In the milk tea beverage market with a survival rate of 10%, how can Xiaohongshu’s content stand out?

Do you like milk tea? This article starts from the current situation of the milk tea industry and the reasons behind it, and shares the methods to develop the milk tea brand. It is recommended for students who want to understand brand operations.

It has to be said that young people now rely more on milk tea than ever before. Statistics show that half of young people drink milk tea at least once a week, 13.52% of young people drink milk tea 3-5 times a week, and less than 10% of them refuse milk tea. It can be said that milk tea consumption is closely tied to daily life. It seems that the milk tea industry market is huge and booming, but for practitioners, is it really the case?

Data from Qichacha shows that as of September 2021, there were 53,304 registered milk tea shops nationwide, of which 29,751 had survived for three years, and only 14,956 had survived for five years.

The 5-year retention rate is only 28%. It can be said that the milk tea industry will face a major cleanup every 2-3 years on average , and it is not easy to survive.

Milk tea, or offline beverages, is a rare industry with a very clear hierarchical distribution and is difficult to shake in the short term. The market has automatically divided into high-end, mid-end, and low-end markets. In the high-end market, a duopoly represented by Nayuki and Heytea has been established.

In the mid-range market, because the leading camp has already been formed and cannot be broken in the short term, it is caught in the competition for the existing market.

CoCo, Shuyi, Guming, Chabaidao, Yidiandian... Many competitors have entered this level, and there is serious internal competition, and the market share is always in a tug-of-war .

Marketing activities and competition are also the most fierce and frequent at this level.

The low-end market is obviously not doing well either.

Apart from Mixue Bingcheng, which occupies 30% of the market share, there are almost no outstanding brands.

Most of them are regional, local and niche private tea drinks, and the user coverage is very limited . If they want to increase profits, they must break the circle through marketing, increase awareness and user contact.

It can be said that no brand in this industry has an absolute safety zone. It is always in a state of erosion and being eroded.

In addition, the popularity of products and their consumer life cycles are getting shorter and shorter, with the average active period of a new product being only 1-5 months.

If you want to create a long-term classic, you still have to rely on instant popularity and market acceptance rather than the original product plan.

In such a market environment, having only excellent products is obviously not enough . We are also required to be able to quickly respond to new brand marketing nodes and related dynamics, amplify popularity and user attention at the first time, and maximize the focus on eyeballs!

So let’s take a look today at how to play with the traffic content in the milk tea track to maximize attention, or how to elegantly “take advantage of the hot spots” to help us spread and break the circle!

These contents are also of reference value to businesses in the physical food industry and upstream and downstream sectors!

1. Where can we get traffic?

As I just said, whether it is a new product or a long-term popular product, the milk tea market relies on its popularity during the period of listing.

This is the key to increasing store visits and ordering.

So where can we get traffic and exposure?

I divide the traffic acquisition in this track into two parts - using your own traffic to drive traffic, and using the platform or other people's traffic to drive traffic , which are suitable for beverage merchants with different foundations respectively.

Let’s briefly analyze and summarize.

1. Use your own traffic to drive traffic

Especially when we already have a certain number of users or discussion heat, that is, we have loyal users, and people are paying attention to us and discussing us.

At this time, we can use our own heat to carry out secondary fermentation.

For example, when Naixue launches new products for marketing, every new product attracts attention. It is not necessarily because the new product is so amazing, but because it has enough users and attention, so there are always people who try it.

This undoubtedly provides soil and convenience for their propaganda.

For example, Cha Yan Yue Se.

Even if it is a tea brand that does not have a wide geographical coverage, because the original brand has been widely discussed and paid attention to, and has even become a trend, the name itself brings in traffic.

As long as you use words related to Cha Yan Yue Se such as check-in, store visit, new products, etc., you will be able to gain the favor of traffic.

2. Use other people’s traffic to bring traffic

As for some milk tea brands or private brands that are still developing and do not yet have such a strong social discussion, we must learn to use other people’s traffic to bring traffic, and use other traffic content to help us get exposure and gain user attention!

For example, the platform itself has hot topics, such as low-fat and low-calorie drinks for fat reduction, as well as the recent Cherry Blossom Festival, spring outing craze, etc. When our own topics are not popular enough, we can always pay attention to the recent hot directions of the platform and combine them to get good exposure.

Of course, when we already have traffic, the combination can help us get bonus.

For example, the collaboration between Naixue and "Chinese Legends", the collaboration between Heytea and "Dream of Red Mansions", etc., all use the popularity of dramas and animation to drive consumption and check-ins.

Of course, you can also combine it with active groups of people, such as students, office workers, and so on. Although these group words are not search terms for the milk tea category, when you embed this group of people, they will have a stronger sense of involvement and will also be screened when the system pushes them!

All the content gameplay we are going to talk about next is designed based on these two traffic acquisition logics!

2. Several popular content gameplays in the milk tea market

What we need to know is that Xiaohongshu is not just a social platform. There are also a large number of users searching for strategies on Xiaohongshu every day.

In this dimension, reading is highly autonomous and spontaneous, but it also requires that our content contain enough information to be retrieved by them.

Therefore, all the gameplay we are going to talk about next do not exist independently. They can cooperate with each other and be combined to fill in the gaps, making the forms more diverse.

The content is not a rigid routine, but can have many arrangements and combinations.

When we see hot spots on a platform, we can think more about how we can integrate with it, instead of just focusing on our own products and thinking hard.

1. Appearance offensive + evaluation/check-in

The appearance offensive has been a particularly popular content and product approach in the milk tea market in the past two years. Whether it is a holiday-limited new product or an IP collaboration, they will try to work hard on the appearance design.

