The essence of O2O is to establish four levels of connectivity

2014 can undoubtedly be called "the Year of O2O". Not only bat, Jingdong, Shun Fung and other giants are declared "into the O2O, to create a closed loop", a variety of dazzling innovative projects, as long as the internet with the words must be said to be O2O.

So, what exactly is O2O? Is it subversion or salvation for traditional industries? How should enterprises fall in love with O2O?

The direct literal meaning of O2O refers to "the combination of line and line". Then, enterprises, businesses are not open a "micro-mall" or app, can let consumers through the mobile phone to pay, even if it is O2O? As some propaganda said, "micro-credit Marketing" There will be countless users flocked to come to you? What is the essence of O2O? Let the old Li Dao tell you: O2O is a new business model in the mobile internet era.

The essence of O2O is: to help brand/merchant and user to establish four levels of seamless links.

As an IT person in the Ashes class, in the process of helping the traditional industry "embrace the Internet", the old Li Dao deeply realizes that the essence of the O2O business model is: to help the brand/merchant to establish four levels of seamless links between customers. These four levels are: goods, services, emotions, careers.

Product Link: weak link. When a consumer establishes a link with a merchant/brand by buying a product, he or she is only a "customer". Once the purchase is over, the customer may not come to patronize you for minutes. After all, this is a great wealth of goods, customers are the times of the world.

Service Links: Strong links. Service can enhance customer satisfaction, and effectively deepen his/her imprint on service providers. The service itself is an important "experience". When the two sides establish the link through the service, the consumer will become the merchant or the brand "the user".

Emotional connection: Strong links. After incorporating the emotion, the user is upgraded to a "fan". How powerful is the "fan" power? Look at those idols, Big V can deeply understand. The most successful use of "fan economy" is millet. As a senior rice noodles, I will not only buy a variety of millet products (from mobile phones, routers, accessories, to T-shirts, Rice bunny dolls), but also enthusiastically recommend Millet products to friends, and even spend a lot of time to help friends snapped up. Fans will not only build strong emotional links with the brand, but also have a strong sense of identity between fans. All kinds of fans, backup clubs, and city clubs are created by enthusiastic fans and even become part of some of the fans ' lives.

Career Links: Deep links. Based on the depth of the brand recognition, some fans will join the brand's sales or service system, as part of its ecosystem. For example, all over the "Millet home" service stations, almost all of the local senior rice noodles to join the creation of millet. There are quite a large number of groups in the Millet MIUI system to develop a variety of topics, and then in the "Millet Mall" on sale, to be divided. They are not simply "consumers", but become brand "business partners." Brands give their lives a deep imprint.

The essence of O2O is to help brands/businesses keep in touch with their customers anytime and anywhere, and to allow more consumers to become "customers", "fans" and even "business partners". Mobile phones, tablets, and more and more smart devices make it possible to "connect anywhere".

So why is it so important to achieve "seamless connection" with the user? Even become a new business model?

Let's look back at the retail business in the past, which is essentially a "flow" business. At the earliest, merchants scrambled to open their shops in crowded streets. In exchange for expensive store rental costs to the exuberant "passenger flow." Later, large shopping malls, Shopping Mall, the emergence of urban complex, become the preferred brand shop. The essence of this is the high rents in exchange for passenger traffic. Then brand businesses will continue to put a large number of ads to attract passenger flow. Ten years ago, the rise of PC Internet, E-commerce, broke from the production to the retail layer of distribution barriers, so that information transparent, channel flat, and finally formed a bat these three "flow giants." Baidu, Ali, Tencent, the three major giants provide basic services are free. And their huge income essentially comes from "click Traffic". Again, such as the free anti-virus software to start the 360 guards, provide free information Services Sina, are first through the free to attract eyeballs gathered users, and then through advertising, games, electricity quotient of these three major ways to achieve "flow value realized." Traditional commerce is "the channel is King", because the channel terminal grasps the passenger flow. PC Internet era is more prominent "traffic is king."

