How to break through the "value for money" marketing that all brands are pursuing?

KPIs increase every year, and budgets are cut every year. This is not uncommon in the brand marketing industry. When a brand has no money, how should it market? This article summarizes 3 cost-effective marketing methods, hoping to inspire you.

How can we do marketing without money?

"Go and get rid of Tang Monk and his disciples." The words of the Nine-headed Insect to Benboerba in Journey to the West became a hot topic on the Internet a while ago, and workers empathized with them. Isn't this the daily task given by the boss? Brand marketers must be the ones who have the deepest understanding of this.

In the recent brand marketing market, first the Luckin Coffee Moutai joint venture made the sauce-flavored latte popular, and then Nayuki's Tea teamed up with Jay Chou to make "Fantasy Milk Tea" a hot search. Under the joint effect, many marketers have received instructions from their bosses to align the effects. As for the budget...

KPI increases every year, and budgets are cut every year. This is no longer uncommon in the brand marketing industry. This cannot be blamed entirely on the boss. All industries are in a red ocean, and consumers are becoming more rational. The chill has long been passed on to everyone. The marketing department that is specifically responsible for "spending money" is lucky enough not to lay off employees. What else do they want?

And when the incident between Li Jiaqi and Hua Xizi set off the entire network, the "timely response" of the old domestic brands instead reaped another wave of strong attention. Whether it was the "79 yuan product package" or the "elderly anchor group" of a certain domestic brand that "will not be put on the shelves", they were all triggering netizens to replenish their brand potential... To a certain extent, there are always brands that can convert the emotional points behind hot events into their own growth in a very cost-effective way.

For brand marketing, the only way out is to change the mindset. When cost reduction and efficiency improvement become the main theme, in addition to keeping up with hot events, how to master "cost-effective" marketing is not only related to ROI, but also determines the life and death of the company.

These cost-effective marketing strategies are worth a look for companies.

1. “Fighting-style” marketing: benign fighting plays the role of gossip

If brand collaboration is an open and aboveboard "conspiracy-style" platform, then brand competition is a secret "conspiracy-style" mutual assistance. Compared to a harmonious whole, the spectators are actually more willing to see fierce competition. It is human nature to watch the excitement and enjoy the fun. Sometimes it can bring miraculous effects to brand communication. The key is that it doesn't cost much.

For example, Luckin Coffee’s recent joint venture with Moutai is a frontal attack, allowing everyone to see that we are marketing and are willing to pay for it. The Kweichow Feitian Moutai, which cost 300 million yuan, was exchanged for 100 million yuan in sales of sauce-flavored latte on the first day. While the two of them were in love, another uninvited guest, Mixue Ice City, was frequently mentioned by netizens, "Dear Xue, I have married into a wealthy family. Let’s have less contact in the future. I’m afraid that Brother Mao will misunderstand." "Mixues passed the exam, Luckin Coffee married into a wealthy family."

Sauce Latte

The intervention of Mixue Bingcheng as a "third party" is not groundless. In fact, long before Luckin Coffee and Moutai officially announced their CP, Mixue and Luckin Coffee had already "secretly communicated" and were turned into an uncanny CP by netizens as a pair of bickering lovers.

The real reason for the two to go viral was the "Luckin Coffee Ice Cube Incident". The tea talk from different IPs under the name of Mixue Ice City became popular on the entire Internet. The topic #Michelle Ice City Yin Yang Guai Qi Rui Xing# quickly topped the hot search list, bringing in 540 million readings.

Subsequently, the IPs bearing the names of the two companies started a "fighting" drama. Mixue Bingcheng and China Post launched a post office theme store, which led to #Mixuebingcheng was included in the compilation#. Luckin Coffee jointly launched the sauce-flavored latte with Moutai, and then there was another #Luckin Coffee marrying into a wealthy family#. The serial drama was full of climaxes.

Looking back at this "fight", there was no official admission from beginning to end. Those IPs disguised as "Mi Xue" and "Luckin Coffee" seemed to be pranks by bored netizens. But the result was that under the repeated interpretations of marketing accounts, no one paid attention to whether Luckin Coffee and Mi Xue had too much ice cubes. Instead, they collectively supported this pair of CPs. The brand images of the two were given more approachable and lovely personalities, and waves of traffic continued to pour in.

Mixue Ice City Post Office Theme Store

Netizens concluded that real business wars are so plain and simple.

