In the past, price advantage was the most competitive weapon of online e-commerce, but when low-price promotions became a daily routine, the attractiveness of big promotions and discounts gradually weakened, and Double 11 turned into the main battlefield to seize the highland of brand marketing.
At the same time, with the regularization of promotional activities, the process and time from marketing foreshadowing to transaction conversion continue to lengthen, and the early "impact" on consumers is becoming more and more important.
There are more and more brands looking for increments in global marketing, and many of them are facing the problem of "how to do it". To this end, we interviewed Jin Wensen, Vice President of Marketing of Weimob and Founder of Weimob Communication TEAM PRO, and Jin Wenmiao, Vice President of Marketing and General Manager of Mengxiao Business Center of Weimob, to deeply analyze how brands can build a "brand mentality" through global integrated marketing, and how to make up for Xiaohongshu to achieve accurate transformation.
Weimob Marketing: Compared with last year, what is the biggest difference between this year's Double 11 for brand merchants? What are the new opportunities to capture this year?
Jin Wensen: "Lower prices, fewer routines" will become the main theme of this year's Double 11 promotion, for example: Ali announced that this year's Double 11 will no longer focus on GMV, and the core goal is "the lowest price on the whole network"; JD.com directly canceled the pre-sale link, and one of the poster slogans was "If you want to do it, you will be a spot person".
Since September, the Double 11 promotion has begun to enter the preparation stage, and many brands have a similar feeling: big promotion marketing is becoming more and more difficult to do. At present, consumers are no longer keen on "hoarding", from 618, Double 11, to Super Product Day, Juhuasuan, the frequency of e-commerce activities is becoming more and more intensive, and the product price difference between various activities is not enough to attract consumers to "hoard"; At the same time, Pinduoduo's tens of billions of subsidies and Douyin live broadcast have made low-price promotions routine, which has weakened the attractiveness of big promotions and discounts to a certain extent.
Therefore, compared with the price of "volume", the opportunity for brands this year lies in the "volume" product portfolio, and the sense of product value is enhanced through the "1+N" explosive product combination, so as to stimulate consumers' desire to buy. For example, for example, selling paper towels, the attractiveness of "buy 1 box of paper and get 1 box of paper free" is not as attractive as "buy 1 box of paper and get half a box of paper + half a box of face towel", and "buy 2 rolls of paper and get 1 roll of paper free" is not as attractive as "buy 1 roll paper and get 1 wet toilet paper free". Based on different usage scenarios, combining existing SKUs to create a more competitive product portfolio and enhance the brand's own product power will become a new opportunity for brands on Double 11 this year.
Weimob Marketing: Under the Double 11 promotion, how should brands grasp the marketing rhythm and formulate marketing strategies to maximize the effect?
Jin Wensen: At this stage of Double 11, the focus of brands will no longer be on the user's mind, because the cost of traffic is very high at this point in time, resulting in the cost of communication between brands and users becoming higher; Secondly, the explosion of information during Double 11 cannot guarantee that consumers can capture the information that the brand wants to convey in the first time.
Therefore, we can focus on the "explosive product creation" and "talent launch" that can bring more leverage to the brand, and can plan for the four stages of water storage period, warm-up period, outbreak period and long-tail period:
During the water storage period, efforts should be made to enhance brand and product exposure, and accumulate A1 and A2 people. At this stage, it is necessary to test the advertising effect of different products and influencers, split the distribution proportion of influencers and determine the product delivery budget according to the data feedback, and at the same time, it is necessary to test the conversion effect of different platforms and different types of content, and set advertising goals and budget planning in layers;
In the warm-up period, the main goal is to detonate the product reputation and achieve the mental penetration of the target group. At this stage, it is necessary to increase the investment in content with good data performance, and continue to pay attention to the transformation of data, and at the same time, increase the investment in relevant search terms and increase the search ranking of products in related categories.
The main goal of the outbreak period is to achieve the fermentation of brand reputation and the "harvesting" of target users. At this stage, we can combine content and search for the main popular products, seize the low-cost long-tail traffic investment on the premise of occupying the market traffic, and at the same time, cooperate with the head and waist experts to carry out the second contact of high-quality content to the people who have been reached in the early stage, and accurately "harvest";
In the long-tail period, pure output content is no longer the focus, and it is time to focus on user experience and establish a long-term connection with users. Understand the needs of users, increase interaction with users, guide users to share twice, achieve resonance with users, and cultivate loyal users of the brand.
