Online branding, what is an online brand, how to do e-commerce online brand marketing

What is an online brand? How can we better manage online brands? What is the role of marketing in branding? From a marketing perspective, the author explored some experiences and lessons learned in the process of online brand management. We can listen to the true voices of practitioners from a brand perspective.

Q1 What is an online brand?

We can collectively refer to all brands operating on the Internet as "online brands". This is a term related to e-commerce, but some were born online, and some were transformed from offline. Come. Online avoids cumbersome regional channels, and more pure e-commerce brands are forming. This is a question of positioning first, or transformation later.

Q2 What conditions can be met to better operate an online brand?

In a narrow sense, having money and people is the best condition;

In a broad sense, business depends more on the environment and the time. There is a prerequisite for how long you want to keep this brand.

Long-term and short-term are two completely different goal dimensions. If you think everyone’s answer is long-term, then I think we are not discussing one thing. Online marketing is also marketing, and it is still based on good product design, product quality, and marketing. Some people say that service is the same, but the rigid elements must come from the product, followed by the rest. Marketing can only determine how well the market accepts it based on the inherent nature of the product, and service is word-of-mouth.

Q3 How do you view the importance of marketing?

For example, some brands have very clear positioning, and they know who the user groups they are facing are, so when facing one or more groups, marketing is a bit like "weaknesses" meaning.

Users will never take the initiative to tell you what they want. This requires marketers to design their own methods.

In some cases, marketing is to make up for product weaknesses. Marketing is also to better package relatively ordinary products to add other values. Marketing is the only channel for consumers to quickly accept the brand.

I would also like to add that marketing is not simply about execution, but about promotion. Marketing can drive product improvement, drive user demand, and even shorten the circulation of goods.

Without marketing, it is best not to talk about e-commerce operations. This is the aspect that is most different from offline retail.

Q4 What is the most effective e-commerce strategy?

Conform to your brand positioning, product positioning, and crowd positioning.

If you always rely on price reduction, such a brand cannot operate for a long time;

If you always rely on traffic, then the problem you solve is essentially a problem, which is more market strategy.

The author believes that the strategy should be divided into two regional plans. The first is within the brand, and the second is in the business channels. The brand must solve the problem of unification of ideas among functions to avoid everyone being stubborn. Your own business channels are also very important. Each channel’s marketing method has its own characteristics, and the habits of channel users must be taken into account.

Some channels are used relatively frequently for search, which requires solving the problem of search results. Some channels are more effective, so you have to strive for more good positions and create good visuals.

Of course, there is another issue that cannot be ignored, your competitors.

The concept of strategy itself is not a practical object, it is more like a guideline.

If long-term goals can be reasonably broken down, the strategy will become more targeted.

Q5 How to form brand tone?

Brand tone, we can understand it as brand culture.

You can have products that cost ten yuan, and you can also have products that cost one yuan.

The concept of culture is too broad. In fact, it is more of the spiritual wealth of a commodity. This kind of wealth is the extra part that consumers enjoy when shopping, such as emotion or mentality.

First of all, any kind of tonality will take a period of time to form. You can also understand that tonality needs to pass the test of time and people.

Secondly, this kind of culture should be closely related to the attributes of your product. What the product does, the tonality must be related to it. Too high or too low will be far-fetched.

The last step is refinement. For the refinement of marketing details, more and more points will be focused on, and business managers will pay more and more attention to details. Without details, there will be no tonality.

Q6 How to quickly go online and start selling?

Judging from the policies and operating procedures of e-commerce websites, the current situation is obviously better than in the past. If the procedures are complete, the preparation work will not take long.

However, in the chain link, people who are familiar with e-commerce operations may not necessarily be equally good at this aspect. For example, the problem of stocking is directly related to your capital problem. Too much stocking is obviously better than insufficient stocking. More seriously, if the product involves size issues, the size structure also needs to be judged in advance. Of course, if you are not in a completely new industry, you should be able to find some reference from your current competitors.

The launch of the product means that your brand has officially entered people's eyes, but maybe not many people have seen it. You need to solve the reaction of a small number of people after seeing your brand. It can be said that This is the first task, because these people are almost complete strangers and are the first batch of potential consumers. If it were me, I would need to establish a more "special" relationship with them. This is very practical because they will give you the most authentic feedback, even if they don’t become your customers.

