"Do you have WhatsApp?" When doing business with foreigners, WhatsApp has become standard before you know it. Is it as simple as adding WhatsApp just to facilitate communication? Two sets of data will help you understand the real value behind this matter:
Data one:
Number of monthly active users of WhatsApp:2 billion. Our domestic social leader WeChat’s monthly activity:1 billion。
Compared with half the monthly activity of the former, how many people have been supported and made rich by the WeChat ecosystem. In April this year, the "Digital Employment New Occupations and New Positions Report" based on the WeChat platform from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology showed that in 2020, the WeChat ecosystem derivedThere are 36.84 million job opportunities, a year-on-year increase of 24.4%. This is last year’s data. Naturally, this year’s data has not been released yet, but it is definitely not the highest, only higher.
Data two:
If a company has100 peopleand1000 piecesWhatsApp account, one account has2000 piecesfans, then it can be achieved100 peoplemanagement2 millionThe matrix of fans can be delivered with one push2 million fans. The accurate delivery number of 2 million, if combined with the repurchase and recommendation model of owned channel, this matter can even become more popular!
Wait, where does one WhatsApp account have 2,000 precise followers? How can one person manage 10 accounts at the same time? Don’t worry, the answer is below.
It’s time to take WhastApp seriously
The commercial value of WhatsApp (hereinafter referred to as WA) lies not only in its huge user base, but also in its constantly revealed business layout.
WA originated from users' concerns about high communication fees, so it has always served customers in the form of a minimalist instant messaging tool. But since Facebook acquired WA in 2014, their road to commercialization has never stopped.
For example, payment permissions are opened in India and Brazil, and the business version of WA (WhatsApp Business) is launched. "Instagram and Facebook are storefronts, and WhatsApp is the cash register." WhatsApp COO Matt Edema once described it this way.
As a biological son of Facebook, WA is also enjoying the resources and conveniences from the platform. For example:Starting from June 24, 2021, advertisers can create message templates for WhatsApp direct ads. Through WhatsApp direct ads, advertisers can add a message button in Facebook or Ins ads. Users can click the button to open a conversation in the WA Business app to contact and interact with the merchant.。
In 2014, WA was acquired, and in the same year, the SocialEpoch team was officially established. This journey is our development path from 0 to 1 and from 1 to N as we deeply explore overseas markets; it is also our witness to WA's role and role transformation in global expansion and cross-border expansion.
WA’s interest in social monetization continues, and its importance in the hearts of cross-border sales is becoming more and more important (has this scene ever happened in a domestic letter?). However, compared with the booming social e-commerce scene in the domestic WeChat ecosystem, there is always something missing in the WA ecosystem. So, is it possible to copy the WeChat ecological approach overseas and redo it? Since 2018, this has also become a new goal set by the SocialEpoch team.
If 2020 is the first year of global expansion and social owned-channel marketing, then 2021 is what we are willing to call a window period.
Last year, we discovered a small explosion of two types of customers using WA to attract customer acquisition: one type is a B2B local promotion model in overseas sinking markets, establishing contact with many overseas small business owners through WA, and constantly forming repeat purchases and even referrals; the other type is independent e-commerce companies, using WA to maintain customer relationships and achieve low-cost user recall and repurchase.
2021 is halfway through in the blink of an eye, but this half year has already made the hearts of too many cross-border people tremble. The "Amazon big sales account suspension" is still going on. The voices of de-platforming and privatizing public domain traffic are getting stronger and stronger. The comprehensive matrix approach of social media + has gradually become mainstream. It is discussed everywhere in the media, summits and communities. The model of global expansion social owned-channel marketing is also gradually emerging.
The outbreak of the window period is becoming more and more obvious.
It’s time to start owned-channel marketing
To do social marketing, you must build an owned channel; to do owned channels, you must do distribution fission. Why? Because firstly, global expansion social networking is a blue ocean; secondly, the essence of owned channels is "low cost, N times of contact"; thirdly, fission and referral will make customer acquisition costs drop again and again. Overall, it saves money! Saving money is the way to go.
