**-01- Why is the "traffic craze" so hot? There's a saying in the stock market: when everyone on the streets is talking about stocks, that's when the market is most dangerous. In the past two years, whether internet companies or traditional companies going online, it's reached the point where no one can talk without mentioning "traffic." Traffic thinking, traffic dividends, traffic monetization, self-generated traffic, traffic pools, traffic wells—some have even extended it to "retention thinking," and since last year, "private domain traffic" has become hot, along with the corresponding term "public domain traffic." Large and small physical enterprises, entrepreneurs, e-commerce operators, marketing departments, sales departments, media, capital, advertising agencies, technical services—no one can escape discussing "traffic."

Not long ago, when Master Kotler held a summit here, a reporter asked him: What do you think of "traffic thinking"? The questioner probably thought that such a hot term would be written into the next edition of the "Marketing Bible." But if you really ask: What exactly is traffic? Why is it important? How to use it more effectively? Few people can explain clearly; most just take it for granted. This wave of nationwide talk about "traffic" was driven by internet companies, and internet companies' fondness for "traffic" is rooted in the early internet. In the late 1990s, after initial setbacks and the fall of a batch of internet pioneers, whether it was the three major portals, Tencent in social networking, Alibaba in e-commerce, Shanda in gaming, Baidu in search, or 360 in antivirus, they all figured out a path. That is: Use free content or services to attract a large amount of attention, then package that user attention and sell it to advertisers. This packaged attention is called "traffic." It could be a click, a view, a like, a comment, or a transaction or interaction. As these internet companies became giants and the Ma brothers became national idols, the term "traffic" was elevated to a sacred status as a business concept. In today's business world, if you don't have some "traffic thinking," you'd be embarrassed to greet people. E-commerce platform Pinduoduo, food delivery platform Meituan, used car platform Guazi, ride-hailing platform Didi—all have their own traffic models; LeEco, shared bikes, and shared power banks are also businesses under traffic thinking. Under the high-pressure influence of these powerful companies, a large number of enterprises have knelt down and sung "Conquest," whether suitable or not, picking up traffic thinking and chasing traffic dividends everywhere. When mini-programs came out, they followed; when Douyin became hot, they went for live streaming sales; when they heard a certain traffic method was good, they dove in headfirst. Worse, they fell into the "buy + fake + high commission + low price rush," which is the "strategic loss" mentioned earlier that makes many bosses tremble, thinking that by investing heavily upfront to build traffic, the business would take off, only to see "losses" without "strategy." Why is others' "traffic thinking" so glamorous, but when you use it, you keep falling into pitfalls?

**-02- "Those who want to make money from e-commerce are all fools" Have you noticed that those who succeed with "traffic thinking" are basically platform companies, such as BAT, JD, Meituan, Pinduoduo, and the three major portals. But those who use traffic thinking for physical products or consumer services basically fail or even die. LeEco is like that, shared bikes are like that, and a large number of e-commerce companies relying on traffic are even more so. In the movie "Big Shot's Funeral," it says: "Those who want to make money from e-commerce are all fools."

The funniest is a certain used car company.

This company, under the banner of "no middleman to earn the difference," claims to be direct selling, intending to provide direct meeting services between sellers and buyers. But the result was that sellers posted more information, but there were few buyers, making it a good place for offline used car dealers to find car sources. After years of burning money without profit, this used car company began to shift to providing information and services to used car dealers. "No middleman to earn the difference" became "helping middlemen earn the difference." The line from "Big Shot's Funeral" is a prophetic prediction of the internet over the past two decades. This is a terrifying thought. That is to say, "traffic," which many people worship as the supreme business concept, is difficult for platforms themselves to monetize directly with users. Their way of monetizing is to package traffic and make you pay real money to "buy traffic." There's a beautiful term for this called "empowerment." In Mr. Ma's words, we are not doing e-commerce; we are cultivating those who do e-commerce. When you buy traffic to monetize, little do you know that you have already become the one being "monetized." So, it's perfectly normal that the total profits of millions of e-commerce sellers are less than that of one e-commerce platform. Traffic is not without value, but when trafficism prevails and most people are rushing on the path of "short, flat, and fast" banditry, traffic inflation has inflated its value to a deformity. People often say "liars find it easiest to cheat money," which is a bit inaccurate; it should be "those who want to take shortcuts are the easiest to cheat."

