New product 0-1, how to plan the release rhythm of each channel to achieve annual sales of over 25 million?

In the current environment, how can we outperform the market and survive? In this article, the author selected three well-developed brands, namely Lina, FunnyElves and CHOUOHC. It just so happens that their application methods correspond to the three typical models we often talk about - pyramid, olive shape and inverted pyramid. I hope it can help you.

Recently, I have come across many friends who are planning to start a business this year, or who have just started a business and are building a brand. Everyone basically discusses the topic of "how can I outperform the market and survive in this competitive environment?"

At the same time, many friends often ask, have you seen any new gameplay recently, and want some reference ideas.

So this time, we selected 3 brands in the makeup and skincare categories that have been newly launched in recent years, or brands that have started operating on Xiaohongshu/TikTok, to look at their operation rhythm from 0 to 1, and analyze them to see if there is anything worth referring to!

The three brands with better development are Lina, FunnyElves and CHOUOHC. They correspond to the three typical models we often talk about in terms of the gameplay of expert applications - pyramid, olive shape and inverted pyramid (as shown in the figure below):

Moreover, these three brands have their own advantages and characteristics, which are worth sharing and learning!

1. Naren

In June 2022, the brand was launched, with Douyin as its main operating channel; it used live broadcasts by influencers to promote and sell products; it opened two stores on Douyin to achieve in-site conversions; it also opened a flagship store and many distribution stores on Taobao to take over traffic.

Source: Taobao official website

1. Tik Tok operation rhythm

The brand mainly relies on live streaming by influencers to sell goods; its main sales are brought by live streaming by influencers; for example, vertical beauty bloggers such as Lala Yoko and Duan Hao Beauty Education.

June-July 22

In the first two months of the brand's development, the brand invited a large number of non-vertical group buying influencers with a smaller number of fans, such as Yiyuan Muno Home Furnishing, Niu Laoban Yanxuan (one yuan free shipping), etc.

August 22

The brand's products began to enter the live broadcast rooms of celebrity and top anchors such as actor Marco and Yatou Baby, who can be seen at 7 o'clock every night.

September 22 to present

Brands mainly rely on vertical influencers in the cosmetics category. These influencers are mainly paid knowledge-based influencers. For example, they teach you how to put on makeup, what the makeup steps are, and then recommend products. Such influencers include Duan Hao Makeup Education, makeup artist Yang Yang (live broadcast at 8 am), etc.

(This type of anchor is mainly responsible for delivering useful information and recommending products; this is extremely attractive to novices or people who want to learn makeup; it is also a popular live broadcast format recently.)

The way brands play with the Tik Tok influencer app is by adopting the pyramid influencer model;

First, a large number of group buying influencers are invited to expose the product, and then after a certain exposure is achieved, cooperation is reached with celebrity anchors or top influencers; plus the two stores opened by the brand have high business experience scores and good reputation, which makes it easier to form cooperation with top influencers. After forming cooperation with top influencers, it is easier to be compatible with other influencers.

2. Product Analysis

The two main products promoted by the brand are primer and air cushion; the unit price of the products is between 100 and 300 yuan; the main selling points of the products are "base makeup to nourish the skin" and "using makeup to nourish the skin"; they attract people who love beauty but are worried that cosmetics are bad for the skin.

According to the "2021 Oriental Beauty Valley Blue Book (Cosmetics Industry)", there are two changing trends in the cosmetics category:

First, consumers' trust in dermatologists and experts' opinions on skin care products has significantly increased;

Second, makeup should be both personal and skin-nourishing, and “makeup and skin care in one” has attracted much attention.

According to the data from the Blue Book, the consumption scale of skin care cosmetics has increased more than 6 times in the past three years, and skin care base makeup accounts for more than 90%, among which BB cream/CC cream has the highest growth rate. Among consumers' demands for the efficacy of skin care cosmetics, moisturizing is the core demand, and herbs, ancient prescriptions, and essences are the main promotional points of skin care cosmetics.

Let's take Nalian as an example. It uses "a team of doctors researching formula" as a promotional point and "a pioneer in the era of foundation and skin care" as a selling point. It has grasped the changing trend of the market and accurately reached the needs of users. Therefore, it has a relatively good competitive advantage, with sales of 10 million to 25 million in the past year.

