How to plant grass on 618?

This article describes the methodology of brand promotion in great detail, from the four stages of why to how, and shares many novel promotion models. The article discusses the promotion model in an easy-to-understand way, and I hope everyone can gain something from it.

01 Why plant grass?

• In the past, traditional brands used CCTV + celebrities, which was a centralized way of promoting brands.
• Nowadays, it is through pictures/short videos + KOL, which is decentralized seeding

The basic logic of a business: exposure X clicks X purchases X average order value x repeat purchases. The more you plant and the more concentrated the planting, the greater the base of exposure will be, which will bring the possibility of growth to the business when other conditions remain unchanged.

In other words: the more people know you, the greater the possibility of choosing you. Planting grass means exposure, and exposure means reaching potential users. So, what is a brand? Don’t talk about such high-sounding things. If people in a county know you, you are a county brand; if a city knows you, you are a city brand; if everyone on the planet knows you, you are a world-class brand.

Therefore, the goal of promoting your brand is not to let everyone on the planet know about you right away. You should do it step by step from the county to the city, and from the city to the province. Finally, everyone on the planet will know you, and you will become a world-class brand.

• According to the stage, overall planning
• Take it step by step and do what you can

If, according to the logic of the Internet, it is exposure-click-purchase. According to the actions of exposure, click, and purchase, there are O-A5 groups of consumers. Brands do not exist in an abstract way apart from users, but exist in an interactive relationship with users. Consumers' perception of brands does not come out of thin air, but is established in the process of the brand continuously sending signals.

How a brand promotes its products also depends on these five dimensions, because the criteria for judging a brand’s actions, rhythm, and strategy are based on the interactive relationship between the user and the brand.

5A: From the perspective of consumer behavior, describe the strength of the behavioral relationship between consumers and brands.

A1: aware: understand (the exposed population)

A2: Appeal: Attract (shallow interaction group)

A3: ask: inquiry (deep interaction group)

A4: act: action (purchase)

A5: advocate: support (fan user)

• Exposed population—O/A1
• Click Group—A2/A3
• Buying group—A4/A5

Therefore, as the No. 1 brand, you must clearly know the stage and overall situation of the brand. What type of grass should be planted at this stage, what type of keywords should be used, and what level of people should be covered (O-A5): from the brand's original people to competitors, from categories to cross-categories, and then to scenarios. By planting grass at different stages, on the one hand, the planting area is increased and the base of the exposed population is increased; on the other hand, the density of planting grass is deepened, which can occupy the minds of users.

02 Two types of grass planting (quantity, area, and mental density)

• The leap from quantity to quality lies in the fermentation of grass planting area and density
• Quantity and area: large area, expanded penetration surface
• Mental density: deepen cognition, occupy the mind, and provide penetration

In the past, promotion was centralized, but now it is decentralized. Is it harder or easier? In essence, it has become easier, and even consumer reach has become more efficient. The premise is that you can skillfully plant grass and penetrate in stages.

• Previous promotional talks covered
• Today's grass planting, penetration

Coverage is a process of widespread publicity, while penetration is a concept of circles.

In a decentralized media environment, people are connected by different KOLs, which is what Kevin Kelly said: the concept of media is people. Penetration can be either penetration within the same group of people or penetration across groups of people.

Only new media can generate new cognition. Obviously, the position of new consumer brands should be new media and new traffic, because there are new people behind them. The essence of new people is the existence of this cognitive window (vacancy), and only when there is a cognitive window can there be a chance to establish mental opportunities - this is also a question of choosing the soil for planting grass.

03 Three goals of seeding: product seeding, breaking circle seeding, and mind seeding

Products are the first priority. Brands without products are short-lived. Products without brands will eventually be trapped in traffic. Therefore, as the No. 1 brand, it is important to be clear and explicit: the ultimate goal of seeding is to achieve seeding in the minds of consumers.

From product selling points to keywords, from keywords to crowd portraits, from crowd portraits to labels, from labels to penetration scenarios, and from penetration scenarios to minds. Then, step by step, the three stages of brand seeding are achieved.

