How to use the strategic framework to implement marketing projects?

Many inexperienced marketers have no idea where to start when planning, and the final planning schemes usually seem to be scattered and the logic is confusing. This happens mainly because they do not use a scientific strategy framework to sort out their marketing ideas. The author of this article summarizes several issues that need to be sorted out when marketing, hoping to bring you some help.

Many inexperienced marketers often find themselves at a loss as to where to start when planning, and end up engaging in divergent thinking or producing many ideas that have nothing to do with the brand itself or marketing goals.

The planning proposals made under such circumstances will usually appear to be scattered in ideas and confusing in logic; once faced with doubts and challenges from others, they will appear to be full of loopholes and helpless.

This happens mainly because there is no scientific strategic framework to systematically sort out the marketing ideas. Why do we do it? Which audiences are we targeting? What kind of content do we communicate? Which communication channels do we choose? These are the basic questions that must be thought through in advance for every marketing campaign.

1. Why do companies need to do marketing at this time?

Knowing why you are doing something is one of the most basic prerequisites, which can help set marketing goals and then plan the corresponding marketing content and resource allocation based on the goals.

Scenarios such as launching new products, brand upgrades, competing for market share with competitors, large-scale promotional activities, major company events, maintaining relationships with old customers, leveraging holiday opportunities, and shaping industry influence are all common reasons that drive companies to invest resources in marketing.

For example, the marketing promotion of a new product is to use the media and advertising to publicize the benefits of the new product to new and old customers, and to attract them to experience and try it. Therefore, it is a very important tactical match to focus on disseminating the benefits of the new product in the promotion and to use authoritative KOLs to guide new and old customers to experience the new product.

Also, when the brand's influence and user growth reach a bottleneck period, if you want to achieve sustained growth, you will face brand upgrades, because the market segment the brand is currently targeting is approaching saturation, and you must penetrate new markets through brand and business upgrades.

Some companies launch marketing campaigns simply because they see their competitors doing marketing and they blindly follow suit, or they do marketing after not doing it for a long time and just want to increase their presence. Such marketing activities that lack goals often waste budgets and resources.

Only by understanding the ins and outs of each marketing behavior can we establish the general direction and goals of marketing, ultimately get the results the company wants, and avoid ineffective investment and waste of resources.

2. Who is the target audience?

It is impossible to carry out any marketing campaign targeting everyone. On the one hand, it is difficult to have enough budget to support such marketing activities. On the other hand, the communication content and methods of each type of audience are different, and it is impossible to take all of them into account in the same marketing campaign.

Clearly defining the target audience is an indispensable second step, sorting out which are the core audience groups and which are the secondary audience groups; through a detailed analysis of the audience's social identity, interests and hobbies, online behavior habits, shopping consumption characteristics, etc., provide a reference for the formulation of subsequent communication slogans, creative dissemination, operational activities, media placement combinations and other contents.

Taking the express delivery industry as an example, as an express delivery company, Shunfeng’s business features are one-to-one urgent delivery within the city, and it emphasizes the timeliness of service. Therefore, Shunfeng’s target audience is different from those of express delivery companies such as STO and YTO.

Flash express users usually have many needs such as local life delivery and rapid business delivery. They value the delivery efficiency and service quality of express delivery, are willing to pay more for more efficient express delivery services, and enjoy the convenience that Internet tools bring to their lives. Traditional express delivery companies' main audiences are e-commerce merchants and people who like to shop online.

3. What is the core communication message?

In a marketing campaign, the more information conveyed, the better. When a brand wants to convey everything, it will cause cognitive confusion among the audience, and ultimately they will remember nothing. Therefore, it is very important to extract the core communication information. It is enough to implant the most lethal and pain-solving interest points of the brand or product into the minds of consumers.

The extraction of core communication information can start from three perspectives: the brand itself, consumers and competitors. From the perspective of the brand itself, find the brand’s most core interest points or the product’s biggest selling point advantages. Conduct in-depth research and insights into consumers to discover a strong demand point of consumers that the company can meet or make up for. If starting from the perspective of competitors, the most important thing is to find the blue ocean areas in the market that have not yet been occupied by competitors, so as to seize the initiative.

