People who do the market don't necessarily know what "market" is.

do marketing, the first to understand the market.

Editor's note: This article is reproduced to the public number "Lee called Beast" (Id:professor-li), author Li Jing. Reprint has been authorized, the copyright belongs to the original author, if you want to reprint this article, please contact the original public number "Lee called the Beast."

Many companies in the marketing department, busy daily promotion of various activities, busy catching hot spots, or even busy to do calendars, but forget to really understand the most basic definition of marketing: What is called a market. Sometimes, significant negligence stems from a lack of understanding of the underlying principles.

a

First of all, this is a principle everyone knows:

Any new product, in order to successfully market, the necessary conditions are: at least first in a market for effective infiltration.

For example, a market has 100 people, once the market has 10-20 individuals to start using, it will form a detonation, others follow suit began to use. And if 20 100 people in the market, each market has 1 people, although there are still 20 people in use, but will not form a detonation.

(Figure: In the same market, once the permeability exceeds a certain critical point, it will get an explosive growth.)

"This is not any of the basic marketing materials have said that" market focus "Well, I certainly know! ”

Most market people think they are focused on the market, but they may not actually understand exactly what a "market" really means.

Before the consultation, Lee called the Beast encountered such a situation:

An IT brand of the company (main repair computer repair mobile phone, etc.), in the initial promotion, almost with the success of marketing all the conditions: the overall service satisfaction is high, low prices (such as the door to clear only 49 yuan), copy is OK, team execution strong, and even, also carried out market focus- Fixed-point focus on a number of high-end residential areas to promote, first of all to do the penetration rate.

The result is very little, where is the problem?

two

The product may have entered hundreds of markets, but it has not entered any effective market.

"Why do you say that?" Not ' concentrated in a few high-end neighborhoods for promotion? ' ‘ "

In general, an effective market must satisfy at least these 4 conditions:

1. Have a group of customers who actually exist;

2. These customers generally have certain needs;

3. A range of products and services to meet their needs;

4. When deciding to purchase, consumers in the market refer to each other.

Most people have an intuitive understanding of the first three articles. Unfortunately, the last one is the key to the success of most new product companies- consumers in the market refer to each other.

For example, you sell the same enterprise software to the same region of 10 small and medium-sized companies, on the surface of the "Beijing start-up company office software" This market segment, but as long as the people of different companies in the use of Office software do not consult each other, this is equivalent to 10 markets.

Similarly, in the above example, the company to repair computer services appear to focus on a number of Beijing high-end white-collar community, but I believe that almost no community of white-collar workers, in the "How to repair the computer" problem, with the next-door neighbors exchange views.

This means that there are 2000 families in a community, and you may have entered 2000 markets instead of 1. (And if the office, the company to promote, even if the market focus-your computer is broken do not know how to do, may be with the next table of people exchange views.) ）

three

"Why not?" Why should we focus on a market and not just throw money at it? ”

Because no company can pay for all marketing activities at once, any marketing must rely on a series of chain reactions and leverage. In other words, after the initial marketing stimulation, consumers can start to become active discussion, proactive recommendation.

We always thought that a company marketing the main body is marketing department, sales department personnel, but in fact not.

in fact, any company's main marketing activities are always done by consumers, and the marketing department is just a trigger -can imagine any of the goods you consume, whether it is clothing, beverages, apps or the public number of the animal called the Beast, more because of the people around to see the use, recommendation, discussion, Share, not ads.

Imagine, if all marketing is done by the marketing department's budget, what would be: you bought a Huawei mobile phone, in the whole decision-making process, there are friends around the use of the display effect, there is a dinner table friends on the cell phone discussion, there is a friend to buy the new phone to share the photos of friends Circle, There is a user in the forum posted the experience post-if all this to your decision to maximize the impact of the factors, all to find the Huawei Marketing department for Money, no matter how many budget is not enough.

So, the role of the marketing department is to stimulate the market in the consumer, the discussion, opinion leaders and other people's chain reaction, let them help you marketing, rather than a full marketing campaign.

This means that any promotion must be in the same market, stimulating the chain reaction, and the key is that you enter at least one consumer mutual reference market.

Four

In a market, when the density of consumers increases to a certain extent, when a consumer sees more and more people around the beginning to pay attention to a thing, buy a commodity, there will be an explosion of growth. Back to the beginning of this picture:

And when the density does not increase to a certain extent, the growth will be very slow. Therefore, all the new products in the early days, almost all focused on the resources to attack a few markets, in order to expect to reach the tipping point of the market, rather than dispersed to 2000 markets, each market penetration rate is 1 per thousand.

