There are 7 types of business operations on Xiaohongshu. Which one do you need?

There are many ways to operate Xiaohongshu. This article summarizes several of them. Let’s read this article to learn more.

We have all heard the story of the blind men and the elephant. The blind man who touched the elephant's leg said, "The elephant is like a big pillar!" The blind man who touched the elephant's trunk said, "No, no, the elephant is thick and long, like a huge python."

The person who touched the elephant's ear interrupted hurriedly, saying: "You are all wrong. The elephant is smooth and slippery, just like a fan."

In fact, the phenomenon of blind men touching an elephant exists in any industry. The essence is that everyone stands at different positions, looks at things from different angles, and outputs different opinions. Xiaohongshu's marketing operations are also in a state of blind men touching an elephant.

Matrix account players want to make a matrix for everything they see. Brand merchants think that the matrix is ​​too utilitarian, and private domain merchants think that brand merchants are too hypocritical! Therefore, various contempt chains have been derived.

Today I will describe the merchant ecosystem of Xiaohongshu and give my own thoughts on each type of merchant. I hope this framework will give you a new perspective on Xiaohongshu.

Figure 1: Panoramic view of 7 categories of merchants on Xiaohongshu

Individual merchants are the most numerous merchants on Xiaohongshu. They rely on advantages such as origin, supply, and price. They have no advertising budget, but only the urgency to sell goods.

For individual merchants, the key is to get more natural traffic, matrix + site

1. Individual merchants: natural flow + ROI on-site delivery

Conversion is a necessary method. The core is to create matrix accounts in batches, and then choose accounts with high weights for operation.

For example, Miyi loquat, I have seen its sales increase from 1K to 18,000 in just two months. In addition to its product features, I think there are two other reasons:

1. The first point is that it is posted continuously, with two posts every day.
2. The second point is that the account weight is really good. Once you click on the note, its newly posted content will be refreshed. This is the metaphysics of account weight.

Regarding account weight, does a bottle of beverage reading this article have any weight on Xiaohongshu? How to understand Xiaohongshu's traffic pool?

For fruit merchants like Zhaotong Fruit Girl, Xunwei Shanjian, and Glowing Orchard, you will find that their accounts have good traffic.

Figure 2: Miyi Loquat Natural Account

Individual merchants not only sell fruits, but also a large number of merchants in categories such as beauty, clothing, and home furnishings. After obtaining natural traffic and generating sales, matrix + payment can be used to directly launch Qianfan product sales and directly make conversions within the site.

XIAO Zhan Original Studio, which started recently, relied on natural flow + advertising to achieve over 5 million sweatshirt sales, becoming the top sweatshirt brand on Xiaohongshu. Taobao instead became a function of displaying its prices.

Figure 3: XiAO Zhan’s original studio

Note: The advertising of individual merchants mainly relies on Xiaohongshu Qianfan ROI. Log in to the merchant management backend of Xiaohongshu PC:

On Xiaohongshu Qianfan PC, click the "Promotion" menu on the left to enter the product login page. Click [+Create your first promotion] to automatically log in to your Qianfan backend e-commerce promotion platform account.

Figure 4: Xiaohongshu Qianfan backend construction

Summary: Individual merchants use a combination of matrix numbers (individual + enterprise) + KOS accounts + product notes + Qianfan delivery + live streaming sales (self-broadcasting and Dabo) + spotlight delivery to operate.

2. Private Domain Merchants: Matrix Account + KOS + KOL

Private domain merchants focus on the conversion cost of customer data, and the merchant types are concentrated in the decoration, wedding photography, jewelry, housekeeping, car rental, and printing industries. Scan the code to view my private domain merchant operation guide;

How to play: Matrix account + KOS + amateur + KOL + spotlight placement (customer information) + brand zone

Matrix account: quickly replicate and increase volume, set up different professional accounts for different groups of people and different price points, produce ≥12 notes per month, and the enterprise account serves as the carrier of conversion and the base for conversion leads.

KOS account: The brand's shopping guides, sales staff, and managers should not understand the positioning of KOS accounts, and the content they publish should also be differentiated;

Figure 5: Xiaohongshu’s dental industry matrix layout

KOL placement: Private domain merchants can also report to influencers through Dandelion to write notes, and then obtain customer leads through direct advertising.

Amateur accounts: Amateur account matrix, accounts for writing reviews, purchase experience, currently amateur matrix accounts have high potential energy, I will focus on them later.

Focus on delivery: collect customer information, quickly increase the volume and monitor delivery costs.

Brand Zone: Purchase the "Brand Zone" in the search box as shown below to intercept user search traffic. Note: Consider it after all the above are completed.

Figure 6: Xiaohongshu brand zone

Mature private domain businesses such as Cloud Weight Loss, NIO, Chaohongji, and Platinum Travel Photography are all good examples.

