Mai Qing

Background

Not long ago,I shared my ideas with the insiders during a brand growth forum.At the time,not surprisingly,I received many questions that were often asked: Without financing nor big money,how can a brand grow rapidly? The repurchase is not bad,but it is not working to attract new customers.Can CRM grow only depending on the regular customer? A lot of brands put in hundreds of thousands of money on beauty influencers on internets every month.Why the conversion rate is so bad? My company's scale is large,basically speaking,but the profit rate is not good.How to improve efficiency? I have no problem with growth,but inventory management is too difficult.It seems to make money.In fact,it is all in stock.How to enhance the uniqueness of my brand? If I'm unique enough,will my brand grow? Should I do the offline first,or do the online first? Why do many cosmetics bosses have no theory at all,but can make the brand grow continuously? Why are many brands not differentiated at all,even madly plagiarized,but still growing rapidly? Why are many small and beautiful beauty brands unique,but difficult to grow?

These problems are very common,and in recent years,there are more brands that have encountered such problems.Though many leaders of the brand is sharing the good news in their moments on WeChat,celebrating the peaceful situation,but in fact,deep inside no one is not worried about these three core issues: How to achieve growth? How to be efficient? How to be persistent?

Moreover,the bigger the brand is,the more anxious we are.Because we do not just have the pressure of revenue growth or market share growth,but also more pressure from complex R＆D,supply chain,finance,personnel,and even financing and cash flow management.

Truly,this refers to your own brand,not a brand you are managing for others.After all,managing one’s own brands or others' are two different things totally.The former will lead to true anxiety while the latter only causes theoretical anxiety.

Let’s go back to the core questions and discuss them one by one.

How can the brand grow?

Let’s return to the basic formula of brand growth:

[Formula 1]Brand sales growth = number of customers * per customer transaction * purchase frequency

[Formula 2]Brand market share growth = brand growth rate

Many companies,when they facing these two formulas,the first reaction is,I have to spend energy on all of it! On the one hand,they want to constantly have new customers;on the other hand,they want to promote old customers to continuously increase per customer transaction.At the same time,they also want to increase the frequency of purchases of old customers.If all they spend the same amount of energy to do all of it,in fact,for the marketing department,the workload is very large,and every day they'll be busy with trivial matters and have no time to catch up with the main part of their business.This is the root of many brands that are more and more ineffective.More important is that in reality,there are not many loyal customers at all,and some are more switched customers and light customers.

For example,on the dressing table of the girls,there is absolutely not just one product from only one brand.Almost all of them are dazzling with different brands mixed together.Even if the skin care product is a full set of brands,the makeup will definitely not be only one brand.This is a common fact that we found when we did consumer surveys.

What’s interesting is that many girls’ dressing tables are equipped with high-end,low-end,midend,domestic,Japanese and Korean brands,as well as European and American goods,which are not as same as we imagined.Because “having choices” is a happy thing,“having even more choices” is a thing that makes women crazy.Therefore,instead of spending more than 50% of your energy to promote old customers to buy,it is better to spend more time trying to get old customers to introduce new ones.Furthermore,the customer’s per customer transaction and purchase frequency will not suddenly have essential changes and significant differences in the same category between different brands.That is to say,even if the per customer transaction and frequency increase,the different brands in the same category are promoted together,there is no significant difference between the brands.This means that efforts to improve the per customer transaction and purchase frequency of the old customers,in fact,does not have an intrinsic effect for your “market share”.

Therefore,even if the sales volume growth caused by the increase in the price and frequency of the old customers,there will be no significant impact on the market share.In fact,many marketing advertisements that stimulate the per customer transaction and purchase frequency of customers are essentially doing public welfare marketing of “welfare industry”.For example,Amore’s BB cream marketing is actually for female customers,no matter which brand they choose,start to use BB cream.Therefore,what the brand is truly controllable and should put 50% energy or more on,is the “number of customers”,and constantly “attracting new customers” through the penetration strategy.Only by continuously attracting new users can we stimulate the continuing growth of the brand.Even if you want to make a loyal customer program CRM,please put the main goal in “old customers introduce new customers.”

Efficiency or scale: is there a conflict between the two?

To be honest,if you have money,then you don’t have the needs to think about efficiency.Let’s talk about scale first.Without money,you have to think about efficiency first.Of course,regardless of efficiency,the drawback of only doing scale is not persistent and unstable.After all,a brand without internal strength will collapse when “winter is coming”.Do scale and efficiency conflict with each other? Not necessarily in theory,but in reality it is possible.In theory,brands that grow faster tend to pursue efficiency.