The magical thing is that there is no loser in this fight.

Some people may have forgotten that before Luckin Coffee became the national brand with tens of thousands of stores it is today, its marketing often imitated Starbucks.

If "bumping into porcelain" is to "steal" traffic in a one-way manner by using a small force to hit a big force, then "fighting each other" is to "create" traffic together on an equal footing.

In the world of brand marketing, similar "fights" are actually not uncommon.

At the ChinaJoy exhibition at the end of July, the big yellow croaker of Hema's escort team ran to the Meituan booth and stared at Meituan for a long time as if no one was around, and immediately became the "conspicuous bag" in the crowd. Then Meituan's kangaroo caught Hema at the exhibition and stared back at it. With the spread of social media, it became: fake business war - strategizing in the office building; real business war - I'll stare at you to death! Both went viral at the same time.

Image source: Internet

Not to mention the stories of Coca-Cola and Pepsi, KFC and McDonald's, these long-deified marketing giants who have been in love and hate with each other for many years.

The power of "mutually fighting" marketing lies in that as long as you give the onlookers a piece of melon, they can leverage the traffic of the entire Internet for you, and let the story spread without blind spots, bringing about rounds of secondary dissemination.

For brands, the focus of "fighting" is never on winning or losing. If you play well, you will be long-lasting, but if you play badly, you will be black and white.

2. “Topic” marketing: breaking news, creating memes, and emotions

Among the many marketing models, social media marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, and content marketing are all common cost-effective marketing, while "topic-based" marketing combines these three marketing models and often has unexpected effects.

There is not a single hot search that is not a topic.

As social media has developed to this day, it has all formed a public opinion field with #topic as the discussion theme. There must be an object to eat melons, and there must be a protagonist for a big drama. Today, when fragmented communication has become the mainstream, topics are the essential tools for contemporary people to unlock fashion trends and enter social status in seconds.

"Topic" marketing is not as simple as "buying hot searches" or "hiring online influencers". Blindly spending money will have the opposite effect. In fact, it is a systematic project that requires precise design. To do a good job in "topic" marketing, there are two areas that need to be focused on:

First of all, in terms of content design, “creating” topics requires “inconsistency between appearance and reality”.

A topic that can spread must contain dramatic conflicts. For example, in movie marketing, if a beautiful female star plays a beautiful woman, people will not care, but if she sacrifices her image to play an ugly woman, people will instinctively want to pay attention. The key is to create a sense of surprise through contrast, so as to achieve the tension of the topic. For example, in the marketing of "The Wandering Earth 2", #Andy Lau and Li Xuejian soaked in water, "Everyone feels sorry for 68-year-old teacher Li Xuejian getting wet in the rain, but no one cares about 61-year-old young man Andy Lau soaking in water for two hours." The huge contrast between the image and treatment of people of the same age was both unexpected and funny, and it successfully became popular on the entire Internet.

Dramatic conflict can attract the first wave of traffic, but to achieve more diffuse communication, a more solid core is needed. This core must not only hit the mood of the times, but also have positive value transmission. Still using the above example, the topic #刘德华李雪健泡水 actually metaphorically represents a spirit, that is, the dedication of veteran actors to their performances, which is in sharp contrast to the traffic stars’ digital lines and AI head-changing performances, giving people more motivation to share and spread the word.

By wrapping positive values ​​in humorous content, we can provide entertainment and touching moments, and naturally we will get traffic and word of mouth.

Secondly, in terms of communication planning, a "hot" brand needs a "beginning, development, turn, and conclusion".

Good marketing is a good story, and good "topic-based" marketing is a serialized story. In an era of fragmented attention, it can also allow consumers to actively piece together a complete story line and form a deep mental memory.

On the one hand, it is necessary to create matrix-style topics horizontally, which is equivalent to casting a wide net with different story lines. For example, the Luckin Coffee and Moutai collaboration has spawned a series of topics such as #fine wine and coffee, #young people's first cup of Moutai, #Luckin Coffee marries into a wealthy family, #is drinking sauce-flavored latte and driving considered drunk driving, etc., harvesting traffic in multiple dimensions.

On the other hand, in order to create a story reversal vertically, after the Luckin Coffee Moutai joint venture, a questioning topic emerged: #The amount of Maotai in the sauce-flavored latte, is there Maotai in it, and how much Maotai is there? This made the joint venture full of controversy and suspense. After a short fermentation, the official immediately released a video of the production line where Maotai was added, responding to the doubts and bringing the story to a successful conclusion.