Cloud weight loss is definitely a case worth studying. From matrix accounts, influencer placement, IP cooperation, and splash screen advertising, it truly moves from lead management to lead + brand two-step management;

Figure 7: Cloud weight loss professional account + KOS account + amateur account

3. In-store merchants: matrix account + amateur + expert

In-store merchants focus on offline stores, and the merchant types are concentrated in industries such as tea, SPA, restaurants, and confinement centers;

How to play: Matrix account + amateur account + KOL + Qianfan placement + spotlight placement + brand zone

Matrix number: brand number + region number + partition number

Amateur account: Amateur recruitment store exploration

KOL: Invite KOL to visit the store

Qianfan: For merchants with group purchase coupons, you can place them through the backend of a single store

Focus on delivery: Use information flow to hit the notes of experts and intercept keyword searches

Brand Zone: Brand names intercept user searches, see Figure 6 for details;

Representative brand Bawang Cha Ji, batch matrix account + large-scale influencer delivery;

Figure 8: Farewell My Concubine is advertised on Xiaohongshu

4. Building a brand from 0 to 1: Convertible notes

This mostly refers to businesses that have trademarks and want to invest in brand names for a long time. Businesses from 0 to 1 can be divided into those with budgets and those without budgets.

1. Merchants with small budgets

Strategy: Professional account + New Sprouts cooperation + Customized cooperation + Spotlight delivery

Professional accounts: Post product recommendations or recruitment notes, call on people to try out and distribute products, adjust selling points, use professional accounts as a sales conversion base, and focus advertising on professional accounts;

New Bud Cooperation: The official recruitment of experts, who will evaluate the experience and then adjust the selling points based on user feedback;

Customized cooperation: 1V1 looking for experts, there are two situations here:

1. The first method is to find experts in the vertical category.
2. The second type is non-vertical experts who make evaluation notes, as shown below. At the beginning, you can choose the method based on the stage of the product and whether there is a search demand for the product in the market.

Figure 9: Ranking Note Type

2. Build a brand from 0 to 1 with a budget

For this type of merchants, the key is to find the selling points of their own products, combine professional accounts and influencers, especially influencers, to see the conversions on and off the site;

How to play: Professional account (product + brand introduction + promotion) + expert placement (vertical placement + general interest placement + direct original + amateur recruitment) + spotlight placement (planting grass + commercial sales) + Qianfan placement (commercial sales) + live broadcast (self-broadcast + Da broadcast)

Platforms such as IS, Guanxia, ​​and Her Research Society also belong to this type of clients. As new brands with budgets, we can analyze how they play on Xiaohongshu.

Figure 10: Brands with brand budgets from 0 to 1

5. Brands from 1 to 10: Seizing Category Opportunities

At this stage, the brand is already familiar with the rules of Xiaohongshu, with online sales exceeding 100 million and basic sales on Xiaohongshu.

At this time, we need to seize the category. That is, when users search for category words, whether it is expert notes or advertising notes, there will be brands. First occupy the market share, and then seize the category in the user's mind.
Why seize the category?

Because category = demand, occupying a category means getting greater demand. To occupy a category, you can use professional accounts and expert notes to focus on search, and gradually penetrate from product-category-scenario-crowd;

Figure 11: Schematic diagram of Xiaohongshu’s race to seize the market

Marketing methods: matrix professional account + expert placement (expanding the circle) + advertising placement + live broadcast (self-broadcast + Da broadcast) + brand advertising + IP placement Matrix professional account: matrix accounts of different business departments, laboratory assistants, etc.

Expert advertising: The essence is to break the circle and attract new customers. Home appliance advertising is not only for home furnishings, but also for fashion, sports and other groups. Expand the circle of advertising.

Live broadcast: Dabo increases brand potential, and self-broadcasting gets more results

Brand advertising: brand zone + business topics

IP placement: Set aside part of the budget to participate in official IP marketing activities

Representative brands: PMPM, HBN, with PMPM’s Xiaohongshu strategy as an example;

Figure 12: HBN seizes the retinol category and endorses the retinol category

6. From 10 to 100 brand customers: occupying the category

At this stage, the core of brand customers is to increase brand potential and strengthen user mindset;

How to play: Professional account + expert delivery (specialized delivery + general delivery) + advertising delivery + live broadcast (self-broadcast + Da broadcast) + brand advertising + IP delivery

Talent placement: conventional placement + head and celebrity event operations

Brand advertising: Commercial topics + IP operation and delivery, the core is to continue to increase brand potential and guide user decision-making;

Representative brands: Bananain, Dyson and other brands. How to do it on Xiaohongshu for brands ranked from 10 to 100 will be studied in detail later.

7. 100-N Brand Customers: Expanding Product Categories

Purpose: Selling goods + cross-border new categories

How to play: Professional account + expert placement (transparency) + advertising placement (search) + live broadcast (self-broadcast + Da broadcast) + IP placement cooperation + brand events

Representative brands: Estee Lauder, Lancome, Feihe, OPPO and other brands

Figure 13: OPPO Xiaohongshu gameplay

Figure 14: Xiaohongshu brand events

The above are thoughts on the operations of 7 different types of merchants. There are more detailed contents that need to be discussed regarding the specific operations of each type of merchant.

Author: Jiang He

WeChat public account: Jianghe Chat Marketing