Creating 4 category champions in 5 years! How does the fast food industry maintain sustained growth by relying on Xiaohongshu?

In recent years, many new consumer brands have emerged in various sectors, but the most common thing is that most of them only enjoy short-term dividends. Most brands will encounter growth difficulties and continue to seek solutions. However, Mo Xiaoxian has made many businesses jealous. This article will show you how Mo Xiaoxian achieved sustained growth.

In recent years, new consumer brands have emerged in various fields, which seems to be a normal phenomenon in the market. But what is more normal is that most of them only enjoy short-term dividends, whether in terms of categories or traffic, and then gradually decline. Even Perfect Diary, which was initially famous, could not escape. Some brands even could not survive for two years.

Coupled with the tightening of the entire consumer market due to the epidemic, increasing customer acquisition and maintaining the enthusiasm of existing users have become a headache for every brand.

• How to quickly enter the track while standing firm and maintaining our place.
• How do we achieve long-term sustainable development?
• How can we gain market growth while maintaining our basic base?
• How can we ensure the user base while guaranteeing the unity of our brand core?

This is a growth dilemma that most brands will encounter, and they are constantly looking for solutions.

And there is one brand that has achieved all of these!

1. In 2017, it entered the self-heating hot pot market
2. One year after its establishment, it became the top 1 in Taobao category.
3. In 2019, it ranked second in the national sales ranking of self-heating hot pot, second only to Haidilao
4. Sales in 2020 exceeded 400 million yuan
5. Five years after its establishment, 4 of its products have won the first place in their categories on Tmall and JD.com!

It is Mo Xiaoxian.

This achievement made many merchants who find it difficult to create a hit product extremely jealous, and I am no exception.

If we say that Mo Xiaoxian reaped the benefits of the product category in the beginning, but after so many years of development and the achievements he has made, it is impossible that he reaped the benefits every time.

This is really a brand worth studying for small and medium-sized businesses who want to quickly increase sales and create explosive products.

Today let’s take a look at how Mo Xiaoxian achieved sustained growth.

1. Mo Xiaoxian’s three most correct choices

1. Quickly take advantage of category dividends and form differentiated marketing

In fact, at the beginning, the team that created Mo Xiaoxian was making imported biscuits. At that time, they gave up the imported biscuits that had become the number one on the entire network, and chose to make the self-heating hot pot product and create a new brand, because they valued the market development potential of this category.

At the same time, it also inherited their channel resources and operating experience in importing biscuits.

There is a saying that goes, "There is nothing that can't be solved by a hotpot meal. If there is, then have two meals."

It is no exaggeration to say that everything can be cured by hot pot.

At the same time, driven by the "home economy" and "lazy economy", our demand for fast food is growing.

We can see this in almost all recent new consumer products.

In fact, differentiation is not a narrow concept. It is not about which selling point I have that is different from others, or which parameter I am better than my competitors in.

We can understand it from three perspectives.

(1) Product differentiation

Form a segmented blue ocean . For example, the instant noodles Kongke Noodles and Ramen Shuo are completely differentiated from traditional pasta, ramen, and ordinary instant noodles, cutting out a blue ocean track that belongs to them from the big red ocean.

Those who come later are just imitating. Unless they surpass others in experience and have an absolute price advantage, it will be difficult for them to be defeated.

(2) Cognitive differentiation

Establish user needs . For example, Listerine first created the product of mouthwash. Since then, "bad breath" has become a problem, and using mouthwash to solve bad breath has become a demand.

Before Listerine, bad breath was never a thing, and it was never a problem.

This is about creating demand and awareness, which is a relatively difficult level to achieve.

(3) Pricing differentiation

The price difference is also very important, as it caters to people with different purchasing power.

Just like skin care products, with the same effect or ingredients, there are "luxury versions" that cost several thousand yuan, and there are also "affordable versions" that cost hundreds or even dozens of yuan.

It is a relatively easier route to take.

What Mo Xiaoxian used was pricing differentiation.

At that time, the average price of self-heating hotpots from brands such as Haidilao and Dezhuang was around 40 yuan. In order to differentiate himself from them, Mo Xiaoxian locked the price at around 10 yuan, which was even more affordable than ordering takeout.

It seems that the profit margin has been compressed, but in fact, this pricing is very advantageous for the self-heating hot pot category.

