In-depth original author | Liu Yalan's "Planting Grass"-"Planting Grass"-"Pulling Grass", the spoken language of consumers has become a key word that cannot be avoided in the marketing field. At first, advertisers just tried their luck by planting grass, and a large number of new dark horses directly touched consumers' minds by planting grass rose rapidly, and then they went to big brands whose basic action was to devote themselves to planting grass. The status of "planting grass" in brand marketing and commercial operation is improving step by step. According to the second hand system "Digital Marketing Trends in China in 2022", 54% of brand owners have made it clear that the main goal of KOL marketing in 2022 is to "plant grass with products", while 37% of brand owners think that the main goal of planting grass is to bring goods into the market. Planting grass is an unquestionable marketing trend, but "planting grass" has too many uncertainties, vague areas and explanatory space-what kind of grass to plant? Who are you planting grass with? How to plant grass? After planting, when advertisers overemphasize the novelty of "planting grass", everything will return to the basic logic of marketing growth, and "planting grass" also needs an inevitable evolution from concept to method, from metaphysics to science. These problems are naturally thrown to the birthplace of "Planting Grass"-Little Red Book. From 202 1, Little Red Book "Dandelion" platform was launched, and the "creative marketing methodology" was given for the first time, and the commercialization accelerated obviously. In 2022, it launched the "spotlight" platform, which supported the function of mounting jump links when placing commercial bills, trying to solve the closed-loop problem. Today, Xiaohongshu has more than 200 million active users and 69 million content sharers. The average daily usage time of Xiaohongshu increased from 26.49 minutes in 20 18 years to 55.3 1 minute, and the average daily release of notes on the platform exceeded 3 million. Its commercial value has also reached the stage of further system development. Around its core "planting grass", Xiaohongshuheng, Xiaohongshu Conan and Shen Xiang talked about their respective cognition and practice. Zhi Heng said that the biggest difference between planting grass in Xiaohongshu this year and previous years is "science". "The most important thing is how to measure the effect of planting grass. We have been studying this direction, and now we can come up with an answer that we think is suitable at this stage. This is "scientific grass planting", which is the most important theme for us today. " At the same time, we also want to ask, can the ability of "planting grass" as the core support the sustainable commercialization of Xiaohongshu? Among many marketing platforms and methods, do advertisers have enthusiasm for this? Other platforms actively lay out "integration of planting and pulling" and "balance of planting and harvesting". Can "scientific grass planting" put forward by Xiaohongshu be directly equivalent to weeding efficiency? As a marketing method, the benefits of planting grass for the brand are very clear-it not only directly narrows the distance with consumers, but also may bring a leverage miracle with twice the result with half the effort. But the problems are gradually exposed: on the one hand, it is difficult for people who grow grass to be accurate. I believe that most people have had such a similar experience: unmarried and childless, being "planted" by milk powder children's clothing; Married and educated, but "planting grass" wedding photography. From the consumer's point of view, this is inaccurate and disturbing; On the other hand, from the perspective of brand marketing, this is the wrong person, selling combs to monks and planting grass on stones will inevitably lead to low conversion efficiency of planting grass budget. Although advertising techniques such as "labeling" and "crowd packaging" can lock the target range to a certain extent, after all, people are changing and changing rapidly. On the other hand, the content of planting grass is too embarrassing. What is the ballast stone of "planting grass marketing" in the uncertain storm? The article discusses the problem of marketing content. For brands, if the marketing content is too hard, it will inevitably be resisted by consumers and deviate from the initial intention of "planting grass". However, if the trace of planting grass is weakened, will consumers not be able to perceive accurate brand information? Between the dilemma, what kind of grass planting content is appropriate? Can the painstakingly polished high-quality grass planting content incite traffic and be seen by more people? What kind of grass planting content can have strength and lasting effect? There are no standard answers to these questions. No wonder the marketing of planting grass is always attributed to metaphysics in the industry. Planting grass is like archery. If the target (target population) is not clear and the arrow (content of planting grass) is weak, how can it be effective? However, there must always be sales volume and KPI must be completed, which makes grass planting marketing move towards a vicious circle of changing quantity for efficiency. When Zhi Heng, CMO of Xiaohongshu, visited the company, he also realized that many brands are facing various marketing problems, such as higher and higher traffic costs, meager corporate profits, and sales will stop as soon as traffic stops. Not only the little red book, but also the more and more pragmatic demands of advertisers in the whole industry. Taking the accurate crowd as an example, Tencent Advertising provides the target users with a 3S model of crowd asset breadth, crowd asset depth and crowd asset health on the basis of 5R funnel. Huge Engine combines the data capabilities of huge cloud images to launch the O-5A brand crowd asset model, which divides users into six groups-O (opportunity crowd), A 1 (understanding crowd), A2 (attracting crowd), A3 (planting grass crowd), A4 (buying crowd) and A5 (re-buying crowd). Among them, A3 grass planting crowd is considered to be the key secret for the brand to plant grass efficiently. Let metaphysics go to science, which is the mother