What is the problem of Xiaohongshu's grass-roots promotion without conversion? How to solve it?

Why is it that after vigorously promoting products on Xiaohongshu, the conversion rate is not ideal? Based on the objective facts of Xiaohongshu, the author of this article talks about six steps for brands to improve the conversion efficiency of promoting products. Let's read it together.

Why is it that the Xiaohongshu expert notes have millions of views, but the traffic to the Taobao store is so poor? Obviously, a lot of grass-seeking actions have been taken, but the traffic to the store is negligible.

Recent customer feedback suggested reducing the budget for Xiaohongshu and just treating Xiaohongshu as the official promotional media. After half a year of promoting products, the sales data on Xiaohongshu still cannot be increased.

In the past, when I heard this news, I might subconsciously infer that the quality of the customer notes was not good, the selling points were not good, and the delivery efficiency was poor, and then use industry rhetoric to answer the questions.

But looking back, at least 10+ companies with more than 10,000 customers per day gave up the Xiaohongshu platform, or chose other platforms or projects to stop. This also made me think about a question: "Is Xiaohongshu really suitable for the growth of new brands?"

Before launching on Xiaohongshu, many brands understood the platform as promoting products through influencers, and users would place orders on the site or search on Taobao after seeing the notes.

But the following three objective realities of Xiaohongshu cannot be ignored.

1. Users are naturally averse to advertising

When I was a kid, I would go out to pee as soon as a commercial came on TV. On Xiaohongshu, it’s even easier to express dislike for an advertisement by just crossing it out.

However, Xiaohongshu ads are embedded content, and users may treat them as native content. However, after being educated by some cutting-edge brands in the past few years, users have become more sensitive to ads and can directly determine which are advertising notes. Some bloggers have even summarized hidden ads that are hard to guard against.

2. It is more difficult to reselect a brand

Let’s talk about another practical issue. After experiencing the epidemic, is users’ desire to consume declining?

This is a question worth thinking about. Just think about how long it has been since you changed your facial cleanser brand? How many years has it been since you changed your mobile phone? Do you stock up on laundry detergent for half a year after watching a live broadcast on Douyin?

In a situation of relatively sluggish consumption, it is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve purchases based solely on a batch of seeding articles. Especially for categories with long decision-making cycles and red oceans, it is much more difficult for users to switch to new brands.

3. The cost of Xiaohongshu bloggers is high

At present, Xiaohongshu bloggers, in my opinion, can be divided into two categories:

One type of bloggers have a personal image and pay close attention to their personal reputation. When doing advertising, they will actually try out the products and then give reviews. Their fans will actually buy the products because of their recommendations.

The other type is the bloggers who recommend good products, collect direct shots of products, list product selling points, and occasionally publish a popular article. The data is basically maintained after that, and it is difficult for users to actually go into the store to buy after reading these notes.

For new brands, if they directly place ads on bloggers with personal identities, the cost will be relatively high. If the amount of ads is small, it will be difficult to have sustained traffic. If they continue to use bloggers with good reputations to promote products, user trust will be low and the natural conversion rate will be low. At this stage, they can only continue to attract interaction through advertising.

Having discussed these three realities, brands can improve their conversion efficiency through the following six steps.

4. Six steps for brands to improve conversion efficiency

1. Find the right product to launch

Xiaohongshu’s advertising is driven by hot products rather than brands. Before advertising, you need to find products that are suitable for advertising on Xiaohongshu and have few competing products.

If other brands' products in the same series have already had multiple hit articles and the number of reported notes far exceeds yours, you should consider whether this product is suitable for launch.

How to determine product competitiveness?

You can use the keyword tool in the background of Xiaohongshu to search for the keyword to see if there is a brand drop-down word, and then look at the brands that appear to see if there are multiple popular notes.

For example, when searching for the word lotion, the keywords Decorte, Yuewei, and Guyu lotion are all ranked at the top, which is enough to show that the competition is fierce. At this time, the competition is naturally high for new brands making lotions.

Figure 1: Backend data of lotion keywords

2. Differentiated positioning

After determining the product, the next step is to explore the product's selling points.

Differentiated selling points are divided into functional selling points, interest selling points and scenario selling points, especially functional selling points. The more this selling point fits the user's pain points, the more it can directly generate sales.

At this time, remember that the selling point is also part of the super symbol! Use the user's cognition! Turn the selling point into spoken language! Only when the user can understand it can it achieve self-propagation.

In terms of differentiated positioning mining, we can refer to H&H’s three-dimensional positioning coordinate axis

Figure 2: H&H Positioning Coordinate System

3. Focus on the original group

After the differentiation positioning, the next thing to do is to think about who to sell the product to, who is our original target group, and who is most likely to buy our product?

Take a projector as an example.

The purchasing groups include students, white-collar workers, mothers, and companies. Everyone has different needs, and the points that brands need to explore are also different. Only by finding the right people and saying the right things can sales be achieved.

Brands are looking for influencers, but one of the reasons for the mistakes is that the blogger’s fans do not match the original target audience. As a result, after the campaign is launched, users will not buy it.

4. Talent placement strategy

What kind of influencers to use and how to combine them strategically? How to combine the top, middle, tail and amateurs, and how to place them after the combination, these are all issues to be considered at this stage.

At this stage, you can choose an influencer placement strategy that suits you based on the types of influencers currently being placed by competitors and the market, and according to your budget.

Figure 3: Comparison of KOL placements at different levels on Xiaohongshu

5. Content Creation

The content of this stage requires continuous testing. For example, you can publish 15 articles first, look at the data feedback of these 15 articles, and find the notes that can achieve conversions. Subsequent notes can be written and published according to this structure.

In essence, through content creation, you can find the template for subsequent note creation, that is, the entire delivery, what to say first, what to say next, and which type of writing has the highest delivery efficiency, thus forming a super content creation template.

6. Traffic Strategy

The last stage is the advertising placement on Xiaohongshu, which involves how to allocate information flow and search, when to place information flow, when to place search, how to place search, and how to pull back to search after placement. All of these can be formulated based on actual conditions before placement.

Author: Jiang He

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