming can be said to be an upgraded version of Double Eleven. Double Eleven you promote once a year, when you buy it is a pre-sale, and it is a coupon, which is too troublesome. In the live broadcast room of the big anchor, what you see is what you get, and you can buy it directly. Double Eleven and live streaming with goods, in the underlying logic are e-commerce promotion methods, but live streaming with goods is more direct, the frequency is higher, it is easier to make consumers impulsive, so it is more lethal.
04 The era of big anchors is over
Since Taobao launched the live streaming business in 2016, live streaming has always been the era of big anchors. In the era of the Three Kingdoms Killing, live streaming has always been monopolized by Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, and the big anchors have absolute dominance and bargaining power.
In 2022, with the dispute between Li Jiaqi, Wei Ya and L'Oréal, the brand began to compete with the big anchor for pricing power. In the past, in the era dominated by Taobao live broadcasting, brands could only sell goods through Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, because the traffic was in the hands of big anchors. With the launch of Douyin e-commerce, brands can also obtain users through streaming, and the monopoly advantage of large anchors is absolutely non-existent. Instead of giving cost-effective goods to big anchors and letting big anchors precipitate fans, it is better to put them in their own live broadcast rooms to accumulate private traffic for brands, so more and more brands are beginning to brand self-broadcast and cultivate their own anchors.
At the end of 2021, with the L'Oréal dispute and Via being investigated because of tax issues, the era of big anchors of live e-commerce has basically ended. At the same time, small and medium-sized anchors in the vertical category will rise, store self-broadcasting will become a trend, and more and more brands will begin to build their own live broadcasts and store self-broadcasts.
05 Store self-broadcasting has become a new trend
2021 is also a year when Douyin e-commerce and store self-broadcast take off. Henan Dashui, let the public welfare during the flood hongxing erke live broadcast room fire, not only let this domestic brand Xiti hot search, but also let hongxing erke this domestic brand sell out of stock, so that everyone saw the advantages of the store self-broadcast. Under the demonstration effect of Hongxing Erke, many brands have begun to broadcast themselves in stores, and live broadcasting generation operation DP has become a new industry. Like Dong Mingzhu, the president of Gree, he even recruited an assistant to be the anchor for the store's self-broadcast.
Before 2021, live streaming should be said to be the world of Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya. In the second half of 2021, with the launch of a huge number of thousands of rivers, a large number of vertical anchors have emerged on Douyin, and at the same time, the live broadcast goods in some brand live broadcast rooms have also begun to flourish, and Douyin has gradually formed its own interest in the e-commerce ecology, and live e-commerce has entered the real era of national goods. Live streaming will also become the standard for many FMCG, beauty and new consumer brands, and store self-broadcasting will become a new channel for obtaining private domain traffic, expanding customers and achieving revenue.
At the same time, with the end of the era of big anchors and the prevalence of store self-broadcasting, the myth of wealth creation of anchors with goods has also been shattered, and anchors with goods have slowly become an online salesman. Because a large number of brands will establish their own live broadcast rooms, the demand for anchors with goods is also increasing, it is said that the demand for this position will exceed millions, and the vocational training of anchors with goods will become a new outlet.
06 The tide of self-media is ebbing, and the era of KOC and national goods is coming
Since the beginning of 2020, the classical self-media people like Black Horse Brother have felt that their lives are getting worse and worse. Since WeChat launched the WeChat public account in 2012, self-media people like Black Horse Brother, who are born as media reporters, as public opinion leaders, can be said to be invincible on the online platform. However, with the rise of Douyin and short video platforms, short videos have become the most important way for mass content consumption, and more and more people have given up reading, and self-media naturally has no traffic. What followed was the decline in the number of public accounts read, the influence of KOL was weak, and the era of self-media turned over.
At the same time, with the prevalence of consumerism and the rise of short videos, consumer grass has become a new outlet. Relying on platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, some KOCs, relying on their professional advantages in the field of vertical consumption, have won more and more vertical fans. Unlike KOL to guide public opinion, the main function of KOC is to guide consumption, because KOC is very close to consumption decisions, although the number of fans is not large enough, but the conversion rate is very high for brands, so in the past two years KOC grass has also become an important marketing method for new consumer brands.
In the age of graphics, KOL thinks every day about what to write and what hot topics to create. In the short video era, the important thing is what you want to sell, in which category of consumption has professionalism and discourse power, with the ebb and flow of self-media and the prevalence of KOC, the era of national goods is coming.
07 Content planting tends to be refined
As mentioned earlier, a very important indicator for the promotion of new consumer brands is the content planting. To evaluate whether a brand is an internet celebrity brand, open the Little Red Book or Douyin to see how many consumption diaries the brand has, if the consumption diaries are small, it means that the number of content planting grass is not enough, and the brand is not enough "net red".
However, with the improvement of consumer awareness of content planting, everyone realizes that content planting is not a panacea, and it is not particularly wise to spend a lot of money on content planting. With the slow retreat of capital, content planting will not be as extensive as in previous years, and more and more attention will be paid to effects and conversion rates, and content planting will also tend to be refined.