Regardless of what the ingredients are, users’ basic perception of self-heating hot pot is still “fast food”. The price of 40 yuan makes people exclaim, “Wouldn’t it be better if I just go to the store and eat it?” It is also destined not to become a product that one person consumes frequently.

The price of around 10 yuan is more in line with the purchasing power of most people and can also trigger more people to try new things and repurchase.

2. Determine the main groups and marketing positions based on product characteristics

The first step in marketing is to present the product to its user groups.

We can see from the pricing just now that Mo Xiaoxian’s consumer base is destined to be much larger than Haidilao, whose average price is around 40 yuan.

But this has both advantages and disadvantages.

When the population base corresponding to a product is large enough, it will be easier for it to reach target users and trigger dissemination and discussion than other products. However, precisely because the pool is so large, a new brand will find it very difficult when it first starts marketing.

Especially when marketing expenses are insufficient, marketing is like pouring a bottle of perfume into the sea, which dissipates before you can even smell it.

More importantly, when we walk at a three-way intersection, it is easy for us to choose one of the three roads: left, middle, or right. But when he is in the sea, it seems that all roads are smooth and unobstructed, but he is more likely to lose his way, and thus go around in circles and exhaust himself.

At the beginning, Mo Xiaoxian identified the main group of people based on the characteristics of the product, and attracted this part of users first, so that he could be more targeted in marketing.

In order to avoid the crowds competing with self-heating hotpot brands like Haidilao, whose average price is around 40 yuan, Mo Xiaoxian’s target audience from the very beginning was not high-spending people, but people who value the quality of life, are relatively sensitive to prices, and are keen on cost-effectiveness and price comparison.

That is, white-collar workers, college students living in dormitories and single people who pursue a convenient and fast life.

This group of people are precisely the ones who have a high willingness to try new brands and are active on social media.

For this target group, Xiaohongshu is obviously the most suitable and most accurate user gathering place.

It is inevitable to use Xiaohongshu as the brand’s main marketing platform.

3. Expand product categories with the help of branding and unify brand impression

From a macro perspective, the self-heating hot pot market has experienced explosive growth in just a few years. Hot pot brands such as Haidilao and Dezhuang and snack brands such as Three Squirrels and Bestore have all started their own self-heating hot pot businesses.

Like almost all tracks, once there is a hot trend, competitors will immediately enter the market, leading to a series of problems such as product convergence, huge competitive pressure, and the outbreak of price wars.

Many new consumer products are gradually forgotten by the market because they cannot survive this step.

Here Mo Xiaoxian made two very important moves.

First, expand the product categories.

After gaining a foothold in the self-heating hot pot market, he expanded his product categories to include red oil noodles, Chongqing noodles, hot and sour noodles, and more.

Expanding product categories is something many brands will do after they reach a certain stage of development, but the most important thing is to unify the crowd and brand impression.

You should know that the main purpose of our expanding product categories is to provide previously settled users with more choices, thereby increasing the average order value and repeat purchases, further enhancing brand stickiness and turning them into long-term users.

As for reaching new users by expanding product categories, it is actually a secondary goal.

We cannot lose sight of the main point at this step.

Abandoning the original accumulated users and instead developing new users, the two groups of users do not overlap and cross-conversion cannot be achieved.

This is equivalent to opening two brands, which doubles our operational pressure!

Like all of Mo Xiaoxian’s expanded product categories, they have several things in common – affordable, spicy, quick, and no cooking required.

First of all, for someone who bought A, B will generally suit his taste, and he will most likely try CD as well, which will invisibly increase the average order value of a single user.

In addition, no matter which one of ABCD a new user buys for the first time, if he or she finds it good after trying it, the possibility that he or she will try other products of this brand again is very high.

Did you notice?

At Mo Xiaoxian, every product has the potential to become the first item that a user tries, and the user may also become a user of several other products, and then be deeply bound to the brand.

This is the expansion of product categories and unified output.

Instead of expanding into a track that does not belong to you, it is very likely that your original position will be lost and attacked, and you will not be able to conquer the new position.

The same is true for other categories. For example, all of Winona's products are targeted at sensitive skin, while all of the home appliances of the Bear brand are designed to meet the needs of single-person meals.

In terms of skin care effects, Winona may not be the best among all brands, but for sensitive skin, its products can almost meet daily skin care needs.