From the perspective of audience

Source: Douyin Selected Alliance

Nalian's audience is older than similar makeup and skin care products, such as Red Globe. Red Globe's audience is concentrated between 18 and 30 years old, mainly genz and small town youth; while Nalian's audience tends to be 31-40 and 40-50 years old, accounting for about 48% and 20% respectively, mainly sophisticated mothers.

We know that the general audience of beauty products is genes, young people in small towns, and white-collar workers;

But Naren is more focused on developing the older age group. The influencers who contribute to the main sales, such as Lala Yoko and Duan Hao Beauty Education, are around 37 or 38 years old, and their audience is also concentrated in this stage. This shows that the audience of cosmetics is not just the young group, the 31-50 age group also has a large market in the cosmetics industry.

3. Conclusion

Difference in the audience: The brand has opened up a new audience. The general audience of the cosmetics category is 20+, and Naline has expanded the audience to the potential audience of 31-50 years old;

Market trends change; among the genz group, it has been successfully verified that new products such as "base makeup to nourish the skin" and "makeup to nourish the skin" are very popular; and Nalian has successfully applied this new form to the new group;

The brand also gained an in-depth understanding of the live broadcast content and format of Douyin's hot spots, and selected the currently popular knowledge-based vertical beauty experts to promote their products.

This form is suitable for those who want to enter the market and build a brand.

They need to constantly observe market trends, develop new audiences, and make rational use of successful cases.

2. Funny Elves

As of June 22 , Fangli FUNNY ELVES's online sales channels are concentrated in Tmall flagship store, Douyin, and distribution channels, and content operations are carried out on Xiaohongshu . Offline, the brand has currently settled in more than 1,000 offline sales points, and it is expected that the number of domestic offline sales points will reach 3,000 in 2023. The team is still accelerating the expansion of offline channels and overseas channels.

From the public data of the brand, we can see that the brand currently has a considerable input-output ratio and is in a profitable state as a whole in 2021. In 2021, online sales exceeded 200 million yuan, and revenue increased by 1,300% year-on-year. Among them, the cumulative sales of the star product Soft Focus Honey Pressed Powder exceeded 3 million trays, and the five-color pressed powder and long-lasting foundation liquid also achieved rapid growth.

R&D is a long-term barrier for foundation brands. Compared with eye and lip makeup, foundation products have higher requirements for technology and production lines. FUNNY ELVES has currently reached a cooperation with Harvey Gedeon (former Chief Technology Officer of Estee Lauder Group) to establish the FUNNY ELVES Bionics Laboratory .

In terms of the team, the founder and CEO Yang Ju has been engaged in the imported cosmetics supply chain industry for 10 years. She has founded Yuezhimi (Beijing) Biotechnology Co., Ltd. and a well-known MCN agency in Hangzhou; the chief marketing officer Tao Zi was a core member of Xiaohongshu e-commerce. They all have rich market experience.

Source: Taobao official website

1. Brand operation logic

The brand's online operations are divided into two stages:

In the first phase, we focused on Xiaohongshu, with more than 150 notes per month and an average of more than 80,000 interactions per month.

In the second stage, the brand added Douyin on top of Xiaohongshu, relying mainly on broadcasts by influencers. The monthly video volume gradually increased from the original 200+ to around 500, with more than 5,000 live broadcasts per month.

Little Red Book

Fangli started online operations on Xiaohongshu in July 2020. The brand's operations on Xiaohongshu are more focused on content output, mainly using the logic of hot article replication, with more than 150 notes per month. Relying on the exposure of natural traffic , the brand's commercial notes are very few, accounting for 1.3% of the total notes;

The main content format of its notes is similar to the articles we shared before about the production of popular articles in the makeup category. You can refer to them and learn from them!

All the traffic of the brand on Xiaohongshu is transferred to Taobao for acceptance; its sales channels on Taobao are flagship store + multiple distribution stores, mainly relying on distribution for sales . In 2020, the brand's distribution stores on Taobao were launched simultaneously with Xiaohongshu;

The brand has multiple distribution stores on Taobao, which may be because the founder has more resources of his own; its distribution sales volume is over 50,000 per month, and now it mainly relies on "Cheng Shian's Store" for sales.

