Brand promotion is an important link in the process of brand establishment and maintenance, including communication planning and implementation, brand tracking and evaluation. No matter how good the brand idea is, it can't become a strong brand without strong support of promotion and implementation. Moreover, brand promotion emphasizes consistency, and all details in the implementation process should be unified. "The devil is in the details." The best enterprise in this field is McDonald's. The decoration of McDonald's fast food restaurants all over the world is a style. No matter in which country or city, as long as you walk into McDonald's fast food restaurant, you will strongly feel the affinity and appeal of the brand.
Edit each stage of the brand promotion strategy in this paragraph.
It is of great practical significance to divide the different periods of the brand into four stages: introduction period, growth period, peak period and decline period.
First, the introduction period of brand promotion strategy
The first stage of brand development is the lead-in period, which is the first time that an enterprise's brand faces customers or participates in competition. The lead-in period is also a brand management concept just introduced by the enterprise, and it is a brand-new starting point. The most typical characteristics of the lead-in period are: the target customers choose carefully out of lack of awareness of the new brand; Because it is a new brand, there will be first-time testers among the customers who dare to try. These testers may be people and opinion leaders who dare to accept new things in the customer base, or they may be solid fans and role models of the brand in the future. Competitors are observing and trying to obtain the market intention of the enterprise at this time, and have not yet established a ban plan; The media or other stakeholders may also pay close attention to the process and results of brand promotion. Summarizing and understanding the characteristics of the lead-in period is to make appropriate promotion plans and media placement strategies for enterprises, find the right time, and make them have a higher market starting point.
First of all, for the launch of a new brand, the response of the target customers is bound to be very different-indifference, concern, trying, and acting as a communicator. According to the author's previous market practice analysis, the proportion of these four behavior states of customers is 60, 20, 15 and 5 in turn, but this is based on the premise that enterprises should have all kinds of effective and medium-intensity media and promotion strategies within the validity period, otherwise these figures will be meaningless. However, considering the complexity of the market and the diversity of products, enterprises should still make corresponding promotion plans according to the actual market survey results when applying. But obviously it still has certain guiding significance. Because these four behaviors cover customers' attitudes towards new brands, and it is these remarkable attitudes that determine the promotion strategy of enterprises.
Therefore, enterprises must formulate a set of continuous and targeted promotion steps before brand promotion, which focus on the long-term and apply to the lifestyle and habits of target customers. Introducing brand VI into enterprises is the premise, and external publicity emphasizes the connotation and spiritual essence of brands. Generally speaking, this is just a procedure. As we all know, one of the purposes of enterprise promotion is to attract the attention and patronage of most indifferent customers. The reason why we are indifferent is strictly a consumption inertia, and the purpose of enterprises is to break this inertia. So how do you break it? From the product or brand level, the reasons for customers' consumption inertia are nothing more than brand loyalty and convenience of purchase and use. The customer's loyalty to a certain brand will be hard to shake for a while. But the convenience of purchase and use, enterprises have great dominance. Indeed, fundamentally speaking, to impress the indifferent customer base, we must first make three positioning of the brand, including the connotation positioning; Second, there should be continuity in advertising; Third, we should make products have differences and functional adaptability; The fourth channel layout should meet the highest expectations of customers; Fifth, marketing planning should be based on brand. I believe that these five steps are enough to transform the "indifferent" customer group into a "caring and patronizing" customer group.
Finally, for the media, the launch of a new brand will also have certain interest, and they will generally pay attention to the market behavior of enterprises to varying degrees. The purpose of media reports is nothing more than to attract readers, so enterprises must understand the real intention of the media and meet their needs in order to let the media serve us. Obviously, media reports generally follow the news, timeliness and public welfare, and enterprises should also strive to do this when promoting brands, otherwise the media will lose interest, thus making the promotion work of enterprises more effective. Therefore, manufacturing focus or news effect is the highlight of corporate brand promotion. For example, in the early stage of brand building, when introducing brand management concept into enterprises, some unconventional practices such as military training, press conference, demonstration meeting and promotion meeting were adopted to attract media attention; Make use of the innovative measures of enterprises in technology, products and services, and invite the media to report; When promoting communication, we should explore the news topics of communities, enterprises and employees related to the brand and promote the brand name with the help of the media.
