We all know that Internet marketing is difficult to do, traffic is becoming more and more expensive, and the effect is getting worse and worse. But what is more difficult is the Internet marketing of small start-ups.
No money, no people, no fame, no resources. What is Internet marketing for small start-ups? Or not? How can Internet marketing be effective when you cut some money out of your teeth and invest in advertisements?
We can only prescribe medicine for the symptoms. Let's talk about some mistakes of small start-ups in Internet marketing.
Several Mistakes of Small Startups in Internet Marketing
Myth 1. Good product, no need for marketing
In general, the company pays special attention to the origin of entrepreneurs. People with product background think that products are the most important, while people with technology background think that technology is the most important. Many entrepreneurs are born in products and technologies. It is natural that they do not attach importance to marketing. They feel that as long as the products and technologies are good enough, they do not need to do marketing. Or they think that they need to wait until the product is relatively mature to start marketing.
Wine tastes better than alley. We don't need to say more about this old saying. Let's say something else. In the Internet era, a good product should be one that can speak for itself. That is, users will like it when they see it and are willing to recommend it to friends. Marketing is not just propaganda, but also marketing thinking from the demand definition stage of products. Of course, there is a routine for adding self propagation attributes to products, which is marketing design. Without marketing design, there is no good product. At best, it is self congratulation.
Myth 2. I have no money and can't afford marketing
Startups usually have no money, and they want to break a penny into two. Marketing can be saved if it can be saved, which is also human nature. Who makes us poor? If we talk about the importance of marketing, everyone knows, but I just don't have money, what should I do? This way of thinking is typical of the poor. Spend money on the most important thing and the thing with the highest return rate, instead of blindly saving money and not spending money. Such entrepreneurs may not really understand the importance of marketing until they run out of funds and close the company.
Myth 3. Marketing, pheasant becomes phoenix
Maybe I heard too many legends and thought that if there was a good marketing idea, it would immediately ignite the market. Don't you know that the so-called "legendary" stories are all carefully packaged, embellished and embellished. If you want to change a pheasant into a phoenix, you have to be down-to-earth and step by step. Don't expect those legends to happen to you. You may win 5 million yuan without buying a lottery ticket in your life.
Myth 4. If you don't insist, you will give up once you try
It is more harmful to just try than not to try. I went to do marketing with the mentality of overnight success. After the "overnight success", I found that there was no "overnight success", so I felt that the road was impassable, and I will do it again in the future. Internet marketing is a long-term project, and no one method is universal. If you invite a marketing expert from NB, he should also try it according to your actual situation. Note that it is a "try". No one can guarantee success once, and everyone has to find a path to success through trial and error. Once exposed to the cold, this failure was a failure in vain.
Myth 5. Don't spend money, still want to invite Daniel
I am often asked by a friend who is starting a business whether he can help him with Internet marketing. Sometimes I directly ask: "How much are you going to spend?"? ’The boss said, 'The price of meat has risen recently.' I said, 'I bought fried dough sticks. What does it have to do with meat?' The boss said, 'I eat meat.' "
If you don't have money, ask someone else for advice and study. As long as the other person has one or two hours, it's OK. But it will take a long time for others to help. The more Daniel, the more cautious he is, and the more time he will spend doing research, preparing, and trying in different ways. If you interpret the work of the other party as coming at your fingertips, you have no respect for marketing. In addition, don't think about trading shares for marketing services. This is not a good cooperation model.
Myth 6. In case of emergency, cram
I once got a phone call from a friend in the middle of the night: "I have an activity tomorrow, you can push it for me." Damn it, I think Tencent is my home? Pop up when you say pop up, and flow when you say flow! Internet marketing is a continuous work. Marketing needs carriers. These carriers need to be nurtured. Just like your We Media or community, there must be a growth process. Even if it is social communication, there must be a cycle of planning and brewing.
Marketing thinking of small companies
The above are some common marketing mistakes of small start-ups. You can take a seat according to your number and see if you have these problems.
What is marketing? Marketing is the whole process of discovering user needs, commercializing them, and selling them to get returns. Internet marketing is to use Internet tools to make the whole process of marketing more efficient. It is not so much a job as a way of thinking.
If a large company is compared to a regular army, then a small start-up company is a guerrilla. Marketing is like fighting a war. The regular army has its own way of fighting, and the guerrillas should also have their own way of fighting. The guerrillas fight with the regular army in the same way as shooting stones with eggs. The guerrillas should give full play to their flexible advantages and learn from the regular army. Only when they have strategies, goals and tactics can they win big victories.
If we can sum up the marketing ideas of small start-ups into four words, that is: being upright is surprising. Internet marketing is not achieved in one move. It is not expected to become popular in one shot. But I kept exploring, and many strange tricks came out. What if they became popular?
1. Reasonably determine marketing objectives
The ultimate goal of all marketing activities is to make money, which is beyond reproach. But when you talk to him about the product, he says that the product is already very good, and what is needed now is how to bring customers in; You talked to him about the target market positioning, and he said that the target market has been very clear, and what is needed now is how to attract customers; You talk to him about writing some soft articles for publicity. He said that it was useless. What we need now is how to bring customers... your sister! Can we still chat happily?
The wind starts at the end of the green duckweed, and the waves become between the ripples. If the goal is not broken down, then there is no way to start marketing. Every company hopes that potential customers can actively find themselves through the Internet, but this premise is that you can promote where customers appear. If the company's marketing budget is limited, or even there is no marketing budget at all, you should set the goal rationally.
