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Why are there so many marketing actions but the results are still unsatisfactory? Many friends working in marketing in companies have such frustrations:
My product is better, why doesn't it sell in the market?
My defective product rate is controlled to a negative rate, but repurchase rate is particularly low.
The packaging is eye-catching, but customers ignore it on the shelf.
The advertising content is very detailed, but still ineffective.
......
If your brand has any of the above symptoms in marketing activities, it is likely that you have fallen into the trap of self-congratulatory marketing.
Inefficient marketing is often not about doing too little, but about a misunderstanding of customer cognition and the way they accept brands. Using "flawed" actions prevents the brand from forming penetration! If you switch to a user perspective and re-examine, you might unlock the valve for multiplied results!
The "Internal Thinking" Trap of Enterprises
In marketing, bosses habitually think about marketing issues from the company's perspective. They easily boast about "self-perceived competitive advantages" based on raw materials, processes, technology, services, products, corporate strength, and brand history. At this point, their confidence leads to a mindset that is opposed to the customer's.
Because in the eyes of entrepreneurs, their own brand is like a child they raised, and they think it is better than others' from every angle. The lack of understanding of customer thinking gradually becomes an obstacle in marketing decisions. Here are some typical symptoms:
1. Ignoring competition after having a better product: Evergrande spent 4 billion in cash at a loss
In traditional marketing concepts, it is believed that as long as your product meets customer needs better than competitors, you can create customers and build a new brand. But that's not the case. As the business society matures, the vast majority of needs have been fully satisfied. In reality, many identical needs are met by countless brands. For example, in the air conditioning field, there are brands like Midea, Gree, Aux, Haier, and many others simultaneously competing for market share.
So the question arises: in a fully competitive market environment, can a "better product" create customers and escape competition? For example, Evergrande mineral water in recent years is a typical case:
From imported high-end Evian to domestic high-end 5100, from Kangshifu priced at 1 yuan to Yibao, Nongfu Spring, and Ganten locked in the 2-3 yuan price range, basically covering the entire population from mass to aristocratic. At the same time, China is not lacking in high-potential water sources, from snow mountain mineral water in Tibet to Changbai Mountain in the northeast, Shennongjia forest area in Hubei, and so on.
But the category market is not a cake that can be cut arbitrarily. The essence of Evergrande's huge loss is not that the product is not excellent, nor is it the brand cross-border issue rumored externally.
The core of the problem is that when customer needs are fully satisfied by other brands, why should they accept a high-priced new brand at 5 yuan per bottle? Without a reason for customers to buy at a high price, a disastrous defeat is a foreseeable outcome. Boss Xu used astronomical marketing expenses but still failed to shake the position of other brands.
If we change the time dimension, suppose Evergrande Spring entered the market before Nongfu Spring rose, seizing the 3-5 yuan high-end market, and formed a differentiated competition with 1-2 yuan purified water brands to meet different needs, perhaps the outcome would not have been like this.
In today's fully competitive environment, before entering any market, companies must accurately judge the competitive environment. The brand competition pattern in many fields has long been solid. Entrepreneurs must face two realities: "needs are limited" and "competition is sufficient." There are no fairy tales in the marketing world, and it will not be moved by craftsmanship. Only bloody life-and-death struggles exist.
2. Wrong brand extension: Golden Throat beverage
Many entrepreneurs mistakenly believe that once a brand has gained social recognition in one field, it can extend to other fields without restraint.
Golden Throat launched "herbal plant beverage" with great fanfare in 2016. "Protect your throat with Golden Throat" has deeply rooted in customers' minds, making Golden Throat the first choice for throat discomfort. But extending to the herbal plant beverage field with obvious leisure attributes is internal thinking.
This product was designed from the internal perspective of the company, believing that Golden Throat's high awareness for protecting the throat can be leveraged to sell a herbal plant beverage, while ignoring the customer's perception of Golden Throat as a "medicine brand" in their minds.
Thinking from an external perspective, when customers see this product, what would they think? Just hearing the brand name gives a sense of Golden Throat lozenges. Why would healthy customers choose a beverage with medicinal properties (in perception)?
There are many such cases of brand extension driven by internal thinking, such as China Beer, Bawang Herbal Tea, and so on. Many companies habitually make product decisions based on brand resources, launching cross-category new products without thinking. They think it's fine, but customers don't see it that way.
3. Self-congratulatory value output: vague, misplaced, and disjointed value delivery.
It is a consensus in the marketing world that a brand targets one customer need. A complete value output must clearly define which specific needs the brand can satisfy.
Effective brand output uses appeals, packaging, advertising, and promotions to entice the desires of target customers, based on clear explicit needs and value propositions. But in reality, we can still see self-congratulatory brand advertising, product packaging, and promotional activities everywhere.
Our patented technology is several generations ahead of XX;
Our product can meet multiple needs; competitors are not a problem;
We want to make our brand warmer and establish deeper emotional connections with users.
To be honest, we deeply sympathize with entrepreneurs who hold such views. They do not understand the basic definition of brand existence: The only purpose of brand marketing is to be prioritized when consumers have a specific need.
In an era of material scarcity and insufficient competition, customers would listen carefully to whatever you said. But in today's world where information is overwhelming, it is regrettable that concepts like "moving customers" and "meeting multiple needs" still exist. Take brand names, for example.
