The brand image is well packaged and well publicized. In addition, the machine itself is also good. Every time Xiaomi is mentioned, people will talk about the Apple machine that people love and yearn for. This adds a lot of psychological implications to users, indicating that Xiaomi and Apple are of the same grade, which makes people feel more responsible.
Detailed information promotion methods;
Xiaomi model
Xiaomi’s success has created the “Xiaomi model” of mobile phone marketing in the post-mobile phone era, which uses Internet marketing as the Compared with the marketing methods of traditional mobile phone companies in the pre-mobile phone era, Xiaomi's marketing model has the following characteristics or innovations:
1. Promotion by celebrity CEO
As we all know, Lei Jun, the boss of "Xiaomi", is a well-known figure in the IT industry. Lei Jun introduced himself on Weibo as: the founder of Xiaomi. He previously participated in the founding of Kingsoft Software and Joyo.com, and his hobby is angel investment. Lei Jun joined Kingsoft in 1992 and became CEO of Kingsoft in 1998. Under his leadership, Kingsoft has further expanded its application software into fields such as utility software, Internet security software and online games, and has made important contributions in Kingsoft's comprehensive Internet transformation. In 2007, after Kingsoft went public, Lei Jun stepped down as president and CEO of Kingsoft and became vice chairman. In July 2011, Lei Jun became chairman of Kingsoft Software. In addition to his experience in Kingsoft Software, Lei Jun also serves as an angel investor and has invested in many innovative companies such as Vancl Eslite, Duowan, UCWEB (Ushi Technology), and Xiaomi Technology. Every investment has been quite successful! It can be seen that no matter what he does, Whether he is a business manager or an investor, Lei Jun is very successful in the Internet industry!
With his fame and appeal in the IT industry, Lei Jun’s every move is the target of media pursuit. Every time he speaks publicly All the words are reported by the media, and all of this is free! On August 16, 2011, Lei Jun held a press conference in Beijing to officially release Xiaomi mobile phone and announce the details of Xiaomi mobile phone for the first time. The media gathered at the press conference to see the style of Lei Jun and Xiaomi mobile phone. After that, major media were full of news. After hearing the news about Xiaomi mobile phone, Xiaomi mobile phone became famous throughout the IT industry. Since then, Xiaomi mobile phone has also been favored by the media and mobile phone enthusiasts. Every move of Lei Jun and Xiaomi has attracted the attention of the media and mobile phone enthusiasts. under!
In addition to official public media conferences, Lei Jun also continues to publish information about Xiaomi through his Weibo to attract continued attention from the media and enthusiasts to Xiaomi mobile phones. For example, Lei Jun posted on Weibo on October 1 For the first time, the sales time of Xiaomi mobile phones has been officially revealed: the first batch of Xiaomi mobile phones will be shipped around October 15th!
In addition, Lei Jun also uses Weibo and other Internet tools to create hot spots of media interest and attract media attention and hype. For example, Lei Jun himself actively participated in the verbal conflict between "Xiaomi" and 360, and on Weibo Zhou Hongyi, who constantly posted comments on the blog to counterattack or criticize 360, was nicknamed the "Little Three War" by netizens. For example, Lei Jun posted on Weibo on May 19: "Since someone wants to make a mobile phone, he should do it well: 1. Don't rely on swearing and quarreling to make a market. For promotion, secondly, do not rely on plagiarism and plagiarism models to follow up and make products. Thirdly, do not rely on controlling safe entrances to forcefully push software to steal user information. Fourthly, put down the AK47 and don’t be intoxicated by the illusion of being invincible in the East. Be a normal businessman and use your products. Talk. If the product is really good, you don’t have to rely on your mouth to curse people every day!” The frequency is very high, which on the one hand has hit 360, and on the other hand, it has increased Xiaomi’s exposure;
Second, precise positioning
The success of Xiaomi mobile phones is first of all due to Lei Jun’s precise positioning of Xiaomi mobile phones. Xiaomi mobile phones are not intended to target all market segments, nor are they meant to be all-inclusive for blue-collar workers, white-collar workers, students, and bosses; A specific group of consumers, in Lei Jun's words: "They are the group of people who like to play with mobile phones. They understand performance and like to mess around. They are mobile phone users." In detail, the characteristics of these people include: 1. Aged between 20-28 years old, usually 20-25 years old; 2. Have a college degree or above, majoring in science and engineering, and are obsessed with technology, especially IT technology; 3. Graduation is less than 5 years ago, usually 2-3 years, and the income is between 2,000-6,000 yuan; 4. Likes to play with mobile phones and surf the Internet, and often browses IT websites such as Pacific Computer Network and Zhongguancun Online; 5. Has a personal Consumer opinion, don't like to follow the crowd; 6. Like online shopping, don't like shopping; 7. Low social status, most of them are engaged in low-level technical support work, eager to be recognized;
After positioning the target group From now on, Xiaomi has tailored a complete set of product strategies, pricing strategies and marketing strategies for this group of people.
