---
title: "In the Second Half of the Internet Era, How Can Brands Break Through with Offline Promotion?"
description: "Stories of products going viral overnight and users flocking in exist in every industry, but they are never accidental. More often, user accumulation relies on behind-the-scenes 'pushers.' To quickly acquire users, some products rely on subsidies, like Didi and Kuaidi in their growth phase, while O2O industries like group-buying rely on offline promotion teams. In 2015, Dianping and Meituan had offline promotion teams of over a thousand, and Alipay's Koubei launched a '10 billion yuan subsidy to attract nationwide offline promotion' campaign. In the second half of last year, Taohuichang, originally focused on conference O2O, began transforming into a commercial real estate B2B platform, connecting merchants with promotion needs and venue operators. The industry also has companies like Yiqitui and Dipaiba dedicated to offline promotion marketing."
author: "陈淑华"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2017-03-18"
language: "en"
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# In the Second Half of the Internet Era, How Can Brands Break Through with Offline Promotion?

> Stories of products going viral overnight and users flocking in exist in every industry, but they are never accidental. More often, user accumulation relies on behind-the-scenes 'pushers.' To quickly acquire users, some products rely on subsidies, like Didi and Kuaidi in their growth phase, while O2O industries like group-buying rely on offline promotion teams. In 2015, Dianping and Meituan had offline promotion teams of over a thousand, and Alipay's Koubei launched a '10 billion yuan subsidy to attract nationwide offline promotion' campaign. In the second half of last year, Taohuichang, originally focused on conference O2O, began transforming into a commercial real estate B2B platform, connecting merchants with promotion needs and venue operators. The industry also has companies like Yiqitui and Dipaiba dedicated to offline promotion marketing.

Stories of products going viral overnight and users flocking in exist in every industry, but they are never accidental. More often, user accumulation relies on behind-the-scenes 'pushers.'
To quickly acquire users, some products rely on subsidies, like Didi and Kuaidi in their growth phase, while O2O industries like group-buying rely on offline promotion teams.
In 2015, Dianping and Meituan had offline promotion teams of over a thousand, and Alipay's Koubei launched a '10 billion yuan subsidy to attract nationwide offline promotion' campaign.
In the second half of last year, Taohuichang, originally focused on conference O2O, began transforming into a commercial real estate B2B platform, connecting merchants with promotion needs and venue operators. The industry also has companies like Yiqitui and Dipaiba dedicated to offline promotion marketing.
As **the internet enters the second half**, traffic is monopolized, entry points become more concentrated, and previously low-cost online promotion becomes 'money-burning,' making it difficult to acquire traffic purely online.
The growing number of internet users also means **marketing becomes harder to target precisely**. Even P&G, the world's largest advertiser, is reducing its 'precision marketing' budget. Although online promotion can do targeted placement and performance ads, information feed distribution to users has a certain randomness (and a lot of water). Sitting in the office waiting for users to come to you is too passive.
The pie is only so big; everyone wants to grab a larger share first, so proactively acquiring users is necessary. Moreover, in **regional coverage**, **precise scenarios**, **real users**, and **product education**, offline promotion has absolute advantages.
**Brands want to break through in the red ocean**, and marketers are moving toward the direction of **full-stack marketers**, needing to understand not only digital marketing but also ground promotion. While cultivating carefully, one person should fight like an army, and a team should fight like a legion.
This is an era of marketing.
(CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost)
Different purposes of offline promotion
Classified by the purpose orientation of offline promotion, there are mainly three types:
First, the most traditional is to accelerate product sales through **discount promotions**, common in FMCG, daily chemicals, cosmetics, and communication products, such as summer beverage combo promotions, phone card recharge with free data, etc., with the completion of daily sales as the KPI for offline promotion.
Second, for **publicity and momentum**, using free trials, samples, and observation, common in mobile phones and other digital products, automobiles, real estate, etc. Compared to first-day sales, they value short-term market reaction, user repurchase rate, and long-term word-of-mouth accumulation.
