8 trial and error funnels for brand owners to save 1 million yuan in losses

Many brand owners are crossing the river by feeling the stones when discussing the industry and the feasibility of their projects. So in this process, what can we know in advance and avoid? The author summarizes 8 links of filters, so that you can be more objective in every project and every category.

Recently, I talked with friends in third-tier traditional industries. They always asked me whether this project would work or whether that transformation method would work. But whether it is doing business or doing a project, the first thing to study is the market ecology, who is the best in this industry, and why it is doing so well.

The main purpose is to verify "feasibility and certainty". Based on this research purpose, we will then expand on how to demonstrate. Through the following 8 links of filters, I believe that you will be more objective when doing a project or a category.

(The picture content is Zhuang Jun's courseware PPT)

Here is the main text:

Contents of this article:

1. Target users/consumers
2. Direct competitors
3. Advantages of our brand/products
4. Cross-border objects
5. Circle pioneer
6. Data/Reports
7. Feedback from bloggers and KOLs
8. Final interim results

01 Target users/consumers

There is no need to talk about target users. When we develop a product, we must accurately identify the target users and conduct research on them. Young brands may use “I think…” or “I hope…” to position their products based on consumers, but in fact they are positioning consumers based on the products.

The first step is to clarify what kind of information you want to convey to users? What kind of feeling? Or what kind of emotional expression? You must be clear about these three points to better determine what users want to express and what they really need.

The second step is to see what the user wants to express. Generally speaking, the emotion people talk about usually refers to a person's deep feeling about a certain thing or phenomenon. So, if you want to convey certain information through the product, you must connect it with the user himself. This is related to the third step "scenario". Therefore, users can write down what they want to say, so that they can better understand what the other party needs.

The third step is a concrete and abstract operation. In fact, this step is what we often call the "scene" part.

02 Direct Competitors

When many people study their competitors, they often take the best in the industry as the research object, but times have changed and the opportunities at that time are hard to come by. For example, you take Perfect Diary as the research object, but the dividends that Perfect Diary gained from marketing on Xiaohongshu in the past few years are hard to come by.

For example, how did Jack Ma and Li Ka-shing become successful back then? What does it have to do with us?

1) If you are doing e-commerce, you need to use Tmall's rankings and Xinhong data to see who is more active in the industry. There will also be rankings. Tmall basically makes rankings every year or every e-commerce festival.

Brands like those giants with strong capital power behind them are not competitors that we can catch up with. On the contrary, emerging brands after the top five and above the top 20 may be closer to our goal.

2) Of course, there are also many hidden champions. Although the sales volume is not high, the investment cost is not large. But the profit is considerable. Each product does not pursue absolute sales volume, but has made several brand products. At the beginning, we must also make it clear whether we should pursue sales volume or profit in the industry. These are two different paths.

Therefore, we still need to study the brands that have just been established in the past 1-2 years, as their strategies are relatively fresh. The main thing to study is not the industry leader, and the second is to clarify whether you are pursuing sales or profits. According to the situation in the past two years, pursuing profits to survive is more important.

03 Advantages of our brand/products

Mature brand founders are relatively objective about the advantages of their products and brands, while the bosses of start-up brands will fall into a state of blind confidence. It is not because we are much stronger, but because we are in the dark. It is a problem of situation.

1) Perhaps up to now your brand can only be regarded as a "brand", a name with a trademark, but because it has not won the support of the target group, it is not memorable enough. After all, the purpose of branding is to encourage consumers to buy a second time and repurchase at zero cost.

Otherwise, it’s just a brand and consumers won’t be willing to help you spread it secondary, so it’s all in vain.

2) The product should not just be a "self-entertainment" idea. Extensive market research is necessary. Products that should be purchased should be studied, and competitor analysis should also be done in depth. This way, it will not just be a "self-entertainment" idea.

Because Zhuang Jun has seen too many self-satisfied bosses, he will know whether a product is good or not just by putting it on the market.

3) The brand/company advantages are also unclear, so you can only explore carefully on the road ahead, while exploring your own advantages, getting feedback from the target population, users, and buyers, and obtaining comparisons from competitors. Although it is very time-consuming, it is also for the purpose of saving money in the future.

04 Cross-border objects

1) "Innovation is the reorganization of old elements." If we always imitate our competitors, we will never be able to break free, and there will always be the shadow of the competitors, and there will be no innovation. Only by capturing inspiration from another field and referring to feasible ideas can we surpass our competitors. This is the purpose of referring to cross-border objects.

2) Innovation is a "hybrid". When we look at Wang Baobao's products, we find that they cater to the consumption habits of young girls. In the past, they needed to buy a lot of nuts and dried fruits themselves, but Wang Baobao has indeed achieved innovation in its product mix.

I also firmly believe that the source of innovation for many product development or marketing methods comes from observations in other fields and in life, which are then recombined into new species.