Product strategy: to make a high-quality smartphone, the configuration must be good, otherwise it will be looked down upon by these people. The technology (including the platform system and the product itself) must have a certain degree of complexity, otherwise there will be nothing to play with; marketing strategy: pricing strategy: 2000 Within 1 yuan, it is too expensive, which means you can’t afford it, and if it is too low, it seems tasteless; Marketing strategy: Internet marketing, which means the most things you do every day is surfing the Internet. All Xiaomi’s marketing is done through the Internet. WeChat Blogs, mobile phone reviews, forums, etc.;
3. Internet Marketing
In the process of brand marketing, Xiaomi mobile phones do not use traditional TV or web advertising, but target themselves Target consumer groups, adopt Internet marketing, use forums, Weibo and professional website reviews to accurately disseminate to target consumer groups.
1. Weibo
Xiaomi has two Weibo positions. One is Lei Jun himself. He uses his influence in the IT industry to continue to speak out and currently has more than 200 fans. Ten thousand, that is, more than 2 million people are listening every time Lei Jun speaks! The other is the official Weibo website of Xiaomi mobile phones. It currently has tens of thousands of fans, which is also a huge number. Not only that, every Weibo post will also lead to forwarding by the fan, thus the number of people affected will explode. For example, Xiaomi Company’s May 20 event Weibo “@小米公司: Survey how many rice fans are looking forward to it” , the tail of #小米手机QQ在线#? Friends who want it, please raise your hands and leave~~", it was forwarded 11,647 times by fans and commented 6,768 times! Lei Jun and Xiaomi use these two Weibos to mainly publish the following information: (1) New product launches. For example, on May 20, Xiaomi released "At 10 o'clock this morning, Xiaomi.com will sell a limited number of 150,000 Youth Edition units on a first-come, first-served basis." . Please choose a good network and log in in advance.” (2) Event notice: //@小米公司: May 23rd # CoolLe61AccessoriesSpecial# event, double the discount. Users who purchase accessories are eligible to participate in the Xiaomi mobile phone purchase privilege draw, and 50,000 privilege qualifications are waiting for you! Optional standard version or telecom version. Welcome to forward it to inform your friends; (3) To create hot spots, such as attacking opponents, Xiaomi released on May 22: "Looking at 360, every online battle ended in defeat, one can't help but imagine: so unafraid of legal penalties, exhausting all means to fight Opponent, 360 is really incorrigible. Please forward this message!”
2. Forum
Forum marketing is also called community marketing. This is not a new invention of Xiaomi, but was first adopted by Meizu, another Chinese smartphone expert. In Meizu’s There is a Meizu forum on the official website, where tens of thousands of smartphone enthusiasts are active every day. Through the forum, a direct communication channel has been established between Meizu Company and mobile phone enthusiasts (kerosene). Meizu Company uses the forum to hand over customer needs and solve customer problems. We collect problems that people encountered while playing with their mobile phones and publish information related to Meizu mobile phones. Huang Zhang, the boss of Meizu, also directly participated in the discussion of the forum as J.Wgong. He was sought after by Meizu friends and became an unwavering opinion leader in the forum.
Lei Jun, the leader of Xiaomi, originally came from the Internet. I am more familiar with the Internet, so I have absorbed the essence of Meizu Internet marketing and continued to innovate, thus reaching another level.
Xiaomi now has at least three forums gathering popularity, Xiaomi official website community, Mi Chat forum and MIUI official forum. "Go to miui.com and have a look. Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered." Among them, Xiaomi's official website has 3.5 million registered users and more than 5 million posts as of early June. The number of posts every day is more than 10,000. The popularity of the forum can be seen from these figures.
