Rebirth: New opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses on Xiaohongshu

This article analyzes the marketing cases of Xiaohongshu in industries such as clothing customization, gift customization and jewelry, and points out that these small and medium-sized businesses have begun to gain traffic opportunities on Xiaohongshu. If you want to know how to conduct brand marketing on Xiaohongshu, it is worth referring to.

Before I started working on Xiaohongshu, I had been working on brand planning, doing brand research, slogan writing, project proposals, etc. The brands I came into contact with were almost all leading brands in the region or industry.

At that time, the company's planning project also started from 500,000 yuan, which did not include advertising costs. Over time, people would have the illusion that if they couldn't come up with 500,000 yuan in planning fees, what's the point of marketing!

If you and I have similar experiences, then we must have read books such as Hua & Hua, Ye Maozhong, Kotler, Positioning, etc.

But after doing marketing on Xiaohongshu, the previous theories gradually became invalid because the merchants I came into contact with were of all kinds.

There are college students selling fruits, individual stores, factory stores, emerging brands, mature brands incubating new products, big brands marketing on Xiaohongshu, etc. In other words, this is the full picture of Chinese business.

There is no such thing as planning fees for merchants on Xiaohongshu. 50% of merchants will be struggling with whether to spend 10,000 yuan on advertising. How many customers are there today?

How to attract traffic through private messages without being blocked? It is in this business context that Xiaohongshu marketing methodologies have emerged.

There are IDEA methods and Lingxi insights for brands, strategies for Taobao store groups, matrix methodologies for private domains, and even e-commerce projects for moms with no source of goods and Xiaohongshu merchant projects, etc.

Compared with positioning, super symbols, and conflict marketing plan theories, the marketing methodology in Xiaohongshu’s field cannot be simply described as a riot of demons, but rather a glittering of stars.

When these methodologies emerged, it also showed that this was only the early stages of the industry, the system was imperfect, and there were new opportunities for everyone.

The most eye-catching merchants growing on Xiaohongshu are, in addition to emerging brands and those that have truly grown up from Xiaohongshu, another type of small and medium-sized merchants that have not been paid attention to before. They obtain public domain traffic from Xiaohongshu and complete offline transactions.

Before these merchants joined Xiaohongshu, they had to rely on Xiaohongshu to gain new opportunities in the industry due to the epidemic, increased rents, and increasing offline traffic costs.

Today we will not talk about Xiaohongshu’s marketing theory, but focus on analyzing these three types of merchants.

1. Clothing customization industry

The offline business of clothing customization is becoming increasingly difficult due to the difficulties in offline business, increasingly high rents, and decreasing acceptance among young users. If you go to a local clothing customization store, you will find that there are very few people.

At the same time, clothing customization relies heavily on old customers, and public-domain customer acquisition can only be achieved through Meituan.

However, as a decision-making platform, it is difficult for Meituan to inspire users to buy actively, and there is no way to see real pictures of other users' wearing experiences. But these problems have new answers on Xiaohongshu.

The biggest feature of Xiaohongshu is to plant grass. For customized merchants, as long as you keep posting notes, the styles of the store and the user's matching are likely to plant grass for potential users. This is an advantage that Meituan and Dazhong do not have.

At the same time, after users place an order in a store, they will also spontaneously share it, creating a chain reaction.

More importantly, for the clothing customization industry, it is very easy to form spontaneous dissemination and recommendations, and settle users in the private domain, which is a long-term user asset.

Example of Mani suit customization

Introduction: Customized suits, dresses, shirts and coats. There are more than 7,600 fans on Xiaohongshu. It is bound to offline stores. When you click on the offline stores, you can see professional accounts and expert check-in notes. These notes also reduce the user's decision-making costs.

Figure 1: Mani suit customization homepage

1. Highlights

Content: The notes focus on men’s wedding preparations, suit customization, fair prices, the workplace, etc., and the store’s advantages are clearly stated in the main text.

For example, 11 years of experience in custom-made suits, store addresses, custom brands, etc. This is also a solid business information post, and the effect of using it for investment will not be bad.

2. Expert

In addition to official publicity, there will also be articles by experts visiting stores and promoting store sales. This kind of blogger article is embedded in suit customization and Shanghai suit customization, and can also intercept keyword traffic. Articles promoting store sales and professional accounts are more persuasive to users.

Figure 2: Mani suit customization expert account

The core of the custom suit industry is to attract traffic to the store. The notes focus on user pain points, stimulate user interest in visiting the store, and then settle in the private domain for operation.

2. Customized gifts

The same goes for the souvenir project, which relies on referrals from acquaintances, has a low consumption frequency, and is not suitable for operation on Meituan.

On Xiaohongshu, souvenirs are also changing. More and more souvenir merchants have opened professional accounts on Xiaohongshu, posted relevant notes, and obtained customer leads. After joining the private domain through Xiaohongshu, they write different copywriting for different festivals and form long-term user relationships.

Example of a high-end gift for a long time

Introduction:

It focuses on wedding products, baby banquets, business, souvenirs and other fields. It has 7,600 fans on Xiaohongshu. The content focuses on Mid-Autumn Festival, employee summer benefits, book modeling, etc. The products are also shot in real life, released on a large account, and traffic is directed on the Xiaohongshu homepage.

Figure 3: Xixi Haute Couture Gifts Home Page

1. Highlights:

Real photos: For souvenirs, the purchase is mostly done by HR. On the one hand, they will control the budget, and on the other hand, they are worried about making mistakes. So they try to choose real photos as much as possible, because real photos have high user trust.

Festivals: Products are well matched. There are products that are sold all year round, such as wedding candies, souvenirs, and wedding preparations. Different products are prepared for different festivals, such as Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and Spring Festival. Conventional + festival marketing is combined;

Personality: The brand should do a good job of publicity, such as the 6th anniversary notes, to increase users' understanding of the merchant. Therefore, in the content layout of professional accounts, in addition to professional accounts and hot content, personalization content can also be added.

Figure 4: Xixi couture holiday gift box

3. Jewelry Industry

Jewelry merchants are faced with the dilemma of increasingly high offline rental costs and a lack of public domain traffic online. The crowd value and public domain traffic of Xiaohongshu allow jewelry merchants to find new traffic opportunities.

Now, when you search for Shuibei jewelry on Xiaohongshu, you will see many professional accounts operating. This also indirectly reflects that the jewelry industry has truly grown on Xiaohongshu. It is reported that there are many private jewelry users who spend more than 10,000 yuan a day.

Unlike the first two categories, Xiaohongshu had a monthly report on jewelry last year, further illustrating the platform’s attention to this type of merchants.

As can be seen from the figure below, users' search habits are concentrated on necklaces, bracelets, rings, bangles, earrings, etc., and the materials used are gold, diamonds, pearls, nephrite, etc.

Figure 5: Jewelry item search on Xiaohongshu

Summary: Small and medium-sized business projects such as clothing customization, wrench gifts, and jewelry are on the rise on Xiaohongshu. On the one hand, the businesses themselves have an urgent need to divert traffic from the public domain. For these businesses, the Xiaohongshu platform is very necessary.

On the other hand, there is demand, a backlog of user demand, which has not been met by previous channels. This article strongly recommends small and medium-sized businesses to join the market. The bigger the pie, the bigger the market.

Author: Jiang He

Source: WeChat public account: Jiangheliaoyingxiao (ID: jiangheliaoyingxiao)