Mystery box: Electric business to reconstruct marketing code

If Word, "Mystery gift box" order mode, that is, "consumers do not know what they buy, but flocking to"!

Yes, it's a really cool marketing model for the new business era. For example, the "Limited edition" Mystery box, launched by the US PopSugar website This October, its contents are strictly confidential (eight pieces of craftsman only disclosed one: a 195-dollar price of knitted blanket), but can be determined that the gift box products are high-end chain stores brand Neiman Marcus, and the total value of all commodities "more than 600 dollars", gift box priced at 250 U.S. dollars. The result of the product sales is that in the PopSugar site less than 24 hours, all gift boxes are snapped.

Yes, now the global Internet space has brought together more and more merchants offering mystery boxes, the target consumers they aim for have already surpassed the original beauty/fashion talent, and expanded to environmental living, pet lovers, newborn parents, gamers, fitness enthusiasts ... Even smaller groups. The Mystery gift Box caters to consumers ' willingness to try new products, enjoy surprises, promote convenience, and budget, and so on. And the marketing strategy is not grandstanding, the mystery box in the collection of all boutique retail prices are indeed more than twice times the order price or even three times times.

In fact, long before the advent of the Internet era, the prototype of this model already exists. Do you remember the monthly reading club and the Columbia Record family club? (members of these clubs are required to pay only one penny of the shipping and handling costs and can receive 12 albums a month for free.) Déjà vu?

And the rise of the Internet--especially the popularity of social networks--has certainly catalysed a further boom in the mystery box ordering model: It's a great way to reach consumers and inspire positive word-of-mouth spreads. Countless gift-box recipients are happily discussing the contents of the gift box on blogs or other social media ... Mystery gift Box Hot has been out of hand, so that the relevant vertical reviews site also came into being, such as Subscription Boxes ("Order of the Magic Box"), My Subscription addiction ("My Gift Box addiction"), and so on.

In marketers ' eyes, the trend of mystery box ordering has created a new pattern of revenue growth. Gartner, a professional research firm, predicts that by 2015, 35% of the world's top 2000 companies will benefit from subscription based services and revenue.

But there is also a backlash in the boom and Waterloo in the "crab-eating" business.

New book, Bargain Tide: How to be a smart consumer in a world full of discounts Mark Er, author of the recent interview with The Times magazine, said that gift box ordering took advantage of a cognitive misunderstanding, that is, the idea of acquiring goods for the value of things, so earned; "Today, It is unwise for consumers to pay according to the price of a commodity; "The dilemma for businesses is how to sell more and more goods to fewer and less consumers, and you should be aware that the supply curve has been reversed," says Mr El Wood. ”

The Wal-Mart website also tried to launch a mysterious gift box called goodies in November 2012, offering subscribers 5 to 8 pieces of high-end food on a regular basis, at a cost of $7 a month, which is hard to buy on the usual Wal-Mart shelves. However, at the end of October 2013, the Wal-Mart website announced that it would close the subscription service for the Value box. "We have informed subscribers that goodies is closing, but the technology and experience accumulated in the short term goodies run will be of great benefit to our future promotion of Walmart.com main business and the development of new products," Wal-Mart said in a reply to TechCrunch's email. ”

Admittedly, to be a marketing winner in a subscription economy, it's not just a simple "buy NOW!" "Add a" subscribe "button next to the label. The corresponding change is throughout the marketing system, it not only involves the subversion of marketing ideas, but also related to audience positioning, product pricing, promotion and packaging and other links. Here are a few of the winning tips that are not fully summed up

One is to focus on the person rather than the product. Marketers ' success has depended on sales or sales. Marketers are often commended for gaining new market share, even if the success is short-lived or a good situation at the expense of Maori. But in the face of ordering services, these indicators are outdated.

In "Order economy", the core element that the marketer should pay attention to is no longer the volume, sales and annual profit of the single order, but the arrival rate and the retention rate of the consumers. Consumers are the lifeblood of ordering the economy, retain their loyalty is the first priority, so marketers to abandon the customer unit price, turnover, such as the 20th century business measurement, and build a continuous service and loyal consumption as the core consumer community.

BMW, for example, has a well-known "secret" that most of the company's sales come from its leasing services, a well-established service, and its executive arm is BMW's marketing department. Coincidentally, the global sports brand leader Nike has also been transformed by a product-oriented company into a service-oriented company through the launch of a "tight, cyclical" customer relationship, such as Nike and Nike FuelBand.

The second is to go beyond "business-to-business vs." and turn to "B2any". Marketers need to recognize the fact that the barriers between individual consumers and institutional customers have fallen in the era of ordering economics. Those brands that can communicate effectively with individual consumers and institutional clients will remain invincible for a long time.

We take "box" as an example: This is a Web site to provide online office content storage, transmission, sharing (including project collaboration and crowdsourcing) and other IT platform services to start a website, initially for the individual consumers (and enterprise employees) to provide free services, On the basis of winning a large number of customers, we have added a paid subscription service (subscribers can certainly enjoy more features and privileges). Just recently, Box announced the winning of a large order project for the company, which will hold 40,000 employees working together to perform ... Undoubtedly, it is from the "box" opened at the beginning of the "B2any" philosophy, to help it win the vast number of individual customer satisfaction, and then a smooth upgrade to obtain enterprise-level transactions, so that the company in the "chain reaction" like the popularity of the trend of development and growth.

The third is to explore the unlimited possibilities in order business. Subscription services Create a large number of cross-selling opportunities, and at every stage of the consumer's life cycle there are a number of key nodes that are "left" and "lost": for example, are customers lost during step 1 and step 2 because they do not want to register? Or "I already have too many goods"?...... By identifying and analyzing these critical information, an effective action strategy can be found to explore the unlimited possibilities in ordering business. The other side of the coin is that businesses should not put consumers "fooled" over, once the consequences of such a situation will also be disastrous, because in the social media in full swing in the present, ordering marketing model of any mistakes or fraud will have no room for redemption. "Cao Jiajian also contribute to this article", published in the "IT Manager World" December 20, 2013, signed by China International writer. 】