To do TikTok, you have to be even worse than TikTok

Yù nǎi hé māo shuō, zuǒ zhě: Lán lán, tí tú lái zì: Shì jiào zhōng guó

Rú hé zài dǒu yīn píng tái shàng tōng guò "zhā nán shì" tào lù chéng gōng yùn yíng pǐn pái.

• 🚀 Jiè zhù dǒu yīn liú liàng, dān pǐn dǎ bào hòu zhuǎn xiàng quán yù jīng yíng.

• 💡 Fā jué píng tái xǐ huān de chǎn pǐn xíng tái, zhǎo zhǔn shì chǎng rè diǎn.

• 📈 Tōng guò zì bò jiān zào jié, tí shēng shí jì chéng jiāo xiào guǒ.

Jīn nián zuò dǒu yīn, wù bì yào bǎi zhèng xīn tài:

1、Zhī dào píng tái hěn zhā;

2、Bǐ tā gèng zhā.

Dǒu yīn diàn shāng cóng yī kāi shǐ, jiù zì dài "zhā" de tè zhì:

• Zuò zhàng hào, nǐ mǎi de liú liàng, zǎn de fěn sī, dōu bù shì nǐ de. Dǒu yīn zhàng hào yě bù zhí qián, jìng pǐn yī jiàn jiù kě yǐ tóu fàng nǐ de fěn sī;

• Tóu qiān chuān, jīn tiān liú liàng bù cuò bù děng yú míng tiān hái néng bǎo chí, měi tiān dōu yào xīn kǔ yùn yíng suàn jì, cái néng cǎi zhe roi de hóng xiàn jì xù tiào wǔ;

• Dá rén fēn xiāo gèng shì rú cǐ, jí shǐ shì zì jǐ pǐn pái xiān hé zuò de, dǐng duō yī gè yuè (dōu suàn fēi cháng liáng xīn de), ta men jiù huì fǎn shǒu ná zhe jìng pǐn de jī zhì hé fèi bǐ, bī nǐ gěi dào gèng hǎo de tiáo jiàn.

Méi cuò, xiāng bǐ huò jià diàn shāng, nèi róng diàn shāng yǒu gèng duō de fāng fǎ cóng shì chàng nèi jǔ zhōng zhōng huò lì.

Nǐ yǐ wéi shì wán yǎng chéng, píng tái shì zài wán yǎng yú.

Zhè liǎng nián dǒu yīn dà lì tí chàng "quán yù diàn shāng", fān yì yī xià jiù shì: zhǒng cǎo gěi wǒ tóu yī cì qián, tóu liú (dou+, nèi róng rè tuī, zhǒng cǎo tōng) zài gěi wǒ tóu yī cì qián, rán hòu xiǎo lán cí dào sōu suǒ, pǐn zhuān hé guǎng gào nǐ hái dé mǎi, zài dào zhí bō jiān, hái dé kěn chī kěn chī tóu qiān chuān, bǎ A3 gǎo chéng A4.

Rú guǒ bù xiǎng wèi wǒ fù chū nà me duō, yě xíng. Zài shàng bàn nián, dǒu yīn dà lì tuī jià gé lì, duì quán wǎng zuì dī, tóng kuǎn dī jià gěi yǔ miǎn fèi liú liàng, dàn yāo qiú yǐ jià huàn liàng: gǎn bù gǎn wán?

Dān rán, zuì jìn de xìn hào shì, dǒu yīn kāi shǐ tiáo zhěng jià gé lì de zhèng cè, bāo kuò bǐ jià xì tǒng xì tǒng, mù biāo yě cóng OPM (qiān cì bào zhào chéng jiāo de dìng dān liàng) chóng xīn huí dào GPM (qiān cì bào zhào chéng jiāo de xiāo shòu é).

Yuán yīn shì: dī jià cè lüè shēng xiào hòu, dǎo zhì "liè bì qū zhú liáng bì", chú le juǎn gōng yìng lián, gōng chǎng diàn hé dī zhì dī jià de chǎn pǐn néng wán zhuǎn, bù fèn pǐn pái yǐ jīng wú lì zhī chí dī jià + tóu liú liǎng chù fàng xiě; lìng yī fāng miàn, duì cè kè hù de tǐ yàn yě yǒu chōng jī, huò bù duì bǎn, tuì huò lǜ tí shēng, jù shuō, shàng bàn nián dǒu yīn GMV zēng fù xià huī yuǎn chāo gōng sī yù qī.