Tik Tok

Douyin launch rhythm: Fangli only officially developed the Douyin platform at the end of December 21; from the perspective of live broadcasting, it mainly relies on expert broadcasting, and the brand's own broadcasting room is also continuing to make efforts ;

50% of the sales are generated by FunnyElves official flagship store, and the rest are generated by influencers such as Mr. FuFu, Yu Tong Shopkeeper V, and Baby Who Loves to Eat.

The brand follows the olive-shaped model in the selection of influencers ; the influencers invited from the beginning are vertical influencers in the beauty sharing and skin care categories; (There are influencers with a large number of fans who are endorsed, such as Tian Zong, Mr. Fu Fu, etc.; there are also small fans, but vertical beauty influencers, such as Skin Care Observation Room, Jiujiu Xiaoyaonu, etc.) (as shown in the figure below)

Source: TikTok platform

2. Operational content advantages

Whether on Xiaohongshu or Douyin, brands have used self-propagation to promote their products (as shown in the figure below);

Many notes contain the content of "ONE MORE FOR FREE" and "Another CD". This form of content can not only arouse the interest of the audience and promote the product spontaneously, but also this "CD" can imply that the product quality is really good, so the CD is used.

This is a new form of content created in the product promotion process, which is very creative.

Source: Douyin platform, Xiaohongshu platform

In addition to the advantages of brand operation content, the brand has accumulated two years of experience on the Xiaohongshu platform and has already formed brand awareness. In addition, the founder of the brand may have rich resources of influencers, and he uses the cooperation with the former chief technology officer of Estee Lauder Group as a publicity point;

Moreover, the product has a relatively low negative review rate on Xiaohongshu, at around 1.11%; therefore, in terms of quality, influencers will also choose this product to promote.

At the same time, the brand has opened a live broadcast room, and the monthly live broadcast sales account for about 20%-40%. From the perspective of the live broadcast room, the brand mainly relies on natural traffic and then explains the product advantages.

3. Product advantages

The brand mainly promotes pressed powder and liquid foundation, with product prices ranging from 80 to 200 yuan; Douyin store also specially launched a small sample of liquid foundation - 7ml for 29.9 yuan, and also comes with a triangular foundation sponge, to attract audiences to try it or consider those who don’t wear much makeup. It is difficult for them to use up a full bottle of liquid foundation, so the samples will be very popular among this group of people.

The brand’s sales on Douyin have reached over 2 million, of which sales of 7ml foundation samples have reached 1.1 million, accounting for about 55% of the total sales; this shows that the sample sales method is feasible.

The main advantage of this product is that it is suitable for Asian skin, and the actual testing of the product will increase the audience's trust, thus converting it into purchasing power ;

Like Nalian, whom we analyzed above, it used professional promotional points such as "research laboratory" and "bionic laboratory" to grasp the changing needs of the current beauty audience.

4. Conclusion

The Fangli brand has a rich background, focusing on innovative product research, focusing on the changing needs of the audience, and creating new ways of promotion during publicity;

This means that if you want to enter the market and build a new brand, you need to consider new forms of publicity, with the audience as the core. The same content as before will lead to aesthetic fatigue of the audience.

The way it switched from operating on Xiaohongshu to operating on Douyin also shows that Xiaohongshu's traffic can overflow to other platforms. Xiaohongshu is a platform that is very worthy of good operation.

2. CHOUOHC

CHOUOHC Morpho beauty instrument and Zeus belong to the same production factory base. It can be said that Morpho is part of the Zeus family, or it can be said to be a very new "old brand".

Source: Taobao official website

From the perspective of brand investment, CHOUOHC has investment in both Xiaohongshu and Douyin, but mainly in Douyin; on both platforms, it first increases product awareness through influencers and then promotes it in large quantities.

1. Xiaohongshu’s advertising rhythm

January 22

We started promoting on Xiaohongshu, mainly focusing on business notes, which accounted for about 86.85%; notes with good data would be placed in the information flow, but no super popular articles were produced.