Third, with **new user registration** as the main promotion goal, commonly applied to internet products, such as scanning QR codes to follow, downloading apps, new user registration, etc., and financial products, such as bank account opening and card issuance.
Three key points for site selection
Generally, **commercial roadshow offline promotion scenarios** include office buildings, communities, shopping malls and business districts, campuses, parks and amusement parks, stations, subways, airports, etc.
When considering site selection, you can start from three dimensions:
**Foot traffic**
Regardless of the product, foot traffic is the primary consideration for offline promotion site selection, and maximizing reach to users is also the purpose of roadshow promotion.
**Precision**
Foot traffic is the foundation, but the most important is precision. Precision here refers to **audience precision** or **scenario precision**.
Different products target user groups of different regions, age groups, and consumption levels. You should choose places where target users frequently appear or product usage scenarios for promotion.
**Different malls have different consumer structures.** Taking Guangzhou as an example, Taikoo Hui consumers are mostly high-end business people, while Zhengjia Plaza is mainly young people and family groups, and Tianhe City is mostly 'old Guangzhou' locals.
**The same product promoted in different scenarios will have different effects.** A white-collar worker receiving a supermarket coupon at a subway exit might still choose online shopping when they get home, making the promotion ineffective; but if they receive the coupon at the supermarket entrance, they are likely to walk into the supermarket and spend, making the promotion effective. The consumption desire and usage frequency in these two scenarios are different.
Target the gathering places of target users or product usage scenarios according to product characteristics, achieving both **breadth in quantity** and **precision in quality**.
**Budget**
The third point is budget. Budget issues are a hard constraint, often requiring event planners to compromise and make concessions. But in **cooperation with venue owners**, it is actually a **game of traffic exchange**.
Taking malls as an example, compared to the cash flow of a one-time venue fee, mall operators value more the **volume of the roadshow promotion** and how much popularity it can bring to the venue, because this popularity can translate into: increased mall sales, cultivation of purchase habit loyalty, enrichment of mall activity diversity, and ultimately enhance the mall's brand awareness and favorability.
Using this as a bargaining chip, you can even turn a simple venue rental relationship into a cooperative one.
Yi Ge previously wrote about the cases of the 'Breakup Exhibition' and 'Eye-Roll Exhibition.' Two malls in Nanjing and Chengdu both chose not to charge venue fees because these exhibitions had social topic heat and online buzz.
From another angle, besides saving costs on manpower, venue, and materials, you can also **cross-industry cooperate** to **exchange resources**.
Yi Ge once did a Children's Day mall cultural and creative market event with 25 standard booths and 3 special exhibition areas. Due to a tight budget, we obtained free tables and chairs through cooperation with a children's education and training institution. As a cross-industry resource return, we provided their students with live performance opportunities in front of thousands of people. On one hand, it enriched the event; on the other hand, **both sides got what they needed**.
How to do pre-warming
Many people might think that for just scanning QR codes to follow, it's not a large event, so pre-warming is unnecessary. But people are emotionally driven animals. Doing some interactive online promotion can **lengthen the promotion front**, which is originally short, and help create a hot atmosphere at the offline promotion site.
For example, before the roadshow promotion, hold a popularity contest with submissions and voting to attract attention. In 2016, before Christmas, Starbucks also solicited netizens to use their creativity to design their preferred coffee cup styles. After a year, when the 'Starbucks Christmas Red Cup' was launched, it flooded social media.
(This case is not related to offline promotion, but... the work is outside the poem; many ideas are interconnected.)
Another example is planning online interactive games combined with the event day's activities, such as early participation in a lucky draw - drawing, and collecting prizes on the day of the offline promotion, further driving users' offline participation behavior.
The simplest is to just announce the time and location of the offline promotion, and that small gifts can be collected at the booth for interaction, etc.
How to play on-site
**1. Booth layout**
After determining the site, you need to plan the booth layout. For a **standard booth**, the common simple combination is **tent + tables and chairs + roll-up banner + banner**.
For those with more money, like mobile phone, communication, real estate, film and television, and automobile brands, they might build a **special exhibition** with larger **product display areas**, **interactive experience areas**, and equipped with lighting, sound, and performers such as hosts and models.