Duì, zhā nán de lìng yī gè tè zhì jiù shì, yǒng yuǎn zài biàn, dāng nǐ xiǎng follow tā de xīn yì, tā hěn kuài zhuǎn le fāng xiàng.

Jī yú yǐ shàng zhǒng zhǒng, zěn me yìng duì ne?

Rú tí: bǐ dǒu yīn gèng zhā, yǐ zhā zhì zhā.

Běn wén huì jiǎng hěn duō jì shù céng miàn de nèi róng, dàn zài cǐ zhī qián, xiǎng ràng dà jiā zhēn zhèng sī kǎo yī gè diǎn: What is our purpose in doing Douyin?

I think there are 3 points:

1. Explosive power of single products: Leveraging Douyin's traffic and mature e-commerce system to achieve high explosive power, and then profit from distribution scenes and overflow traffic.

The explosive power and potential of Douyin are currently irreplaceable by Xiaohongshu and Video Accounts.

Xiaohongshu has a good start and profit, but the e-commerce label is not yet mature, and the overall market is relatively limited, with a low ceiling for individual entities: many small teams can easily reach the top of the buying list, but the ceiling is quickly reached beyond that. Video Accounts focus too much on IP characters, and the live streaming effect of many brands is average. On the contrary, combining IP with white-label products and their own private domain capabilities can create a new path.

For most categories, to find opportunities for single product high explosive power, it still has to be Douyin:

After the single product explodes, the brand can then layout distribution through small and medium-sized influencers for long-term operation, or rely on overall (shelf e-commerce, private domain, offline) to harvest overflow traffic, leveling the overall business or even turning it positive.

1. Stable business scale: Due to Douyin's huge traffic pool and relatively stable advertising system, a brand's GMV can still be stable within a certain range at a certain time period, meaning the company has room to operate more refined operations in the overall domain, such as promoting profitable products, opening new channels, and expanding new audiences.

2. Building strength for the brand (note, it is building strength, not being able to build a brand on Douyin alone, which will be explained later), building strength includes three aspects:

(1) Brand awareness: Enhance awareness by promoting products, making the target users remember you, and then the brand can tell stories, create events, and build founder IPs, making it easier to communicate with users: they are not facing a blank sheet, but a familiar face.

(2) Multi-product matrix: Many brands on Douyin mainly focus on single product explosions first, and then through live streaming rooms and store broadcast matrix, they can further convert single product traffic into brand traffic: expanding from single product awareness to category awareness, scene awareness, and audience awareness.

(3) Content power: In the process of love-hate relationship with Douyin, operators and teams can continuously deepen their understanding: what kind of content can truly touch users. "Understanding content behind understanding users", content power can not only be reused on other platforms, but also be very helpful in breaking through user groups and developing new products for the brand.

In plain language: being in a relationship with you makes me understand myself, my attractiveness, and value more and more. When this part is internalized as my own ability, it can also be reused in other intimate relationships, increasing the chances of success. (Talking about business, business, a metaphor, not recommended to do this in real life).

Next, let's talk about specific methods, combining the output of the full-day course "Douyin Full-Chain Brand Marketing Method" by Maoketing and our team's attempts from 2020 to now, summarizing the following 9 "playboy-style" routines:

1. Find the product form that "suits their preferences";

2. Cultivate the "heartthrob" template;

3. Collect "backup plans";

4. Tread on multiple boats;

5. Give up the ambiguous period (A3), seize real gold and silver (A4);

6. Be good at calculations, achieve big things with little money;

7. Just listen to the newbies laugh;

8. Flowers bloom inside the wall and fragrance outside the wall;

9. Find yourself.

(Thanks to Luo Ao, Li Jingjing, Shuai Shuai, and Teacher Song Wei for their unconditional sharing.)