Traditional brands used to focus on three tricks: media advertising, celebrity endorsements, and channel depth. New brands also have their own three tricks: Xiaohongshu seeding, live streaming by influencers, and direct on-site portraits. For example, at the beginning of the market, Yuanqi Forest chose Xiaohongshu seeding + influencer live streaming, and seeding on new media. In 2019, Yuanqi Forest's online transaction volume accounted for nearly 40% of its total sales. On Double Eleven in 2019, Yuanqi Forest ranked second in sales on the entire network.

From 2019 to 2020, there were more than 50,000 articles promoting Yuanqi Forest on Xiaohongshu, and the number of fans of the flagship store reached more than 3.3 million; the number of fans of the Yuanqi Forest flagship store on Taobao official website reached 3.35 million, surpassing Nongfu Spring's 1.05 million, Master Kong Beverage Flagship Store's 471,000, and Coca-Cola's 722,000. If you look back at the development of Yuanqi Forest, it is actually the overwhelming promotion of these two years that has made Yuanqi Forest what it is today.

1. During the 6.18 period in 2019, Tmall sold 2.26 million bottles
2. In 2019, the total sales volume of the entire network reached 3.23 million bottles, and the total sales revenue exceeded 15 million yuan.
3. In May 2020, Yuanqi Forest's monthly sales reached 260 million yuan, exceeding the full-year sales in 2018.
4. In the first five months of 2020, a total of 190 million bottles were sold, with total sales reaching 660 million yuan.
5. In 2020, the company achieved sales of nearly 3 billion yuan

Perfect Diary, which is not so perfect now, also understands the essence of planting grass :

From the beginning of 2017, Perfect Diary did not adopt an omni-channel and multi-media approach to lay out content, but instead put all its resources into Xiaohongshu. Pyramid-style layout: including top and mid-level influencers, as well as passers-by and amateurs for large-scale placement (top influencers for product endorsement, mid-level influencers for large-scale promotion, and passers-by and amateurs for customer testimony). The lower the frequency of placement, the more budget there is. Taking Double 11 and 618 as an opportunity, all artillery firepower is concentrated on attacking one city gate.

At most, I received 10 advertisements in a month, 4 of which were from Perfect Diary. "Working with Perfect Diary is quick and hassle-free. They pay me directly without saying anything, which is very worry-free." - said a blogger on Xiaohongshu

• Mainly divided into celebrities (certified, such as Zhu Zhengting)
• Well-known KOL (with V certification, such as Li Jiaqi)
• Top influencers (number of fans > 500,000)
• Waist Expert (50,000 < Number of Fans < 500,000)
• Primary Talent (5,000 < Number of Fans < 50,000)
• Amateur (300<Number of fans<5,000)
• Passersby (less than 300 followers)

1. In July 2017, Perfect Diary was listed on Xiaohongshu
2. Starting from February 2018, Perfect Diary has arranged a large number of related grass-planting notes on Xiaohongshu to cooperate with the new cycle and important e-commerce nodes such as the Double 11 promotion and Double 12 promotion.
3. Perfect Diary's sales in June 2018 approached 50 million
4. During the 2018 Double 11 Shopping Festival, Perfect Diary became the top domestic beauty brand on Tmall. During this period, the search exposure related to the brand on Xiaohongshu increased 12 times.
5. During Tmall’s Double Eleven in 2020, Perfect Diary achieved sales of 600 million, becoming the number one in the beauty category;
6. In 2021, the official account of "Perfect Diary" on Xiaohongshu had about 1.92 million followers, over 3.68 million likes and collections, nearly 310,000 related notes, and had cooperated with nearly 15,000 KOCs.

In 2018 and 2019, Perfect Diary's marketing and promotion expenses accounted for 48.7% and 41.3% of its net income respectively. Among them, more than 15,000 beauty KOLs on platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and Bilibili have become one of the largest expenditures among Perfect Diary's billions of marketing expenses.

Since 2018, brands such as MAC, Lancome, and YSL have successively launched Douyin and Xiaohongshu, and YSL has even started live streaming. According to data from CICC Research Institute, after launching new traffic sources such as Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and live streaming and starting to try to cooperate with grassroots KOLs, the sales growth of Shiseido, L'Oreal, and Estee Lauder in 2020 exceeded 60%, while Perfect Diary's sales growth in the same period was only 22%.