However,in reality,the middle-level marketers often pursue the efficiency with“excessive force”,which leads to too data-oriented,too concentrated on creative,too much to pursue “precision” while ignoring reality.As a result,the speed is slow,while the scale is backfiring.To be creative,we need to strive for excellence;but if you want to grow,it will be difficult to keep being that.Being too refined will definitely affect the scale.

There is also a situation where people don’t pursue efficiency but only scale,which causes the problem of money wasted.Many Internet companies with investments behind them will soon be able to have new users,but it is difficult to retain them or to activate “silent users”.This is because of the speed at which efficiency cannot keep up with the scale.

In fact,this is a very classic elementary school math problem.The principle of “drain off water while pumping”.When your brand and user scale expansion cannot keep up with efficiency,there will be a “growth bottleneck”.No matter how high the efficient is,it will still be difficult to have explosive growth;when your brand’s efficiency cannot keep up with the scale,it is easy to appear waste on money.

Therefore,whether it relies on large penetration for the scale,or rely on efficiency because of lack of money if everyone can survive this,their final goal will be the same - to be efficient an to have scale;to be scaled,you must be efficient.

It is difficult to be fully balanced between the two,because we only have limited energy to focus on one aspect.Even if a gigantic like Alibaba,it is difficult to do high efficiency.Therefore,in reality,the truth behind the brand growth is not a perfect picture which PR manuscript shared on WeChat.In fact,it is all the “chicken feathers” - this is the normality of life ＆ brand,we all need to explore in chaos.We need to go forward,touch the stone across the river,keep debugging,keep learning,and constantly improving.

How to improve efficiency?

Many peers who come out of the big brand market department to private enterprises or start a business will not be acclimatized.The core factors are: After being separated from the high potential of big brands,big platforms,and big funds,it is like a person who has been pushed to swim in the nude on the shore.Without water at all,how can they enjoy swimming? Therefore,objectively,they won’t naturally be “acclimatized”.I am good at spending money,and I am good at the operation of resources on the big platform.I used to have a bunch of agencies and colleagues to help me think about creativity and pondering “efficiency”.What should I do now without everything?

Indeed,in the process of brand growth,there is a truth that makes people desperate: the existence of dividing value.The scale of marketing penetration,or the scale of channel penetration will only be highlighted,and the brand will grow exponentially when it reached the “dividing value”.Before that,it is difficult to explode rapidly.So brands which can't do big penetration are forced to ponder efficiency.Of course,even if it becomes bigger,it will still tread different paths that lead to the same destination,“efficiency”,otherwise the cost of growth will be too great.

How to improve marketing efficiency and have more efficient access to users? The answer is divided into two parts:

First of all,the efficiency of marketing.Distinctiveness constructs “uniqueness”.Screening out the right (high potential in visibility ＆ high uniqueness) brand unique assets,which is the core foundation of marketing.Linkage creates “association”.Design and create marketing materials that carry “unique assets”,reinforcing the relevance of these unique assets and brand names in customer perceptions,avoiding “bad advertising”.Consistence remains “unified”.Don’t change often,especially the unique assets.Media execution checks delivery,including the way,frequency,and the effect.

Second,the efficiency of the channel.Set up a good team with dear division of work.The general internal sales team is divided into two types: Sell in team;Sell through service team.Doing a good job of basic channel efficiency factors,in fact,the method is still old,not new,such as the commonly used DSPM sales rules of P＆G is to improve channel efficiency.You need to adjust the operational details at any time as the new channel changes.Focusing on channel marketing.Because only channel infiltration can’t continue the brand growth,the brand must have both marketing and penetration,because customers need marketing.Many customers already have a “purchase list” before entering the store,it is difficult to change their mind in “the last mile”,and too much desperate marketing will damage their fondness towards brand.Channel providers need marketing.Channel providers also need marketing to increase their confidence in the brand.In particular,for the brand that must rely on the offline salesperson.The salesperson must have some certain confidence to stimulate terminal sales.

No matter in which method to improve efficiency,it is ultimately done by people.Therefore,people are the key.To improve the efficiency of the brand,we must start with good management of the team.

How can we be “persistent”?

There are two key elements: efficiency and products.These two are not a parallel relationship,but a causal relationship.Good products will naturally improve efficiency,while bad products will inevitably waste efficiency.Therefore,the key to the brand’s persistent growth is to return to product quality and product innovation.Though product quality and product innovation,it will not necessarily stimulate brand growth immediately,they are definitely key factors for continued brand growth.

Answers to the questions mentioned before

Without financing nor big money,how can it grow rapidly?

There is no shortcut to the rapid growth of the brand,which is simply “large penetration”.It includes “marketing penetration” and “channel penetration”.Of course,the premise is “brand uniqueness” and “product”.