Q7 Which online brand is the best?

To determine which type of brand is relatively easy to build, firstly, it must have a consumer market, secondly, it is easy to cultivate brand precipitation (connotation), and finally, it should show which aspects of your brand are different. It should have a character that people like. reasons. This is a unique idea of ??the Internet. Failure to find this kind of potential relationship of love means whether the brand can continue to operate smoothly.

Q8 Online brands must be independently developed, independently produced and independently operated?

No. As a start-up company, it should have the first attribute. Whichever aspect it is strong in, it will dominate.

Product R&D companies generally focus more on product design. In this case, they usually look for cooperative marketing companies. Production-oriented companies focus on manufacturing products and may not necessarily have the ability to operate e-commerce. Operating companies are the most likely To quickly enter the role of e-commerce retail, the actual situation in China is that a few friends who are familiar with online marketing form an entrepreneurial team. They look for capable R&D organizations, or use those OEM factories to transform existing products or design new products, and Use your own marketing capabilities to achieve your brand. This kind of combination is very common, even including some relatively large e-commerce brands. "Do something you are more specialized in" and "find someone else to do something more specialized" form a combination of conditions.

Q9 What successful cases can we learn from?

Personally, I think "Puppy" is a relatively useful reference in recent years. From an overall marketing perspective, this company was established relatively early and entered the Internet relatively early. Now, The situation is that it has a very obvious presence in similar products on all major platforms. First of all, this is due to its product concept "Puppies make the living environment cleaner". Secondly, the appearance of the product is very recognizable and the pricing is relatively It is very close to the people, and then for the attempts of new products, including the currently popular intelligent sweeping robot, in summary, Puppy Electric not only follows the practicality of the object, but also adds its own brand personality on this basis. This factor is very critical, and Not all online brands should have a unique appearance, but they must have a distinct label of their own, and then apply the characteristics of e-commerce, participate in platform promotions, actively organize users to participate in interactions, or use surrounding industries to increase traffic, etc. .

Q10 How difficult is it for traditional enterprises to transform?

It’s difficult.

First, they are more afraid of the impact of the Internet on the traditional market. This is a contradiction that cannot be ignored.

Second, they pay more attention to product innovation and often ignore changes in user attitudes.

The third traditional brand has many hard things, while many things in the Internet and e-commerce require soft things.

Fourthly, what traditional brands often ignore the most is emotional experience, and some companies have not even thought of this.

Fifth competition has intensified price sensitivity and restrictions on each e-commerce channel.

Most of the sixth brand independent management platforms lack experienced partners.

In conclusion, in the process of traditional enterprises transforming into e-commerce, the Internet has given too much theoretical content, which can easily lead to traditional enterprises wanting everything but not getting any of them. In addition, it cannot be ignored People are also an invisible resistance in transformation. The first step in the transformation of traditional brands is the transformation of internal people, which is the transformation of internal thinking.

Q11 Small but beautiful or big and complete?

First of all, small and beautiful, more suitable for young people who are more comfortable in the city. Most of them are non-essential items, such as handbags, photography peripherals, movie peripherals, tea or coffee, hanging decorations, home furnishings, toys, etc. , this kind of small and beautiful brands will face transformation problems to some extent in the process of operation, either adding more derivative products, or forming a series of innovative products, in short, they must change.

Large and comprehensive, it looks like MUJI. Marketing can find matching products at any time according to changes in social events. "Back To School" displays its desks, chairs, and lighting accordingly. , storage, pens, notebooks, etc., as well as Muji's clothing, makeup, and maternal and infant categories, it has formed a relatively mature "lifestyle system". This brand has a wide range of products and clear style consistency. It also comes from physical stores, but its online performance will still be relatively strong, especially in some second- and third-tier cities where there are no stores. Choosing to buy online solves many people's problems.

Q12 How to plan brand marketing?

Never miss an opportunity to tell the other person you love them. The other person is actually a customer.

The ultimate goal of our planning is to generate consumption. If there is no consumption result, it means there is no ultimate goal.

We need to consider the difference between users. Female users have relatively more additional consumption. We also need to consider using the sales rules of the platform to use small losses to drive large consumption. We also need to establish Closing a transaction depends on the thinking mode of choice, setting the option that maximizes benefits for the user.