——The wild period of a new brand mostly benefits from traffic dividends. Today, more than 70% of Xiaohongshu users are born after 1990, and more than 50% of users are born after 1995. Throughout 2020, they posted nearly 300 million notes on Xiaohongshu and generated 100 million searches per day. In 2021, the cost of seeding and recommending through KOLs and KOCs on Xiaohongshu has also risen sharply, and beauty category recommendations have increased by 13-18% compared to 2020.

Brand is a particularly important thing for consumer goods. Whether your brand is formed or not depends on whether your brand is high-end or low-end in the eyes of consumers. Consumers’ demands and price acceptance are completely different.

• The meaning of a hot product going viral is to be “seen”
• The value of a brand lies in the mental traffic pool
• Otherwise, “buying traffic and selling volume” will eventually become a zero-sum game

According to the changes in the word cloud of Perfect Diary's official WeChat public account over the years, when Perfect Diary was first established in 2018, it was in the stage of creating explosive products, highlighting cost-effectiveness, and gradually transitioning to product words. In 2021, Perfect Diary's "exquisite", "fashionable", "high-end", "stunning", "innovative" and other emotional product adjectives appeared in the word cloud, while the word "cost-effectiveness" was still there, but the proportion began to shrink.

The proportion of Perfect Diary’s head, shoulders, waist, and tail KOLs:

First half of 2020 2:4:22:75

Second half of 2020 2:2:20:78

First half of 2021 3:3:28:68

Brand start-up stage: Coverage of mid- and low-level KOLs in batches to promote brand penetration and awareness.

Brand growth stage: Top KOLs help to increase brand favorability and raise brand profile.

They have collaborated with the Discovery Channel to launch the Explorer 12-color eyeshadow palette and with Li Jiaqi's dog Never to launch a cute pet palette, or they have chosen popular IPs with high audience recognition, such as Oreo, to achieve cross-border collaborations. In the first half of 2020, Perfect Diary's brand voice was 15.61% among men and 84.39% among women; in the first half of 2021, Perfect Diary's brand voice was 20% among men and 80% among women.

——Perfect Diary is working hard to break through the circle

It is important to remind you that brand building is a protracted war - pre-positioning, accumulating strength and then releasing it, otherwise there will be a backlash effect of imbalance between brand and effect. The cost of traffic is always the lowest price at the moment. Especially for new consumer brands, brand is the bottleneck of sales growth. 300 million is a hurdle, breaking through 500 million is the key, and it is too late to go back and plan and build the brand when it reaches 1 billion.

04 Four stages of planting grass

1. Phase 1: 0-10 million, single-point single product, efficient conversion, traffic into sales
2. Phase 2: 10 million to 100 million, product line expansion, channel penetration, and deep cultivation of user minds
3. Phase 3: 100 million to 1 billion, cross-border endorsement, breaking circles and user retention
4. Phase 4: 5 billion club, supply chain, category penetration, two players, one shake, one focus

1. 0 to 1 verification Keywords: single point breakthrough, single product penetration

When new products and new brands first enter the market, the problem they face is not brand issues, but finding traffic and converting sales. By improving and eliminating differentiated selling points of single products and single points, we can gradually increase conversions and run through the content conversion path from traffic to efficiency.

• Method: On-site + off-site, free + paid, stock + incremental
• Image and text promotion + brand self-broadcasting + top product promotion + mid-level KOL investment + e-commerce conversion

The brand strategy at this stage is focused on potential consumers who are interested in the category. At the same time, because the new brand has relatively low awareness, it is necessary to convert consumers within the category with the help of category awareness or bonus + unique differentiated selling points of the product. The focus is on the A2-A3 group, increasing interest through product differentiation content, strengthening interaction to establish connections, and promoting orders and purchases.

What is the 0 to 1 verification phase?

That is: the product verification stage, the measurement standard is (conversion efficiency) sales. The biggest problem at this stage is the adaptation of product and demand; product and content; product and media, that is, the efficiency of investment and conversion.

Usually, this stage starts with a single point or a single product, using the single point as a pilot and the single product for penetration. During this stage, you need to have brand thinking, but you definitely don't want to build the brand immediately. You still need to focus on the product and solve the problem of product sales, that is, effectively extract the unique and differentiated selling points of the product.

