Marketing practice VS micro-business on paper (Zhihu received more than 1.5k likes)

Chen Weiliang: Marketing Practical VS Practical StrategiesSmall trade(Zhihu has more than 1.5k likes)

This article isChen WeiliangWhat students saw in the socket, after reading it, I felt that each didInternet marketingOfnew mediaEveryone has some experience like this, and those who don't have to practice and enrich their own experience, so that they can grow.

How to develop strong business analysis skills?

The ability to analyze business is one of the most scarce and hardest to acquire in this society.

If you only rely on reading, it will be difficult to learn from reading posts, and it will be easy to be misled.

For a person who has never started a business, the absorption efficiency of reading is very low.Especially in the era of popular bestsellers, various concepts such as "starvation marketing", "Internet celebrity economy", and "virus spread" emerge in an endless stream, and business novices are easily confused.Some bestselling authors have exaggerated the power of his opinions in order to sell books and personal brands.

What I have seen is that many college students and newcomers in the workplace have been misled by theories and made wrong career choices. What they want to pursue is financial freedom, but unknowingly they have become a life of hard work, delaying their youth.I will give specific examples below.

You "would really like to know if there are any books on this subject", so I'll give you the list first.

• "I saw some people today who can analyze the supply chain involved in the design from the outer packaging of a product;" the outer packaging of a product is a very mature process, and the common materials for outer packaging are kraft paper, PET/ /PE, NY/PE, etc., you can find out by chatting with the bosses of several custom outer packaging manufacturers.You can read "OneiPhone's Global Travel", which describes in detail the process of mobile phone design, component manufacturing, assembly, transportation, sales, smuggling, and resale.

• "From the design of a shelf, analyze the reasons for doing so from the perspective of profit rate, consumption rate and traffic flow."Humans have a long history of opening supermarkets. Foreigners have done a lot of research on shelf visits.Paco Underhill wrote a book called "Why Customers Buy". He led his team to track and observe shoppers in shopping malls and grocery stores, and analyzed the game relationship between purchasing behavior and consumer psychology.It took 20 years to study how the store environment is arranged.Procter & Gamble also built laboratory-style supermarkets to study customer buying behavior, a well-established discipline.

• "From a rainbow candy, analyze why there are only 5 flavors in the design, and why these 5 flavors were chosen." In fact, it is very simple. If the business person has sold 18 flavors of rainbow candy, he has monitored the quality of each flavor. Sales data, and in-depth consumer research, he will clearly know what flavors customers like.Sophisticated marketers don't trust forecasts, they make decisions through research and testing.You can read "Shi Yuzhu's self-reported: My Marketing Experience, Melatonin was not advertised nationwide on the first day, but was gradually promoted after successful verification in several small cities in Jiangsu.

After reading these books, have you really mastered business analysis skills?cannot.It can only increase the conversation at the dinner table.

The really powerful business analysis ability is this: The owner of a private hospital in Guangxi, Mr. K, used to earn quite a lot of money, but suddenly he opened a rival hospital, invited third-tier stars to endorse, and put a lot of outdoor advertisements. The decoration of the hospital is magnificent, The service staff dress and serve like a flight attendant.As soon as this hospital opened, Lao K's performance dropped by 20%.

He sneaked into the opponent's hospital as a spy, observed the location and area to evaluate the rental cost, observed the number of medical staff, service personnel, and job allocation to calculate the salary cost, and investigated the advertisements placed by the opponent to calculate the promotion cost.After a series of investigations, it is a project to calculate the breakeven price of the opponent6800 yuan.The other party's current price is 7800 yuan, so he lowered the price to 6600Yuan, he is profitable at this price, but the other party will lose money, because he judges that the other party is "too high in terms of environment and staffing", and Guangxi has a large number of customers who "pursue cost-effectiveness".

He changed the ad specifically for his opponentCopywritingContent, promotion, and adjustment of advertising media. As soon as the 6600 event was launched, performance began to stop and rebound.

