In the post-live streaming era, what is the antidote for marketing?

Under the influence of the general environment, consumers have launched the slogan of downgrading consumption and consuming rationally. This is a huge challenge for merchants. Live streaming is the first to be affected. How can marketing capture the psychology of consumers? This is a hurdle that all merchants have to overcome.

Recently, there have been constant controversies caused by live streaming of goods by celebrities, with fierce competition between platforms and hosts, and between hosts. The opinions in the industry such as "merchants are trapped in the low prices of live streaming", "live streaming e-commerce is being bitten back by low prices", and "live streaming has no loyalty" are also becoming more and more intense, which makes Yu feel that the situation is changing.

A few years ago, when live streaming was popular, the industry cheered: "The era of brand-effect integration has finally arrived!"

Now, they are accusing everyone of: live streaming has not only drained profits, but also has eliminated repeat purchases, meaning that the game where brands give up pricing power in exchange for traffic is no longer viable.

Previously, many brands believed that by giving up some pricing power to the anchors, plus the slot fees and commissions, the accounts could be settled and the traffic game could continue to be played; however, as more and more stakeholders entered the game, pricing power gradually became a key prop in the traffic game among various platforms.

Almost all the top anchors require low prices and guaranteed prices. Once other e-commerce platforms discover that the live broadcast items have been reduced in price, they will follow the price at the least, and punitive price cuts are commonplace. Even more severe is to directly remove the products from the shelves. As the operators of the brand side, we are basically accustomed to these operations.

So, in a period when live streaming is unsustainable and facing a market environment of low prices and internal competition, what should brands do? What is the truly effective antidote?

• Is it the product? Even if there is a good product, it is difficult to stand out in a period of severe consumer involution and insufficient purchasing willingness.
• Is it the brand? Brand is indeed the core competitiveness and moat, but building a brand is not a matter of one day or one night. Especially for startups from 0 to 1, and companies that are struggling to grow from 1 to 10 - who can easily have the brand strength of Nongfu Spring, which has been nurtured for more than ten years before the Oriental Leaves became popular? In the process of accumulating brand assets, how can we ensure that the products can be sold and the company can survive?
• Is it the direction? Indeed, many experts and big Vs have given solutions. The direction is correct, but the implementation is still full of difficulties and uncertainties.

For example, "to make a brand popular and have public influence through social marketing" is easier said than done. To make a brand a popular topic, it requires either accumulation or opportunity, and it is full of randomness. A brand that becomes popular once may not be able to replicate itself.

For example, the use of "total cost leadership", "differentiation" and "focus" is correct, but: without scale advantages, it is extremely difficult to reduce supply chain costs; differentiation is easy to imitate, but "scarce value with barriers" still requires ten years to sharpen a sword; the focus strategy can easily open up the market in the early stage, but it is also easy to fall into the dilemma of a niche, with traffic quickly peaking and difficult to move into the mass market.

As market frontline people who are constantly promoting new products and fighting, Yu and Mao are in the most difficult industry this year:

Consumer-friendly digital products - the entire market is falling, even mobile phones and tablets are just-needed products, not to mention non-just-needed products;

Parent-child consumption is the most popular track. The traffic under the label of "exquisite mother" is almost not enough for merchants to share. However, after several years of hard work, these difficult practices, and constant discussions and exchanges with peers,

The solution we came up with is:

It is necessary to work meticulously in every link, extend the marketing chain to both the product and the user, and tap into the consumer psychology.

Traffic is not the antidote, human nature is.

This antidote has been proven to work in this year's hell mode.

We launched the Tiantian girlfriend phone in March, and sales exceeded 100 million yuan in just two months. On the first day of Double Eleven, there were thousands of reservations.

Products of the same form factor as the girlfriend phone, whether it was the ** screen before it came out or similar products imitated by other brands later, had mediocre sales.

The fundamental reason is that we really see the target group clearly, see the problems they really want to solve in their hearts, and use the product as a solution to this problem. Through product concept, product design, selling point packaging and content marketing, we secretly tell every potential consumer about this solution. However, the competitors followed the previous routines and it didn't work at all.

Products that seem to have similar shapes and functions have completely different results.

That’s right, in the era of consumer involution, the secret to best-selling lies in every detail from product to user, in the deterministic operation of meticulous cultivation, and in the design and execution of the entire marketing chain.

The most critical weapon is: based on a deep insight into human nature, take a step forward to enhance the attractiveness of the product itself, and take a step back to significantly improve user communication efficiency, without wasting any touch point or any drop of traffic.

Author: Lan Lan

WeChat public account: Taro and Cat Talk (ID: taro_cat)