Since we want to focus on a market to play the leverage in the market, then how to define a market?

Five

"You should define the market with how consumers meet their needs, rather than simply using product categories and people. ”

As we mentioned before, there are 4 essential principles that a market is called "a market":

1. Have a group of customers who actually exist;

2. These customers generally have certain needs;

3. A range of products and services to meet their needs;

4. When deciding to purchase, consumers in the market refer to each other.

If you use a word to summarize is:

"A market where a group of consumers use similar products to meet similar needs and discuss each other." ”

In this view, the vast majority of entrepreneurs, new product marketers, the definition of their own markets are very vague and narrow.

Some people simply use product attributes to define the market:

"Our location is green healthy salad. ”

"Our position is to make fine high-end jewelry. ”

Others simply define the market with imaginary groups:

"Our salads are positioned in the city's new middle-class consumer population. ”

"Our jewellery is located in the 20-40-year-old beauty woman. ”

The answer is simply a description of a product category, or a description of the target group in mind, but does not accurately describe and locate any market -20-40-year-old beauty women at least hundreds of millions of people, everyone may have thousands of different needs, consumer preferences, purchase reasons, How can we call a market if the opinion reference degree is different?

How can such a description guide the specific work of the grassroots staff?

Six

the right market description should clearly explain how your product satisfies the needs of a group that can refer to it. It can guide the specific work of an employee, which is the basic requirement of any marketing strategy-after all, any policy that does not guide specific work is nonsense.

It is often defined as "how the product meets the needs of the target user" rather than the product category and user base.

For example, you are selling broom enterprises, the definition of the market is: "College students to meet the sudden visit of parents, and temporarily clean the room." A short sentence, but a guide to the work of all people.

People in the product department know:

"Since it is the dormitory students to meet the sudden visit, then compared to the family with broom, this broom on the durability, quality and other requirements are not high (in contrast, housewives to high durability requirements), but the requirements of low prices, small size (good in the bedroom does not occupy a place), easy to use (college students can not be very complex operation) Then a plastic suit is the best! ”

The people in the Channel department know:

"Since it is to meet the sudden visit, then the demand for convenient purchase, so large-scale commercial super, e-commerce and other channels are not paved, focus on the campus shop." ”

The people in the Copywriting department know:

"This part of college students may not usually clean the room habit, too troublesome, so focus on the demand point should be saving effort, so should highlight ' a set of enough ' concept, tell college students, the room quickly tidy, do not have to buy everywhere, we have a suit is enough." ”

Similarly, the PR department, the service department and even the manpower department all have the work guideline.

Therefore, the front of the salad, jewelry market, it may be necessary to define:

"The company's white-collar, need a low-calorie green food instead of lunch, in order to alleviate the guilt of eating too much dinner last night, while showing their colleagues in a healthy attitude to the image of life, to this end, we provide them with a new meal salad. ”

"There are some beauties, have the ability to consume but not buy big jewelry, because they do not want to be considered as a herd and like to show off the people, instead, they want to reflect their own unique artistic pursuit in the girlfriends." To do this, we offer high-quality jewellery with a unique design and no brand logo. ”

These two descriptions provide a clearer picture of the market you're entering, as well as guidelines for the next marketing plan, so everyone knows how to work.

Seven

"Why use ' consumer products to meet what needs ' to define the market, rather than simply describe product attributes and target populations?" ”

You can't define your market with just the product.

Even the exact same product, which may satisfy a completely different demand, is not a market at all, and does not conform to the basic principle of "market focus" as originally said.

De Beers used a slogan: "A diamond is forever", let the diamond from a stone, become a symbol of marriage, let countless men take out a year's income, to buy a product without any use value, just to prove that "I love you, so I would like to make a meaningless cost for you."

It was a "market", but then De Beers used exactly the same product, only to change a slogan, it is no longer the same market.

Later De Beers, found that women's left hand has been saturated market (everyone buy wedding rings), so ready to develop the right hand, hit the "left hand on behalf of us, right hand on behalf of" the slogan.

If the former diamond ring to meet the psychological needs is "proof that the spouse love Me", then the right hand ring to meet the demand is "prove that I am an independent economy of women, can buy themselves a diamond ring", the first aroused the "courtship" motive, the latter aroused the "social status" motive.

And this, is not the same market, the corresponding all channel strategy, marketing strategy, sales strategy and so on are different.