I think this is called business analysis ability, profit and loss, life and death are between one or several decisions.For entrepreneurs, it's nothingThe quality of "fascinating", how can you think of being charming or not charming, this is the ability to save yourself ashore in rough seas.

Everyone can talk about business in Moments.ForwardMa Yun"New retail" speech, make a summary, forward Xue Zhiqian's H5, predict the new media content marketing trend, work as a manager, executive in a company, and cooperate with some first-line brands, I feel very professional and understand business well.

However, if you leave the company system and try it out, what can you sell?Do you really understand business?

The standard for measuring the ability of business analysis is not the competition of who can eloquently throw out novel and interesting ideas in a row.It is better than anyone who has done a better business, makes more money, and can continue to make healthy money.

If you agree with this standard.I want to tell you that the best way to exercise this marketing ability is not to read books, read posts...

Instead, you have to do a business on your own!

The business doesn’t need to be big, just reselling some hometown specialties, seafood, honey sauce chicken wings, you can also run the WeChat public account on your behalf, or you can make a self-media account, which is determined according to your talents and advantages.

In this process, you must spend money, buy goods, spend some money on advertising, hire a few part-time employees, and do business in earnest, and you may lose hundreds or thousands of dollars, but You will have a whole new understanding of business.

Commenting on Jack Ma and Wang Jianlin, who wouldn't?When you want to invest the money on your bank card, everything has changed. It is your hard-earned money, and you don't want to lose a penny.You start to get serious and nervous, and there is a pressure to think about the nature of business.Just the thought process of preparing to do business can take your business thinking several notches higher.

If you don't believe me, I'll walk with you.

1) Select a product

First you have to choose a product.

You must hope that the product will sell well, then the first principle is to follow the trend and not against him.

Consumption upgrading is an obvious trend.The ranks of the middle class are growing, the information coverage is expanding, healthy and high-quality products are getting better and better, and the share of cheap and harmful products is shrinking.

The same drink sells for 5 yuan. Is soy milk better or milk tea better?

Definitely selling soy milk. 5 yuan determines that only milk tea can be blended with creamer, and more and more people do not like this harmful substance.Look at the financial reports of Wahaha and Master Kong over the past few years, they are appalling.

Catch the trend

Aging is also a clear trend.

With the prolongation of the average life expectancy of the Chinese people and the decline of the fertility rate, let's look at a set of data that reflects the changes: the proportion of China's population over 65 years old in the total population was 1982% in 4.9, 1990% in 5.6, and 2000% in 7.1. , 2010% in 8.9, and 2014% in 10.1, China's aging is accelerating.According to the World Health Organization, by 2050, 35% of China's population will be over the age of 60, making it the most aging country in the world.

Can you analyze any business opportunities based on this public information?

The fact is that when Internet companies in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are fiercely vying for the young and middle-aged market, savvy businessmen in a southern province enjoy the dividends of the elderly market all year round.Start a pharmaceutical factory and make oral liquid with some Chinese herbal medicines. Drinking it is not harmful to the body.Go to the small radio station in the third- and fourth-tier cities to pack a talk column, and praise the oral liquid, adjust sleep, relieve pain, replenish qi and blood, the elderly feel that the radio station is authoritative, and the effect is very attractive, a box It is not expensive to sell more than 100 yuan, buy 5 boxes and get 2 boxes.With such a marketing method, it has been successfully replicated in more than 20 cities, with a monthly turnover of tens of millions.

Can copy and paste

The second criterion for product selection is the ability to copy and paste.

Suppose you are a senior graphic designer, you are good at drawing pictures, and you are good at S.

Would you start an advertising agency?Or be a cartoonist?

If you open an advertising company, you will find that this business is to do a single order, and you can only receive money for one order.If you want to receive 5 orders, you have to pay 5 more orders.If the customer wants to change, you have to accompany you to the end.When there are no customers, you still have to find customers and talk to customers, but it may not be successful.Although the unit price of a job is high, but you have to work every day, and unknowingly, life has become a toil.The fatal thing is that your product cannot be copied and pasted.

