Brand online growth closed loop: Douyin breaks the circle, Hongshu occupies a position, and shelves take over

The closed loop of omni-channel marketing, precise reach, effective conversion, and omni-channel brand growth. Read the article to learn more.

With the rapid development and penetration of the Internet, the importance of brand online marketing has become increasingly prominent. From the initial e-commerce platform to the current content platform and then to the social platform, brands have to face more and more online positions, and consumer touchpoints are becoming more and more dispersed. In this case, how brands can effectively promote and convert on various platforms and achieve global growth has become an urgent problem to be solved.

This article will take the most popular online e-commerce platforms - Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Tmall, and JD.com - as examples, and deeply analyze the brand's grass-planting strategies and sales paths on these platforms, and propose an overall idea and implementation path for a brand's online growth closed loop, hoping to provide some inspiration and reference for the brand's online marketing.

1. Tik Tok: Breaking the circle of content and gaining popularity

As a leading platform for short video content, Douyin has become an excellent platform for brands to increase popularity and enhance their visibility with its powerful content dissemination capabilities and user retention time.

Tik Tok’s algorithm recommendation mechanism enables high-quality content to quickly reach the target audience, triggering user interaction and sharing, thereby achieving viral spread and breaking circle effects of content.

To create popular content on Douyin, brands need to have a deep understanding of the platform's characteristics and user needs, and plan short video content that can both reflect the brand's tone and resonate with users. Generally speaking, popular content on Douyin often has the following characteristics:

• Have clear themes and creative ideas that can quickly attract users' attention;
• The content is novel in form and visually impactful, in line with the aesthetic style of Douyin;
• Tell a complete story that can trigger emotional resonance in users;
• Contains valuable information or knowledge, providing practical help or inspiration to users;
• Create suspense or arouse curiosity to stimulate users' desire for continued attention and interaction.

In addition to the content itself, Douyin content needs to consider some key factors to break through the circle, such as choosing the right topic tags, publishing time, and joint promotion with KOL/KOC or other brands. By comprehensively using these factors, brands can effectively increase the exposure and interaction of content and attract more attention from target users.

After the content has achieved a breakthrough effect on Douyin, the brand also needs a complete set of strategies to convert this popularity into brand influence and sales performance. Some common strategies include:

• Continue to publish derivative content related to the popular content on Douyin to maintain user attention;
• Through Douyin live broadcast, short videos, product cards and other functions, guide users to complete purchase conversion directly on the platform;
• Direct the users accumulated on Douyin to other channels owned by the brand, such as WeChat official accounts;
• Use Tik Tok data to analyze user characteristics and behavioral preferences, and optimize subsequent marketing strategies and product development.

Douyin is an important platform for brand online growth. By deeply exploring the characteristics of the platform, planning creative and valuable content, and comprehensively using various elements and conversion strategies to break through the circle, brands can achieve rapid improvement in popularity and sales performance on Douyin, laying a solid foundation for the entire global growth closed loop.

2. Xiaohongshu: Positioning for search and grabbing attention

As a platform for content recommendation and lifestyle sharing, Xiaohongshu has a large and active group of young users.

Understanding and discovering content of interest by searching keywords provides brands with an excellent opportunity to establish brand search awareness through high-quality content and seize niche markets.

Compared with Douyin, the content on Xiaohongshu focuses more on authenticity and professionalism. Users come to Xiaohongshu to search and learn knowledge and skills in a specific field, or to find trustworthy product recommendations. Therefore, the brand's content strategy on Xiaohongshu should focus on providing in-depth and valuable content to demonstrate the brand's professionalism and leadership in a specific field.

To establish brand search awareness on Xiaohongshu, brands need to continuously output high-quality seeding notes around core keywords. These notes should have the following characteristics:

• The content is professional and in-depth, providing users with practical knowledge and insights;
• The text and pictures are combined, and the visual presentation is beautiful and attractive;
• Enhance the credibility of content through real usage experience and cases;
• Incorporate brand elements appropriately, but don’t make it too rigid;
• Make good use of topic tags to increase content exposure and search relevance.

In addition to the note content itself, brands can also further enhance the influence and dissemination of brand content by cooperating with KOLs, participating in platform IP, etc.

By continuously outputting high-quality content, brands can establish a search mindset in a specific field. When users search for relevant keywords on Xiaohongshu, brand content can gain more exposure and trust. Once this search mindset is established, it can help brands seize the initiative in the segmented track and attract more target users.

3. Tmall/JD.com: Taking over spillover and making conversions

Content platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu can not only bring a large amount of traffic to brands, but also directly achieve sales conversion through the platforms' own e-commerce functions. However, there are still a considerable number of users whose purchasing minds are deeply rooted in mature e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD. Therefore, while brands are attracting traffic from content platforms, they also need to pay attention to the important role of Tmall and JD.com in taking on content seeding traffic and achieving sales conversion.

As the two largest comprehensive e-commerce platforms in China, Tmall and JD.com not only have a huge amount of traffic within the site, but also have established strong purchasing trust in the hearts of users. Users of different categories have different preferences when choosing purchasing channels. For example, users of digital electrical products usually trust JD.com more, while users of clothing and beauty products may prefer Tmall. Brands should focus on choosing Tmall or JD.com as the main platform for their own categories.