So,if you want your brand to grow fast,there will only be two methods: Either,your brand or product is “extremely unique”,which is a self-contained property,and it’s for the general public rather than a small group;either you have to rely on great penetration,but not necessarily on money.There are many other ways,such as: WeChat businessinfiltration method,or the acquaintance relationship.This test is not about capability,but face-bility.Resource penetration method: if you have “high potential” resources (such as government),you can use these resources directly to promote.If not,then there is really no way to grow quickly,you can only do the right thing now,and move forward step by step with high efficiency.

The repurchase is not bad,but it is not working to attract new customers.Can CRM grow only depending on the regular customer?

As mentioned in the text above,if you want to be larger,you must rely on new ones instead of old customers.Therefore,it is necessary to dig into the reasons for the difficulty of having new ones: Is it because that there is no money to do big penetration? Or is the brand itself not unique enough to affect conversion? You will always find out the reason.You will always find specific ways to solve the problem.In the end,you will often find that you will get stuck at “large penetration”.It is difficult to rely on only the old customer CRM,unless you use WeChat for communication and channel.

A lot of brands put in hundreds of thousands of money on beauty influencers on internets every month.Why the conversion rate is so bad?

This is because of the existence of dividing values.It is difficult to reach a certain conversion without investing the money to a certain extent.Therefore,many brands are now referring to the strategy of segmentation.That is to say,when a sum of money is too less to put in a whole,it is possible to concentrate on one area and one circle first.

My company's scale is large,basically speaking,but the profit rate is not good.How to improve efficiency?

The answer goes to the efficiency improvement method.But behind this,it is still rely on the factor of people.If there is only a method without reliable internal talent or external cooperation team,it is actually difficult to conduct.On the contrary,it will only become more and more wasteful of money,and there is no shortage of people who feather their own nest.

I have no problem with growth,but inventory management is too difficult.It seems to make money.In fact,it is all in stock.

Generally speaking,brand growth has never been only a matter of “marketing” or “sales”,but rather a complicated and integrated trading issue involving marketing,sales,finance,supply chain,research and development,public relations,and even personnel management.

Nowadays,what we've encountered with,maybe it is an inventory problem.Sometimes it will be public relations problems,and sometimes is a human resource problem.It is not easy to be as a big brand.There is no perfect solution for inventory management,because even if you hire a dedicated “Demand” talent at a high salary,it is difficult to predict the data,forecast inventory and orders every day.Therefore,large enterprises have a certain inventory scrap rate.While for small brands,it’s very painful.

Therefore,for small and medium-sized brands,try not to apply the big brand approach.Finding a person who have the comprehensive understanding on the market,sales,and demand to manage.If you can't find it,you can do it yourself.

How to enhance the uniqueness of my brand? If I'm unique enough,will my brand grow?

Brand uniqueness is one of the prerequisites for the efficiency of large penetration,but it is not a sufficient condition for growth.If it is not unique,it depends on the money.It may also grow,but it is not sustainable.If it is unique enough,but it does not rely on large penetration,it is still difficult to grow.HBG Volume 2 contains detailed and unique interpretations on the asset,but unfortunately,it has not been published in China.When we design brand uniqueness,there is actually a basic premise that we must proceed from the irrational ordinary consumers rather than the creative matters.

Should I do the offline first,or do the online first?

It depends on your own resources and expertise.If you are offline,and you are better at offline,you can do offline.If you are better at online,you should go online first.

In the end,the destination will be the same,and the online and offline will eventually converge.

Why do many cosmetics heads have no theory at all,but can make the brand grow continyously?

This is because that he knows the common sense of large penetration.What he thinks in his mind is simple - let more people know,remember and buy his product.Therefore,instead of a lot of fancy patterns,they chose direct growth of the essence,the simplest way and return to common sense.

Why are many brands not differentiated at all,even madly plagiarized,but still growing rapidly?

It’s very simple,because differentiation is not a condition for brand growth,but uniqueness.Although it is not differentiated,it is unique enough,and because of the help of large penetration,it can quickly expand its scale,allowing those customers to know him first,not the object imitates him.What you do first will not necessarily be considered by the customer to be the first in the market.Instead,although he is copying you,those brands that first touch the customer will be remembered by the customer.

Why are many small and beautiful beauty brands unique,but difficult to grow?

This is because of lack of large penetration.Here,I want to reiterate it again,everyone has different definitions of their own lives and different definitions of brand goals.As a result,the brands they make are different.There are so many small and beautiful craftsman brands in Japan,and it is also very good;there are so many oligopolistic brands,and they are also doing well.