The appearance itself has social value, making people want to show off and own it , which invisibly expands the scope of the crowd and also promotes self-sharing by users.

Especially now, milk tea is no longer a simple "taste" consumption , but a combination of a series of emotional factors such as emotion, social interaction, and personality expression.

We should focus more on these aspects and provide them with enough space to play.

For example, the collaboration between Luckin Coffee and Yanxi Dog, just posting the order form is enough to attract attention. Even if the product itself is not innovative, users will buy it because they want to get the same product as the internet celebrity.

This directly led to the store being out of stock, and the official had to apologize.

Of course, appearance is only the visual part of the presentation, and it is usually combined with reviews, check-ins, store visits, etc.

In addition to the creativity of the product itself, cultural and creative peripherals are also a form of appearance offensive . For example, Heytea drives consumption through [Peripheral Stamp Collection] and can also spread the brand tone at the same time~

2. Offline store exploration + ordering strategy

For example, pop-up stores, theme stores, etc., visiting the stores and checking in is one of the essential contents.

Even if there is no relevant content, sometimes as long as you make good use of the store decoration design and replace the limited materials of the store or even the cup body, you can create a storm again when there are no new products on the market and sales are sluggish.

Of course, if it is combined with practical content such as new product launches or ordering guides, the content will have more value in terms of dissemination and accumulation.

In short, the popularity can be sustained and the life cycle of the explosive article is longer.

3. Horizontal/thematic assessment

Almost all products on Xiaohongshu cannot be separated from review content, and milk tea drinks are no exception.

In other words, the evaluation of milk tea is particularly necessary and has room for content development.

From price to calories, to taste, sweetness, etc., every angle can be evaluated.

If multiple brands launch new products at the same time, they can conduct cross-testing, leveraging the popularity of other new products to boost their own exposure, while also differentiating and promoting new products.

At the same time, our own classic models or hot-selling models of the season can also be tested horizontally, which is not only a simultaneous exposure, but also a seeding of grass and inventory, so that those who have not tried it will be eager to try it, and the die-hard fans will be eager to try it again!

4. Creative combinations that only I know

As people's personalization improves, they are no longer satisfied with the original combinations, but will develop many creative ways of drinking.

The self-selected small ingredients are one manifestation of this.

When we have no plans to launch new products in the near future, we can also refurbish classic models in this way, make them popular again, and become new Internet celebrities!

It is through this method that Haidilao continues to maintain its popularity and attention on Xiaohongshu, attracting users to check in and reproduce!

In addition to DIY drinking methods, packaging and other aspects can also be DIY to trigger a trend . Luckin Coffee and Wangzai can be said to be professional players in this regard!

Like the collaboration between Luckin Coffee and Stripe Puppy mentioned just now, there is also DIY content by bloggers, which promotes the new product from different content dimensions.

5. Homemade replica

Every time a new product or a hot-selling product comes out, there will inevitably be self-made replica content.

Some of you may think, if I let others make copies, then who will come to the store to shop?

But the reality is that only a few people can actually make a replica, while the majority of people just want to get the same model quickly because they are interested in it.

The vast majority of them are our consumer users!

The popularity of self-made replicas on the platform cannot be underestimated. With immersive production and other content forms, it can maximize traffic~

This is what we call the superposition of multiple popular content formats !

3. Key points for enterprise account operation

Recommendations from influencers are certainly a very important part of it, but for products with strong social attributes such as milk tea, if you want to increase user stickiness, you must give full play to the role of corporate accounts!

1. Xiaohongshu’s character design

If you want to play well with corporate accounts on Xiaohongshu, establishing a personal image is the key! In recent years, there are many brands that have been very successful with corporate accounts . Their personal images are different, but they all focus on creating a sense of online presence and intimacy.

Don’t treat corporate accounts as a tool for official information releases, but rather as a lively individual with emotions and attitudes . This is the only way to quickly narrow the distance between us and our users.

02 Marketing requires creativity. In addition to publishing daily content, combining brands with memes is also a low-cost way to stand out.

For example, Heytea and Luckin Coffee produced a series of related content based on the negative and depressed mentality of workers on Mondays.

We will also combine popular memes on the Internet to create our own works.

It is worth mentioning that some time ago, Heytea was once again on the hot search because of its packaging copy.

It could be a "copywriting failure" or it could be deliberate marketing, but no matter which one it was, it did bring Heytea an enviable wave of discussion and traffic.

And it didn’t harm the brand itself.

3. Secondary creation is the key

From the feedback on The Wandering Earth’s encouragement of secondary creation at the beginning of the year, we can see that in this field, the official attitude will directly determine the user’s creative expression.

That is, users will judge whether their own creativity can be realized, whether it will trigger certain yellow lines and negative content, etc. based on the official attitude.

For example, Luckin Coffee, Want Want, and even Santonban, all support user secondary creation. Over time, they have evolved from their own innovation to interactive innovation with users.

Whether in terms of emotional stickiness or the richness of community content, there are unexpected positive effects.

The content and gameplay of milk tea, in the final analysis, is the gameplay of milk tea itself . Making it diverse and fun, rather than just being limited to a drink that satisfies the taste buds, can extend the life cycle of the product and brand.

We often say that planting grass brings about transformation, but the knowledge of planting grass is not only about transformation, but also in a broader dimension.

In the upcoming Xiaohongshu grass-planting ecosystem, whoever grasps those will be able to go further.

Author: Bobo Marketing Circle, Official Account: Bobo Marketing