Step 1: Find the product form that "suits their preferences"

Is there a shortcut on Douyin?

Yes.

The first step is not content, nor traffic, but products: cater to their preferences, choose products that Douyin likes:

1. X crowd + hot explosive products.

Explosive single products will become popular again in special crowds, for example, if mosquito repellent is popular, children's mosquito repellent also has a good chance.

2. Cross-category elements + products.

Adding unexpected cross-category elements to old products often has a miraculous effect. For example, a certain sanitary napkin brand that became popular on Douyin borrowed probiotic elements from "food supplements" and applied them to sanitary napkins, emphasizing bacterial balance and health antibacterial functions.

3. X seasonal elements + single products.

In the field of content e-commerce, seasonal influence is more significant because it has a greater sensory impact on users. For example, promoting cold sensation cups in summer.

4. New form + old function.

You are still you, but with a different appearance, which brings new attraction to this scumbag on Douyin.

The new form includes the product name (very important), packaging, and product appearance combination. Best friend machines and children's learning tablets are typical examples.

5. Professional household version replacement.

8-character tension ropes, household wormwood patches, all belong to this category, lightening the equipment originally found in gyms and massage parlors so that users can use them at home.

To elaborate a bit more, what does it mean for a platform to like a product? Ultimately, it is a product that is widely appealing and easy for the masses to buy.

As the platform that currently occupies the longest user time and the widest user base, Douyin represents the most common traits:

• Parents all feel more at ease with "children's exclusive" products, which is an extension of habits related to clothing, food, housing, and transportation;

• Human nature is lazy and won't delve into whether children's mosquito repellent has any ingredients or not. They will also consider "best friend machines" and "extra-large mobile displays" as two completely different species;

• Sensory impulses triggered by seasonal changes will continuously prompt people to make purchases: wanting to look beautiful and go on dates in spring, and using filters for "coolness" when the weather is hot...

Quoting a sentence from "People-Oriented Business Review":

"All success in this world is built on 'you fighting against your personal inertia to cater to the inertia of user groups.'"

Step 2: "Heartthrob" cultivation template

On Douyin, brands/high unit price vs. white-label/low unit price have different strategies for creating "explosive models."

For brands or relatively high unit prices, they generally adopt a marketing model from high to low:

(1) Head KOL special session or grass planting (profit-driven sales);

(2) Mid-tier KOL cooperation (tightening mechanism);

(3) Attracting tail-end KOLs for active cooperation (profit-making).

The underlying logic is that the selection logic of head, mid-tier, and tail-end KOLs varies: The top section values brand and GMV more, so well-known brands or high-priced products have a certain selection advantage. For new product launches, there also needs to be strong purchasing momentum.

Of course, brands inevitably need to sacrifice profits, offer more discounts, and even spend money on influencer endorsements.

The middle section tends to follow trends, with certain profit requirements, but it's not as difficult to negotiate as the top section. Mechanisms can be tightened to try to break even.

After these waves, as the product gains popularity, a large number of tail-end KOCs are actively attracted to cooperate, allowing for large-scale pure commission distribution, tiered rewards/gifts/endorsements, and establishing a mechanism that benefits the brand itself as much as possible to maximize profit recovery.

For white-label or low-priced products, a marketing model from low to high is more suitable:

(1) Niche influencer short video distribution for sales, polishing explosive material and scripts;

(2) Replicating popular content in self-broadcast rooms and influencer channels to further increase sales and popularity;

(3) Collaborating with multiple middle or top-tier influencers to break through the circle.

Top-tier influencers have certain requirements for brands and GMV: in the early stages of a product launch, white-label products are difficult to be selected. Even if recommended, many users just want to take advantage of discounts without a basic recognition of the product, let alone develop a favorable impression. Therefore, it's best to logically promote products from low to high, continuously accumulating A3 user groups and a large amount of material in the process to improve the efficiency of self-broadcasting in the store and alleviate cash flow pressure.

During the process, more KOCs can be used to naturally promote the product and increase its authentic reputation.

Mastering "inferior" products requires insight into human nature. The essence of these two templates is to use the mindsets and interests of different influencers, combined with platform recommendation mechanisms, to create their own explosive products.