What Xiaomi does in the forum is actually similar to Weibo. The main things are as follows: (1) One-on-one communication with customers, in-depth, detailed and first-hand understanding of customer needs, and for The market positioning and function development of Xiaomi mobile phones have accumulated valuable original data; (2) Create hot spots, attack opponents, and unite people. For example, on May 21, an announcement was made on the forum: "Strongly condemn 360 for concocting rogue methods regardless of the interests of netizens" Baidu hot words "attack Xiaomi"; (3) Promoting company culture and achievements, such as a leader visiting the company in a certain month of a certain year and sending messages for the company's continued development; (4) Sharing of players' experiences, published by Xiaomi technical staff , mainly teaches Xiaomi enthusiasts how to play with mobile phones, and some Xiaomi enthusiasts spontaneously publish it to satisfy their little vanity and sense of achievement; (5) Activity information release: For example, on May 29th: "Kunming Station 2012 Xiaomi Mobile Popcorn "Kunming Station Registration"; (6), problem feedback, online Q&A and problem solving. Mobile phone users can directly report their own problems in the forum, and the forum administrator will answer them on the spot. Some common questions can even be collected through unified collection. Measures should be taken to avoid further escalation of the situation and focus on calming down the situation. For example, on May 20, Xiaomi released: [Announcement] Announcement and problem collection about third-party software causing system failure and restart. The announcement contains the reasons for the problem, ways for rice fans to report the problem, and Xiaomi's preliminary solutions. It is very detailed. "Smartphone restart failures are divided into occasional restarts and frequent restarts: Occasional restarts are generally caused by software conflicts and system instability, which can be solved by upgrading software or newer versions; reasons for frequent restarts generally include software systems and hardware.
If a restart occurs due to a system problem, it can be solved by updating the version or uninstalling the software that caused the problem. If the problem is caused by hardware, Xiaomi mobile phones strictly abide by the national three-guarantee law, guaranteeing a refund within 7 days and a replacement within 15 days. , Warranty within one year”
3. Professional website evaluation
Use the evaluation articles of “professional editors” or “ordinary netizens” on professional IT websites to attract the attention of mobile players and create expert guidance or word-of-mouth The promotion effect of Xiaomi mainly relies on traditional IT product review websites such as "Little Bear Online", "Zhongguancun Online" and "Pacific Computer Network". These websites have a mobile phone review column and often review some products. Review new models or more influential models. The content covers the appearance, functions, system software and even comparison of competing products, etc. It is very detailed and the content seems to be quite impressive. Most "players" will do this before purchasing the product. They will refer to the evaluation opinions of these websites and influence consumers' purchasing decisions through "mobile phone reviews", which is a very effective and cost-effective Internet marketing method.
4. E-commerce sales
Xiaomi has completely abandoned the traditional mobile phone sales model. There are no dealers such as national or provincial brands, no specialty stores, or image stores. There are no counters in some mobile phone hypermarkets, and there are no shopping guides. Xiaomi The sales of mobile phones mainly rely on e-commerce websites and operators, especially the former. Xiaomi's website is designed to be very simple, with no redundant information. The homepage is product information, and you can enter the purchase process with one click. The purchase process is also very simple, with simple registration. That’s it, it’s a completely “transaction-type” e-commerce website. It’s more generous and beautiful than the average Taobao store, and it’s simpler and more efficient than the average corporate website. Before cooperating with the operator, ordinary consumers used this website. Come to make an appointment, buy or even rush to buy!
4. Hunger Marketing
This trick is learned from Apple. The first batch of Xiaomi mobile phones will be shipped on October 15th. 100,000 units. As of May 2012, there have been 7 open sales since then. Each time is a limited sale and each time it is sold out. The cumulative sales exceed 1.8 million units! The significance of hunger marketing is to first create a situation! There is an illusion that rare species are more expensive. Secondly, batch sales help manufacturers control the quality of products. Even if problems occur, they can be controlled within a certain range. The latter batch of products can prevent the occurrence of similar problems before they are sold. Finally, Artificially creating the illusion of hot sales that exceeds supply;
5. Offline activities: Combining online and offline activities and multi-channel marketing. In order to develop users through forums, Xiaomi will often hold other events. Some offline activities, such as the "2012 Xiaomi Mobile Popcorn National Tour", are Xiaomi's so-called "Mi Fan City Meetings" held across the country. Through such offline activities, Xiaomi interacts with consumers and relies on activities to attract people. Relying on atmosphere to retain people" can be said to be a true portrayal.
6. Create your own operating system. All Xiaomi mobile phones are pre-installed with MIUI, an operating system independently developed by Xiaomi. MIUI is a third-party mobile operating system of Xiaomi that is deeply optimized, customized and developed based on the Android system. The MIUI system of Xiaomi mobile phones is definitely the largest in the entire machine. The highlight, it can be said that the MIUI system has made Xiaomi mobile phones a success! According to Lei Jun, MIUI is the first time Xiaomi has introduced the Internet model. The development team and 500,000 mobile phone enthusiast fans around the world participated in the deeply customized Android system.