• In order to better receive and convert traffic from content platforms, brands need to focus on the following:
• Strengthen the content construction of the store, display the popular content of the content platform on the store homepage and detail page, and continue the seeding effect;
• Develop customized offers and activities for users imported from different content platforms to increase conversion rates;
• Use the store's content and live streaming functions to synchronize popular content and activities on content platforms to increase user engagement;
• Accumulate cross-platform user data to achieve accurate user portraits and personalized recommendations.

In addition to store operations, brands should also actively utilize Tmall and JD.com’s platform marketing resources, such as Treasure New Brands, Heybox, and Super Brand Day, to achieve the fission of content seeding to sales conversion. By placing popular products on content platforms in these large-scale marketing activities, brands can quickly convert user perceptions accumulated through content seeding into actual purchasing behavior.

In order to better receive and convert traffic from content platforms, in addition to doing a good job in store operations and platform marketing, brands also need to carry out refined traffic reception design. This includes:

Set keywords in advance: Brands should set a number of core keywords in advance based on their product characteristics and target audience. These keywords should echo the seeding content of the content platform and be fully laid out and optimized in Tmall/JD stores.

Content platform seeding: When seeding content on Douyin and Xiaohongshu, brands should consciously embed preset keywords in copywriting, topic tags, etc. This can guide users to search for these keywords on Tmall/JD.com, thereby increasing the store's natural search traffic.

E-commerce platform layout keyword acceptance: On the homepage and detail page of Tmall/JD stores, brands should highlight the layout of content and products related to preset keywords. This includes setting up banners and activity areas with relevant keywords on the store homepage, optimizing the layout and density of keywords in the detail page of relevant products, and placing direct trains/keyword ads with relevant keywords.

Real-time monitoring of keyword performance: Brands should establish a comprehensive monitoring mechanism to track key indicators such as keyword search volume, click volume, conversion rate, etc. during the process of content platform seeding and e-commerce platform acceptance. Based on the monitoring data, brands can dynamically adjust content strategies and delivery strategies to continuously improve the efficiency and ROI of the entire process.

In short, the content platform seeding and e-commerce platform acceptance are not separate processes, but need to be finely designed and connected through keyword strategies (Xiaohongshu platform can also monitor through star tasks). Only by doing a good job in each link of traffic acceptance can the brand truly realize the closed loop from content seeding to sales conversion and maximize the effect of online overall growth.

4. Implementation path of closed loop of online brand growth

Based on the above analysis, we can summarize the closed-loop implementation path for brand online global growth, including the following key steps:

1. Develop a global growth strategy

Brands need to coordinate various platforms, clarify the positioning and goals of each platform in brand growth, and develop collaborative linkage methods between platforms. Strategy formulation should take into account factors such as brand product characteristics, target audience, and competitive environment.

2. Sort out the keyword system

According to the global growth strategy, brands need to sort out a keyword system covering all platforms, including brand words, category words, product words, feature words and other levels, and layout and optimize them in a targeted manner on each platform to maximize the brand's search visibility and traffic acceptance capacity.

3. Creative content production

Based on the keyword system, brands need to continuously produce high-quality creative content on content platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu. The content must conform to the characteristics of the platform and have clear goals and guidance paths. The content format can be enriched and the influence can be enhanced through cooperation with KOLs and UGC incentives.

4. Focus on search marketing

On platforms such as TikTok and Xiaohongshu, brands need to optimize content titles, descriptions, tags and other elements to improve the content’s search ranking and exposure; on platforms such as Tmall and JD.com, brands need to maximize the conversion rate of search traffic by optimizing store content and placing keyword advertisements.

5. Linkage between internal and external sites

Brands need to open up the linkage between the platforms inside and outside the site, including setting up traffic diversion methods (CID, search spillover, etc.) in the content of platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu to platforms such as Tmall and JD.com, simultaneously displaying grass-planting content in stores on platforms such as Tmall and JD.com, and carrying out marketing activities simultaneously across platforms.

6. Data analysis optimization

Brands need to establish a global data monitoring and analysis system to track key indicators of each link in real time, and continuously optimize content strategies, search strategies, and delivery strategies based on data feedback. Data-driven is the key to continuous iteration and upgrading of the global growth closed loop.

Through the above steps, brands can build a closed loop of global growth with high-quality content as the starting point, search as the hub, internal and external linkage as the link, and data optimization as the driving force, to achieve a dual increase in brand influence and sales performance. The specific implementation needs to be flexibly adjusted and optimized according to the brand's own situation.

5. Final Thoughts

Looking ahead, with the further integration of content platforms and e-commerce platforms, as well as the continued emergence of new technologies and scenarios such as live streaming, short videos, VR/AR, brands will face more opportunities and challenges in their online global growth. Brands need to maintain keen insight and learning capabilities, and continuously optimize and innovate their global growth strategies.

At the same time, the brand's online global growth is by no means achieved overnight, but a long-term accumulation and polishing process. Brands need to have strategic determination and patience, do every link down to earth, and optimize every detail persistently. Only in this way can a sustainable and iterative global growth closed loop be truly built.

Author: Brand Old White

Source: WeChat public account: "BrandLaoBai (ID: BrandLaoBai)"