Our ultimate goal is to make money, which can be broken down into trading volume. Basically, all sales behaviors can be summarized as traffic × conversion rate=turnover. The volume of transactions depends on the two parameters of traffic and conversion rate, which can be the traffic of shops or the number of visitors to the sales page on the Internet. To increase the turnover, you can increase the traffic, the conversion rate, or both.
In general, the cost of increasing traffic is relatively high. Let's study another parameter: conversion rate. There are many factors that affect the conversion rate, such as the quality and price of the product. The most important one is the user's trust in you. If we take the promotion of trust as our small goal, it will be easier to achieve. In fact, this is what small start-ups should do most.
2. Lay a good foundation for marketing and improve trust
Customer trust is the most lacking for small start-ups. How can customers believe in a small company without endorsement of large companies and brands, and without the overwhelming advertising bombardment?
First of all, let's assume that you are powerful (you must assume this, otherwise you will be taught to pretend to be powerful). What you need is to make customers feel that you are powerful through marketing. How to do it? Let's limit the scenario: when you introduce the product to the customer, the customer checks your information online, or you take the initiative to send the online information to the customer, how can you make the customer feel that you are very powerful?
Here, the question is simple and specific, and it is easy to list the answers:
The official website looks like a powerful company;
There are many results on the search engine, ranking very high;
Positive reports from authoritative media, including information about the company, products, founders and other aspects;
The positive comments of netizens, when asked and answered, are objective and true;
Experiences of old customers and value increase after using the product;
…………
After listing these methods, we will find that they are not so difficult. They are still easy to do. I usually call them the infrastructure of online image of small start-ups. Don't think this kind of infrastructure is useless. If it is done well, it will help the company to improve its brand in the long run.
3. Main content marketing
The most suitable marketing method for small start-ups is undoubtedly content marketing. I once summed up the ripple effect of content marketing. You throw a stone into the pond. Although the stone is very small, it will stir up ripples round and round, and continue to touch every corner of the pond. This is the ripple effect, which can achieve the maximum communication effect with the minimum cost. More importantly, ripples may spread to places you can't see at ordinary times. There may be a "black swan" hidden there, allowing you to obtain unexpected gains.
Many companies have benefited a lot from content marketing. Content marketing is the best cost-effective marketing method for individuals, start-ups, and even large companies.
For small start-ups, if you have no money, you have to spend more time than others to make up for the shortage of funds. Content marketing only needs to be careful, and take some time out every day or every week, whether writing articles or producing content in the form of answering customers' frequently asked questions. When the time is put into a certain amount, the effect will naturally be seen.
4. Make good use of social marketing
Social marketing may be a bit outdated now. Most people will understand social marketing as H5 games and the like, and think that the effect of social marketing is not as good as before. In fact, you must pay attention to social marketing at any time.
If the content marketing is honest, the social marketing is strange. Only when the odd and the right match, can the magic effect be achieved. Don't think that social media promotion is social marketing. The focus of social marketing is "socialized communication", which should be able to cause communication in various media, including social media, and even in people's gossip after dinner. Every article you write should be measured by the amount of communication. Without communication, there is no value. Not only articles, but also constantly planning various activities that may cause communication, such as rubbing a hot spot, winking or tearing at peers, etc. People who are good at social marketing will actively take advantage of all opportunities.
Social marketing is more about thinking than method. The most important thing is to understand the communication motivation of the target group, that is, human nature, and why to communicate. The forwarding behavior of the circle of friends is usually based on these kinds of humanity:
Show off. That is to pretend to force and show off in order to make others feel that they are people of a certain status;
identification. It may be values, concept identification, or emotional resonance;
interesting. No one will reject interesting things, so we often see friends forwarding all kinds of funny videos, bad work, self mockery, and games also belong to this category;
Benefits. There is no need to explain this. All kinds of prizes and praises are effective although they are annoying;
favor. It is also worth studying how to make people lose face and forward
5. Product has its own marketing attributes
To paraphrase: the best marketing is no marketing! If the product has its own marketing attribute, that is, the product can speak, and selling a product is selling an advertisement, the business can roll up on its own. Startups have no money for marketing, so they need to think more about the product itself and let the product spread itself.
There is a term called virus coefficient, which means that when you get a user, the user can bring you several new users. This number is the virus coefficient. If the number is greater than 1, the user scale can grow by itself. If the virus coefficient is less than 1, you will have to continue to gain new users through publicity, or user growth will stagnate.
You can calculate the virus coefficient of your product and the ways to improve it. High quality products will spread by themselves, products with stories will also spread by themselves, and products that can stir up topics will also spread by themselves. In addition to these, you can also induce users to help you spread through benefit sharing. The once popular three-tier distribution model, many mobile games recommend users to give game coins, is to stimulate the spread through benefits. From the product level, try to improve the virus coefficient, which is the highest level of marketing.
6. Personal brand, output opinions and values
Generally, personal brand is easier than company or product brand, because individuals are more likely to have personality and emotional connection. Some founders have already had good personal brands in their own fields before starting their own businesses. When starting their own businesses, they only need to inject personal brands into product brands. Just like Luo Yonghao, how much advertising cost has been saved for the Hammer mobile phone!
However, most entrepreneurs do not have personal brands, which requires the creation of personal brands. Whether you are willing to become famous or not, it is necessary to promote your personal brand for the sake of the company and products. Once the positioning and labeling are determined, it is necessary to output your views, values, stories, and cases.
If you have read articles that teach you how to dress, take an image picture, and design a WeChat avatar as a personal brand, don't believe them, or at least don't just believe them. The best way to create a personal brand is not the impression of your appearance, but what awesome things you have done! Make efforts to make achievements and output valuable opinions for others, and personal brand will naturally improve. Personal brand, company brand and product brand will drive each other and rise in a benign way.
