There are millions of roads in the world, all leading to Rome, but there are also dead ends. Xiaomi has walked many roads and also walked through dead ends. Not all methods that others use well are suitable for you, nor are methods that others say are useless not suitable for you. So how to choose? In the early days of opening a store, you can only try any method, not for one day or two days, not for one week or two weeks, but for at least one month or two months.
Any method must be done to the extreme, not simple imitation, not superficial engineering, not formalism, but drilling down to the bottom.
They all say that business is difficult to do, and that everything is difficult at the beginning. In fact, the difficulty lies in the process of exploration, which may be a huge waste or may result in no gain. But as long as we do the above two things and get through this bleak stage, there may be a ray of light in the darkest period. Of course, you must first make any preparations for this stage, including psychological, financial, time arrangements, family life arrangements, and physical.
Okay, I won’t say much more about this. Just a brief reminder so that everyone has an idea. Let’s get to the point.
Promotion strategy sketch
What is a sketch? It is a large, all-round blueprint, just like building a house. You must first design the structural frame, waterways, circuits, furniture placement, ventilation and other basic elements.
In the same way, the promotion of Taobao stores is also a complex project that must be designed in advance, including promotion channels, promotion content, promotion personnel, time schedule, etc. If you only consider one or two aspects, your strategy is bound to fail, at least not fully.
1. Promotion channels
Xiaomi has learned a lot from countless excellent posts, so many that I can't remember them. It's like entering a maze. Even if I take notes, I can't figure it out. I don't know where to start, and I have no way to execute it. I think this is also a problem that any novice seller will face.
Therefore, Xiaomi made a simple summary, which can basically be included in these channels:
1. Free channels within Taobao.com
This includes posting replies in the community, participating in activities organized by gangs, and using silver coins to grab advertising space to promote stores or single products.
(1) Post a reply
Everyone knows that the purpose is to show your face more, let others remember you, add you as a friend or even go to your store directly. To achieve this, there is a basic requirement, which is that the quality of posts and replies must be high. Just writing a few lines of words at random and saying things that are simple, familiar to everyone, uninspiring, unconstructive, lacking in systematic content, or just filling in the blanks is a waste of time. It’s not as good as Go and write a few more sentences about the product description.
Regarding posting, Xiaomi believes that when it comes to exploring store operations, it should strike while the iron is hot and write some posts about Taobao experience to attract the attention of some novices and cultivate customers from these novices. When the reputation reaches a certain amount, you can focus on product expertise to attract the attention of buyers. It will basically be easier for buyers who come at this time to close a deal.
As for how to post good posts and reply to good posts, there are actually two words: use your heart. How to be careful? Use your brain! How to use your brain? While spending time studying, think about how to apply what you have learned, while looking for solutions to the problems you encounter, write more specific and detailed posts for others to see, and while reading other people's posts, express your own opinions to the poster. Only in this way can you gain the recognition and respect of others, and attract the attention of some readers. You will have more opportunities to communicate with strangers, and you will become the first choice when they need your products.
Many people say that this has no effect. Even if you post the best posts every day, how many transactions can you bring?
Then Xiaomi wants to ask you, if you sit at home and wait, how many transactions can you bring?
Posting a reply is not to get a deal immediately, but to establish a network of people who trust you. This is the most basic thing that must be done in any business. If you're not willing to do that, how do you build your network? Post an advertisement? Or door-to-door sales? Either way, if you want. But there is no need to argue which method is actively accepted by others. Which way is closer to closing a deal, whether you find others or others find you? Haha, I won’t go into details about Xiaomi. I’ll just tell you one fact: all our current customers at Cuishi Lin Jade are readers and friends from the post, and they all actively added Xiaomi.
In addition, posting posts can also increase your chances of participating in gang activities. Please see the explanation below.
(2) Promotional activities organized by gangs
For example, flash sales and auctions often appear on the homepage and other category pages, and they can easily bring traffic. Xiaomi once participated in a flash sale. This opportunity was obtained by earning points by posting posts. The Experience Changtanju gang often holds such post points events. At the same time, you can also sign up to participate in event volunteer work and earn points. Finally, It provides flash sale advertising spaces based on your points.
Most products are suitable for such activities because there are many quantities of the same product. But the products of Cuishi Lin Jade are very special, and each one is unique. This is how natural jade is, so the possibility of us participating in the event is very small.
There are also many promotional activities organized by unofficial promotion gangs. Although the effect of each time may not be very obvious, it is good to bring a small number of potential customers each time. If you add up, there will be many potential customers over time. A friend who often visits has rang the doorbell in your home.