Step Three: Collecting "Backup Plans"

On Douyin, building your own content material library is crucial: to improve seeding, short videos, and live streaming efficiency.

Where does the material come from? It's important to have the habit of collecting "material backup plans" in daily life.

1. Collaborate with influencer celebrities to obtain slice authorizations.

Which authorizations to obtain, which ones can be skipped, and which ones are even collaborations for the sake of authorization?

静静 provided an answer:

• High-exposure celebrities + well-known familiar faces, such as Jin Xing, Li Ruotong, Sheren Tang;
• High-reputation influencers + nationally recognized influencers, such as Zi An, Lao Ba Ce Ping.

芋艿 reminds: Influencers who sell products purely based on mechanisms (low prices, gifts), regardless of their influence, authorizations can be skipped.

2. Find your own traffic password.

In Qianchuan, find potential explosive products through consumption, clicks, and conversions; in Xingtu, you can find seeding explosive products through hot recommendations, traffic acquisition costs, and conversion costs.

3. Puzzle-like materials.

If further refined, whether in Yuntu or Qianchuan's backend, you can find the highlights of corresponding materials, such as interaction peaks, click peaks. These high points of content segments and shots can be reorganized, collected, and recombined to create multiple explosive products.

4. Best matching model for people, goods, and scenes.

There are two approaches, positive and negative, both can be used to attract customers and break through the circle:

• Using scenarios to find people: When promoting content or seeding recommendations, by defining different combinations of audience groups (various intersections and unions), find the most matching audience group with the content for the highest conversion efficiency. As long as the audience penetration rate is low, there will continue to be opportunities.

• Using people to find scenarios: Based on the current target profile, break it down into fine granularity, find the content preferences and popular materials of this part of the audience, and break down the core content as a hook to attract them.

Step Four: Stepping on N boats

In the past two years, most brands have been frantically building a store-broadcast matrix on Douyin. The reason is: unprecedented competition and internal competition. If you don't build a matrix, the traffic in the search scene may be taken by competitors. Conversely, if you build matrices for different segmented categories and products, you may still reach the audience of categories and competitors.

Douyin matrices can be divided into the following types:

1. Diversified type: Mainly based on vertical product lines or major single products, such as Xiaomi having its own live broadcast rooms for each category.

2. Blue V + store-broadcast type: Employees' personal accounts establish live broadcast rooms in batches, providing mechanism prices comparable to benchmark influencers, repeatedly reaching the target users. For example, Xueersi lets its teachers open review live broadcast rooms.

3. Regional type: Building store-broadcast matrices according to different regional agents and stores.

4. Depth type: Apparel brands can differentiate between regular price and discounts, while beauty brands can create different live broadcast rooms based on product introductions and makeup tutorials.

Step Five: Abandoning the ambiguous period (A3) and seizing real gold and silver (A4)

How to run campaigns on Douyin? The answer is: create festivals in your own live broadcast rooms.

On the Douyin platform, in order to break through the false prosperity of A3 as much as possible (the pie Douyin draws for you), invest in real results. The idea of creating festivals is to start from A4 (the theme of your own live broadcast room) to drive overall advertising, seeding, and influencer collaborations.

For example, if the theme of the store's own live broadcast room is the back-to-school season, around this theme, influencers promote and create content around "back-to-school gear," using small blue words (direct store live broadcast rooms) to connect to star recommendations and search directly. The traffic steadily reaches the A4 audience in the live broadcast room, and influencers' distribution and store-broadcast matrices also revolve around the "back-to-school season" theme, sharing popular material for traffic diversion.

Step Six: Achieving big results with small investments

We all know that Douyin is a complete money-eating beast, but is it possible to achieve big results with small investments?

For example, there are two methods for influencer seeding:

1. Find small accounts of top influencers (with a high chance of going viral and endorsement effect).

2. Reuse videos of influencers on both Douyin and Xiaohongshu platforms (shoot one video, publish on both platforms).

Firstly, Xiaohongshu is vigorously promoting video content, and the skewed traffic it provides is very obvious. Secondly, the cost of reuse (publishing on both platforms) is discounted, making it more cost-effective.

