Hotspot marketing is still one of the most cost-effective marketing methods

This article mainly discusses the characteristics of the two mainstream marketing methods, traffic marketing and hot spot marketing, and points out that compared with the "low stickiness" of traffic marketing, hot spot marketing can develop a more lasting "cooperative relationship" with customers.

With the development of Internet advertising, marketing methods have become more and more diverse. Many people have joked that "technology is mainly based on naming." In fact, today's marketing industry is not much different.

But the essence of marketing is to establish a connection between the brand and the user. Behind all kinds of new marketing words, there are two things that are inseparable: developing new users and maintaining old users. The current marketing industry trend is to coordinate and balance the public and private domains. Overall, the public domain scenario is responsible for developing new users, while the private domain is responsible for maintaining old users.

There are two mainstream marketing methods for this: traffic marketing and hot spot marketing.

The advantages and disadvantages of the two cannot be judged by a single standard. Of course, many companies will not bet on a single method. Generally, both methods are carried out simultaneously, but the emphasis is different in different growth stages of the company.

01 The rise and fall of traffic marketing

The logic of traffic marketing is to cover the target user group through paid traffic delivery, and continuously optimize the delivery ROI through data reflux of delivery effect indicators, thereby achieving increasingly accurate and efficient delivery returns.

In the past few years, especially for some companies facing survival difficulties, the quick-acting traffic strategy has indeed helped them survive many difficult times.

This is especially true for some "white label" companies, which achieve conversions by buying traffic and bring short-term business growth. However, as the cost of platform traffic rises, the phenomenon of "increasing the traffic budget will lead to conversions, and reducing it will immediately stop growth" has gradually emerged. It is difficult for brands to expect to surpass their competitors through this single means.

In the entire traffic marketing conversion chain, reaching users at high costs seems to convert enough target users, but in fact, there is no deep interaction between you and the users in terms of positive and negative feedback. It is difficult to truly establish user minds, and naturally it is difficult to form user stickiness.

In summary, traffic marketing is "measurable, evaluable and controllable", and is an important "tangible" tool for brands during their period of confusion. However, because its advertising content is too oriented towards effect conversion, companies lack deep interaction with users and lose the opportunity to output brand added value. This is not a high "cost-effective" option for long-term brand building. Brands can be used but should not be overly relied on.

02 The multi-dimensional value of hot marketing

Next, let's talk about hot spot marketing. Compared with traffic methods, hot spot marketing can also achieve the effect of widespread publicity, but if measured by "quick results" and "direct conversion", it is naturally slightly inferior. However, hot spot marketing has its irreplaceable point - strong interaction, especially in-depth interaction with users in topics that everyone participates in.

We can look at the value of "strong interaction" from the perspective of communication. The impact of advertising itself on people is actually very short-lived, and it will be forgotten by people as time goes by. Therefore, in the process of brand marketing, even if the target users are covered by information, if the coverage of this information does not form the viscosity of "strong relationship", a continuous transaction relationship will not be formed.

So how do we establish a lasting relationship with target users? According to Kotler’s marketing theory, “The basis for establishing a lasting relationship with users is to create, build and maintain a continuous interactive state around target customers through various business means after the information arrives. It enables marketing to move from information dissemination to strategic in-depth operations.”

At this time, the choice of marketing venue is very important. Weibo is an indispensable option for platforms that can be both popular and highly interactive, which may also be the reason why many companies choose it as the main battlefield for hot marketing.

Below, the author uses a case to analyze the advantages of hot spot marketing:

1. Hot topics can quickly achieve strong penetration among the general public

When you appear on the trending search, people who know you will be concerned about what happened to you, whether it is because you are being discussed positively or negatively, and may also comment on you; people who don’t know you will ask questions such as “What is this?” or “What happened?”

For example, when Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room was resumed for the first time last year, the large white jar of Cetaphil was quickly sold out and soon caused heated discussions across the Internet. #What is Cetaphil# and the brand’s eponymous topic #Cetaphil# were both on the hot search list, and the brand’s voice was instantly amplified.

But more importantly, different users expressed their opinions under the topic, including professional KOLs who conducted product reviews and popularized the knowledge; consumers who had bought the product recommended the brand; users who did not get it strongly demanded that the brand restock the product; and some expressed doubts and dissatisfaction. The brand’s official Weibo account also responded quickly, “It’s true that there is no fraud, it’s really out of stock.”

Hot topics gather a variety of people to participate, and different shared content can hit different emotional points. In this wave of interaction, consumers' emotions towards the brand are constantly changing. Therefore, the penetration that hot topics bring to the brand is not a simple touch, but a strong penetration that is established with the user's mind.

Of course, hot topics are not necessarily formed through event catalysis. Annual festival nodes, sports events, and entertainment content schedules are all natural hot topics. Hot topics are like lubricants for social interaction between people. They are important topics of conversation both online and offline. This also leads to the fact that hot content is inherently high in terms of dissemination value. As long as brands seize the hot spots and conduct hot marketing skillfully, it is not difficult to achieve rapid popular penetration.

2. Hot spot communication can enable brands to achieve long-term encirclement of users

Hotspot marketing does not end after the topic becomes a hot search. It does not immediately cut off the connection between the brand and the user after the push is completed like traffic-based advertising. Instead, as the hotspot ferments and spreads, it will circulate and converge on the Weibo platform multiple times, which continuously expands the coverage of hot content.

Taking Cetaphil as an example, the sale of Cetaphil Whitening Jar was originally the core event, but through the fermentation of hot topics, the public's attention and discussion on the product also extended to the brand. This added value cannot be achieved by "pay-per-volume" traffic marketing, so in the long run, hot marketing can often bring more explosive communication results for the brand.

With the help of this hot event, Cetaphil achieved an increase in the popularity of its entire product line from a single hit product, the Big White Can. Through hot marketing on Weibo, it fully activated the brand effect and also drove the conversion of other products of the brand.

It is worth mentioning that Cetaphil was on Weibo's hot search list during the Double 11 warm-up period. Finally, during the Double 11 period, the GMV and brand sales rankings of all Cetaphil products were improved. The brand's hot marketing brought a lot of publicity and user interaction stickiness, which eventually turned into product sales. Cetaphil achieved a "big harvest" on Double 11 through hot marketing. The annual 618 is coming soon, and brands may take this as a reference.

In general, traffic marketing and hot spot marketing have their own strengths. The marketing method of buying traffic may be more suitable for hot products that need short-term business growth, and is more suitable as an auxiliary marketing method. However, for companies that want to cross the cycle through long-term brand building, hot spot marketing is a marketing method that cannot be bypassed, and it is also the main strategic direction for building brand power.

Author: Communication Gymnastics Business Group

Source: WeChat public account "Spread Gymnastics (ID: chuanboticao)"