90% of the products that don’t sell well are not the product’s problem, but the problem of whether the product’s selling point selection is compatible with consumer demand. Before the product is launched on the market, the product can have various functions and features, but these are all illusions. If you don’t put the product on the real market, you will never know which ideas will bring you real results.

Starting from the function, find support in craftsmanship and raw materials. At this stage, the product selling points should be less empty and more practical - visible, tangible, somatosensory, and visual. It is not only about refining the selling points, but also considering the presentation form of the selling points. Whether it is the product and the content, the product and the media, whether it is pictures and texts or short videos, can the selling points be brought out, and whether the expressiveness, penetration, and perception are strong.

Single point breakthrough, concentrate resources on one medium, one sector under one medium, one type of KOL under one sector, and penetrate with one keyword.

For example, Santonban focused on Xiachufang in the early stage, and Perfect Diary focused on Xiaohongshu. If one fails, then neither will work, but if one media works, then basically 80% of the methods can be copied. Finding the right adaptation point behind the needs is very critical, and the rest is copying, amplification, and conversion rate indicators.

For example, Swisse launched blood orange essence. In the first phase of Xiaohongshu, the focus was on the benefits of blood orange and why blood orange can supplement collagen, helping consumers understand the benefits of blood orange. The product was even named after its function: Blood Orange Collagen Liquid (rather than Blood Orange Essence).

The product’s nickname “Collagen Liquid” lowers the consumer’s cognitive threshold, and what you see is what you get; by promoting its efficacy and principles, it helps consumers understand the efficacy of blood oranges.

It should be noted that the matching points and leverage points: the problem of slow acceleration in the early stage is usually that the right points of product and demand adaptation are not found. Once the matching points are found correctly, the leverage points of content and media are found. Single-point breakthroughs, single product penetration, sales of 10 million or 50,000-100,000 orders can be repeatedly verified.

2. 10 million to 100 million, 10 times the growth rate. Key words: enlarging the target population of seeding

Expanding from A2/3 to A1, if the focus is still on A2/3 at this stage, it will inevitably lead to weak growth in the later stage. Through matrix placement and advertising exposure, we can target A1 and increase the base of the exposed population.

Usually, in the 100-100 million stage, most brands do not encounter traffic problems, but how to occupy the minds of users as soon as possible and how to cultivate the minds of users. For this reason, the second stage should gradually form the actions, routines, and methods of occupying the minds of brands and cultivating the minds. If the first stage is mainly about products + content + conversion, the second stage should start to take the brand into consideration.

• Note: If a one-dimensional product competition does not have a brand rooted in the minds of users, it will be difficult to escape the traffic curse.
• Method: Matrix, advertising, top KOL + celebrities + cross-border collaboration

The law of quantity is the basic law. Exposure, reach, interaction, conversion, and tenfold sales increase not only involves secondary reach and conversion of existing users, but also focuses on increasing the initial value equivalent, expanding the base, and opening the floodgates at the source of traffic. In the first stage, the basic logic and path of reach, interaction, and conversion have been run through, so the amplification actions in the second stage have a basic basis for judgment.

From 10 million to 100 million, the sales growth is 10 times faster. How did we achieve this 10 times growth? There are two key points: 1) product line expansion, 2) channel penetration.

This phase will enter the initial stage of the brand. In the 10 million to 100 million stage, the brand feeling will be gradually improved, and products will begin to be made like a brand. Industry public relations, SEO, press releases, brand media matrix, etc. will begin to be gradually improved, but the premise is that the product is hot and the sales growth of the product cannot stop.

Product expansion, here the expansion is only based on the original hot-selling products, the product specifications and sizes are extended upwards and downwards. A, APro, A-. Instead of changing the items, the purpose is to expand the consumer stratification through product expansion and meet the needs of consumers at different levels. Product flavoring can also be used to expand products. Whether it is product expansion (A, APro, A-) or flavor extension, the consistency of the items must be maintained, or the basic tone of the brand must be maintained.

Channel penetration, channel penetration is not just online and offline, but also includes media penetration, and exposure is a hard indicator. It is best to choose a region with high potential, a city with high potential in a region with high potential, a channel with high potential in a city with high potential, and a terminal with high potential in a channel with high potential.

