At the beginning of 2022, content platforms and e-commerce platforms continued to move, and the trend of mutual integration of platforms and the acceleration of e-commerce competitions continued. For example, Taobao released the 2022 live broadcast incentive plan to support the growth of mid-waist and new talents; the Douyin App launched the "Source Selection" channel; and Kuaishou Xiaodian added a number of first-level categories related to the local life industry. The platform is constantly trying to explore new increments of commercialization, and the traffic field is stimulated to more possibilities.
The diverse ecology of the traffic platform also creates a broader imagination space for brand marketing in 2022. When the layout of all touchpoints becomes the mainstream trend of brands, players entering the game urgently need to clarify the online marketing ecology, deeply understand the gameplay of each platform, and play a marketing combination according to their own categories and tracks.
This puts forward higher requirements for the ability of the brand marketing team, which needs to include multiple functional positions such as content production, talent planting, traffic procurement, live broadcast operation, and data analysis. The challenges are unprecedented, but they also mean that as long as brands maintain their in-depth exploration of traffic platforms, online marketing is likely to cross the marketing scope and become an important driving force for brand growth.
Based on the above ecological changes, CBNData (CBN Business Data Center) and Yigrowth (Yingji Digital) released the "2022 Brand Online Marketing Traffic Observation Report", which disassembles the marketing ecology of the six major traffic platforms one by one from the perspective of brand, such as content laying, traffic, marketing matrix, and e-commerce status, and provides a panoramic depiction and reference for brands, institutions and platform practitioners.
Brand online marketing keywords:
Increased input, multiple touchpoints, mixed results
As an important player in the traffic industry, brand practice can best reflect the real situation. From 2020 onwards, a large number of brands will accelerate their digital transformation, according to the "2021 Brand Online Marketing Questionnaire" released by CBNData (hereinafter referred to as the questionnaire), this trend has continued in various categories, of which more than 70% of brands have increased their online marketing investment in 2021, and less than 15% of brands have reduced this investment.
From the perspective of the distribution of specific investment amounts, 5 million seems to be a relatively obvious dividing line, the brand online marketing investment amount participating in the survey accounts for nearly 50% of the proportion; the brand establishment period and the amount of investment are roughly positively correlated, more than 30% of the mature brands established for more than 10 years, more than 30% of the investment amount is more than 50 million, it is not difficult to glimpse the determination and strength of mature brands in online marketing investment.
For brands, only through diversified marketing channels can it be possible to better complete the complete reach and closed-loop construction of the brand mind. The questionnaire shows that in 2021, the brand's marketing investment in the three major platforms of Douyin, Xiaohongshu and Taobao has increased significantly, of which more than 70% of brands choose Douyin to focus on investment. Brands have increased their investment on these three major platforms, which also shows that short video, e-commerce and content planting platforms have become the main touch points of online marketing.
From e-commerce platforms to content platforms, brands carry out all-round layouts with different strengths, creating a situation in which the online marketing ecology blossoms at multiple points. This exploration is not over, in 2022, in addition to continuing the key investment in short video and e-commerce head platforms, brands have also begun to pay more attention to private domain channels. The CBNData survey found that more than 10% of brands have the intention of prioritizing marketing budgets in the channel, ranking third.
Although many brands have increased their investment in online marketing in 2021, marketing is ultimately a business that needs to consider inputs and outputs. According to the questionnaire, 38% of merchants believe that the online marketing effect in 2021 is basically in line with expectations, while 45% of the merchants believe that the online marketing effect is less than expected. The brand's review in 2021 has basically shown a mixed trend. This attitude distribution also continues to the brand's expectations for future online marketing. Among the brand merchants surveyed, the proportion of online marketing expectations for 2022 is the highest, reaching 38%, but the proportion of pessimistic and indecisive attitudes is also close to one-third.
Traffic Jianghu Player Disassembly:
Self-broadcast trial and error, content planting and grass expansion, and exploring new growth space
In addition to the data-level insights, CBNData also cooperated with Yigrowth to visit brands in beauty, skin care, fast food, coffee and other sub-categories, as well as enterprises in the fields of short video marketing, MCN, private domain, etc., to gain a deeper understanding of their harvest and experience in the traffic wave.
Echoing the questionnaire results, multi-platform self-sowing and content planting experiments are the common points of the surveyed brands.
Among them, Douyin e-commerce put forward the concept of "interest e-commerce" in 2021, and the support policies for merchants continued, and the influx of Douyin self-broadcasting is the layout focus of brands in 2021. However, on the basis of conforming to the trend of the industry, the brand live operation faces many practical problems, ranging from strategic choices such as whether to invest in the whole or shallow water, self-operation or seeking service provider operation, to the decision-making of a certain link such as the tolerance of operational trial and error, the number of matrix accounts, etc. Not all brands can find the right answer immediately, and many brands have told CBNData that they are gradually groping for experience in trial and error.
This means that brands need to refine their self-broadcast goals and corresponding operational measures at different stages, rather than simply pursuing short-term high sales and returns, and blindly following the explosive traffic game. Based on the experience of service brands, Luo Kai, co-founder of Tomato Egg, believes that the premise of the brand's rapid sale of goods on Douyin live broadcast is "product function second understanding and the only or international big brand", otherwise the investment in education and planting is indispensable.
In the long run, brands and service providers jointly believe that the significance of self-broadcasting is going beyond the scope of selling goods, and has become a channel to enhance brand influence, precipitate long-term value, and achieve "product efficiency and sales integration".
In addition to live broadcasting, laying content grass is still a necessary part of brand online marketing. Different from the simple and rough way of playing in the early stage, the brand needs to choose the initial platform according to the category, the portrait of the target group, the brand tonality and other factors, and meet the needs of different stages to determine the timing of the expansion circle and the layout of each platform.
When the traffic competition between platforms and the competition for public domain traffic between brands have entered a white-hot situation, players are also looking for new breakthrough points and shifting their eyes to overseas markets and private domains. In overseas markets, although the commercialization of TikTok is still in its early stages, based on its traffic scale, a number of service providers and MCNs are optimistic about TikTok live broadcasting and preemptive layout. With the advancement of platform commercialization, there is also room for further improvement in data accuracy and input effectiveness, which will bring new ways to play suitable for overseas markets.
In addition, during cbNData visits, the "private domain" was repeatedly mentioned in the brand's future marketing plan. But is the brand suitable for a private domain? Xiao Yiqun, director of the Stellar Private Domain Factory, believes that this depends on the unit price and repurchase rate of the category to which the brand belongs, the actual order volume, the founder's style and other factors. The layout of the private domain is far more than just building a community, challenging the comprehensive ability of the brand in terms of product matrix, drainage, brand culture shaping, content production, and operation.
Since 2021, the boundaries of traffic platforms have gradually disappeared, and the war of content planting and live broadcasting has become more and more intense. Brands that are in the middle of it, or actively enter the game, or passively follow, are difficult to stay out of the matter. Whether the outcome is good or bad, brands can find something to learn from the experience of 2021 and from the methodologies of other brands for the next step. CBNData carefully dismantles the playing methods of different types of enterprises by investigating the brand's marketing investment and effect in 2021, the expectations and plans in 2022, and tries to provide some reference for the brand to judge the situation in the uncertainty of 2022.
Author | Yang Lei, Liang Xin
Edit | Zhong Rui
Design | Chen Anman, Chen Weida