Time has been moving forward for 2014 years, with the "access to traffic" as the core business model finally ushered in a complete era of change. There are two main factors behind this change.

The first is the end of the "demographic dividend" era.

One of the key supporting forces behind the more than 30 years of rapid economic growth is the "demographic dividend". In this period, manufacturers consider more how to scale, the market, how to speed up expansion. There is a large amount of cheap resources (including human resources) available, a large number of blank areas to be developed, and no need to consider the problem of intensive cultivation. Finally, China ushered in the "demographic inflection point" in 2013. Data show that the total number of people with marriageable age will decline for the first time in 2015. On the Internet, too, the era of rapid traffic growth has passed. Reflected in the commercial, it is rent, wages and other costs continue to rise rapidly, the cost of obtaining more and more high, and conversion rate is getting lower. For example, the data disclosed by the famous electricity merchant, Huang, is about 5 yuan a decade ago and now averages more than 100 yuan. At the same time, the conversion rate of traffic has fallen to less than 1%, the customer's annual turnover rate is more than 1/3. A lot of data show that the past "hit Money to buy traffic" development model (including online and offline) has reached the limit. The brand, the merchant must change the thought, from "high drainage, low transformation, low viscosity" The extensive mode to "enhance customer satisfaction" of the fine mode of transformation. Customer experience as the center, relying on customer word-of-mouth to form a virtuous circle.

The second is the advent of the mobile internet era.

In the past times, limited by the information means, manufacturers want to communicate with a large number of dispersed users, the difficulty is very large. And the mobile internet has completely changed everything. Mobile phones make each person almost "always online" and use a variety of debris time for communication and entertainment. Everyone is the recipient of information at any time, but also the creation and dissemination of information. "Going Central" is definitely one of the most notable features of the mobile internet era. In this era, every merchant, each individual can become an important information link and interactive node, "from the media" space has never been so vast. You can be one of the "center of Traffic" yourself. and "precision" is far more valuable than "mass".

Or millet as an example. Millet's pioneering work is from the development of MIUI system began. They first found about 100 enthusiasts from various technical forums, persuading them to brush their machines to try the MIUI system. Through the deep interaction with these 100 "dream patrons", the MIUI system is quickly iterated and disseminated through the Forum. A year later, when the first generation of millet mobile phones launched, the MIUI system has accumulated more than 500,000 users. This is the beginning of millet, the most hardcore fan group. By 2013, millet annual sales of more than 26 billion, MIUI system users more than 50 million, and millet company basically has not been put on the media ads. This is hard to imagine for entrepreneurs in traditional industries. It is this deep interaction with users, the common growth of the "participatory sense mode" is to lay millet this four years of super high-speed development of the solid cornerstone. With this model and the traditional handset manufacturers against, Cuikulaxiu, irresistible.

In the old Li Knife view, the essence of the O2O business model is: to "operating fans" as the core, and constantly improve user experience satisfaction and loyalty, through the fans to carry out "Word-of-mouth marketing", the formation of a virtuous business cycle. and "Seamless connection" is the core way to achieve this goal. Any O2O that does not aim at settling users and operating fans is bullying. Take this as the basic point to look at each industry O2O concrete application, regardless of what is the entrance, with the entity business How to combine, the most core, most valuable part must be "member Big Data". If you can not obtain a large number of member data through O2O, can not activate the enterprise has been quiet all kinds of member data, then this O2O will eventually be a empty.

O2O model itself is "the traditional industry and mobile internet deep integration and the birth of a new model." From this point of view, it is the salvation of the traditional industry. 2015, the O2O model will be in a variety of traditional industries in a large number of applications, the emergence of many successful cases. Companies that embrace O2O will reap the rewards of a paradigm shift. And more still on the sidelines, even the mobile internet is still blind to the enterprises will face a more severe impact. In this sense, O2O will be the subversive of these businesses.