08 Private domain marketing outbreak
In the past two years, the concept of private domain marketing has been relatively hot, but it has not taken off. The reason why brands attach importance to private domain marketing and private domain operations is that the real economy is not easy to do now, public domain traffic is becoming more and more expensive, and goods are becoming more and more difficult to sell. The main reason why the private domain has not exploded is that in the WeChat ecosystem, the traffic is still relatively scattered, and the efficiency of private domain marketing is not high. On the product side, the video number is not yet mature, and there is no export that undertakes private domain live broadcasting and live streaming with goods.
In 2021, with the launch of a huge amount of Douyin e-commerce, revitalize Douyin live e-commerce. Let WeChat and even Tencent see the power of content e-commerce. In 2022, WeChat video number will force live broadcast with goods, with the release of WeChat video number flow, I believe that many merchants will be like last year into the Vibrato live broadcast, into the WeChat ecology, after all, WeChat has 1 billion daily life. With the launch of short video and live streaming, it is believed that private domain marketing, which has been silent for several years, will also break out.
09 Virtual Idol Rises
The past 2021 has also been an eventful year for the entertainment, short video and live streaming industries. Artists such as Wu Yifan and Li Yundi have let many fans off the powder due to scandals. Wei Ya was investigated because of tax problems, and Li Ziqi and mcN agency Wei Nian made a lot of trouble. The disputes between these celebrities and Internet celebrities have made everyone realize that celebrities and idols are not only gaining attention, but also bring huge risks, which also allows the creators of virtual idols to see the opportunities behind them. 2021 is also the year when virtual idols emerge. Like Liu Yexi on Douyin, the fans rose by 100w overnight, allowing everyone to see the beauty industry, and it is also possible to produce virtual anchors.
In 2021, there is a popular saying in the short video industry that "if you want not to separate your family, unless you are husband and wife". This is because Internet celebrities and MCN institutions do have problems where interests are difficult to coordinate, and each party feels that they have paid more, and each party feels that they should take the big head. Virtual anchors and virtual IP do not have these problems, not only will not overturn, but also absolute loyalty. However, now the virtual anchor also has a difficult point, that is, the high production cost and the difficulty of shaping people. It is believed that with the rise of the metaverse concept and the reduction of production costs, digital idols and virtual IP will also become new outlets and marketing paths.
10 AI tools improve private domain marketing
As mentioned earlier, the reason why private domain marketing cannot be done is that the user communication cost is high and it is difficult to scale. Because in the Ecology of WeChat and private domain, the key to marketing is still dialogue. The one-on-one dialogue has a relatively large demand for customer service, and it is difficult to scale the sales behavior.
And content platforms such as Douyin, with the opening of a huge number of thousands of rivers, have greatly activated the efficiency of live e-commerce, and the era of the whole people is coming. Although public domain marketing is efficient, as public domain traffic becomes more and more expensive, the traffic of short video platforms such as Douyin has peaked, and WeChat, which has 1 billion daily live users, has once again become a channel for live streaming and e-commerce monetization. To this end, WeChat and video numbers have also released a lot of positives, in the WeChat open class, WeChat officially announced that in 2022, the video number live broadcast will invest 5 billion cold start traffic packages to help new anchors start broadcasting traffic. In addition, the video number live broadcast is about to launch a paid live broadcast room, and the huge dividends of private domain marketing and national goods are coming.
And like WeChat such a private domain ecology, the biggest difficulty is the problem of marketing efficiency, how to change the efficiency of dialogue marketing? At this time, the WeChat ecology and private domain Saas entered everyone's field of vision, And WeChat robots and AI tools were first applied to micro-business and private domain marketing. With the further development of private domain business, some private domain ecological service companies empower commercial customers' WeChat community operation through AI and Sass, improve the online service capabilities of enterprises to consumers, activate traditional offline member resources, and enhance the whole life cycle value of consumers.
For example, a company called "Unique Technology", for commercial real estate such as Beijing Fangshan Capital Outlets, uses AI+RPA technology to build an automated operation ecosystem for private domain users, comprehensively improves the interaction between commercial shopping malls and consumers, online consumer activity exceeds 40%, offline write-off rate exceeds 90%, and comprehensively improves offline passenger flow. For offline merchants, we have found an online and offline private domain integration marketing path. It is foreseeable that in 2022, the global marketing model of public-private domain linkage will become a new marketing trend, and as an AI efficiency tool, it will become the key to marketing success or failure.
To sum up, the five most important keywords of brand marketing this year are: inflection point, refinement, conversion, global, and efficiency improvement. The inflection point of brand marketing has arrived, and simple brand marketing has ceased to exist. In the era of national cargo, it is necessary to improve the conversion rate and cargo rate through refined operation. At the same time, as public domain traffic becomes more and more expensive, public-private domain linkage and global marketing have become more choices for brands, and the key to global marketing is the activation of retained users and the efficiency of private domain marketing, and finally the AI efficiency tool has become the key to the success or failure of global marketing.