What is high potential energy? For example: whether a restaurant is a big store, whether it is a chain, whether it ranks high on Dianping.com, and whether it can accept membership cards. A big store has higher potential energy than a small store, a chain has higher potential energy than a single store, a store ranked high on Dianping.com has higher potential energy than a store ranked low, and a store that can accept membership deposits has higher potential energy than a store that cannot accept membership deposits.

Analyze each situation specifically. In essence, high potential energy can be felt. When you stand at the terminal and take a look, the atmosphere and feeling are real. Therefore, without investigation, there is no right to speak. The answers are on the spot, and the questions are all wild imaginations.

Start to catch the rhythm online to get hot sales, category first, single product first. The value of being first is to accumulate credibility for the brand. 618, Double Eleven, and New Year's Day should be planned 3-5 weeks in advance.

• The rhythm of leading products should be positioned
• Off-site traffic needs to be coordinated
• In-site purchases require investment
• Brand PR needs to keep up
• Cross-border joint venture

For example, in the case of Xiaoxiandun, in 2018, it mainly focused on weight loss and skin care; in 2019, it enhanced the extension of the concept of pregnancy care and anti-aging, and at the same time increased the percentage of skin care recommendations from 28% to 45%. This means that the combination of skin care and function is effective.

Focusing on the A2-A3 population, complete the user population portrait, and based on the A2-A3 user population portrait, iterate keywords and penetrate the population.

After April 2019, the scenarios for Xiaoxiandun's advertising began to change. The proportion of "weight loss" scenarios decreased to 11%, and the proportion of "skin care" scenarios was the highest, accounting for more than 45% of the total. The proportion of "pregnancy care" and "freezing age" scenarios increased significantly, and the proportion of "health preservation" scenarios was still at the bottom.

We used super-head KOLs to increase awareness, and used "weight loss", "skin care", "anti-aging", "health preservation", and "pregnancy care" as keywords for penetration. We gradually developed the core keywords: skin care as the main focus, health preservation as the foundation, pregnancy care, and anti-aging as the grass-planting strategy to penetrate the population.

3. 100 million to 1 billion Keywords: upper level

This stage is also 10 times, but where does the 10 times come from? 1) Online + offline, 2) Breaking the circle and attracting new customers, 3) Actions on the scale

The core is to rely on the pull of the brand to drive sales growth. In other words, at this stage, simply talking about products, traffic, and conversion is not enough to support sales growth. It is necessary to combine brands, products, traffic, and content. Only at this stage can we enter a comprehensive stage of product, effect, and sales integration.

Brand actions extend from brand and category groups to interest groups, attracting interested groups through top-tier product promotion + celebrity endorsements + brand crossover + advertising and public relations, enlarging traffic entrances, and gradually transitioning from A2-A3 groups to A1 and O consumer groups. The purpose of crossover and brand co-branding is to break the boundaries of categories, and the core of crossover is also to attract new traffic.

At this stage, the amplification of brand actions will bring more general traffic. Therefore, the integration of brand, effect and sales has entered a critical stage. If the integration of brand, effect and sales is not achieved at this stage, the traffic brought by the brand's cross-border, joint, advertising and public relations will not be converted into sales growth.

1. Phase 1: Running Effect
2. Stage 2: Product Promotion
3. Phase 3: Running in One
4. Stage 4: Moat

The focus of this stage is on breaking the circle and attracting new customers among the O and A1 groups:

• Attract new customers within the category: users who are interested in competing products or the same category
• Attract new customers from similar products: Analyze the overlap between the customer groups of this product and similar products, and conduct targeted marketing to customers who have similar products performing well but the customer group needs to improve.
• Attract new customers across product categories: Compare with your own 5A customers to see which product categories have higher TGI besides your own product, and target the corresponding industry groups with the product.
• Attract new customers by using the scene crowd: Based on personalized demands, we can tap into the scene crowd with a high overlap rate and large scale with the 5A crowd.

From "arithmetic growth" to "exponential growth", when a brand reaches a certain stage of growth, it will encounter diminishing marginal utility. There is often only one reason, which is also a fundamental lesson that is often overlooked, that is, insufficient brand power. In the entire brand life cycle, and only at this stage, brand power becomes extremely important.

