How can brands create targeted content for the back-funnel population?

This article mainly introduces a marketing strategy on the Xiaohongshu platform - the anti-funnel crowd model. At the same time, the article also gives suggestions on formulating targeted content strategies based on different groups of people.

Regardless of the industry or stage of the brand, it is recommended to apply the reverse funnel crowd model in the crowd strategy when conducting brand marketing on Xiaohongshu.

1. What is the Xiaohongshu anti-funnel model?

The "anti-funnel" model of Xiaohongshu, which has become popular recently, can be simply summarized as follows: find the "core group" and push it first, and then break through the circle to "interested people" and "general people".

That is, starting with a high-quality product, you first promote it to a small core group of audiences. Then, through this group with the highest willingness, you can spread it to the interested groups and the general population. Once the word of mouth is established, you can increase the investment along the "core group" and expand the circle of people step by step.

This is similar to the original group of people with urgent needs emphasized by positioning theory. For example, the most typical case is Wanglaoji. The core group of Wanglaoji is the wedding banquet market in Wenzhou. After positioning, it then targets people who are afraid of getting a sore throat by drinking beverages, and finally the general population in the gift-giving market.

Xiaohongshu added a precondition to this logic, and I still think this approach is really smart. According to Xiaohongshu, it is called [new product testing]. In other words, instead of launching the product online first and then planting seeds, it is better to first gain insights into new consumption and user pain point trends from Xiaohongshu, and then carry out product innovation to meet new consumer needs. After the product is launched, it will first [ a small amount of first test ] to quickly calibrate the selling points and communication points based on real user feedback.

This "small amount first" product testing model can save budget for brands in the "cold start" stage, make the effect more concentrated, and make the later results predictable. This is also the key to Xiaohongshu's reversal of the logic of advertising. It adds a precondition to the advertising, and the results of fine-tuning the grass-seeking determine whether to continue to increase the advertising. The essence of advertising has changed from "investing in traffic" to "investing in the crowd", which brings greater certainty. It can not only help brands reduce costs and increase efficiency, but also increase Xiaohongshu's positioning as a new product testing platform.

2. Why is the reverse funnel model the model advocated by Xiaohongshu?

From the perspective of mass media, Xiaohongshu is still a small part of the market, which is why people often say there are 100 million Xiaohongshu, 300 million Focus Media, and 600 million Douyin.

Compared with Douyin, Xiaohongshu's user base is indeed smaller, and it is highly likely that Xiaohongshu's user base will not exceed that of Douyin. But from another perspective, although Xiaohongshu's user base is small, its users are more valuable and have stronger purchasing power.

Douyin’s model is a funnel-type 5A model, which is a business-oriented model. However, Xiaohongshu is a diffusion-type anti-funnel model, which is a global conversion-oriented model.

If brands look at Douyin and Xiaohongshu from the perspective of attracting new customers, Xiaohongshu brings about in-depth growth in the population, while Douyin brings about in-depth growth in the population.

The audience of Xiaohongshu is of higher quality and more rational. Once they are inspired by something, it will lead to long-tail repurchases and spontaneous sharing. This is because being inspired by something is a rational decision. In this process, they will only buy it after relatively comprehensive understanding and comparison.

Douyin attracts a wide range of people. It finds people with corresponding needs in the general population and quickly harvests them with a cost-effective price. Sales grow fast, but mental retention is poor.

This is also why Douyin’s methodology is a positive funnel crowd stratification strategy, while Xiaohongshu’s methodology is a negative funnel crowd breaking circle strategy.

3. How to create targeted content for different groups of people?

The reverse funnel population model, namely layered marketing, provides a new perspective for brands to achieve more efficient market penetration and user conversion by accurately targeting consumers at different levels.

1) General population: Building brand awareness and brand recognition (users’ brand recognition stage: knowledge popularization, consumer education, demand discovery, new product introduction)

For the general population, brands need to achieve broad market penetration and build brand awareness through popular topics and content. The key to this stage is to attract consumers' attention through strong exposure and highly interactive content.

The target user portrait of this group is not very clear compared to other groups, so brands generally adopt a broad content direction for this group of people, and use the method of spotlight bidding to seize the keywords for delivery, such as sportswear and summer wear (big words).

2) Interested groups: influence purchase decisions through communication points (users’ brand consideration stage: product analysis, scenario interpretation, comparison presentation, question answering, brand endorsement to increase recognition and trust)

For consumers who have shown a certain interest, brands need to influence their purchasing decisions through more in-depth content, such as reviews, recommendations, KOL recommendations, etc. The content direction of marketing is generally based on population characteristics and related pain points, and endorsements (reviews and recommendations, KOL recommendations, category science knowledge, etc.).

When doing content marketing for this type of group of people, we need to consider the application scenarios or key consumption characteristics of the group. For example, if you are a brand of plus-size women's clothing, your target group is plus-size girls with higher body fat. Then when creating content, we can focus on the characteristics of the group, such as outfits for slightly plump girls and outfits for slimming in summer (scenario + big words).

3) Maintaining the core group or repeat purchase group: (Users’ brand purchase stage: usage demonstration, success stories, evaluation and usage experience of satisfied consumers, unboxing)

For the brand's core users or users who have already consumed and made repeat purchases, content strategies should focus more on direct purchase decision guidance by displaying product selling points and user feedback, or by directly linking to product content in business notes to stimulate purchasing desire.

The content direction can directly cut into the pain points. Generally, it can be combined with product selling points, use user feedback and evaluation, show the actual effect of the product, increase the purchasing confidence of new users, and regularly launch business notes to show discount information and promotional activities to stimulate the purchasing behavior of repeat users. For example, when merchants who make home clothes conduct targeted marketing, they need to create content through the combination of product selling points/user communication points + category words. For example, for the group of girls who love beauty and exquisite life - strong binding correction hunchback underwear, anti-sagging breast pad pajamas, etc. (subdivided small words + categories).

Author: Vic's Marketing Thoughts

Source: WeChat public account "Vic's Marketing Thinking"