Weimob Marketing: In the current economic and market environment, have the considerations, methods and paths of "global marketing" also changed?
Jin Wensen: With the upgrading of user consumption demand, in addition to the advantages of the supply chain, more and more cutting-edge brands and traditional brand enterprises urgently need to create brand differentiation to increase the premium. In this context, different types of brands face different needs and goals.
Based on a large number of case practices, we have found that platform touch point segmentation, circle audience segmentation, and accurate data feedback are excellent marketing opportunities that brands can seize. Under this premise, it is required to carefully sort out the brand's products and tracks, position the marketing strategy from the perspective of consumer demand from the perspective of data analysis, and tap the subdivision of products in line with the consumption scenario, so as to occupy an advantage in the fiercely competitive market and break the growth ceiling.
In this process, the concept of global marketing is more about reintegrating brand resources and positioning directions, and then applying them to the actual output of different platforms. In addition, we need to think about what the purpose is and what kind of production ratio we hope to achieve before formulating a marketing strategy, so as to measure the marketing effect more realistically and objectively.
Weimob Marketing: Under the global business trend, what are the marketing priorities and marketing advantages of media platforms such as Tencent Advertising, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu?
Vincent Kim: No matter what platform you are on, what remains unchanged is that "content is king", and it is always the most important thing to produce content that is tailored to the characteristics of the platform, and then match the corresponding marketing strategies based on different content, such as: Tencent Advertising's three major marketing paradigms, Douyin's e-commerce 5A crowd methodology, and Xiaohongshu's KFS content marketing mix strategy.
Tencent Advertising's strength lies in its strong brand building and private domain conversion capabilities, building a brand position in the WeChat ecosystem through WeChat official accounts, video accounts, mini programs, and WeChat Work, and through public and private domain joint ventures, it can attract new users, accumulate users, and repurchase conversion, so as to open up the closed loop of long-term growth in the private domain.
Douyin's e-commerce 5A crowd methodology divides the brand's crowd assets into O opportunity crowds and 5A brand equity crowds. 5A is like a funnel, the more repeat buyers are screened out, the better the marketing effect. At present, if brands want to improve marketing efficiency, they need to extend their attention to increasing the proportion of A3 people, use high-quality content as the medium, and use more direct ways to carry out in-depth grass planting, so as to improve the efficiency of content to transactions, grass planting to weeding, and public domain to private domain, so as to accelerate the harvesting of A4/A5 people.
Xiaohongshu's KFS content marketing mix strategy fully unleashes the synergistic effect of "content+", based on product characteristics and brand tonality, with the help of the platform's data insights, to find suitable KOLs for products, so that planting grass can be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people; THEN THROUGH FEEDS, HIGH-QUALITY CONTENT IS EFFICIENTLY AND ACCURATELY DELIVERED TO THE TARGET GROUP, AND POTENTIAL USERS WITH HIGHER PURCHASE MOTIVATION AND INTENTION ARE REACHED. Finally, SEM was used to reach the interested users of the category, and at the same time, the search behavior was used to screen out the users with strong grass mentality. This can not only deeply cover the potential consumer group, but also maximize the efficiency of brand marketing.
Weimob Marketing: From a longer-term perspective, can you give some suggestions for brand owners in terms of integrated marketing strategies?
Vincent Kim: I want all brands to be able to see every dollar they spend. First of all, you need to find the platform you want to cultivate according to the "people, goods, and yards", because both information and users are too fragmented, and most brands cannot cover all platform users at one time. Based on data-driven, user matching, and content delivery testing, we will finally find a platform that can bring you continuous value conversion to deeply cultivate.
Weimob Marketing: On the eve of the Double 11 promotion, Xiaohongshu made full efforts on Double 11 for the first time, announcing 100 million subsidies and 10 billion traffic support, can it help interpret what opportunities are available for brands?
Jin Wenmiao: For brands, the support measures of the 11.11 platform mainly include 2 matching plans + 3 live broadcast methods + 8 support policies, which are suitable for three major scenarios: store self-broadcasting, buyer growth and product notes.
