Thinking in February: What are the latest trends on the Internet?

The latest trend thinking in February 2023! Workplace strategies, corporate customer acquisition, free traffic, brand innovation... In this article, the author shares some of his new thoughts in February in detail, hoping to inspire you. Recommended reading for those who are interested in brand planning, operations, products, and the workplace.

A minute of thinking is worth an hour of nagging.

When humans think, God laughs. In order to make God laugh more, I have always set a small goal for myself: think and record .

Every month, at the end of the month or the beginning of the next month, I will organize some of my thoughts for the month and continue to share them with you in 2023. In any case, I will persist in thinking and recording for a long time. As long as I am not too busy, I will continue to share them every month.

You Raise Me Up!

01

Enterprises should stop counting on free traffic. It has become extremely difficult to acquire customers through high-quality content in recent years, let alone in 2023. While you are still spending a lot of manpower, energy and time on content creation, capital has already seized all users and entered the commercialization stage.

On the other hand, the conversion rate of free traffic has always been low. Users come for the content, and their purchasing intention is weak or even non-existent, so it takes a long time to cultivate. Paid traffic, on the other hand, is obtained by merchants through targeted advertising, and it carries stronger demand and purchasing tendency, so it is obviously easier to convert. This is particularly prominent in Douyin live broadcasting, where natural traffic cannot beat paid traffic, and converting natural traffic is a greater test of the anchor's hard power.

We always say that free things are the most expensive, and paid things are the most direct and efficient . This sentence is very appropriate in the current customer acquisition scenario.

02

The market situation is not good this year. I see that most companies often hold meetings to talk about innovation, innovation, and innovation. Some companies even spend a lot of money to lay off some old employees and introduce some young blood in order to stimulate innovation.

Well, welcoming innovation, encouraging innovation, and even forcing innovation are all good things. But we must pay attention to the first rule of encouraging innovation: welcome failure.

03

There are many brands whose common marketing strategy is to wait for peer brands to develop new products and test the market, and then step up their efforts to follow up, and even surpass their peers with a little innovation. So some people say this is plagiarism, this is low, and this is shameless. However, can you say this is not marketing, not business?

In terms of business competition, this is a very effective strategy that has existed since ancient times. There is no such thing as original product in the strict sense, but it is just constant imitation and improvement by peers or across industries .

04

How to turn the explosive product strategy into real action?

I think the "Golden Triangle Rule" for hot-selling product development shared by Mr. Jin Cuodao is very good. This action path consists of one center and three action rules. Many old and famous manufacturers, new and cutting-edge brands, and Internet celebrity brands have created their super hot-selling products in this way.

Category war: An Internet-based category strategy that aims to become the category champion through blockbuster products and occupy the top position in business and potential.

Pain point war: Based on the user strategy of the Internet, turn "user first" into action, find the user's primary pain point, and turn the user into fans, rather than ignoring the relationship after selling the product.

Screaming product war: a product strategy based on the Internet. Let the product speak and scream, which can generate good user reputation, rather than relying on marketing.

Hot spot marketing war: a marketing strategy based on the Internet. Use Internet marketing to explode the market and use social marketing to amplify product power instead of relying on celebrities.

We must remember four words: start with the end in mind, which means thinking about the starting point of the product from the end point. The end point of a hit product is to become the category champion. Therefore, we must reverse the key action path of a hit product from the product strategy of becoming the category champion.

In addition, this hot product strategy also includes 3 hot product formulas.

• Formula 1: Value anchor = perceived indicator × strong differentiation indicator × supply chain indicator
• Formula 2: Big hit product = big pain point × screaming value anchor × hit marketing
• Formula 3: Hot spot marketing = 5,000 marketing materials + e-commerce promotion at the press conference + PK marketing events

The summary is:

Big hit product = big pain point × perceived index × strong differentiation index × supply chain index × (5,000 marketing materials + e-commerce promotion at the press conference + PK marketing event)

05

Almost all new employees encounter these phenomena in the workplace: their work is constantly denied; they are tortured by various opinions; the project situation is always changing; others do not agree with what they say; they think others are wrong; they can't figure out what the leader wants; they don't know where to start; they feel their brains are not enough; a bunch of people are making decisions but no decision can be made; they don't know what is right and what is wrong...