It is worth noting that brand promotion in the lead-in period has different market performance due to different products, and there is no fixed promotion mode. Enterprises need to set some advantageous promotion modes suitable for themselves according to specific products, specific target markets and specific market conditions, and copying the above methods is likely to be self-defeating.
Second, the brand promotion strategy in the growth period
First of all, the brand may have collected information about products, positioning and promotion methods from customers during the introduction period, and collecting this information in time is very conducive to self-improvement. Without this information, or customers are unwilling to tell the company their own consumption feelings truthfully, this shows that the brand may have entered a dead end. Therefore, at this stage, enterprises must re-examine and adjust these brand elements to adapt to customers or surpass competitors.
Under normal circumstances, just like entering the growth period of the product life cycle, the target customers will comment on the products of this brand, and the quality of the products will have the power and space to spread. From the actual situation, the customer's feedback information is universal, and enterprises should refer to the customer's feedback information and requirements on the technology, appearance, packaging, quality and service of brand products, and make adaptive or advanced adjustments.
Target customers not only have comments on the products of the enterprise, but also have different reactions to the market positioning, competitive personality positioning and connotation positioning of the brand. Enterprises should according to the market performance and customer feedback information:
First of all, we should re-examine the target market positioning of the brand to see whether it is too wide or too narrow, or whether there is a gap in a certain regional market;
Second, we should reflect on whether the competitive personality of the brand matches the management ability and technical status of the enterprise, whether it adapts to the connotation positioning of the brand, and whether it is unique and different;
Third, we should review the shortcomings of brand connotation positioning, such as attributes, values, interests, personality, culture and user characteristics, to see if it is targeted and accurate.
Whether the promotion method adopted in the brand growth period is appropriate or not is related to the promotion of brand competitiveness and influence. Therefore, enterprises should also evaluate whether the existing promotion model is conducive to brand growth. It is often difficult for target customers to accurately tell what is wrong with enterprise promotion, even if there is, it is too subjective and has no reference value, which inevitably requires enterprises to seriously and objectively analyze what is not suitable in the existing promotion mode when promoting. There may be problems such as the choice of media, the frequency of media delivery, the management and control ability of enterprises, the marketing ability, the concept and implementation of promoters and so on. In short, the growth period needs a high promotion level, promoting synergy and innovation.
Secondly, the brand's reputation comes from the brand's precise appeal and product quality, and customer loyalty comes from the combination of product function, price and brand core value. Moreover, the brand is first known, and then reputation and loyalty. Then, this shows that the growing brand has a high reputation. In order to improve brand reputation and loyalty at the same time, enterprises must carry out effective customer expectation management. Obviously, the focus of customer expectation management is the timely processing of customer information; Timely rectification of brand positioning and demands; Improve and perfect product quality; Adaptive adjustment of product functions; Setting and monitoring of price system; The establishment and embodiment of brand core value, etc. Only in this way, the reputation and loyalty of the brand can be improved simultaneously, and the brand value will be gradually reflected. Brands without word-of-mouth and loyalty, like Zhu San and Qin Chi at best, can't stand the baptism of the market.
Thirdly, if competitors are already implementing the ban plan at this time, fundamentally speaking, competitors just don't want their market share to shrink and their brand influence to be covered by a new brand.
This means that the promotion resistance of enterprises will increase because of the counterattack of competitors, and extra efforts may be needed. Although the purpose of competitors is very simple, enterprises should not take it lightly, carefully analyze the strength of competitors and stop measures, and then work out a circuitous or head-on counterattack promotion plan. Competitors generally make a ban plan from three aspects: products, media delivery and promotion methods.
If the competitors are strong and their brand positioning tends to be the same or similar, then the enterprise may still have a chance of winning only in creating product differentiation, focusing on a relatively narrow market and setting up differentiated services, and a head-on counterattack is very likely to make the brand suffer an irreversible blow. If the competitors are equal in strength, a frontal counterattack is by no means a good strategy. It is not advisable to lose both sides, and it is even more undesirable to fall into a low-level price war.