A brand name is a key element that links the category and connects to customer needs. A complete brand identity symbol includes category information, brand name, and logo. Many companies' thinking is stuck in the 1980s, believing that brand identity symbols are their own business. Little do they know that truly effective brand identity assets belong to customers.
A qualified brand identity symbol must let customers understand which category the brand belongs to, what value the brand occupies in that category, and establish recognition features through text and graphics to help customers form brand impressions. However, many entrepreneurs design entirely according to their own preferences.
For example, they want to express self-congratulatory good wishes like vigorous development, soaring wings, and blessings for all families. In short, they try to incorporate all the beautiful meanings they want to hear into one logo. As a result, the designed logo only moves the boss himself; customers don't understand or remember it.
I have little education; what is the first character?
What does this have to do with a Western restaurant?
Apart from "garden" which can be associated with a real estate brand, I really can't understand the rest.
Product packaging appeals and advertising are even worse.
What exactly does "craftsmanship" refer to?
Water from Yueyang Tower?
Beautiful water? What is "gua water"?
Such magical functions, can it cure all diseases?
What does "heart choice" have to do with oil?
You will find that the above cases all share a commonality: they are "enterprise-centered" and subjective, in other words, they do not truly communicate with consumers.
From the consumer's perspective, what are their specific feelings about this information? Why should they buy? What exactly is being sold? What need does it solve? It's all unclear! The business world is not a stage show. Busy people may be concerned about what to eat for the next meal, why the child is disobedient today, when the boss will raise wages, whether to take a taxi or bus when going out, and many other issues they truly care about!
On one hand, an average adult is exposed to more than 3,000 various marketing messages every day. When attention is scattered, effective communication of information becomes increasingly difficult.
On the other hand, companies and marketers easily fall into the quagmire of "internal thinking." Brand marketing is a holistic behavior, and many important decisions are constrained by various factors.
In essence, corporate decision-making is "network thinking," while customers happen to be "linear thinking."
Understanding what "customer thinking" is becomes particularly important. Only by truly understanding the customer's thinking mode can we discover the source information of many flaws in marketing.
Customers' fragmented contact with brand information
First, consumers' contact with brand information is fragmented.
The essence of marketing is a fishing process, using products, channels, advertisements, and activities to scatter bait around consumers.
Many people imagine the fishing scene as customers sitting on a small stool listening to your speech, but in reality, they are busy with everything they care about, and the attention they allocate to brand information is only a fraction of their total energy. So, when they actively accept and think about brand information, there are several fragmented scenarios:
Starting from the problems and troubles they encounter, they actively seek solutions.
They obtain partial information about certain brands from neighbors, relatives, and friends.
They obtain information from certain billboards on street corners.
They occasionally see some brand information while shopping or in supermarkets.
They encounter it occasionally when surfing the internet.
They are forced to accept certain information when watching TV dramas.
They see brand information at certain meetings or social gatherings.
.......
The fragmented way of contact determines that the timing and scenarios for a brand to truly exert its effectiveness will inevitably occur in a noisy environment.
Second, the entire process from obtaining brand information, completing purchase decisions, initial usage experience, to recommending to others is also fragmented in timing and scenarios. Therefore, customers need linear solutions with strong penetration.
Customers need linear solutions
The fragmented way of contact determines that each information point must have extremely strong penetration, and each piece of information must accurately convey a unified brand message. Only unified marketing actions can ultimately form strong brand value penetration. This allows customers in the information flood to form a cumulative effect every time they come into contact with brand information, and when they encounter related problems one day, they will think of the brand first.
Take the example of Six Walnuts:
Category name: Walnut milk
Brand name: Six Walnuts. It implies walnut milk that truly contains six walnuts, with real ingredients.
Logo: Special font for Six Walnuts.
Category value: A functional nutritional beverage beneficial for brain development. In plain language: "Drink more Six Walnuts to supplement the brain with necessary nutrition in time."
Core target audience: College entrance exam candidates, students, children.
Category and brand core message: "Use your brain often, drink more Six Walnuts."
Packaging information: Walnut milk, doctoral cap, Lu Yu, advertising slogan.
Advertising actions: Spread one core product, a spokesperson representing wisdom "Lu Yu," a deep blue representing wisdom, and a group of typical people representing brain use "high school students studying hard and taking stressful exams."
Key communication timing: Around the college entrance exam.
Purchase channels: Convenience stores, supermarkets.
The purpose of Six Walnuts' unified actions is clear: systematic actions convey only one message: Six Walnuts represents walnut milk, and real walnut milk is beneficial for children's brain development.
All marketing actions work together on the same target value, continuously influencing consumers' purchase decisions in a fragmented environment. "Dripping water wears through stone" can only leave a clear and strong value mark on consumers' minds and purchase intentions for the brand and category!
If you do not fully understand the fragmented scenarios of customers' contact with brand information and their fragmented decision-making methods, and reflect on the common wrong paths of internal thinking, it will lead to consumers' chaotic and fragmented ineffective cognition of the brand and product value. This not only wastes huge marketing expenses but also affects the process of brand building.
Summary
All brand actions can only target one goal: the output of brand value and the experience of product value must remain consistent! The accumulation of marketing actions will eventually penetrate consumers' minds, establish solid value cognition, and let the brand win priority in competition!
Conversely, marketing will always be full of flaws, and the more you invest, the heavier the loss. Examining the "flaws" in brand marketing from the customer's perspective may unlock the valve for multiplied results!
Source: Marketing Avoid Detours