Step Seven: Only listen to the laughter of newcomers

Douyin is the fastest and easiest platform to move on.

Whether it's content, influencers, traffic, or products, everything operates quickly under the baton of efficiency first, magnifying the underlying human nature of loving novelty and getting tired of the old:

For brands, new products are also key elements to leverage traffic and sales, including acquiring new customers, repeat purchases from existing customers, increasing sales volume, improving seeding efficiency, and leveraging influencer collaborations What kind of new products are more suitable for promotion on Douyin?

1. Pricing strategy of 1 to 2 times.

As we mentioned before, Wei Zhe's 2x pricing strategy is still effective on the Douyin platform:

If you want to promote high-end products, the price should be at least doubled;

If you are currently selling mid to high-end products and want to expand to a lower-end audience, divide the price by 2.

By introducing a new price range, you can attract a group of customers that you couldn't reach before. Doubling the price can reach the mid to high-end customers that were previously unreachable, while dividing the price by 2 can reach the mid to low-end customers.

If you have the ability to be the "price leader" in a certain category, you are most likely to be the first to benefit from breaking the circle.

On Douyin, the platform's system for stratifying consumer purchasing power is very mature, which can help brands quickly position themselves and capture more high-end and low-end target markets.

2. Diversified product SKUs.

Segmented products for different groups, high-profit products, multi-product combinations, etc. This part goes without saying, whether it's self-broadcasting or reaching out to broadcasters, there is greater operational space with differentiated mechanisms.

3. New products for the same scenario, same target audience, and same advantage in the supply chain.

New products in the same scenario have greater advantages on Douyin: leveraging previous content advantages, you only need to position the new product as a new solution. For example, in a weight loss scenario, replacing protein bars with chicken breasts, or promoting sunscreen sunglasses after promoting outdoor sports gear;

Creating new products for the same target audience revolves around creating new products for the core target audience. For example, selling outdoor down jackets in winter and swimsuits to the same group of users in summer; XiaoDu offers different products to the same group of moms: smart screens for the elderly, smart devices for themselves, and learning devices for their children.

New products with the same advantage in the supply chain can not only control costs but also reinforce consumers' recognition of the product's advantages. The specific choice of product categories can also be based on popular or potential categories on Douyin.

Step Eight: Bloom domestically and smell sweet internationally

If there is one key phrase for brands on Douyin this year, it is: "Don't just focus on Douyin".

The platform won't say this, agents won't say this, and Douyin training institutions certainly won't say this.

But the biggest problem with going all-in on Douyin is: you get stuck in the cycle of investing where there is traffic, and not investing where there isn't, getting used to the immediate ROI effect, not having the money or energy to do anything else, and relying solely on the platform.

There have been cases of many brands falling on Taobao in the past, and Douyin burns much more money than Taobao did back then.

Recently, some brands that started off well are now facing rapid declines, even though the ROI is still acceptable, the visible market share is declining.

The right way is: use the platform to achieve your own success, even if you have to pay tuition fees, but how much you pay and for how long, that's up to you.

As we mentioned earlier, as an accelerator for business startups, after Douyin promotes a product, it needs to quickly establish a foothold in the entire domain. As Mr. Song Wei said, a key part of operating in the local life sector of Douyin is: diverting traffic to private domain to retain customer assets and reaching users frequently for marketing.

Things to do "outside the wall":

1. Handling overflow traffic: Establish a good e-commerce layout and differentiated product display, creating a moat while also having the opportunity to make real profits

2. Private domain customer asset precipitation: Some liquor brands are very active on Douyin, but only as a new customer channel. Sales are strengthened in the private domain to generate orders.

3. Building the core of a "de-Douyin" brand: The CEO of Wang Xiaolu mentioned in a sharing session that after several years of content e-commerce, they found that they couldn't "cultivate a brand" because in the field of content e-commerce, people usually have a feeling of "passive ordering." Either they couldn't resist the sensory stimulation, or because of the low prices. However, after coming to their senses from these "non-active behaviors," they might regret placing an order and shift the blame to the product, not to mention any positive feelings.

How to build the core of a brand, see the final step.