If you become a cartoonist, you must be very hard in the early stage. You can only accumulate fans on Weibo and Moments, but once the fan base gathers, the rewards are huge.One of your comics can be sold as books, APP downloads, and N copies of one. The more fans you accumulate, the more your works are sold. You can make money by not working at all.This business can be copied and pasted.

Likewise, a five-star chef sounds great, but you can't make much money working every day.Takoyaki, milk tea, and take-out sushi are dishes that chefs despise, but they can make a lot of money.Because it can be made into a model brand, selling brand design, decoration templates, kitchen utensils to earn franchise fees, and can also sell food raw materials to earn running money.

Every year, I save a lot of money, get tired of going to work, and want to start my own business.Life"The people who pay the bills. Under Baidu's "franchising", a long line of promotion results proves how big this market is. Successful businessmen only need to sell templates in batches and earn a share of the franchise fee— - No need to fry any dishes.

2) Pricing

The second step in doing business is pricing.

Prices are very sensitive, very critical numbers.It determines the purchase cost of the customer, and also determines your profit.

When it comes to pricing, a lot of people talk about the price tricks in Weird Psychology.

"Sam, the TV salesman, for example, does the same kind of trick we do when grouping TV sets for display:

36-inch Panasonic $690

42" Toshiba $850

50" Philips $1480"

The author believes that when he deliberately set a high and a low price, most customers will buy the mid-range that looks cheap - $850.

• And when you really start doing business, you find that his theory has a very narrow scope of application.You sell it for $850, and the customer immediately goes online to check, "How much is the 42-inch Toshiba?" If another store sells it for $820, the customer will leave without thinking.

• It is also possible that the customer has a friend who works in Gome or Suning, or has experience in in-depth research and purchase of TV sets.He would advise "Don't be stupid,42 inches is only 680 yuan, the quality is similar! "So customers won't fall for your 850's trap.

• When you're in business, you'll find that grotesque psychology works, but it's not as magical, unless the customer has nowhere else to compare the price and can only buy it at your house.

The theory that really works comes from the seemingly boring tome - Marketing Management.

• "Demand determines the upper limit of a company's product price, and cost is its lower limit."

• "The price elasticity of demand varies in different markets. The higher the elasticity, the greater the sales volume resulting from a 1% price reduction. If it is elastic, the seller will consider reducing the price because lower prices generate higher total revenue."

• "An academic study that comprehensively reviewed price elasticity over 40 years found that the average price elasticity across all markets, products and time periods was 2.62."

• "The price elasticity of durable consumer goods is higher than that of other products, and the price elasticity of products in the introduction and growth stages is higher than that in the maturity and recession stages."

Many SME owners set their prices according to the words of Philip Kotler-"The price of the closest competitor should be considered first. If a company's product has features that the competitor does not have, then its value to consumers should be assessed and added to the competitor's price."

To put it bluntly, compared with my competitors at the same level, if my product has an advantage, I can make it slightly more expensive. On the contrary, I want to be slightly cheaper.If you don’t do this, no matter what price trick you play, there will be consumers who will educate you “Why are you so expensive, so-and-so is only XX yuan!”, and the data on the decline in sales will also tell you.This rule applies to most competitive markets.

3) Promotion

The third step is promotion.

When it comes to promotion, many people talk about Durex, Xue Zhiqian H5, and the comprehensive coverage of the top 500 brands in outdoor, video, and audio media.

Many marketers will also write these suggestions into the plan, anyway, the promotion fee is not paid by themselves.

But once you have to pay for the promotion yourself, you will find that the game is different.Those top 500 Internet companies lose millions without blinking,And you, you don't want to waste a penny of advertising costs. It's better to invest in some free channels. If you spend money, you'd better earn it back if you invest one yuan.5 yuan.

When the company was young, there was no need to think about viral marketing at all. 10+ popular articles were unrealistic. Identifying a strong selling point and choosing a precise channel to launch is reliable.

Just like my friend reselling Zhou Huajian tickets.Zhou Tianwang has retired for many years, his influence is not as great as before, and the tickets are unsaleable.My friend easily got 3% off the purchase price.He was thinking: What channel is the most likely to sell the ticket?