**-03- The essence of traffic is easily punctured Master Kotler's answer to traffic thinking hit the nail on the head. Traffic is actually a matter of attention; attention growth does not necessarily lead to sales growth, and sales growth does not necessarily lead to profit growth. That is to say, how you obtain attention is more important than how much attention you obtain, and how you achieve sales growth is more important than how much sales growth you achieve. A traditional offline traffic is at least a customer visiting the store. In contrast, online traffic is too easy to obtain; a click, a search, any operation can be counted as traffic. Hundreds of thousands of reads, millions online, tens of millions of plays, billions of clicks—it's very easy to see a thriving scene online. But the actual value is far lower; this traffic may have nothing to do with your product or brand. The second serious problem is that because online traffic is easy to obtain, it is also very easy to fake. Views, likes, comments can all be bought; followers can be fake; even sales can be faked. A netizen's metaphor is: Offline foot traffic is like gold currency, high value, high cost to fake; phone customers are next, like copper coins; and online traffic is like paper money, low cost to fake, and the more you fake, the lower the cost. In fact, in our market, online traffic data fraud has formed a huge industry. It is said that there are more than 1,000 platforms for buying fake traffic, with a cumulative workforce of over 9 million. How terrifying is this number? Without comparison, there is no harm; let's compare with the number of professional marketing personnel.

It is said that there are over 80 million marketing personnel in China, most of whom are frontline sales and channel business. Of the remaining minority, more than half are market execution personnel for activities, promotions, and media placement. Old Miao and some peers estimated that professional marketing personnel who can do marketing planning, product brand channel strategy account for less than 1%, only a few hundred thousand in China. According to data from "Silicon Release," at least 40% of global internet traffic is fake. In the Chinese market, this number should be higher, possibly much higher. This has also spawned another IQ tax industry: anyone can create simple content, put it online, and inflate the data. Then they hype it up, claiming to have some secret formula, and start charging for courses. Image from WeChat public account "Douyouhui" Many people, as "traffic," have been monetized again.

**-04- The worst restaurants are near the station This is not the most critical point. The most critical point is that once a company falls into traffic-only thinking, it will inevitably neglect value creation, like a fly chasing after filth, flying around, and eventually being eliminated due to loss of competitiveness. If I ask you where the worst restaurants are, you'll definitely think of places like train stations, bus stations, large hospitals, large tourist attractions, and wholesale markets. Expensive and unpalatable, and if not properly regulated, dirty and messy. The more foot traffic, the worse the food. They are doing a traffic business, relying on a large traffic platform; the bustling crowds are the essence of their business. They strive to be seen by passersby, build good relations with station management and local people, but as for whether the food is tasty, ingredients fresh, or hygiene up to standard—who cares? Once you get used to the traffic business, once you have deep-rooted traffic thinking, it's hard to adjust. You will definitely look for traffic first when problems arise, definitely feel itchy when you see a seeming traffic dividend, and definitely can't help but exploit loopholes in fake traffic. Look around at those who do business relying on traffic, whether traditional distributors or e-commerce, or the recently hyped community and social e-commerce—how many are not being harvested like leeks, and how many can successfully transform? For such companies, traffic is no longer traffic, but a poison.

**-05- Be a regular army, adhere to long-termism and professionalism Attention is important, but it is far from the whole of marketing, let alone the whole of business. Pursuing only traffic while ignoring value creation, user needs, value chain management, and other more fundamental business elements is not just self-harm; it's cutting off your own meridians and being at others' mercy. Fortunately, the year that is about to pass is the first year of the collapse of "trafficism." A large number of companies that were previously addicted to traffic, finding themselves at a dead end and repeatedly "monetized," have begun to seek a return to value. During the 2019 Double 11, the newly appointed Tmall president Jiang Fan no longer emphasized GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) as before, but instead emphasized "new consumption." Double 11 shifted from a carnival of pursuing sales volume to a festival for brands to launch new products. And those brands that launched new products, those that ranked at the top in various categories during Double 11, are no longer the traditional traffic-oriented Taobao brands, but brands like Apple, Huawei, Bosideng, L'Oréal, Haier, Nike, etc., that have long been deeply cultivating the market. No matter how lively traffic stars are, their works can't beat veteran actors. The regular army has entered the field, and the curtain has been raised on the suppression of the "new business bandits" who only think about traffic. Source: Old Miao's Marketing Button (ID: yiheyingxiao) Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan upon adoption.