Since there is a universal version of Andriod available for free, why does Xiaomi still spend so much time and effort building an operating system? On the one hand, it is to give consumers a better user experience, just like what Xiaomi promotes, based on Chinese user habits, it is closer to your usage habits and psychological habits, making your operations simpler and more considerate; on the other hand, it is In order to lay out and occupy the entrance in the mobile Internet era, this is why after Xiaomi, many Internet companies such as Baidu and 360 have cooperated with mobile phone manufacturers to launch their own smartphones. For example, Baidu has cooperated with many mobile phone hardware manufacturers to stick to mobile Internet search. Entrance to lay out future cloud strategy.
Inspiration from the Xiaomi model
1. Win the market by pleasing enthusiasts
The enthusiasts here generally refer to those leading consumers who understand the market, products and trends. They are usually keen on chasing the latest product trends. They will spend several times the price to try flat-screen TVs in the traditional TV era. They will spend an entire night studying the differences between the two mobile phone operating systems, and then share them through logs or posts. To users in the circle. They may seem crazy to outsiders, but these leading consumers are the objective force driving innovation and progress.
Everett M. Rogers, a world-renowned communication master, pointed out in his book "Diffusion of Innovations" that excellent innovations can always be done first, accounting for only 2.5% of the total number of people in society. Leading consumers, they will help the product reach 13.5% of early adopters and 68% of mainstream consumers through higher communication capabilities.
Xiaomi has successfully won the favor of enthusiasts by providing extremely cost-effective and decent products.
These enthusiasts are usually an important reference for influencing friends and family around them to choose mobile phones, which in turn promotes the influence of Xiaomi mobile phones among mainstream consumers.
The influence Xiaomi has gained through the enthusiast crowd now, if it adopts traditional advertising and marketing strategies, the investment cost may exceed 100 million yuan, and the effect may be far less than that.
2. The best way to break into new markets is to break the existing rules
If Xiaomi’s mobile phone is just a phone with a slightly advantageous price, but nothing new in appearance, design, and functions. product, then even if Lei Jun advocates everything, he will never be able to achieve such an enthusiastic response from the market.
The key to the success of Xiaomi mobile phones is to sell smartphones sold by other manufacturers for 3,000 yuan or 4,000 yuan at an unprecedented 1,999 yuan. Emerging terminal manufacturers, including Huawei and ZTE, have also acquiesced to the profit, cost, and income rules of the smartphone market. Xiaomi's "breaking price" has successfully satisfied consumers' need to obtain top-notch products at the price of mid- to low-end smartphones from other brands. Smartphone experience, including screen, processor, battery, memory and other important configurations.
It seems that the media reviews and user trial experience of Xiaomi mobile phones are not bad either. In this way, consumers’ last line of psychological defense has been broken, and all that is left is crazy buying. The experience left to us by Xiaomi mobile phones is: if you want to achieve a rapid breakthrough in an unfamiliar emerging market, the best way is to completely break the existing rules without mercy.
Depending on different industries and products, this rule may be price, function, positioning and other factors.
3. Appropriate hunger marketing is conducive to the advancement of the overall plan
Whether intentional or not, hunger marketing has become an important keyword for Xiaomi mobile phones, or because of real insufficient production capacity, Or because of the promotion of marketing power, under normal circumstances most people cannot buy Xiaomi mobile phones through normal channels.
The principle of hunger marketing is very similar to that of kite flying. Through planned control of the rhythm of goods release, it creates the status quo or illusion of large-scale shortages in the market, making things more valuable when they are scarce, which in turn triggers large-scale consumer demand sought after. If synchronized with appropriate media promotion strategies, it can effectively drive product sales.
Invitation registration for Internet products is also a type of hunger marketing. Including and well controlling the rhythm of hunger marketing in product sales, publicity, and marketing will be conducive to the advancement of the overall product plan.
4. Be well prepared
In the first half year of the emergence of Xiaomi mobile phones, lack of preparation has been a problem faced by Xiaomi mobile phones. Insufficient production capacity estimates have led to large-scale product shortages. From the initial 5,000 units to the last two batches of 200,000 units, Xiaomi mobile phones seem to be forever unavailable. Of course, it may also be the choice of hunger marketing.
Online business support has also become Xiaomi’s weakness. From the first batch of Xiaomi accounts to the online sales of the first and second batch of official products, it is always accompanied by downtime, slow access, There are endless problems with page errors. Initial underestimation is understandable, but problems appearing one after another in the same place are incomprehensible. If Xiaomi needs it, it will not be difficult to obtain server support with large traffic and heavy load.
The negative teaching material Xiaomi mobile phones give us is that you must always prepare enough margin for your products to prepare for resource consumption caused by user growth. If possible, try to choose a highly scalable software and hardware support system. Of course, domestic cloud computing services are still in their initial stages.