Millet: Ten Secrets of Word-of-mouth Marketing

Absrtact: text/Millet founder Li Vanchang This article is selected from its new book "Participation: Millet Word-of-mouth Marketing Internal Handbook" We have made a 30 million marketing plan, want to borrow all the media resources have been planned to do one-month national core road signs to promote, the results face by

Wen/Millet founder Li Vanchang This article selected from its new book, "Participatory Sense: Millet Word-of-mouth Marketing Internal Handbook"

We have made a 30 million marketing plan, want to borrow all the media resources have planned to do one-month national core road signs to promote, the results face by Lei "Pat dead." He said: "Alli, you do not spend a penny when you do Miui, do mobile phone can also be like this? Can we continue to open the market without spending a penny?"

The ten Secrets of millet Word-of-mouth Marketing

1, Internet thinking is the king of Word-of-mouth

Google [Weibo] is familiar with this truth: "All the user-centric, everything else." "When Google launched its Gmail email in 2004, it relied entirely on word-of-mouth. At that time, Google only provided thousands of Gmail trial account, people who want to try, must be invited to do. The limited number of "invitations" is rapidly being used globally to exchange a variety of things, such as a two-night vacation to Dubai, or a San Francisco postcard. Even, the Gmail account in the British ebay[Weibo "above the price of up to 75 pounds, I was trying to get the invitation code." This is the first time I have been shaken by Google's powerful Word-of-mouth effect.

Many Amoy brand's rise is also rely on word-of-mouth spread. For example, "Korean clothing homes" with rapid follow-up fashion design and selection, in all kinds of shopping communities are female users recommended to share the key brands, skin mask category in the "Royal mud" to the origin of the special natural raw material mineral slurry as a selling point, attracted a lot of female users in pursuit of Taobao is the leading brand of mask category; For example, the NUT category of Amoy brand "three Squirrel", in the Word-of-mouth spread more and more fire, I and many of my friends have experienced.

The traditional business marketing logic is because information asymmetry, dissemination is to hit advertising to do public relations, in short, everything is louder than the voice. However, the new social media to flatten everything, the spread of the rapid outbreak of information, the spread of the radius of a hundredfold, thousand times to increase the frequent emergence of "overnight fame" case.

Information symmetry allows users to vote with their feet greatly enhanced. A product or a service good, the enterprise own boast does not count, everybody is the boss; good news or bad news will soon be shared by social networks. The fair and equal characteristics of information, also make the network public space with strong public opinion self-purification ability, fake really can't, really also can't fake.

2, the essence of Word-of-mouth is the user's thinking, is to let users have a sense of participation

Based on the sense of participation of the Internet thinking, for the traditional business, similar to science fiction, "three-body" in the dimensionality of the attack, is a different dimension of the world duel, more commonly speaking is "the day changed."

The decision mentality of consumers to choose commodities has changed a lot in these decades. Users buy a product, from the earliest functional consumption, to the later brand-type consumption, to the recent popular experience-type consumption, and millet discovery and is participating in the new "participatory consumption."

In order to allow users to have a more in-depth experience, millet open to do products to serve the enterprise operation process, let users participate in.

3, Word-of-mouth is the transfer of trust relationship: and users to be friends

What is the best relationship between the user and the enterprise? Thousands of users, there are thousands of ideas, why do they want to recognize your product? After you have approved your product, why do you want to help spread it?

The establishment of social networks is based on the trust relationship between people, and the flow of information is the transfer of trust. The higher the trust of the user relationship established by the enterprise, the wider the spread of Word-of-mouth.

Do business as a person, friends will sincerely to spread for you, maintain your reputation, friends are the most trustworthy user relationship. Millet's user relations guiding ideology is--and users to be friends!

4, good products are the source of Word-of-mouth and engine

An enterprise wants to have good reputation, good product is Word-of-mouth engine, is the foundation of All Foundation. Product quality is 1, brand marketing is behind it 0, no the former all meaningless. And if the product to power, even if the marketing is almost done, it will not be too ugly.

Millet Marketing is Word-of-mouth communication, Word-of-mouth origin is the product. So based on the product's selling point and how to express the selling point of the basic material is the lifeline of communication.

Each new product release, the conference presentation to do a good job, the product station to do even if the completion of the half.

This is the opposite of the logic of many large companies, we have contacted some 4-a advertising companies, in the definition of new release will tend to use most of the energy in the "big concept" and the sense of form. Some companies even think that do not do product stations, that users can not see or understand, that too much information will affect the "big idea" of the arrival. So many creative people talk about the concept of products, but even their own marketing of the important parameters of the product is a smattering.