So, I often feel depressed, irritable, down, and self-doubting. Then the most direct reaction is to complain, scold the company, scold the boss, scold the colleagues, scold the customers, and then start to be indifferent and don't care about anything.

In fact, these problems will still occur even if you change companies, and it may not be entirely the fault of the company, leaders, or colleagues.

If you want to do better and become stronger, then you should learn to solve problems by yourself. If you are a blade of grass, everyone will step on you.

06

Have you ever tried the braised chicken feet of Mazhaozhao? This brand is amazing. Not only has it not declined in the three years of the epidemic, but it has also opened more than 300 stores from 15, a 20-fold increase. I went to see the sharing of Yu Xuehang, the founder of Mazhaozhao. The path to success is similar to that of most companies. However, one thing that impressed me was "choosing the right direction", which is the old saying "if the direction is wrong, the efforts will be in vain."

Regarding the track to choose, Yu Xuehang shared four words: big, mature, long, and scattered. In my opinion, this can be applied not only in track selection, but also in product creation, content marketing, IP positioning, etc.

• Big means that the total market size and market opportunities must be large enough.
• Mature means that the market is mature and there is no need for consumer education and cultivation of consumer habits.
• Long means that the market life cycle is very long and will not weaken or even disappear quickly. There are greater opportunities when developing on a long track.
• Scattered means that there are many market opportunities, but no monopoly has been formed, or it is impossible to form a monopoly. For example, small offline convenience stores are scattered. If you open one here, I will open another there.

07

Many people in the workplace will complain that their boss is not good, that their boss is a little cute, and that their boss does not take the initiative to give them a promotion or a raise. I do not deny that this happens, but I have found that there is another particularly common situation, that is, workers are too embarrassed to ask their boss for something. This depends on the situation. If you are embarrassed to ask your boss for something because you are not doing a good job, then don't complain and just do your job well. In another case, if you are simply not proactive and are waiting for your boss to pay attention to you, then find an opportunity to communicate with your boss.

In the workplace, you need to communicate more. If you want something, you should take the initiative to ask for it. Whether it is resources, projects, opportunities, or salary, you can negotiate. You have to speak up. On the other hand, you need to constantly improve yourself. This is hard capital.

As long as you are more proactive and persist a little, the world will lean a little towards you.

08

Everyone has three circles. The outermost circle of cognition, which is what you know and understand; the middle circle of ability, which is your energy and your execution; and the innermost circle of results, which is the results you can produce.

A good growth path is to continuously expand your circle of cognition, while pulling your circle of competence to iterate and expand continuously, so that the final result circle will become larger.

What is "aim too high"? It means that the cognitive circle is small, the ability circle is also small, and the result circle is almost squeezed out; what is "high aspirations but low skills"? It means that the cognitive circle is okay, you learn a lot and see a lot, but the ability circle is too small, which is not enough to achieve good cognitive results; what is "working hard"? It is probably that the ability circle is good, but the cognitive circle is too small, which limits the ability to play, and often you do a lot but the results are not equal.

If your circle of cognition is too small, then work hard to learn and see; if your circle of competence is too small, then learn to restrain yourself, don’t dream too much, and strengthen your abilities first.

09

The older you get, the more “helpless” you will inevitably be. You will have to hide your emotions and put away the little self you have left… But in your life and work, you must still find some time or space for yourself—either to go out for a walk aimlessly, or to plant some flowers, or to read a book you want to read, or to take a nap for an afternoon…

Even if you just daydream, it feels good.

The adult world requires solitude, and the adult world allows for daydreaming.

The above are some of my thoughts in February 2023! I have completed another year, which is great. I am grateful for your company. Thank you.

You can absorb some ideas from others, but you must think about them in your own way and cast the sand mold of your thoughts in your own mold. - Lamb

Author: Mumu Old Thief

Source: WeChat public account: "Mumu Laozei (ID: mumuseo)"