Step Nine: Rediscover Yourself

Douyin is a double-edged sword. On one hand, various massive materials greatly enrich the brand's scene associations, continuously stimulate user demand, and improve marketing efficiency; on the other hand, it can also confuse users' impressions of the brand: Who are you really?

Recently, I chatted with a friend in the food industry, and they also faced this dilemma. Their brand relied on the first-mover advantage to rush to the top on Douyin, but when competitors kept emerging, their products inevitably entered the price comparison pool. Where is the brand positioned, and why can consumers actively choose it? It seems like there is a lack of a memorable point.

So, to achieve this "point" and clarify your positioning, what should you do?

For brands that have grown on content marketing platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu, it is easy for everyone to think of finding a positioning from the "scene" and becoming a scene brand, such as associating outdoor light sports with **, or workplace dressing with **.

However, in reality, the difficulty of being a scene brand is much higher than imagined:

To occupy the scene's mind, you either have to spend a lot of money (similar to burning money in category positioning) or you must have an irreplaceability that others cannot match.

Otherwise, why can't other similar products enter this scene? And no tickets are required.

I know that most brands don't have money to spend on advertising, so how do you design your "irreplaceability"?

1. Take the recognized capabilities of the product as the key elements for the scene to be established.

Note, it's not exclusive, it's not exclusive, it's the recognized capabilities.

Who you are is not important, it's important that everyone thinks who you are.

For example, Xiaodu uses the wake-up word "Xiaodu Xiaodu" to activate the device in any scene. In fact, can't other products be voice-controlled? Yes, bigger brands can. But what's important is that everyone thinks Baidu's AI is powerful, and voice dialogue is Xiaodu's killer feature.

2. Build a composite scene (where you all have advantages, but none are core advantages).

Compared to a single scene, the entry barrier for competitors is significantly higher.

For example, it's not difficult to find a place to buy furniture, but if you want a place to buy furniture and have a good meal, you'll think of IKEA; if you want to eat Western food that's cheap and has a nice environment, you'll go to Pizza Hut. The recent popular "small town tourism + concert-watching" overlay model is also a typical composite scene.

After establishing yourself in the scene, you must continuously strengthen the idea that "you are the most suitable brand in the scene": 1. Be an educator in the scene.

The brand must confidently convey to users: for some reason, I must be in this scene. Of course, there should be reasons, the expression should be vivid and convincing.

2. Be a cinema in the scene.

Repeat, repeat, repeat, constantly appearing in every content material.

3. Extend the scene story outward.

Returning to the previous question: why can you occupy this scene instead of others? In addition to the product itself, at the brand level and user level, stories related to the scene should also be told:

Brand story: Develop around "why the product is the first choice in this scene";

User story: Focus on "creating specific and personalized scene experiences" to inspire users' narrative enthusiasm.

In summary: "Being worse than Douyin" essentially means acting faster, knowing how to please algorithms, understanding influencers, content and traffic routines, using rules without being bound by rules, rational resource allocation, understanding one's own needs, and having the qualification for independent existence earlier.

Finally, let's talk about something else. The level of internal competition in Douyin is actually not very suitable for individuals starting from scratch, whether it is building personal influence in the consumer market or running a small business in the business market. Comparatively, Xiaohongshu (RED) and podcasts are platforms that are relatively friendly to newcomers:

Xiaohongshu is competitive, but the difficulty is manageable. From my own experience, even with text and images (easier to get started), there are great opportunities: to prove this point, I spent 15 minutes the day before yesterday writing a viral article (in comparison, it took me over two weeks to write this article for the official account), establishing a good persona and content, the interaction and increase in fans are still considerable.

Viral articles can still bring good interaction and increase in fans.

Podcasts still have a relatively low total content volume, so they are particularly friendly to newcomers during the welfare period (Xiaoyu gives great traffic support to new accounts with less than 3000 fans), and the long-tail effect is obvious, with high audience quality. Take advantage of the time before it gets too competitive.

Xiaohongshu and podcasts are the last opportunities for personal IP, and this year is also the last opportunity for Xiaohongshu and podcasts.

Yumai and Maoshuo, Author: Lan Lan