In millet, we think that our users have never been so smart as today, because a beautiful advertising word on the purchase of products is gone forever. In our millet community can be seen, users will carefully read the product features, search comparisons and evaluation, and even product dismantling will be read. Every user is an expert, even more than we know the characteristics of the competition.

So, after refining the core selling points, we will be in the PPT and the product station up and down. I to our marketing colleague's request is to the product and the technology understanding is no less than the engineer, because you only then understands, can translate the technical language to the user to listen, can also from this process excavate to the real user valuable characteristic. Designers can only learn the most detailed features of the product to the best selling point to the design language.

5, Word-of-mouth can be zero cost

I started Millet first project MIUI, Ray always told me, you can not spend a penny to do 1 million users? method is to catch Word-of-mouth. Because you have no money to spend, to let everyone take the initiative to praise your products, the initiative to the people around the recommendation, you have to concentrate on products and services do a good job.

June 2011, we began to find Millet mobile [micro-blog] Marketing director, I and Ray have always met a number of people, to the people always love to say to us, "you go to play advertising", "You go to open the entity shop" ... We are disappointed that Millet is looking for not only sales, but a real understanding of the concept of Internet phone people.

Two months have passed, have not found the right person, Ray always said: O Li you go.

At first, we made a 30 million of the marketing plan, want to borrow all the media resources have been planned to do one-month national core road signs to promote, the result is the total "shot dead". He said: "Alli, you do not spend a penny when you do Miui, do mobile phone can also be like this? Can we continue to open the market without spending a penny?"

At that time my first reaction is to do MIUI system, users can not spend money on the use of, do mobile phones, users are to spend money to buy. At that time, my heart will also make a question mark: Mobile phone is 2000 pieces of things, if you do not spend a little advertising fees, so that users to pay, is not really feasible?

Millet is brand new, no money, no media, no advertising. No way, we can only die of new media.

6. Social media is the main battlefield

Good word of mouth needs to make more people know faster, so we need to use social media, social media is the accelerator of Word-of-mouth communication.

Some companies do social media, very much like looking for outsourcing, by outsourcing companies to help you on behalf of the operation, or with a try attitude, from the traditional marketing department to find one or two people to try. In fact, this way, there is no temperature, it is difficult to do well. Millet is currently on the social media platform to invest in hundreds of people, we regard these new media as the most important marketing platform.

It's a tradition to find someone to do social media. Traditional enterprises will find marketing planners to do, but for millet, we are doing from the media, to do content operations. Therefore, Millet's social media marketers are the first requirement, not to do marketing planning, but to do product managers.

We emphasize to use Product Manager thinking to do marketing. Millet marketing work through the new media platform to face users, and the biggest difference between new media and traditional media marketing is that marketing is no longer a one-way infusion of information between users and enterprises symmetry, interaction at any time in the occurrence. At this time, as a new media operators, if you do not understand the product, it is difficult to product characteristics and users to speak clearly.

7, to do Word-of-mouth needs of seed users

When the first edition of Miui was released in August 2010, we had only 100 users, who were the first core users of Word-of-mouth communication. MIUI has now surpassed 60 million users since the first 100 people began to accumulate and spread through Word-of-mouth.

In the early days of user accumulation, we pay special attention to the accumulation of loyalty and the purity of the initial user. At that time, some colleagues suggested that we do a MIUI special brush machine software, I rejected the idea: it is not suitable to try large-scale promotion, should focus on the call of enthusiasts users, to maintain the purity of early seed users, if the average small white users in a large number of premature influx, The ability of word of mouth of the core group in the early MIUI may be damaged.

What does a real enthusiast pay attention to? A statement: Novelty, sophisticated. Products in one aspect to achieve the ultimate, it will naturally be enthusiasts sought after. This is the millet phone from the birth has been the pursuit of high-performance reasons. As long as the performance of prominent, distinctive personality, there must be someone to love.

It is the core seed user that loves you and appreciates you at first. These enthusiasts are opinion leaders in the crowd, and in the consumer electronics industry, opinion leaders ' evaluations have a strong influence on the purchasing decisions of ordinary users.

The enthusiastic opinion leader is playing the tension of Word-of-mouth marketing, and the rise of modern social media gives it unlimited bonus. Previous enthusiasts are small, can affect the crowd around the circle, and now even if you do not call the professional forum to ask, in micro-blog, micro-letter can be very easy to be recommended. The way we move consumers today becomes very short and flat.