(3) Use silver coins to grab advertising space
At the bottom of the community homepage, you can see the channel to grab advertising space. Once you enter, you will know how to operate it.
Here, Xiaomi wants to emphasize the source of the silver coins, which is closely related to the post. A certain amount of silver coins will be awarded if you get a featured post or if the post has a large number of comments. The more silver coins you have, the greater your chances of grabbing advertising space and the more times you will do so.
(4) Friendly links
Each store has 35 friendly link positions, which means you can exchange friendly links with 35 stores, so it is best to choose a store with high reputation and large traffic.
Of course, if the friendly link position is full, you can also edit more friendly links through the custom area, but the action will be slightly slower, and the effect will be the same.
You can see how Xiaomi does it in Cuishilin Jade's store, and you can tell at a glance.
Taobao is also constantly introducing other ways to link to each other. Xiaomi uses Taobao display service. When other people’s products are displayed on your product page, your products are also displayed on other people’s pages. Currently, it is There is a free trial. I don’t know what the charging method will be in the future. Based on my understanding of Taobao, it should not continue to be free.
2. Taobao’s internal charging channels
At present, the methods that everyone is familiar with are through trains, free gifts when purchases are made, matching packages, member discounts, etc.
Xiaomi will mainly talk about its views on through trains here, and not much else, because those are mainly interactions and promotions after customers enter the store.
Many people say that through trains are too expensive. This is undeniable. We have also experienced this, but we controlled it in time.
Under what circumstances does it cost money to operate a through train?
One is that the product is not in high volume, which means that you have a large number of click deductions but do not have a sufficient number of sales to support it, so the possibility of losing money is very high. The lack of quantity means that you may not have a lot of inventory in the first place, and you did not replenish the products in time when they were sold out. It may also be that the product itself is low in cost performance and uncompetitive. Although the number of clicks is large, the transaction rate is too low.
The second is that the product profit margin is too low. This needs no further explanation. That is to say, the profit you get from the products you sell is simply not enough for through-train click deductions.
Third, the competition is too fierce. If your industry, whether it is category bidding or keyword bidding, has been promoted to a very high level, then as a novice, you must be very cautious. This can only be confirmed by trying once and spending 500 yuan. Otherwise, you will not be able to see the current status of the bidding without entering the through train door.
Fourth, there is a problem with the keyword settings. If you bid based on the commonly used keywords recommended by the system, and the rankings are relatively high, then the number of clicks will definitely not be a problem, but the result will be that the fee is deducted so fast that you dare not believe. If you look at the customer's perspective and create more keywords that are commonly used but have relatively specific words, the competition may be much smaller, and there may even be no one to compete with you at all. If you set a cent or two, you can rank high. This way it won't burn too quickly.
Why did Cuishilin withdraw from the through train?
Because our products are unique, not high-volume, and the profit margin is too low. Although the competition is not very fierce, the keyword setting is still very scientific, the number of clicks is large and the deduction is not too much, but we are still losing money. So I can only exit. Therefore, Xiaomi’s experience is that product quantity and profit are the most basic conditions for entering the through train.
In addition, Taobao customers are also a good choice. As long as you ensure that you can still make a certain profit, set a certain proportion of commissions and let Taobao customers who specialize in earning commissions take the initiative to help you promote, you can Save a lot of effort, they are very resourceful and experienced.
However, most Taobao customers are picky and are not willing to do what ordinary online stores do. The main factors they consider when choosing a target are credibility, commission ratio, product sales, and product cost-effectiveness. Moreover, the importance of these four points is in descending order. In other words, even if your product is very cost-effective and the commission is not low, but the newly opened store does not have a good reputation, then the chance of being chosen by them is very small.
3. Free channels outside Taobao site
Such as various industry forums and communities with large traffic, such as Baidu Tieba, Baidu Zhiba, Tianya Community, Maopu Community, etc. I won’t list these too much. You can search for them in the search engine, or go to hao123 navigation to find one. Look, there are so many. Go in and apply for an account, find the corresponding forum, and post posts, mainly soft ones, otherwise they may be deleted and your account banned.
The content of posting these posts can be similar to the posts in the Taobao community, but there must be a difference, that is, you must try your best to tell others how to find you and your store in a hint way. After all, the Taobao community can find you through Wangwang and enter your store, but accounts in other forums do not have such a function.
For example, you can bring your store address, Wangwang name and other important contact information when setting up your personal information and signature.