Among them, tens of billions of traffic support covers multiple fields, live broadcasts, notes, search, shopping malls, etc., whether brands do platform live broadcasts or feeds information flow note exposure and SEM search, will get a wide range of exposure opportunities, laying a traffic foundation for brands in Double 11.
The tens of billions of platform subsidies effectively reduce the decision-making cost of users and improve the conversion rate of merchants. It's a great opportunity for brands to attract users and increase sales.
The output of the concept of buyer e-commerce is a high-quality "warrior" created by the platform for merchants. The launch of the "matching tool" allows merchants and buyers to connect efficiently, and this integration of resources will help brands gain more sales channels, choices, and promote more high-quality products to the market.
Weimob Marketing: Xiaohongshu's self-operated e-commerce platforms Welfare Society and Little Oasis have officially announced, is the more "light" Xiaohongshu more attractive to brands? Will there be any changes to the brand's strategy with Xiaohongshu after that?
Jin Wenmiao: After the closure of the welfare society and the small oasis, Xiaohongshu has built a differentiated buyer e-commerce ecosystem. Brand merchants can use buyers as the central hub of the conversion chain, accurately explore users' purchase needs through scenario-based content, and influence users to complete shopping decisions.
As the main consumer decision-making platform, Xiaohongshu's main value lies in the accumulation of A and I groups in AIPL [Awareness-Interest-Purchase-Loyalty], and at the same time, it helps brands gain deeply interested users through the repeated influence of A and I groups. Different from the previous welfare society small oasis, buyer e-commerce through the content of [creating scenes] and [sincere recommendation] to drive transactions, it is easier for users to establish brand emotional links and promote users to plant grass.
At the same time, buyers, live broadcasts, and spotlight are also the next marketing trends of the brand, and in this ecosystem, the brand will also pay more attention to the cooperation of "buyers", its own product power and the accuracy of the crowd.
Weimob Marketing: In the current Xiaohongshu environment, which industries or brand development with which characteristics are more suitable?
Jin Wenmiao: I think brands with product power can seize the platform dividend.
The impression conveyed by the buyer to the outside world is that it is professional + tasteful, and the underlying logic of the buyer culture is actually the circle culture. For brands with aesthetic products, vertical crowds, and focus on circle culture, the Xiaohongshu platform has a better space for survival and development.
On the other hand, Xiaohongshu is a platform that is very willing to grow together with brands, and with the help of the current buyer e-commerce ecosystem, new brands with product power may get more opportunities.
Weimob Marketing: Recently, JD Alliance announced that it will lower the threshold for merchants to participate in off-site marketing such as Xiaohongshu and Bilibili, simplify the cooperation link, and launch the "planting grass" effect data analysis function to help merchants optimize their marketing plans. What are the opportunities for merchants in the link of "Xiaohongshu "planting grass" →JD.com "paying"?
Jin Wenmiao: The interconnection of multiple platforms can attract new traffic and enhance the ability to "create flow".
For JD.com, lowering the threshold for off-site marketing and simplifying the link can improve the traffic efficiency of the grafted content e-commerce platform and promote the improvement of retention and purchase rates.
→Brand merchants can intuitively monitor the contribution of specific content to the e-commerce side through the key data of the back-link, and then feed back to the brand to achieve more accurate optimization of KFS in Xiaohongshu [i.e., the core strategy combination of Kol (creator) high-quality content detonation + Feeds (information flow advertising) accurate reach and efficiency improvement + Search (search advertising) to strengthen search blocking].
Brands can also carry out accurate operations on the e-commerce side based on crowd asset data. For Xiaohongshu's special content community attributes, the core goal of the platform is still to "grow grass with minds", so its main interest is not in ROI conversion, but to help brand merchants monitor different types of notes more efficiently, provide content strategy support for different groups of people and e-commerce drainage, and produce "high-quality and productive" notes more accurately and efficiently.
epilogue
Entering a long period of stock competition, the mission of Double 11 is no longer "clearing inventory", but the real battlefield of marketing and the vane of consumption. The key lies in how to lay out the pre-war layout, adjust during the war, and review after the war, which will certainly be a battle of continuous investment. For brands, user repurchase rate, new customer contribution, and user refined operation are the focus of Double 11 "training".
It is foreseeable that through global marketing, seizing new traffic is equivalent to having new opportunities, and brands have a better chance to usher in a new round of outbreak on Double 11.