Let's take Shunfeng Express as an example. According to Shunfeng Express's own business model and service features, one-to-one fast delivery is its biggest selling point. In addition, in many scenarios such as emergency delivery and important business material delivery, express delivery companies such as ZTO Express and YTO Express usually find it difficult to deliver on the same day, and consumers have a large number of unmet demands for fast delivery. From the perspective of market competition, there is no leading company in same-city express delivery, and the competition is relatively not that fierce. It is in a blue ocean market.

Under such favorable conditions, "one-to-one personal service, rapid delivery throughout the city" is the most powerful communication message of Shunfeng Express, so it launched the communication slogan "one-to-one express delivery, average delivery within 1 hour throughout the city", which binds the Shunfeng Express brand and the same-city express delivery scenario. When customers have the need for same-city express delivery, they will think of Shunfeng Express.

4. What form of communication is operated?

Before the popularization of digital technology, the forms of information dissemination were relatively limited, usually relying on text, posters, videos, audio, event creativity, and film and television drama implantation.

With the continuous development and maturity of digital technology, the forms of information dissemination have become increasingly rich and complex. In addition to the ones mentioned above, a variety of new forms have emerged, such as long pictures, H5, small games, short videos, live broadcasts, virtual reality VR, augmented reality AR, and the metaverse.

Each form has its own characteristics and is suitable for certain specific communication information and a certain type of people. Therefore, choosing the form to disseminate information is a subject that requires serious thinking and research.

For example, Shunfeng has received a lot of praise and thanks from customers. In order to enhance brand trust through the real voice of customers, Shunfeng found these loyal customers to shoot some real stories. In order to tell the story clearly, the information it carries must be relatively long, so articles, videos, long pictures, H5, etc. are more suitable forms of communication for these stories.

However, the amount of information that posters and short videos can carry is relatively limited, making it difficult to tell these stories clearly. Small games, creative activities, and the metaverse will make the stories seem less sincere and real.

5. What is the media mix?

In a marketing campaign, the vast majority of expenses will be spent on media communication. The choice of media combination requires careful consideration. Factors such as how much traffic the media has, whether the media audience matches the brand audience, what scenarios the media covers, how cost-effective the media is, and what dimensions of indicators the media can achieve are important bases for media selection.

Based on the characteristics of its target audience, Shunfeng selected elevator advertising, outdoor advertising in shopping districts, and WeChat Moments advertising as its main media combination strategy in Shanghai. Elevator and shopping district advertising are very conspicuous and can cover community residents and white-collar workers.

WeChat Moments ads can accurately find people with urgent delivery needs based on geographic targeting and interest-based behavior targeting; ultimately, Shunfeng Express quickly captured Shanghai's same-city express delivery market through continuous media advertising bombardment.

6. How to formulate operational/promotional activities

After the marketing campaign is launched, it will inevitably bring huge exposure and traffic to the brand. After these users are attracted, it is an extremely important step to allow users to establish deep connections with the brand or directly form effect conversions, which is what the Internet industry often calls the acceptance and sedimentation of traffic.

Companies usually complete the acceptance and sedimentation of traffic through operational activities or promotional offers. For example, through operational activities, they guide users to download APP, leave contact information such as mobile phone/email, follow official self-media accounts, join brand fan groups, participate in brand activities, etc., to facilitate further conversion in the future.

Promotional discounts are usually attached to operational activities as offers, using strong benefits to stimulate users to immediately purchase or experience products, thereby lowering the threshold for conversion and improving conversion efficiency.

The setting of operational activities and promotional mechanisms may seem like a simple and crude matter, but it actually requires in-depth research and insight into user behavior and psychology. Often a tiny detail can determine the effectiveness of an operation.

For example, in an operation targeting tourists, if the cost of giving out offers is the same, it is more appropriate to use hotel coupons rather than cash red envelopes.

First, sending hotel coupons is highly consistent with the content of the event, which can enhance the rationality and authority of the event; secondly, it can screen out people with high demand for travel, because for people who have no travel needs, hotel coupons have no use value and naturally will not participate in the event. Although cash red envelopes can attract more people, most of them come for the red envelopes, and the accuracy of participating users is greatly reduced, and the subsequent conversion of these users will naturally not be ideal.

Author: Lao Pao; WeChat public account: Lao Pao OG