There are two points worth noting here: first, there is no lower limit to how low the cost of an owned channel can be; there is no upper limit to the number of repeated touches. Second, if the original cost of developing a customer is 1, after creating an owned channel, the cost remains unchanged and one customer introduces one customer, then the cost is 1/2. If the customer repeats the purchase and referrals, the cost will be even lower.
Therefore, you in front of the screen can stop and think about how urgent owned-channel marketing is.
Our global expansion has natural advantages in doing social owned-channel marketing. The owned-channel marketing model of the WeChat ecosystem in China has long been practiced by everyone. Even if you have not practiced it, you must have been marketed and you know all the "routines". Everyone has lived in at least one WeChat business, followed at least one public account, and entered at least one shopping group... These forms can all be copied to overseas WhatsApp.
In many overseas markets such as India, the micro-business distribution fission model has a high degree of acceptance, and distribution compliance makes social fission easier to operate. Marketing on WhatsApp is different from that in China. Low membership fees, low entry barriers, and high coverage all prove its advantages.
The blue ocean market, favorable policies, and industry trends all seem to be waiting for the outbreak of overseas owned-channel marketing. But the further we go, the more anxious we will feel.
For example, it is said that public domain traffic is expensive and difficult, so where does the owned audience come from and how to attract traffic?
For example, can WA’s current commercialization system really meet the marketing needs of social e-commerce?
For example, is the supply chain for social e-commerce distribution now implemented and enforceable?
Therefore, we started with social traffic at the beginning, then developed WA SCRM to solve problems such as multi-account access, translation, automatic reply, account suspension, etc., then went to Marketing Baola to implement WA marketing red envelopes and smart business cards, and finally built our own fission mall and supply chain implementation to realize a complete closed-loop design of global expansion social marketing.
Especially for the aggregation platform, it has achieved efficient integration including supply chain, logistics, payment and operations, and can realize drop shipping, so that services can be provided in every link before, during and after global expansion. You can even envision a scenario where you want to do cross-border e-commerce and set up your operations team so that we can empower you across the board.
It’s time to start social owned-channel marketing+
Wherever the customers are, there is the battlefield. Now is the era of social media. Social media is the gathering place for customers and the main battlefield for marketing.
How to use this main position to realize the fission of social marketing distribution? Let’s take a customer who is an independent website in the Indian e-cigarette market as an example.
1. Product selection angle: E-cigarette products belong to the high-repurchase series with immediate demand. Low-frequency and high-profit products are also an advantageous choice for social e-commerce.
2. Convert customers into members: Customers make a one-time transaction and leave immediately after purchase, but members are different. The high repurchase characteristics of e-cigarettes mean that members must be converted and customers must be retained. Therefore, we matched them with gift packages and other forms to lock in customers and develop them into paid members. The cost of customer acquisition has naturally dropped again and again.
3. Member upgrade distributor: Customers are organized in circles. Smoking enthusiasts are always surrounded by many smokers. So, can we use this opportunity to develop new customers? The social owned channel model is demonstrated to its extreme here. While giving members some discounts, SocialEpoch also integrates and designs unique member rights for them, such as hierarchical marketing rights.
As mentioned above, multi-level distribution is legal in India. Then, what hierarchical marketing + profit distribution achieves is the model of “making money by sharing and saving money by purchasing by yourself”. With profit at the forefront, this model is uncharted in the Indian market. Within five months, the independent station had attracted more than 15,000 new paid members. Facts have repeatedly proved that the social self-circulation model from traffic to conversion to repurchase to recommendation is successful.
4. Implementation of operations and solutions: SocialEpoch operation team, integrating copywriting, etc.; social distribution micro-store, realizing the informatization of distribution, so that distribution is no longer a castle in the air, and the entire process is smoothly connected.
2021 is the window period for global expansion and social owned-channel marketing. The exclusive play style of platforms or independent stations has long been a bloody sea, and the blue ocean of owned channels of social media + is the new track for cross-border e-commerce merchants.