Therefore, enterprises can establish strategic alliances with competitors in terms of technology, channels, services and industrial chain upgrading, and expand other markets with the help of existing market segmentation or joint efforts. At the same time, in the hopeless situation of cooperation, enterprises should spend a lot of energy and time to analyze competitors' technical defects, product portfolio loopholes, insufficient services, vague positioning and demands, and disjointed communication and promotion. I believe that opponents will always be caught off guard. If the competitor's strength is less than that of the enterprise, then it should be a head-on confrontation, but it must also pay attention to the input-output ratio.
Finally, in the face of the media, enterprises should also serve them well, because the media who pursue news effects always think that they are "poor", love "fame" and throw stones when they are down. When the brand awareness rises to a certain extent, the media will go hand in hand, for example, any promotion activities of Geely brand can be seen in large-scale reports of various media; For example, in the blending storm in Qin Chi, the media has been playing the role of beating Reservoir Dogs. Therefore, it is also one of the important signs to test whether the enterprise can safely spend the growth period and let the brand go to a higher level with the help of the media. As long as the principles of media reporting are mastered, in the promotion process of enterprises, things that interest the media will always be found: technology update, channel expansion, brand appeal, core value construction, internal enterprises and social public welfare activities. , it may make the relevant media flock.
Third, the brand promotion strategy in its heyday.
Brand growth is like a person's adolescence, and all kinds of twists and turns and hardships follow. As "guardians", enterprises should seek market positioning, shape brand personality, establish core interests, and constantly improve their popularity, reputation and loyalty. This is a necessary investment that will bring long-term benefits to enterprises in the future.
First of all, the technical level of brand products in its heyday is quite mature. If you are not as good as people in technology, it is impossible for the brand to develop to such a high level. However, this does not mean that product technology will always improve automatically, especially when competitors increase their technical investment and are expected to surpass the technical level of enterprises in a short time, the brand will become unpopular at an extremely fast speed. In fact, customer loyalty is conditional, which is based on the expected product status, connotation positioning and brand value. Enterprises should never think that customer loyalty will accumulate once it is formed. The cheese that has been grabbed on the plate may still be lost. Based on this understanding, enterprises should make adaptive and appropriate advanced improvements to the technology, function combination, packaging and product line of products, services or additional benefits, so that products can always meet customers' expectations.
Regarding the connotation positioning and brand value, from the current market situation, the author is most worried, and the concept of taking it for granted permeates all competitive fields. Enterprises always think that brand attributes, personality, interests, culture and other values are in line with customers' value demands, so that they always ignore competitors' related demands in publicity and promotion, and finally fail miserably in a certain competition, and still bury the evolution of customers themselves. Only by carefully reading the trend of customers' value desire and making adaptive adjustments in the brand's value combination and appeal is the premise of customers' permanent loyalty. McDonald's "I love it!" , is the best proof.
Secondly, under the close attention of competitors, brands that have just entered their heyday have many weaknesses that can be attacked. For example, the core advantages of the brand, market position, channel layout and customer loyalty, and even horizontally supporting production enterprises may be the key targets and plundering resources of competitors during this period. When the brand enters its heyday, enterprises should comprehensively check their own disadvantages, knowing that these disadvantages may become the "Waterloo" of the brand. Therefore, amplifying the advantages and making up the disadvantages are the good countermeasures for enterprises at this time. Just as Microsoft's office system is constantly being patched, it always keeps ahead of the industry and is hard to be broken.
When there is a slight shortage of raw materials, it is very terrible for upstream suppliers to take advantage of the urgency of enterprises and the possible wooing or hoarding of competitors, so that enterprises lose their competitive advantage from the source. As Professor Michael Porter said, the bargaining power of upstream suppliers can sometimes really determine the competitiveness of enterprises. Therefore, maintaining the upstream loyal supply and opening up the second source of goods are the key points of supply chain management in the heyday of the brand. It is feasible to improve production and operation efficiency, improve logistics facilities and processes, appropriately raise supply prices, and describe and establish long-term cooperative interests with suppliers. Looking for substitutes or competitors from suppliers, or even considering merging suppliers on the basis of possible scale effect, are the key working ideas to explore the second source of goods.