• The people who can listen to Zhou Huajian's songs must not be young, at least those born in the 70s, 80s, or even 60s, and they must have certain economic strength, so he chose 2One channel: the owner group of high-end real estate and the group of high-end car riders with a stable image.
  
• give somewechat red envelopeAs a price, we organized a group welfare activity and finally sold more than 100 tickets, including 10 top VIP tickets.
• Another friend who is in the custom T-shirt business, joins the star fan base every day, cares about the daily life of fans, touts their idols, and can also get orders for custom idol T-shirts.In the small stage of the enterprise, the accuracy of the promotion channel is the most important.

If the company is a little bigger, don't learn the "4-degree integrated communication" of the 360A company, and what kind of media coverage is linked, it sounds unclear, but in fact, it burns money quickly.

Many enterprises rely on a single point of breakthrough in the early stage of development, and try their best to understand it, whether it is newspapers, radio stations, or Weibo marketing/Wechat marketingOkay,Public account promotionYepROIbe the highest,When we have no worries about survival, we will consider investing in other media to enhance brand awareness and reputation.If this order is reversed, it is likely to lead to a crash.

You see, there are many ways to start a small business just by thinking about it, and this does not include supply chain optimization, brand asset management, customer service management and so on.And you'll find out what it means to be a link.for exampleWeb Promotion, your advertising selling point is not strong enough to sell goods, you incite excessive bragging, and raise customer expectations too high, and a lot of complaints will go to customer service.

The theory or concept of the book is not as good as the book trumpets. It is not reliable to start a business by reading alone. You must deal with and balance multiple aspects at the same time.

As long as you are a small business owner for the first half of the year, you will find the following changes in your way of thinking:

• The circle around you used to be migrant workers, slowly turning into bosses, albeit small bosses.You start getting more and more entrepreneurial information.

• When chatting with someone, the other party throws out a business concept, be it hunger marketing or growth hacking, you can quickly and accurately know which category of product, promotion, pricing, and channel it belongs to, and how it will affect costs and sales. and profit.

• When you go shopping, your thinking dimension changes from consumer to producer.When you see a milk tea shop, you used to only think about its price and taste, but now you will think about its rent, raw material cost, monthly turnover and promotion channels.

• You used to love bestsellers, and now you're nibbling on academic books.The business idea that used to excite you now seems full of loopholes.You start to chew on tomes like "Marketing Management" and "Principles of Economics".

• You have calmed down.You start to read beyond your emotional likes and dislikes.You'll read books by authors you don't like, just to inspire yourself.The author you once liked or even admired, you will also catch his theoretical loopholes.

• You no longer repost what Jack Ma said, no longer discuss what Wang Jianlin thinks, what do you care about me?How can my business do better?

• You have become rude.You've scolded your boss for being rude before, and you won't get anywhere when you're a boss.Not a cent of the money that shouldn't be paid.

• You have longer time to think independently.Start a small business and you'll also hear buzzing advice.Some people want you to lower prices, some people want you to raise prices.You find that you are the owner of all the problems, the bearer of all the risks, and the beneficiary of all the benefits.The person making the suggestion can leave as soon as they say it, but not you.You will feel lonely.You start asking people's opinions less often, and you start thinking on your own for long periods of time, quietly.One problem alone can be thought of for 2-3 hours.

So this is my suggestion - instead of spending a few hundred yuan a year to buy books, seeing that buying books is like a mountain, reading is like a thread, in fact, the books you read are not very rewarding,It is better to lose a few hundred yuan and a few thousand yuan to start a business, establish a clear and preliminary view of the overall business situation, and recognize the strengths and weaknesses of your business capabilities., this is most likely a painful and helpless practice, but it must also be the most cost-effective study in your life.

Think about it, the 8 changes I just mentioned, only reading, not doing business, will it happen to you?

Maybe someone can make 1 million by trading in simulated stocks, but is there a high probability?What if you earn it, does it make sense?

All the important talents in the world have a price, it's just whether we want to admit it or not.