So around the enthusiasts to do products, marketing methods to get unprecedented success. Moreover, millet to do mobile phones, television and other products, are standardized mass market products, we have to do is the national brand, social media in the field of the topic more popular.

8, the definition of product selling point, consider the recommendation of Word-of-mouth scene

"Zhuo Extraordinary", this is our most common in many ads to the word, but millet interior planning meetings are often criticized a word. I often say in the interior, millet do is Word-of-mouth recommendation, we define the selling point of products, in fact, you only need to consider a scene, you will be in that moment to friends how to recommend. When you recommend to a friend, you will not say "millet phone Zhuo extraordinary", right? Plain "Millet mobile phone is fast".

Colleagues give me a lot of cases, my first sentence a lot of time is: Don't be so coy, can be simple and direct point. Many enterprises in the design, the first trap is to play virtual, such as tall, Wei Hu Zheng. This design you think use in your product is very good, use in others also very good, looks very cool, want to show the brand tall, simply say is "to screen", think used in where all very good, but is not grasping the heart. The second pitfall is often a gimmick as a selling point, not the product that the biggest points, the most essential point to speak clearly.

9, speak English, to "Walk the Heart"

I to our marketing colleague's request is to the product and the technology understanding is no less than the engineer, because you only then understands, can translate the technical language to the user to listen, can also from this process excavate to the real user valuable characteristic.

I have suggested content operations in front of the "participatory 33 rule": useful, emotional, and interactive. Here the useful is to ask not to talk nonsense, emotion is speaking, interaction is to guide users to share the spread, guide to play together.

We need to express our real product experience, content does not need to pursue the system, but to tell their own pain point to scratch their itch.

Traditional customer service, will be through training the church staff a complex set of standard answers. In the Millet customer service system, we not only have the standard answer, we also ask everyone in the master of the answer can forget the answer, dare to face specific problems to plan, dare to "speak".

Because our service is facing people, if we through the standard answer to the customer service staff training machine, so that the machine to talk to people, how can users be satisfied with it?

We emphasize the language environment, we must "speak English". On Weibo, it doesn't matter if you make a few jokes. Because a lot of microblogging is letters, this kind of friend's sense of bringing in, should be the more real the better.

At the home of millet, we often say: non-standard service is to "Walk the heart." Once, a female user came to Suzhou Millet home repair mobile phone, her day mood is not good, our shop assistant gave her a hand-painted color shell--in her mobile phone shell hand-painted a green tree. This user is pleased to say, this is the handicraft, reluctant to go home to be framed up, before leaving also sent a facial cleanser to our shop assistant.

10, to learn to output stories and topics

In the dissemination, to know how to export good products into a wonderful story and topic! MIUI Word-of-mouth First established, there are three nodes is very important, these nodes are word-of-mouth dissemination of "stories and topics."

"Fast" is the first word of mouth node, use more fluent. We started with the deep customization of Android phone system, when MIUI mainly do brush machine ROM. On the surface, the user is using the mobile phone hardware, but in fact most of the control experience, in essence, from the software. At that time, a lot of brush machine software are individuals and small teams do, they do not have enough strength or sustained energy to really do the bottom of the optimization. Let's grab the "quick" and optimize the animation frame speed of the entire desktop, from 30 frames per second to 40 frames to 60 frames, let the fingertips slide in the screen there is silky smooth feeling, optimize the main user pain points, the phone call, text messaging module optimization experience better, faster, such as to send text messages to common contacts, the general system to 3~5 step, We only need two steps.

"Good-looking" is the second word of mouth node. At that time, the original interface of Android was ugly compared to Apple. We first optimize the program to make the system faster, about three or four months after the start to do "good-looking." A year later, the theme of MIUI has reached the point of programmable, if you have some programming ability, the theme can do a variety of things. Miui in the theme of the mobile phone product design, on openness and depth, the entire Android system we are doing the most outstanding.

"Open" is the third word of mouth node, we allow users to recompile custom MIUI system. What kind of development did this bring? Openness has involved many foreign users who have published their own English, Spanish and Portuguese versions of MIUI. This open strategy attracts a lot of foreign enthusiasts to the deep spread of MIUI, foreign Word-of-mouth has in turn affected the domestic market spread, similar to export.

(The author of this article: Millet Technology Co., Ltd. Vice president, the founder of the Millet Technology)