Finally, brands in their heyday are equally interested in reporting good news and bad news to the media. The media is only responsible for its customers, it does not undertake the obligation to save enterprises from danger, it only considers its attention rate. Therefore, the three major media strategies in the heyday of the brand are to cater to their own interests, foster strengths and avoid weaknesses, and win people's hearts. The purpose of investing in it is to further let the media add fuel to the brand. Then, it is the basic work of corporate media public relations to tap the positive news topics of brands and enterprises that all media are interested in or have spotlight effect; The purpose of fostering strengths and avoiding weaknesses is to make enterprises and brands grow safely and avoid the risks brought by the crisis under the guidance of positive public opinion. Then, the media should pay close attention to and report the positive brand information. For those inevitable crises, they should communicate with the media in advance or in time, gain understanding and strive to be merciful to the media, and try to nip the crisis in the bud. Non-proliferation crisis is the primary work of corporate media public relations. The purpose of winning people's hearts is to establish a long-term relationship with authoritative media, so that enterprises and brands can be protected to a certain extent in times of crisis. Then, take the initiative to contribute, invite them to participate in activities, establish personal relationships with key figures, and appropriately support media development, all of which are the maintenance work of corporate media public relations.
It is worth emphasizing that the brand performance in its heyday is essentially different from that in the previous two periods, because the brand itself has news characteristics and is bound to become the focus of attention of all parties. A little carelessness, especially in terms of product or corporate reputation, is likely to make the brand fall into a state of perdition after being amplified by the media. It is true that operational safety and media public relations are the top priorities in the heyday of corporate brands.
Fourth, the brand promotion strategy in the declining period.
First of all, the problem of outdated products is not worth discussing, because in a recession, if enterprises can't even find the problems of products, it is very normal for brands to die out soon.
The brand's competitive personality positioning may be reasonable in its heyday, but there will always be some unreasonable places in its decline, which is one of the reasons for the brand's decline. The author's practical experience tells us that the brand competitive personality orientation should be different in different periods. Suppose you may take part in the competition as a challenger during the introduction period; In the growth period, it is necessary to return to a relatively rational state and continue to promote brand development with some rational brand factors, such as the attitude of value pioneers. If the concept of playing continues the introduction period, the target customers may feel that the company's moves are limited, resulting in consumption numbness; In its heyday, it is not enough to impress customers who have not yet begun to pay attention to it by relying on that rational competitive personality, but to participate in the competition with a relatively authoritative or advanced competitive attitude, such as industry leaders or technical leaders, which may help improve the cross-industry penetration rate of brands. However, whether the decline period means that the positioning of the peak period is no longer appropriate is quite complicated.
If it is the decline caused by the crisis, then we should continue to locate the heyday after eliminating the crisis; If it is a competitor factor, it depends on what measures competitors take to make the brand decline; Under normal circumstances, competitors simply adopt strength or the same positioning. If it is stronger than the enterprise and makes the brand decline, the enterprise should keep a high degree of vigilance at this time, which is likely to make the brand no longer brilliant. Therefore, the positioning of the heyday should be appropriately revised to avoid positive vicious competition. If the same positioning method is adopted, the decline of the brand is likely to be an illusion, because the limited target market can not accommodate two identical enterprises for the time being, and the market is being readjusted under the break of equilibrium, but the final result may be that the target customers continue their original loyalty after eliminating confusion and subconsciously exclude new people, so it is suggested that enterprises continue to maintain their positioning in the heyday. If more adaptive competitive personality positioning is adopted, then enterprises should seriously review what is wrong with their positioning, or correct it in the direction of moving closer to competitors and increase investment in promotion in order to re-enter the heyday; Either take the initiative to stagger the positioning with competitors and find another way.
Secondly, the enterprise's values and resources determine the brand's competitive personality, and the brand's competitive personality determines its connotation and appeal. The target market positioning of the brand also determines the connotation and appeal, and the connotation determines the appeal. These complicated relationships should be clarified. According to this logical chain, we can easily find that connotation is highly related to competitive personality and target market positioning. The connotation of brand is a set of benefits or values provided by brand to target customers. According to the adjusted competitive personality positioning, it is relatively easy to set the adaptive brand connotation. In view of the diversity of competitive personality, it is difficult for the author to describe them one by one. However, regardless of the brand's introduction period, growth period and peak period, the brand's target market positioning will not change easily, but the value tendency or consumption tendency of the target market in each different period is different. It is precisely because the brand is slipping into recession that enterprises ignore or fail to adapt to these changes of target customers. Therefore, accurately grasp the changes of customers' ideas and needs, and adjust the brand connotation accordingly. After all, the same customer in different periods often has different brand requirements and some consumption concepts, and the brand connotation is to accurately read their internal value system. Appeal is the externalization of a group of interests defined by brand connotation after being highly summarized, so appeal can be set strictly according to connotation.