proposition of the whole Internet advertisement. In this regard, I think the release of Little Red Book this year can be summarized from two aspects: the first is the theme of CMO Heng's speech, which makes the goal of planting grass more clear around "product planting grass"; Second, Chief Operating Officer Conan's key release, planting grass values, and quantifying fuzzy links with digital tools. Planting grass is a world view, and the value of planting grass is methodology. Let's look at "grass by variety" first. I think this formulation is more witty. The industry is always used to discussing product efficiency, discussing the budget allocation of brand advertising and effect advertising, and arguing whether product efficiency can really be integrated. But today, in fact, there is no need to separate the brand from the effect, and they will all be integrated into the marketing of "products". The same is true of planting grass. Today, it is meaningless to divide the marketing of planting grass into brand budget or effect budget. Whether it is brand marketing or effect marketing, marketing that can sell products is good marketing. The formulation of "product planting grass" avoids the question of whether planting grass is a brand advertisement or an effect advertisement, which is beneficial for Xiaohongshu to incite more budgets. In the concrete implementation, Zhi Heng gave some examples in sharing, among which Polaiya was the most important one, and this example was also mentioned by her when she put forward the methodology of creative marketing in 20021. "In 2020, with the trend of" early C and late A ",Polaiya introduced the CP combination of" early C and late A "and ruby essence. After planting grass effectively, Zhi Heng, the first mind who lived the associative memory of "early C and late A" that year, said: "202 1 found that besides" early C and late A ",young people's skin sensitive muscles became new pain points for various reasons, and the essence of maintaining stability was divided in elite track. 202 1 is the deep cultivation of the elite track. " "In 2022, along the minds of users who already have it, from essence to circle, from" big single product "to" big single product matrix ",from essence trajectory to cream, eye cream and mask." It is not difficult to find that she said a high-frequency word "own", which literally translates to the meaning of ownership, mental occupation and user assets often mentioned in the marketing industry. Zhi Heng shared a set of data seen through insight into the products in the station-what is the number of brands in this sub-category? There are more than 4200 brands of facial essence. There are more than 300 brands of milk bottles and more than 400 brands of milk drinks/kloc-0. In other words, there are too many brands. How can users remember you and be "owned" by you? Still have to rely on products. The product of Xiaohong Booksellers Conference is 1, and planting grass is 0. There seems to be some logical difficulty here. If the product is good enough, you can grow grass everywhere. If the product is not good enough, isn't it fun to grow grass? "We want to define planting grass, that is, to communicate the value of products with consumers, that is, to convey the value of products through word of mouth. The design and quality of products are the lifeline of enterprises. We use the ability of planting grass and marketing to amplify it, accelerate it and make the results more stable. " What Zhi Heng may want to express is the two meanings of "product planting grass"-helping the formed good products stand out and helping the unformed products to iterate into good products. On how to make good products stand out, Shen Xiang has communicated with many small red book service providers. They all mentioned the uniqueness of product words in the process of planting grass and highlighted their selling points with unique product words. Just like the data given by Zhi Heng, there are too many brands under the big category, and the "big words" such as cream and sunscreen isolation have no marketing tension. One of the service providers firmly told Shenjie: "Now you are making products, planting grass in the little red book, or your products are unique, like baby shower gel. If you still say moisturizing, it will definitely not be sold on the rotten street; Either refine it to the scene. For example, space locking or time locking, good night wine, drinking, saying good night, has a sense of ceremony. " Seeing the big from the small is a headache for brands. What kind of words and cover pictures can directly hit the user's heart? Now Xiaohongshu wants to solve this problem. The example of Little Red Book and Colorkey Laqi * * * creating lip mud is the latter case. Kolaqi does not follow the routine process of "research and development before marketing", but puts marketing innovation and user insight first. The pain points mentioned by Xiaohongshu users, such as too dry lip mud and insufficient color saturation, have been solved and integrated into the product. The operation of raising a small purple bottle is similar. "In the absence of particularly successful cases and attempts, it is difficult for us to expect him (brand) to invest a lot of budget in Little Red Books out of thin air. Therefore, our cooperation with the enterprise will start with the single product and let him try it for the single product. In the case of Xiaohongshu's correct investment, how efficient is his post-link conversion? " Zhi Heng said frankly, according to past cases, there are two situations: "First, he put it in the little red book, and the relevant data such as grass planting value in the station showed a strong positive correlation with the link conversion data after searching outside the station. Especially if he only puts the single item in the little red book, he will be more clear, and then he will enlarge the budget. Second, his products don't fit, and the negative feedback from users is relatively large. At this time, the enterprise should stop putting it in first, or choose other products to try. He can also take this product back for modification. It is not bad to continue investing after the change. " This also confirms the two meanings of the above products planting grass. The