One evening last week, the WeChat group for "Tu Yi Ba" operations and promotion was buzzing with activity, as members hotly debated topics related to online marketing. Seeing so many experts in the group, Brother M posted a request, saying that his company wanted to promote a new inspirational book but had very little knowledge about promotion—so little, in fact, that he didn't even know what SEO meant. He was willing to pay someone to help promote the book online. The rough budget was 500-1000 yuan, and the goal was to sell 800 copies through the promotion. One could say this request was quite unrealistic, for two main reasons:
1. 1000 yuan isn’t even enough to cover the basic promotional costs. When I and Brother M raised this point, he looked puzzled and asked me, “What costs are involved in online promotion?” Let’s break down the costs of online promotion together. For now, let's exclude all possible additional expenses and focus solely on the most basic labor costs. If someone could achieve this goal without spending any money at all, then this person’s monthly salary would be at least 6000 yuan, or an average daily income of around 300 yuan (salary / 22 days, since there are eight rest days per month). This means that, even without considering other costs, their labor cost alone would be 300 yuan per day. If it takes more than four days to complete this task, it would actually exceed their cost-efficiency threshold, meaning they would effectively lose money.
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