Finally, in the highly competitive market, we can easily find that the decline of most brands is often caused by the crisis, so correctly handling the crisis has become the main work to save the decline of brands. In the decline period of the brand, continuing to promote the brand before the crisis is solved will only further amplify the crisis. Generally speaking, the crisis has the characteristics of suddenness, diffusion and relative controllability, and it also has opportunities. Do you hide opportunities in danger? However, the opportunity will only appear after the enterprise perfectly solves the crisis, otherwise, the opportunity behind this danger will die with the gradual death of the crisis.
Edit this paragraph of ternary theory
Brand "ternary theory" promotion method is based on the emotional factors of consumers and products, adopting a step-by-step strategy, each with its own emphasis, in order to shape a brand for a long time and successfully promote a brand.
First, the basic concept:
Brand width: refers to the degree of brand influence in the market, mainly refers to brand awareness.
Brand depth: refers to the degree of brand influence in consumers' minds, mainly including brand reputation and brand loyalty.
Second, the basic content of "brand promotion ternary theory":
A successful and complete brand promotion should include three levels and stages: first, the brand width promotion stage, that is, the establishment of brand awareness; Second, the stage of deep brand promotion is mainly to enhance brand reputation and brand loyalty; The third stage is the brand maintenance stage. In the process of brand promotion, brand width is the foundation and the first life of the brand; The promotion of brand depth is fundamental and the second life of the brand. Brand depth is based on brand width, which is mainly to have emotional dialogue with consumers and improve brand sales.
Third, the basic operation mode of "brand promotion ternary theory":
1, brand width promotion stage:
Promotion purpose: to establish brand awareness. Promotion strategy: strong creation and forced indoctrination. Promotion methods: advertisements, activities and events.
This stage is mainly through some traditional promotion methods, through the publicity and dissemination of the brand, so that consumers can understand and understand the basic connotation of the brand: products, brand culture and so on. This is the main way to communicate with consumers.
2. In-depth brand promotion stage:
Purpose: Let the brand be deeply rooted in people's hearts. Promotion purpose: to enhance brand reputation, brand loyalty and brand sales force. Promotion strategy: deep interaction and innovative communication. Innovation is the life of planning, especially in the deep promotion stage of the brand. In order to reach a deep interaction with consumers and let them experience, identify and accept the brand and brand culture from the bottom of their hearts, we must find another way and innovate boldly, so as to improve the brand sales force.
Promotion method 1: establish brand culture and implement customer interaction. Specific operation: enterprises can build their own businesses in prosperous areas, or join hands with bars, cafes and other places to promote brand culture in an all-round way, so that consumers can deeply understand and understand brand culture, feel the brand culture atmosphere, and publicize with the help of consumer word of mouth.
Promotion method 2: improve employee management and implement employee interaction. Specific operation: every employee is a living advertisement for corporate brand promotion. By implementing employee stock ownership and employees learning corporate culture, enterprises can first reach a "source of communication" from within the enterprise, and spread brand culture in life and work with the help of employees' recognition of corporate culture.
Promotion method 3: enrich brand culture and establish emotional factors between brands and consumers. Specific operation: take brand culture as the purpose, create brand stories that can impress target consumers, get consumers' recognition and touch, make brand culture vivid, fresh and full, and spread widely, win people's hearts and win the market.
3, brand maintenance stage:
Objective: To maintain the brand height. Strategy: width promotion+depth promotion
According to statistics, it takes at least 3-5 years for a well-known brand to be promoted abroad, and the annual investment after the brand reaches a certain popularity also needs at least $6,543,800,000. After the brand reaches a certain height, it needs to be maintained, so that the brand can always maintain its youthful vitality and market competitiveness.
In a word, brand promotion can only be realized by finding the emotion suitable for consumers and brands (orange speed technology).