Although each product of Little Bear may not be as good as those of old brands of home appliances in terms of functionality and performance, for people living alone, Little Bear is undoubtedly the best choice!

Don’t strive to be the strongest in all categories, but strive to provide product line coverage that can achieve linkage for your target group or one of their demand scenarios.

2. Mo Xiaoxian’s Topic Strategy

I have also mentioned in previous tweets that the traffic a note attracts is not only affected by the content itself, but also by the subject selection, keyword layout and topic.

As for how to utilize the detailed layout of keywords to improve our precise search ranking on the Xiaohongshu platform, you can go to my homepage and jump to the historical notes to view them.

Today, let’s briefly analyze Mo Xiaoxian’s topic strategy, and everyone can also learn some layout strategies from it.

The topic layout of Mo Xiaoxian in his notes mainly includes three aspects:

1. Brand related topics
2. Hot topics on the platform
3. Topics that are most likely to be captured by content

Let’s analyze them one by one.

1. Brand-related topics

As people pay more and more attention to marketing on the Xiaohongshu platform, in addition to influencer marketing, brands are also beginning to pay attention to what they can do themselves, such as corporate accounts, self-broadcasting, and brand topics.

Brand topics are the most powerful platform for brands to gather discussion volume and seed notes besides corporate accounts and search terms. I strongly recommend that you arrange for them when you first plan your Xiaohongshu launch!

Setting up a topic is very simple. If our overall marketing budget on Xiaohongshu is limited, we can directly use a free business topic provided by the platform and prepare the content under our brand topic.

As we increase the amount of advertising on Xiaohongshu and the number of product lines we launch, business topics can also be segmented by product, making it easier to gather the voice of each product.

This is very important for us to create popular products!

However, it is only recommended to carry out segmentation under the premise that we have a certain investment volume.

Otherwise, there is no need to divert traffic and we should try to let the same user see all our content.

2. Hot topics on the platform

This section is particularly worthy of attention for small and medium-sized brands that have just started advertising on Xiaohongshu or are still in a period of rapid growth!

Especially some niche categories, such as the children's Hanfu that I previously managed. Regardless of the brand or category, there was not much discussion on Xiaohongshu.

We use other popular topics on the platform to increase our brand exposure, just like hot search keywords.

Or there are too many brands and a large number of new notes are added in a short period of time, making it difficult for us to use content to attract attention, such as skin care products such as facial masks and essences.

In both cases, we need to formulate strategies for hot topics on the platform.

But be careful not to pile up topics just for the sake of popularity. It is enough to have 3-6 topics in each note.

3. Topics that are easy to capture with content

There is another type of topic that we need to plan when launching, which is the topic that can achieve content occupation.

It is also a type of topic that is particularly worthy of attention from small and medium-sized brands with small investment volume.

When choosing topics of this type, you can pick those that are popular on the platform but have a small number of participants and are easier to break through and occupy.

Although the overall exposure is not as good as hot topics, after a period of hard work, as long as users click on this topic, they will definitely see your product!

3. Mo Xiaoxian’s content strategy

In terms of investment volume, it has been far superior to other competitors in the same field from the very beginning.

While other brands are trying to use big Vs and mid-level bloggers to promote their products, Mo Xiaoxian has set his sights on high-quality KOCs and mid-level bloggers with 10w to 100k followers.

Although the influence of these two cannot be compared with that of big Vs, as low-priced consumables, this will greatly help Mo Xiaoxian to quickly enter the user group!

Maybe when we buy a high-priced item, such as a sweeping robot, a projector, etc., or some products that we cannot fully judge, such as essences, air fryers, etc., we will trust the recommendations and reviews of big Vs more.

But for mass consumer goods such as snacks, the trust threshold is obviously much lower.

Even if a colleague in the company who you have hardly ever spoken to tells you that he had tried XXX and it was delicious, you will most likely go and try it.

For these two types of bloggers, Mo Xiaoxian has different strategies for content layout.

1. High-quality KOC

The role of this type of blogger in the promotion is mainly to create heated discussions within the community, while also using the explosive power of KOC content to create small hits.

Therefore, Mo Xiaoxian mainly publishes a large amount of grass-planting content through KOC, repeatedly emphasizing the four points of high cost-effectiveness, sufficient ingredients, deliciousness and convenience.