former is more conventional, while the latter's product * * * creation sounds more prominent in platform value, but because of the longer cycle, it is more difficult to cooperate with R&D and marketing departments. Zhi Heng also said in the interview that product innovation will not become the top priority of Xiaohongshu at present. The role of "product planting grass" in marketing is relatively scientific, so what is the first priority of Xiaohongshu at present? When asked about the plan and goal of commercialization in 2023, Zhi Heng replied that one is to thoroughly understand the "planting value", and the other is to serve the customers who have already served more fully. Again, the product of planting grass is the world outlook, and the value of planting grass is the methodology. It is understood that, unlike the traditional number of likes, collections and comments, the value of planting grass involves 1 1 kinds of in-depth reading and in-depth interactive user behaviors, including but not limited to in-depth reading (reading with a long stay) and positive & buying comments, saving pictures, sharing and searching for product words. Conan, chief operating officer of Xiaohongshu, told Shenhuan that the reason why Xiaohongshu mentioned "scientific grass planting" was that the industry was changing on the one hand and his ability was upgrading on the other. "I really think we have the ability to better quantify the behavior and content of users planting grass in Xiaohongshu. We participated in the definition of such a data index, TrueInterest planting value, which provides a real-time planting value for every planting content in Xiaohong's book. In this way, no matter the author or blogger involved in planting grass, or the merchants and brands behind it, everyone can evaluate his effect in real time and optimize it in real time. This is the biggest change today. " Conan, chief operating officer of Little Red Book, released "Real Interest". The purpose of Little Red Book's "planting value" is self-evident, which is to solve the problem of "ownership". After all, the brand's novelty in grass planting marketing has long passed, and grass planting marketing has become an important action. But if you can't belong to it for a long time, the brand's investment in planting grass will become a bet. The effect is not easy to measure, which directly affects the optimization of action and easily makes "planting grass" become metaphysics. Business emphasizes logical closed loop. If there is no clear positive feedback, it will be difficult for brands to continue to invest in the environment of increasing emphasis on reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Once the brand "rolls" into the short-term effect of traffic trading, everyone will fall into the entropy increase of ROI, and the bidding volume will become narrower and narrower, making it more difficult to establish long-term brand value. In the process of commercialization of Little Red Book itself, things that anchor "certainty", such as planting grass, have reached the stage of being put on the table. Including the KFS delivery method promoted by Little Red Book last year, in fact, it is also to allow the brand to enlarge at any time and stop at any time to enhance the certainty of success in planting grass. But the "certainty" that the little red book can provide at present is probably here for the time being. After all, the absence of the e-commerce sector in Xiaohongshu makes it difficult to complete self-closed loop in the domain. In the eyes of the brand, Little Red Book is more defined as "marketing" than "management"-to give two examples, in Little Red Book, YSL didn't open a shop, and the contents of the notes were just simple products; Estee Lauder has an official account in Xiaohongshu, which will update the content and do topic activities, but its store is only a sample trial center, and the brand has not been broadcast live. This is very different from the "global operation" that other platforms yearn for. In fact, fast data has proved the value of e-commerce in promoting the overall commercialization of the platform. Cheng, CEO of a auto quickless, even bluntly said that e-commerce is one of the important engines for the company's future growth and the center of the entire commercialization ecology of A Auto Quick Less. However, Xiaohongshu chose to focus on planting grass-this is quite surprising. We admire and cherish the few feelings on the internet, but at the same time we are worried that if we don't get through the trading link, the data link will be "relatively scientific" again. The completely closed-loop byte ecology can be directly GTA(GMVto5A), that is, through GMV sales, the crowd demand in all aspects of brand 5A (understanding, attracting, planting grass, first purchase and repurchase) can be measured in reverse, and the optimization can be reflected from the beginning. In contrast, the weakness of Xiaohongshu's trading link is not only a problem of growth space, but also affects the competitiveness of its existing business. "Under pressure" is the "* * * knowledge" of Internet advertising in the past year. However, amid the wailing, we can still see some changes and hopes: a large number of engines continue to promote the integration of marketing and management; Tencent, which actively adjusts itself, has an inexhaustible gold mine in the private domain, and several "benchmark cases" of video number have left enough imagination space for commercialization; Pinduoduo and a auto faster, whose advertising revenue is increasing in the financial report, make the industry clear the stability and driving role of e-commerce business in advertising revenue. The changes in the advertising market have forced the leading Internet companies to adjust their iterations, adjust their thinking, improve their product tools, and rethink the interest relationship between their platforms and eco-participants. For Xiaohongshu, which is still in the early stage of commercialization, it is not easy to achieve today's reputation and industry recognition. Anyway, it's always good to take a brave step. And perhaps in a longer time line, today's concentration and restraint will be another smooth road outside the mainstream hurricane style.