You can't define your market with only a user base.

Very simple, the same user, may completely meet the different needs.

More than 100 years ago, on average, an American had 2 pairs of shoes--a pair worn on weekdays and a weekend week.

Now, an average American has 8 pairs of shoes, and 19% of women have more than 50 pairs of shoes. Some are used to highlight status (such as leather shoes), some to attract the opposite sex (such as stiletto heel), some for comfortable exercise (such as jogging shoes), and some to maintain the status of the same while maintaining comfort (such as padded shoes).

The same people, in different scenarios, with the same products, completely in the satisfaction of the demand is not the same, is not a market at all.

defining the market with "how consumers meet their needs"

There was a milkshake business in the United States (forget the name), and when we first entered the market, we found that all milkshake companies defined themselves as "milkshake companies", thus subdividing the various competitors:

"High-end milkshakes", "mid-range milkshakes", "French milkshake", "fruit milkshake" ...

Since they are all milkshake companies, all competitors have the same direction: make the milkshake a better drink.

Instead of trying to define itself as a milkshake, the company first asked the question:"Why do Americans drink milkshakes and what tasks do they want to do with milkshakes?" "

Then found: The Americans drank milk shakes, is because the morning drive to the company on the road, too late to solve breakfast, want to drive while solving breakfast, and milk shakes can be one hand and easy to drink, and there is energy value, so it was taken as the first choice.

In the end, they defined the market as: "To help people in the morning to drive to work, one hand to solve breakfast." ”

In this task, in fact, "good drink" is not important, so when competitors are busy to improve the level of drinking, they focus on improving the grip of the cup, the consistency of the milk shake (prevent purging), multiple nutrients (such as adding Nuts to supplement other breakfast nutrition), to help consumers better complete the task.

So, when you define the market, you must remember the full analysis:

"Which consumers, what products to use, to meet their needs or tasks?" ”

Eight

Look for groups that can provide a reference and leverage their strengths.

You now know that there are a group of consumers who use your product to meet any needs and also understand the market you are about to enter and aggressively promote the product. But if you forget the final key step, you may be able to do a fair part of the session-looking for a group that can provide a close reference, as the first market.

In front of the company "home repair Computer" case, is because the first-tier city in the high-end community users never communicate with each other, resulting in your face is 2000 individuals, rather than a group, and thus unable to use the lever force of the dynamic group (let consumers help you promote, discuss, etc.), There is no lasting chain reaction to a wave of marketing behavior.

This leads to a high cost of promotion, but with little success.

So, from which group to start promotion?

Most people have mentioned the beginning of the "just need Crowd", "high-frequency demand crowd" and so on, but the most often forgotten here is: your first wave of the promotion of the object must be between each other can influence, exchange and exchange views of the group. The more frequent the exchange of views (for example, a car club, the same company, a group of girlfriends, etc.), the more it means that you can take advantage of the chain reaction between consumers to help you take on 90% of your marketing costs.

Conclusion

In many cases, the density of consumers in the same market is a key factor in business success.

Because once a market, with similar products to meet the similar needs of consumers more than a certain threshold (such as 100 people in the use of 15), the impact of consumer interaction, opinion reference will form a chain reaction, the entire market will usher in an explosion of growth.

That year's Zipcar car rental service, once in an even way to the United States market, the results of slow promotion, regardless of price, promotion, advertising is useless. It was then focused on focusing on several key areas to increase density, resulting in rapid growth and gradually seizing one market after another.

Another example of a friend's share of the article, you happen to see 1-2 friends to share a headline-like article, almost impossible to open the look. And if a brush circle of friends, found that more than 10 friends have shared this article, even if the title is boring "12345", you will open to see, will eventually lead to brush screen. (The density of the transmission exceeds the critical point)

Before this tipping point comes, the user is primarily affected by the work of the marketing department (such as a good title), and when the tipping point arrives, the user is primarily influenced by other users (such as a lot of people are crazy), and this is a chain reaction.

The key to activating any chain reaction is that you define and enter a market at least first. This market is not simply defined by geographical location, age of the population, product category, etc., it must be "a group of people using similar products to meet similar needs, and mutual reference views."

Only in this way do you do the basic common sense mentioned at the beginning: market focus. (After all, it's not a focus to enter 2000 markets at the same time)

At this point, you can take advantage of the consumer chain reaction, to play a marketing lever, rather than relying solely on their own marketing budget.

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People who do the market don't necessarily know what "market" is.