Whether it's a standard booth or a special exhibition, be sure to design some **photo elements for the audience**, such as photo walls, photo frames, etc., or use mascots to interact and take photos with the audience, attracting foot traffic while exposing the brand and increasing the frequency of secondary exposure.
For materials that might be used during offline promotion, such as tents, tables and chairs, tablecloths, red carpets, lighting and sound, besides buying them, you can also rent them on classified information websites.
**2. On-site interaction**
Setting up interactions can **deepen user impressions** and also **extend the dwell time of foot traffic**, triggering the Matthew effect and attracting more passersby's attention.
The most traditional interaction is **games and lucky draws**.
The prizes themselves are a means to attract users to participate, and they work quickly. It seems simple, but whether to use a draw box, a wheel, or phone shake, how many levels, how many quantities, and the difficulty threshold are all worth considering.
If the threshold is high or the quantity is small, users will feel they have no chance; if the process is too cumbersome, users will find it too troublesome; if the interval between draw and announcement is long, users might forget... Everyone knows prizes should be attractive to users, but one easily overlooked point is that, on the premise of attraction, users should also feel that 'I have a chance to get it without too much trouble,' to effectively increase the conversion rate of event audience/participating users.
At this stage, using some **interactive management tools**, such as Hi Live, Qu Live, Dajiahuiyi, etc., can achieve phone-to-big-screen synchronization for shake-to-draw, red packet grabbing, 3D sign-in walls, bullet comments, online voting, etc.
There are also some unconventional lucky draw methods, such as a hundred people throwing a bouquet, a thousand people shaking phones, team riddles and treasure hunts, etc. When the event itself is creative and interesting enough to be attractive, users will put the cumbersome process and long duration as secondary considerations.
Now it's also common to integrate **live streaming** into various on-site activities. According to different product audiences and event temperament, organizers can optionally invite internet celebrities, models, industry KOLs, local lifestyle self-media, etc., to participate in the roadshow promotion via live streaming, boosting the lively atmosphere.
If a stage is set up at the offline promotion site, you can arrange for a host to interact with the audience, and also insert singing and dancing performances or model shows. If there is no stage, doing a **flash mob** on the ground is also an eye-catching option.
**3. Staffing**
On the day of the event, besides arranging relevant personnel at the offline promotion point to act as front desk, hold the fort, and be responsible for promoting or introducing event details to users, you should also arrange some personnel to divert traffic from nearby high-traffic areas. Large-scale offline promotions may also require hosts, etiquette staff, models, dancers, and other performers, as well as security personnel.
For part-time staff and performers related to offline promotion activities, you can recruit them on part-time platforms such as Jianzhi Mao, Pocket Part-time, Qingtuanshe, and other college part-time platforms, or find suppliers on 58.com, Ganji.com, and Zhubajie.com's etiquette and model channels.
Of course, you can also find more 'on-site audience'.
**4. Risk contingency**
Besides considering weather issues, campus and community offline promotions may be subject to certain restrictions, requiring full communication with the school or student organizations, and property management. Offline promotions in public places may also encounter urban management officers.
These are all potential problems and difficulties that may arise during offline promotion, and contingency plans should be made.
Final words
Roadshow offline promotion is the **most down-to-earth** way. Big events can be done big, small events can be done small, but the common point is that you face your users directly, interacting back and forth, and getting the most authentic market feedback.
The flyer itself is not just the content on it. During promotion, the audience's mood, the politeness of the offline promotion staff, the packaging design of gifts, and the organizational procedures will also directly affect users' judgment of the product and brand favorability.
Roadshow offline promotion is **not a panacea**; other necessary publicity should still be done.
At the same time, as a promotion method, after working hard to attract users, what's more important is later user operation, paying attention to user feedback, and continuously improving and optimizing the product.
After all, what can retain users is ultimately the product.
Bio: Chen Shuhua, editor-in-chief of Event Dream (eventdream.net), an event planning inspiration site, focusing on sharing event marketing creativity and resources. Independent thinking, a wordsmith wandering the world.
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