In particular, when growth is sluggish, we need to increase new customers externally and break through the circle; internally, we need to drive repeat purchases and improve conversions. Attracting new customers is a constant action, and breaking through the circle is the goal.

From brand users, to competitor users, to category users, to cross-category users, and finally to scenario users. Only by constantly breaking through the circle can we maintain growth, especially in the stage of crossing the chasm; this is even more true for achieving exponential growth - traffic, breaking the circle, conversion, operation, and sedimentation of mind.

Based on consumer portrait labels and sales base data: define the brand's core portrait labels and lock in the A4-A5 core strategic groups: emerging white-collar workers, senior middle-class, sophisticated mothers, small town youth, Gen Z (Generation Z), urban silver-haired people, small town middle-aged and elderly people, and urban blue-collar workers. Based on the A4-A5 portraits, attract new user circles to increase traffic.

That is: the right people (user portraits), multiple levels (5A stratification), multi-dimensional reach (off-site, on-site)

1. Based on the insights of brand 5A crowd, clear user portrait
2. Produce insight-based crowds and break-circle strategies
3. Achieve closed loop through operation

Through the analysis of the 5A of the population and brand users, we can clearly correspond the strategies to the different circles of people. The core of breaking the circle is to attract users other than A4-A5 types, and guide users to gradually settle into A2-A3 users through content, so as to prepare for traffic accumulation for sales conversion.

According to the 5A population level, a reach combination of "brand advertising + content seeding + paid traffic" is formulated to achieve content reach across touchpoints/frequencies.

Off-site: Based on data portraits, select brand advertising to reach the O-A1 population, stimulate conversion of the A1-3 population through short video influencers, and then cooperate with bidding advertising to convert them into the A4 population.

On the site: Super Interactive City and Brand Special Show expose the "O-A1 group" (targeting the opportunity group) and reach new users. Use the through train to reach the "A2-3 group" with shopping intentions, stimulate users and deepen their behavior, use Diamond Exhibition to reach the "A3-A4 group" (interest group, purchase group), and use Product Sales to reach the "A4-A5 group" (purchase group, loyal group).

4. 5 billion club Keywords: mind penetration, building a moat

Through long-term operations and content output, the brand improves the ROI of O-A1-A3-A4, strengthens the continuous reach of A5 super users, and drives the long-term compound value of the brand.

At the organizational level, we must take into account all aspects, from products to marketing, channels, and finally supply chain, and even talent management and financial management, in order to build a high wall and consolidate the moat. At the brand level, we must have multiple dimensions, multiple frequencies, and multiple touches to build a full-link brand growth from advertising to content marketing to scenarios, not only online, but also including the penetration of offline channels.

1-5 billion, it is time to build a moat. From products, to marketing, to channels, and finally to the supply chain, and even including talent management and financial management, all aspects must be taken into consideration to build a high wall and consolidate the moat.

The method of spending money to buy traffic in exchange for sales is acceptable in the early stages of a brand. However, if the brand still relies on traffic in exchange for sales in the middle and late stages, the brand will have to work for KOLs and Internet celebrities. In essence, KOLs and Internet celebrities are channels, not brands themselves. Selling goods and building brands are two different things. If users trust KOLs, not brands.

This means that the company's brand has not really established the mind and brand awareness among the target population. Once the consumer's mind is saturated, it will be very difficult to break into it again - the key to seizing the opportunity is the window period of the category. Once consumers are overloaded with a certain type of information, it is difficult for them to remember the same type of information.

For example, from 2017 to 2020, Neiwai has 110 retail experience stores in 29 first- and second-tier cities across the country, and has strategic cooperation with first-tier owners such as Kerry, Sun Hung Kai, Swire, Hang Lung, and China Resources. On the one hand, choosing a high-potential business district as the location of an offline store can reflect the brand image and effectively form brand endorsement.

On the other hand, as traffic becomes more and more expensive, offline channels can bring brands greater room for category expansion and more development opportunities. With the help of the layout of offline channels, Neiwai has gradually expanded from underwear to home casual wear, dance sports and home products.

Author: Houshan Guest House

Source: WeChat public account "Lao Gao Business and Brand"