2. Bloggers with 10w-100k followers

The main content formats of bloggers at this level are single product reviews, product reviews, and product recommendations.

1. Like KOC, single-variety grass repeatedly emphasizes the four points of high cost performance, sufficient ingredients, deliciousness and convenience.

The key points are highlighted without deviation, and all platforms are producing a unified impression!

2. Evaluation: The evaluation is divided into Mo Xiaoxian self-heating hot pot evaluation and multi-brand self-heating hot pot evaluation.

Mo Xiaoxian Hotpot Review: Mo Xiaoxian has enough SKUs of its own, especially when its cost-effectiveness reaches a certain level, stockpiling and buying multiple products at a time to try becomes the choice of most users.

The title emphasizes that it’s around 10r, while the picture shows how much material is included, directly highlighting the cost-effectiveness!

I have mentioned many times in previous tweets how to write reviews for multiple SKUs of my own company. These two articles are also excellent notes that you can refer to.

In conclusion, keep in mind two key points:

1. Give each product a corresponding target group, so that we can identify the target group when reading the notes and buy directly according to our own situation, making them feel that the product is designed for them, instead of requiring secondary judgment and selection.
2. Give each product a unique feature so that users can quickly distinguish them, instead of all products being a panacea. The result of adapting to all products is that none of them will feel suitable.

Multi-brand self-heating hot pot evaluation:

There are three main points:

1. Give the corresponding population needs for each model
2. Don't just belittle other products and promote your own products. Just be objective and fair.
3. The main purpose of notes like "good product recommendations" is to reach more target users who didn't know Mo Xiaoxian before but have relevant purchasing needs, such as dormitory users, stockpilers, and lazy fast food users, and to share based on scenarios and needs.

Crowd demand: Dormitory party, lazy people's stocking guide

Scenario requirements: midnight snack, meal for one person, no cooking or cooking required

4. Mo Xiaoxian’s content highlights

Mo Xiaoxian’s high conversion rate is due not only to the low difficulty of promoting the category itself, but also to the polishing and presentation of the content itself.

1. Unified output impression

No matter what kind of notes it is, Mo Xiaoxian always puts forward the following points: cost-effectiveness, average price of 10 yuan, fast food, and delicious, and he has never deviated from them.

In this way, when people mention Mo Xiaoxian, they will naturally think of these words, and when they mention these words, they will also think of Mo Xiaoxian, forming a connection.

2. The picture highlights a lot of information

Each note will have two pictures, one is a panoramic view of the self-heating hot pot, so that everyone can feel the large quantity, and the other is a close-up of certain ingredients, so that everyone can feel the real ingredients.

In addition to reinforcing the cost-effectiveness, this also creates a memorable point.

Coincidentally, Kong Ke Instant Noodles also uses the same presentation method, with each note using a close-up of a large piece of beef to highlight the richness of the filling.

Users’ perception of images is N times stronger than that of text. Using images to embed memorable points is also a very appealing way for small and medium-sized brands to quickly form an impression in the user’s mind.

Our team used the same method when operating a certain brand of oral bursting beads.

The category of exploding beads is unfamiliar to most users and is a strange and new product.

For those users who cannot be reached in one go, we must implant memory points so that we can increase the influence of seeding when we reach them next time.

At this time, we discovered that the appearance of the bursting beads is actually very similar to the Bobo added to the milk tea that we girls love to drink.

Therefore, when taking pictures, we magnified and strengthened this point, binding the unfamiliar new products with familiar things to quickly form memory points.

3. The copywriting highlights the taste

What determines food purchasing power and repurchase rate is first food safety and then taste.

One very thoughtful thing about Mo Xiaoxian is that he breaks down the spiciness of each self-heating hotpot.

I believe everyone has experienced that when ordering takeout, the slightly spicy flavor of one restaurant may be completely different from that of another restaurant, one is slightly spicy from Guangdong, and the other is slightly spicy from Hunan.

Therefore, the use of personal feelings to describe the spiciness is not very useful. What I think is spicy may be bland to someone else.

On the packaging, Mo Xiaoxian has marked the spiciness with numbers, which makes it easier for us to choose the right one when purchasing, and also makes it easier for repeat purchasers to adjust their taste.

Author: Bobo, public account: Bobo's cooking class