The best way is to post high-quality original articles. Even if you add a store address to such an article, as long as you don't put a link, it can still pass the review of the administrator. They will sympathize with you for spending so much to write an original article. It’s understandable that you have time and energy to properly display the store address. After all, they all understand the principle of mutual benefit. If they are kinder, the path will be wider. This way of improving your credibility and traffic by helping others has a long-lasting effect. In addition to the website you contributed to, other websites will come over to collect and reprint it. This is exchanging your own skills for help from others.
Create a blog or even a blog group. There are no restrictions on advertising here, as long as the content is legal, except for a few awesome sites like ifeng.com. As long as you have enough original works, time and even manpower, this is a method that must be used. Although the results are not quick, they are long-lasting.
4. Charging channels outside Taobao site
(1) Independent mall
Because Baidu does not include Taobao stores, it is a pity to waste such good resources. If you want your products to be included in Taobao, one way is to spend a little money to build a small online mall yourself, so that it can be easily included in Baidu. The cost of an independent mall is mainly to rent servers and space, or hire technical personnel, and there are no other expenses. The cost also varies depending on the quality of the server and the size of the space.
But there is a flaw, that is, if an online mall does not have a big brand support, it will be deserted, and people who come in will not dare to buy your things, so you can add it to every product description page in the mall after it is included in Baidu. Add a link to enter the Taobao store to purchase. This link must be very obvious, so that customers can know at a glance that they can purchase in the Taobao store through Alipay.
(2) Advertising alliance
You can search for "advertising alliance". Alimama is one of them. It is the most direct and intelligent way to promote Taobao by directly using your Taobao account to log in and place ads.
When advertising in an ad network, you can choose to charge by clicks or pay by time. You can choose the category of the target website and even choose which website to place it on. The advertising alliance will give basic parameters such as the average daily traffic and general content of the website as a reference.
(3) Target delivery
Many product-related websites are relatively targeted, and the delivery effect will be better than casting the net over a large area. If you want to cast the net over a large area, shopping guide stations, navigation stations, and traffic statistics stations are all good choices, but they cost a lot. It is difficult to be directly proportional to the traffic of the target website. For example, if you choose a website with 10,000 traffic, the monthly advertising fee will be 300 yuan, but if you choose a website with 100,000 traffic, the advertising fee will not be 10 times 3,000 yuan, but may cost more than 10,000 yuan.
It takes a lot of time to find the target website and analyze the effect. The more the number is placed, the greater the workload, because it is impossible to ignore it wherever it is placed, and it must be carried out on many target websites. After screening, a small number of long-term projects with good results will be left, phased projects with mediocre results will be left, and those with poor results will not be considered for the time being.
After several months of trying, we need to analyze again, because different websites have different development paths, and their traffic is also brought by many promotion methods, which is also unstable. If they stop promotion, they will probably not have the original traffic. . In the same way, a website that did not have much traffic at the beginning may have developed well, and you can consider whether to launch it again.
(4) Traditional media
Needless to say, if you think newspapers, TV, radio, and outdoor media are helpful to you and can ensure you make money, you can also combine them. From small to large, gradually establish the role of online stores in traditional media. Brand status. Then you are really awesome.
2. Promotion plan
No matter what level you want to achieve, as long as you don’t have a try attitude and want to do well, no matter how many people there are, or even just one person, you must make a promotion plan, otherwise there will be no promotion and it will be difficult to continue the work. Sex, work without continuity will be ineffective.
The promotion plan is the core of the entire promotion strategy, just like the human mind, and execution is the limbs.
Promotion plans generally formulate a series of promotion measures in a timely manner, including annual plans, monthly plans, weekly plans, and daily plans.
The annual plan is basically a big framework, which is how much money you plan to invest in promotion within a year, what effect you want to achieve, that is, how much profit you want to achieve.
The monthly plan is more detailed than the annual plan. It involves what kind of promotional activities will be launched each month with what themes and what products are needed to support them.
The weekly plan is more detailed than the monthly plan. How many soft articles are completed every week, how many forums are posted to them, and how much traffic and transaction volume are brought.
The daily plan is the specific implementation arrangement of the weekly plan, what to do each day. The closer you get to the final execution level, the more difficult it is to plan and control. Because you will definitely encounter a lot of tedious things during the actual implementation process, which will give you enough reasons to change the original plan.
Therefore, we must make two or three different plans at the beginning, the most ideal, the second, and the third. Then make corrections according to specific changes during the implementation process. A complete plan must be formulated within a quarter, and then all tasks must be strictly performed during the implementation process.