3) When Jobs was studying the button design of the Apple mobile phone, the R&D team said that it was impossible to have only one button on a mobile phone. Jobs took them to the bathroom to look at the toilet. The toilet only had one button. Pressing it could solve all problems. The fact that the button was inspired by the toilet design was recorded in the book “Steve Jobs”.

4) At the level of Xiaohongshu, in addition to studying the direct competitors itself, you can also look at cross-category objects, their Xiaohongshu account operations, and Xiaohongshu delivery strategies to see if they are different from the methods in our industry.

Many companies focus their research on the same industry and often ignore the Xiaohongshu content strategies of other industries.

This is why Zhuang Jun continues to study strategies from all walks of life and finally brings them together into the Xiaohongshu brand training course.

This is the fundamental reason why we need to study cross-border objects.

05 Circle Pioneers

1) Find reliable friends around you who have done similar things and listen to their experience. Instead of figuring it out and struggling on your own, you might as well ask directly.

2) One is related categories or industries, whether from the perspective of upstream or downstream relationships, or categories with the same population. Based on their feedback, you can hear voices that are close to the essence, and the suggestions they give from their perspective may be closer to the truth compared to your own blind judgment.

3) The other is that it cannot be done. If you can’t do it, you will definitely tell the reason why you gave up at that time. There are two branches here. One is that you don’t have enough resources or funds. Another possibility is that this path is simply not feasible. The rest depends on your own judgment.

4) Regarding the category of adult anti-mite pillows, this year 3-4 brands asked me various marketing and category issues. Later, I communicated with brand operators in the industry who had worked in this category. They gave up this category in 2021 and replaced it with other spinal protection-related products. The reason is that the selling point of adult anti-mite pillows cannot be confirmed or falsified.

In terms of design, there is very little room for improvement, and the word "anti-mite" is a sensitive topic on Xiaohongshu.

Of course, some people don't believe it. Just try it and you will know.

06 Data/Report

The most important thing about practical data feedback, besides "I think" and "I think this thing is useful to others", is to allow your own products to participate in the database and data feedback. Here, you need to build a database to better see the practical results. In many cases, there is no relevant database within the company, so you may need to use special statistical methods in certain special periods to improve the data feedback effect.

The decision-making process requires us to participate through data. To do this, we need to learn to visualize our work results (the so-called data visualization) and share them. This is the most common and valuable "sharing" action in actual data analysis.

For example: I want to buy a product, but very few people buy this product. I still buy it, but the product I buy is not ideal. Now I think there is a reason why the number of buyers is small. However, products with good data are not necessarily real purchase data, but can be selected by users.

07 Feedback from bloggers and KOLs

Don’t always think of bloggers as your opponents. On the contrary, bloggers are your allies. You should communicate with them more, not from the perspective of brands and partners, but from the perspective of friends and good sisters. Ask them about their feelings and experiences with the products, what kind of people they are suitable for, etc. This is both a survey and a direction for improving products.

A mistake that many bosses make is to promote a product and then have too much inventory. When you put the product in front of a blogger, you may find that the blogger wants another product instead of the one you have too much inventory on. However, if the brand wants to sell this product, there will be a problem - bloggers don't like your product very much. If you ask 50 bloggers and none of them have any good ideas about your product, then you send it to more people. Isn't it a waste? The money is wasted again, right?

So, you can send them a questionnaire and ask the blogger what they think. Talk about your ideas in detail. Three and four are actually the same.

08 Final interim results

When many bosses decide to do something, they may not think about whether they are suitable for it, and the final result may not achieve the desired result. In this case, setting a phased goal is a waste of time and money. It is better to think about how no industry can escape the 80/20 rule. Only 20% of companies can survive, and this cannot be changed. The question is whether we are willing to do this 20% or the 80%.

We can look around and see whether the group of people who started a business a few years ago are still in the same industry. In other words, are those people who started a business before still starting a business? And if you are still here, it means that your ability to adapt to environmental changes is stronger than theirs. However, the interim results are not what the company wants.

Looking to the future, becoming a leading brand is a long-term vision and industry competition concept that all companies must have.

Final summary

The core competitiveness of a brand is often its personalization, uniqueness, and differentiation. Only by establishing a firm foothold and shaping the brand can we gain a better advantage in the market competition. Successful brand managers must know how to create brand power to increase the benefits of the brand. They must also understand what the brand represents, what the market wants, and what the competitors are doing.

To see whether your brand, business, project or product is successful, first refer to the above 8 “filters”. This way you will get more comprehensive information. It is like “the blind men touching an elephant”. 8 blind men touching an elephant is always better than just one blind man touching an elephant.

Author: Zhuang Jun

Source: WeChat public account "Zhuang Jun (ID: zhuangjunweixin)"