January-April 22

Most of the notes are about offline activities and spokesperson announcements released by corporate accounts; the amount of notes per month is relatively small, about 3-4 notes per month.

May-July 22

The brand invited junior and mid-level influencers to promote its products through commercial reporting.

August 22

The brand began to join celebrity anchors and top anchors such as Zhu Zhu, Dong Xuan, and ZXD_Lu for publicity; and in September 22, the brand began to increase the number of notes, from the original few to 20+ and 30+.

The brand's selection of influencers is a typical inverted pyramid type . In the early stage of brand promotion, Liu Shishi was officially announced as the spokesperson to create a star effect.

In addition, judging from the public opinion of the product, negative comments only account for 1.18% of the total comments, and CHOUOHC and Zeus belong to the same company, the products are guaranteed and relatively high-end, so many top and mid-level influencers will promote CHOUOHC.

2. Note content

The beauty devices that I bought before had a long usage time, and the treatment time was about 45 minutes, so it was difficult for some users to stick to it.

Therefore, the notes for this product are targeted at user pain points, with the main promotional points being "same style as celebrities", "5-minute, 10-minute quick maintenance", and "short-term high efficiency", followed by product trials and product promotion. (As shown in the figure below)

Source: TikTok platform

This type of note-taking format is more likely to attract users' trust. And from the perspective of the audience, this product is aimed at busy urban elite women, helping them to use their fragmented time for deep skin care at home; addressing their time-sensitive pain points and solving problems, which is more likely to lead to conversions.

2. The pace of Tik Tok’s advertising

January 22

The brand simultaneously promotes its products on Douyin; the product’s initial slogans were “Zeus Second Generation” and “Endorsed by Liu Shishi”, which are likely to attract a part of Zeus’ audience and fan groups.

January-April 22

In the early stage of product promotion, the product was launched entirely through the form of expert broadcasting; the selected experts were all male and female anchors with large fan bases and exquisiteness; similar to Pan Yurun's exquisite girls' good things on March 21, Beibei Rabbit_Season Change at 10 am on the 25th, and Bai Gongzi, etc. (Since Zeus is already a well-developed brand with a relatively high reputation; coupled with celebrity endorsements, such bloggers are more likely to choose this product for promotion)

May 22

The brand created its own live broadcast room and started live streaming. In June, the sales proportion of its own live broadcast room increased from 6.24% to 23.42%. Afterwards, the sales ratio of brand influencer live broadcast and self-broadcast remained at approximately 5:1.

Source: TikTok platform

Judging from CHOUOHC’s self-broadcasting account, the brand has created a collection of videos dedicated to testing and tutorials to attract audiences ;

Judging from its own broadcast room, it mainly uses natural traffic, or has a small amount of paid investment, about 10%; it mainly relies on fans to drive sales;

The live broadcasts are all real-time live broadcasts by real people, promoting the advantages of the products and sharing the tutorial steps; telling the audience the background of the brand, the test report and teaching you several steps to use the beauty device.

3. Conclusion

CHOUOH mainly grasps the pain points of beauty instrument users and promotes its products;

In addition, the company to which this product belongs has abundant talent resources, so it has a natural advantage in brand promotion.

This shows that to promote high-order products such as beauty devices, it is necessary to select top-level experts in vertical categories and develop products from top to bottom;

There are many brands of beauty devices. If you want to promote your product, you need to find the uniqueness of the product.

IV. Conclusion

1. Always observe the changing trends of the market and grasp the rhythm of product launch; when promoting products, you must focus on the audience and grasp the pain points of the audience;
2. Focus on differentiated groups. Different successful strategies can be tested on audiences of different ages. In addition to genz and small town youth, it is important to find new groups to expand in the makeup and skincare categories.
3. Different categories of products have different gameplays, so when choosing a gameplay, you need to understand the overall gameplay of the category;
4. Reasonably grasp resources; for product promotion, expert resources are relatively precious. In the early stage of product promotion, you need to grasp as many expert resources as possible.

The above is an analysis of the operation rhythm from 0 to 1 of the three brands, Lina, FunnyElves Fangli and CHOUOHC, on the Xiaohongshu/TikTok channels.