If as the promotion progresses, the number of inquiries becomes larger and larger, and the business gets better and better, we will need to increase manpower accordingly. This must also be within the plan. We cannot be caught off guard when the time comes and find reasons to change the plan and reduce the tasks. This way, It's like regressing.
Our Cui Shi Lin Jade ( http://cui40.taobao.com ) plan is this: to turn losses into profits in the first year, invest 200,000 yuan, and use product profits to invest in promotion, which is about 60,000 to 100,000 yuan. Yuan. We arrange these expenses in independent shopping malls, express trains, Alimama, and step-by-step advertising.
As for the free promotion method, we use a small team of two people to implement it, which will be described by the promoters below.
3. Promotion personnel
At first, one person could do the things like product shelving, promotion, reception, and delivery.
But as the plan progresses, it will be necessary to gradually increase manpower and even establish a dedicated promotion team.
The simplest promotion team, which is what we at Cuishi Lin Jade currently use, is probably like this: one person writes articles specifically, that is me - Xiaomi, one article takes one to two days on average, both about products and Taobao operations. , mainly operated by Taobao in the early stage. Then, a dedicated person publishes soft articles, mainly on Taobao, and then selects several large external websites to publish them.
As the work progresses, we will also recruit talents, expand the scope of publishing, and interact with friends who reply, striving to strive for every friend who follows our posts to become our potential customers, gradually cultivate them into actual customers, and establish our reputation through them. Word of mouth drives the gradual expansion of the market.
If you want your online store to develop in a good direction, you must be prepared for corporate operations, expand personnel at the appropriate time, formulate systems, and complete various tasks as planned.
In addition, I would like to say a few more words. It is only a matter of time before Taobao operation becomes team operation. Don’t expect one person to support it. Otherwise, either the store will collapse or the people will collapse, and everything will be meaningless.
4. Promotion content
The promotion content is mainly based on the promotion plan. For example, what kind of special promotion activities do you plan to carry out during New Year's Day, Spring Festival, and Valentine's Day? You must consider which promotion channels to promote it through, and what is the form of promotion, soft articles? Hard advertising? If it’s a hard advertisement, is it a picture, text or video? As for pictures, are they dynamic or static? For videos, what kind of shots are used to express what kind of artistic conception?
These are very detailed issues. Even one advertising slogan may take you several days. A classic advertising slogan may be a flash of inspiration in half a second, or it may be from dozens or hundreds of That sentence distilled from creativity.
These must be done in advance, and try to form a unified style, so that others will know it is your advertisement at a glance, so as to achieve the effect of repeated stimulation and deepening impressions.
Don’t forget, promotion content is to serve sales. If you are a big brand, it can be a very empty image advertisement, but in most cases, you still have to filter it out to hit the key points of consumer psychology. Make them want to click in and take a look.
Any advertisement or soft article must be based on the needs of the audience, either the needs of consumers, which are nothing more than personality, cheapness, quality, and gifts, or content that is actually helpful to readers, such as seller experience, etc. wait.
Of course, Xiaomi's advertising must be different from ordinary products, because jade itself is about cultural connotation, which is far away from fashion and fashion, but closer to spirit and heart. Therefore, our advertising focuses on "gift giving" and "gifts". ”, “gratitude”, “reward” and “spiritual pursuit” are the appeal points.
Only after you have conducted an in-depth analysis of consumer needs and your own appeals can you realize truly valuable ideas. Otherwise, even if the hype is earth-shaking, it will not help sales at all and it will be in vain.
Xiaomi has seen friends like this. They have a lot of creative ideas, which bring a high number of reads and replies every time, but very few people come to the store, and even fewer transactions are made. This kind of creativity is actually very good. , but if you fail to grasp your own center, you will not grasp the customer.
Today's conclusion
From a broad perspective, promotion strategy contains too many elements, and any aspect deserves careful study.
From a narrow perspective, promotion plans of any scale must rely on specific practices day by day and week by week. Only by executing small things to a refined level can big strategies be realized.
From the perspective of a new seller, don’t regard yourself as a novice and find reasons not to think about all aspects of promotion as a whole and make detailed plans. From the beginning, you must treat opening a store as a serious, complex, and long-term undertaking.
There are no shortcuts in promotion, and others can't tell you specific answers. Only by walking step by step under the guidance of seniors and finding a path that suits you is the true path to success.
Article source: Cui Shilin Jade ( http://cui40.taobao.com ), please keep the URL for reprinting!