Luckin Coffee releases video "The front line of Jiangxiang Latte production"

Was this video shot on the spur of the moment, or was it shot in advance as evidence? Do you think this was an accident or planned?

One event, multiple topics, ups and downs, flowers hidden under the leaves, are you still worried that the brand will not explode?

Of course, behind the revelations and memes is how to arouse consumers' emotions, which is the key to achieving cost-effective marketing.

The recent collective efforts of established Chinese beauty brands are a typical example. After Huaxizi encountered the whirlpool of public opinion about the 79-yuan price, the first to react was Fenghua, which immediately launched three 79-yuan cleansing and care packages on its Douyin official flagship store. That night, tens of thousands of people flocked to Fenghua’s live broadcast room, and topics such as #This overwhelming wealth is finally Fenghua’s turn##Fenghua Business War# also topped the hot search list.

Subsequently, driven by emotions, many domestic brands such as Shanghai Sulfur Soap and Yumeijing joined the live broadcast relay race. Among them, Yumeijing opened a Douyin account for the first time and urgently recruited anchors. On the evening of the next day, its chairman appeared in person and danced to thank the audience.

Established beauty brands are enjoying the traffic dividend that new domestic beauty brands crave, and they are successfully catering to and creating emotional trends on hot topics.

3. “Strike the Rich” Marketing: Leverage the Platform to Squeeze Out Bonuses

When doing marketing, you must not be a "lone hero". You must unite all forces that can be united and integrate all resources that can be integrated. Only in this way can you achieve great things with little money. "Borrowing power" is the kingly way. What if others don't let you borrow?

Don’t worry, these “suckers” on e-commerce platforms will always be there. Your peers may isolate you, but the platforms will definitely embrace you.

How to leverage platform marketing? Here are three ideas for reference:

First, understand the platform rules and make good use of platform tools.

Each e-commerce platform has its own closed-loop marketing strategy. Douyin has the FACT methodology, Kuaishou has the STEPS model, and Alibaba has even more, with the three major marketing models of AIPL, FAST, and GROW fully covered. In order to cooperate with the implementation of the methodology, each site has a bunch of auxiliary tools.

Although it may seem like "making up words" for the sake of competition, from the perspective of a community of interests, the platform certainly hopes to help brands with marketing to the greatest extent possible.

If you can fully understand the platform's marketing system, you are actually ahead of many of your peers. It's like playing games: what really separates the levels of players is often not their familiarity with the game, but their understanding of the system rules and props.

Second, follow the platform's trends and seize policy dividends.

In order to compete for users, Internet companies have launched a series of money-burning wars in recent years. The sense of smell of C-end consumers has been trained to be extremely sensitive, and they have developed a set of methodologies to take advantage of users, which has even provided space for the growth of gray industries. The same principle applies to B-end brands. In the process of supporting new tracks or iterative upgrades, platforms often release preferential policies and subsidy benefits. Following the direction of the platform means playing with the wind.

With the same financial sponsor, users will never hesitate to take advantage of the platform, and brands will be even less polite. The platform will create momentum, and brands will surf the market, taking advantage of the bonus period to grab territory and build an empire. This is the important thing.

Third, deepen cooperation and become a native brand.

From "Taobao brands" to "red brands" to "Douyin brands", native brands are an important criterion for measuring the marketing value of a platform. As the "own sons" of the platform, native brands will also receive the greatest special care from the platform.

For new brands with low popularity, if they want to stand out, instead of fighting alone, it is better to "surrender" to the platform and form a deep binding with a certain platform. This requires keen insight and full communication with the platform, so as to accurately position themselves at the appropriate time. You can even create a brand for this purpose when the platform focuses on building a certain track.

It is nice to take advantage of a big tree for shade, and it is naturally much more efficient to hold on to a good partner than to start from scratch.

In the final analysis, the so-called "cost-effective" marketing is essentially a way of thinking that keeps to the right path while being unconventional. It is about finding a fulcrum to leverage the effect of leverage, letting nature take its course while achieving unexpected results. This fulcrum can be a trend of renewal, a platform strategy that attracts the most attention because of its size, or the eternal way of the world and human nature.

Author: Mu Yu

Source: Yiyuguancha (ID: yiyuguancha), the telescope and sonar of the pan-entertainment industry.