Original address: http://www.weiyiduji.cn/?p=89
In the last period of time, I was busy with exams and academics, so my blog has been stopped for a long time. Just right, during this time off from blogging, I had the chance to think about and investigate some issues, which turned out to be quite rewarding. Well, let's get straight to the point.
Recently, two new products in the industry have caught everyone's attention. One is the Wei Yi Community, and the other is the Yao He City. Even though they are taking different paths, there is one commonality between them: marketing through experience.
Experiential marketing, the key to Starbucks' success, is gaining increasing attention from more and more companies, who are exploring it through various platforms. There are many elements to experiential marketing if we were to elaborate on it. Here, let's set aside the broad concept of experiential marketing and focus on internet-based experiential marketing for discussion.
For the implementation of experiential marketing, the Internet seems to have unique advantages: efficient information dissemination, interactive design, and even simulation of real-life scenarios can all be achieved. And communities, being favored by all, naturally become the preferred platform for conducting experiential marketing. In today's world where UGC (User-Generated Content) is prevalent and real-name communities are maturing, I believe that the high-profile discourse power of community users will promote the development of new community-based marketing, including experiential marketing.
However, while we firmly believe in the bright prospects of experiential marketing, we cannot ignore some existing problems. I have tried to engage with many experiential marketing activities conducted by various companies, but very few truly satisfy me. Starting from the basics, I believe there are at least three points worth noting.
First: Experiential marketing should be based on a "conversation" level.
Experiential marketing is customer-oriented, regardless of the type of experience marketing (sensory experience, cognitive experience, behavioral experience, emotional experience, relational experience), all aiming to achieve three marketing objectives: 1. Enhance brand loyalty among users who have already made purchases. 2. Stimulate the purchasing desire of potential audiences. 3. Promote the spread of product and brand information, triggering word-of-mouth communication. For the first two points, whether it's experiential marketing based on an internet platform or offline experiential marketing, these are the main areas of focus. Unfortunately, we rarely see success in the third point. In fact, many companies, when using the internet for experiential marketing, focus heavily on the product without realizing the need to promote efficient information dissemination, or some companies realize it but fail to act accordingly.
For a long time, I have observed many community-based experiential marketing models, but only a few are truly excellent. Why? I believe it is because both enterprises and marketing platforms (i.e., internet communities) have not fully realized that experiential marketing should be based on a "conversation" level. This is even a basic starting point for all new marketing efforts. The characteristic of the internet lies in its efficient information dissemination, and the efficiency of such dissemination largely depends on the quality of the information source. Enterprises and audiences, as components of the information source, should engage in dialogue on an equal footing. On one hand, enterprises need market feedback and to consolidate their brand image; on the other hand, audiences require supplementation and feedback on product and brand information.
Most experiential marketing campaigns are in a transitional phase, aiming to reach a longer-term goal of word-of-mouth marketing.
Personally, I believe that in terms of the informational characteristics of word-of-mouth marketing, two elements should be grasped: 1. Randomness of information, 2. Credibility of information.
The spread of word-of-mouth information is random; we cannot control or predict when or where word-of-mouth information will appear and influence the audience. It is precisely because of this randomness that truly powerful word-of-mouth can spread comprehensively. What companies can do is guide the overall direction of word-of-mouth development and encourage a significant number of audiences to experience and participate. Many companies (especially small and medium-sized enterprises) believe that word-of-mouth originates from the product and the brand; doing well in these two aspects naturally leads to good word-of-mouth. I believe this is exactly due to a lack of awareness of the randomness of word-of-mouth. Randomness requires breadth and endurance as support; the wider and longer-lasting the participation of the audience, the more effective the random influence will be. Based on this, I begin to question whether the currently popular experience reports are the best form of dissemination. Is centralized information less efficient than fragmented information? Initially, comprehensive experience reports may have a greater impact than fragmented information, but in terms of problem-solving breadth and future sustained influence, can they match the random influence of fragmented information? The biggest drawback of experience reports is the numerous information blind spots, resulting in a lack of sustainable influence. Conversely, this is precisely the advantage of fragmented information—lacking artificial concentration, relying on brief questions and answers to cover the product and brand information surface, and leveraging UGC to enhance the continuous influence of information. Therefore, I boldly believe that perhaps the optimal dissemination method is the fragmentation processing after information centralization.
Regarding the credibility of information, this is not difficult to understand. Often, what influences consumer purchasing decisions is just a single sentence from someone close to them. But if this statement were said by someone else, it might not be as effective. Why? This is the issue of information credibility. I have always doubted the credibility of "experience reports." Feiyang says that the value of a community lies in the fact that writing experience reports by users trying out products is not a profit-driven behavior, and I agree with Feiyang’s statement. However, the issue arises when material interests are involved, and the reports written are all highly complimentary towards the product and the company. How can others believe that you are not serving the company's interests? "If you've received something from them, how can you say bad things about them?" This is what someone told me. We have been trying to rely on this group of elites to convince ordinary people of the strength of the product and the brand. We recognize the power of the elite, but whether grassroots audiences buy into it is another matter. The "trial expert" column of Wei Yi is far less lively than a forum section, as grassroots resonate more with each other. So why don’t companies allow grassroots to participate as much as possible in the dissemination of product and brand information? Currently, companies experimenting with online experiential marketing send out products and then stand back as third parties, preparing to reap the benefits of UGC. But what are the results? In such a situation, on one hand, there are too many information blind spots, and on the other hand, the information lacks sufficient credibility, leading to the awkward situation where most experiential marketing campaigns are lukewarm. I firmly believe that only through dialogue can issues of information symmetry and credibility be resolved, hence the necessity of dialogue. All these issues can be solved through equal dialogue between consumers and companies. Although companies may not have the energy to attend to every consumer, as long as the initial "conversation" mechanism and framework are established, the viral effect will become more evident as time goes on, allowing companies to achieve twice the result with half the effort. We can see that Coca-Cola's conversation strategy has been quite effective.
The power of new media lies in the dissemination power unleashed after the liberation of consumer discourse rights, but such liberation must be built on the basis of information symmetry and positional equality. Internet-based experiential marketing is no exception. I firmly believe that any company that wants to succeed in online experiential marketing should lower their stance and engage in equal dialogue with consumers.
The other two points will be discussed next time.