Micro-business should be called micro-commerce to be precise.
Micro-commerce refers to people who make money on the Internet by using "micro-systems" and conducting "micro-marketing".
Microsystems generally consist of social software such as QQ, Weibo, WeChat, and Momo with relatively large number of users, Tieba, forums, news self-media and other channels, websites, and Taobao, Tmall, and Weidian. The platform consists of an Internet marketing and transaction system that directly or indirectly sells products. (Haoyu original concept)
Micro marketing is simply a promotion method that uses fan effects, word-of-mouth effects, stories, emotions, events and other communication methods to promote.
Simply speaking, micro-business is divided into the following three types.
One is the one that 80% are currently doing. I get up early every day and keep adding people with panda eyes (the euphemistic name is called adding fans, I don’t even know what a fan is)
Use three no product pictures, fake software to ship, collect, and expedite goods , the fake screenshots of feedback filled the circle of friends and bombarded the screen-swiping machines with human flesh. (Fooling to the outside world that business is booming)
Rely on recruiting downlines (euphemistically called agents), giving them chicken soup to get blood, and asking them to stock up on goods (fooling that if they don’t sell goods, they have no motivation) , and let the downlines also develop downlines (euphemistically called team building)
Downlines' downlines also develop downlines...continuous branching and fission. They are just MLM personnel who put on a vest and brought the pyramid model and Ponzi scheme into WeChat.
This method of making money does not rely on selling products to real consumers for terminal retail. Instead, they increase prices step by step and sell goods to the offline, until the prices of the "biggest fools" at the bottom (refer to Baidu: Crazy Tulips, or the Law of the Biggest Idiot) are already very high, and there is not much profit, so they can only digest it themselves. It is obvious that the goods are transferred from agent A to agent B, and then to the warehouse of agent C. It is also called sales volume. Representative companies include xx Divine Oil, xx Divine Soap, x Port, etc...
The second type is that you are the general agent or manufacturer yourself, and you set up a distribution network with thousands or tens of thousands of people. , retail team. Distributors are responsible for customer service, promotion, and they ship the goods. (Similar to Taobao distribution), this is a more serious model. There are many companies represented. For example, a new micro-business person: Meow is drunk and screams like a duck...
The third type is to use micro-systems, such as Weibo, WeChat, forum posts, personal web pages and other tools to provide personal value, form personal charm, gather fans, form a community, and then sell any products. Usually we call it fan economy. Representative companies include Xiaomi Mobile Phone, Luoji Thinking, Diaoye Beef Brisket, Dad’s Orchard, etc. This one is the ultimate mode.
Each mode has its own operation method. If you do each mode well, you will make money. The premise is: you are good enough.
What to do if you are not awesome?
Give me two pieces of advice. 1: Study and make yourself great. 2: Choose a mode with a low starting point, easy operation, and large space.
The first mode may seem simpler at first, but in fact the third mode is better. The first one is not to mention your brainwashing ability or your bragging ability. Only national policies, media exposure, and revelations from deceived people have narrowed this road, not to mention the thousands of competitors in the same industry who have the mentality of getting rich without working.
The third way is to build your own personality charm. Your own personality charm is your core competitiveness. As long as there are a hundred or ten die-hard fans, don't be too few. Xiaomi’s 60 million fans are just fission from the original 100 die-hard fans.
A good WeChat business is not the kind who is trapped in 365 days, busy adding people every day → swiping the screen in Moments and posting ads → being blacklisted and blocked → testing and clearing people → adding people → swiping the screen... ...This is a vicious cycle of human flesh screen swiping machine.
WeChat, QQ, and Weibo are just social tools. Making money depends entirely on things other than WeChat. If you don't fully understand the ways of business and the art of making money, you will always spend a lot of effort to earn some pocket money that fills your teeth.
Insufficient internal strength makes it even easier to go crazy and become the kind of human flesh screen-smashing machine mentioned in the first article that everyone shouts to kill and the cannon fodder at the bottom of the MLM pyramid.
When you stand on the moon, you will see the entire dazzling universe, how majestic it is. You will find that the earth, which you thought before was so vast and rich in resources, is so small compared with the entire galaxy or solar system.
Since positioning is the most important first step in starting a micro-business, let’s talk about product positioning first. In other words, if you want to be a profitable micro-business, what kind of product should you choose?
In fact, as long as you have the ability and you are good enough, no matter the product positioning, you can make money with any product. A great person can make money selling socks, and he can also make money selling airplanes and tanks. This is like the second generation of wealthy officials. They don't need to learn any skills to pick up girls, they can still be grooms every night.
Let’s get back to the topic. In other words, if you do not have strong interpersonal relationships, strong capital and a good background, it will be much easier to make money and the success rate will be much higher if you choose a good product and a good business model.
According to my many years of practical experience, products suitable for grassroots entrepreneurs like us must generally have two characteristics.
The first characteristic is: the audience of this product must be broad.
To put it simply, the larger the customer base you are selling, the better. These are the big money-making companies around us, such as Wahaha, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever. The toothpaste, washing powder, shampoo, cosmetics, and mineral water they sell are basically bought by men, women, and children from all over the world. Isn’t this customer group very huge?
Everyone should know this. Products with a wide audience are easier to sell. Because anyone can be your customer.
And some products, such as Indian sacred oil. This audience is very narrow. It is only suitable for: those who have sexual dysfunction, have sex life, and are middle-to-high-end male groups. This audience is getting bigger and bigger layer by layer. Moreover, this thing is quite special, and it is relatively difficult to develop customers. It is not easy to refer customers who have already developed them. Others, such as jade, jade, and Buddhist beads, have a relatively narrow audience.
The larger the audience and the more consumer groups a product has, the lower its requirements for sales capabilities will be, the less difficult it will be to sell, and the higher the success rate will be relatively speaking.
For example, it is much easier to sell steamed buns than hamburgers. It's much easier to sell socks than mink coats.
This is the second feature we are going to talk about next.
The second characteristic is: this product must have a high repurchase rate in the short term.
In other words, this product must be able to be consumed repeatedly, and it is easier to make a second purchase in the short term.
In my opinion, whether it is traditional business or our micro-business business, all products are nothing more than two categories: one-time transaction type and frequent transaction type.
For example, those who sell jade and Buddhist beads are one-time transactions. After a transaction is completed, it will not or will be difficult to make a second purchase.
Indian sacred oil is also a one-shot deal. This Indian God Oil, no matter what the quality of your product is? Your product is good. If a person with that kind of dysfunction returns to normal after using it once or twice, then he no longer needs to buy your magic oil.
If the quality of your product is not good, the customer will only use it once or twice. If there is no effect, he will not buy from you again.
We know that food, facial masks, cosmetics, and easily consumable products such as mineral water, toothpaste, and washing powder we mentioned earlier will be gone when customers use them up. You have to buy more when you use it.
Moreover, customers need to use this kind of products for a long time or even for a lifetime. This type of products are frequently traded.
If you are doing retail, if the audience is relatively narrow, the difficulty of developing customers will be relatively high. If it is a one-time deal and it is difficult to repeat consumption, you will have to continue to develop new customers.
Those of us who have worked in retail should all know how difficult it is to develop a new customer.
For products that can be consumed repeatedly, you will find that your subsequent sales costs are almost zero and the sales difficulty is almost zero. The customers you develop only need to maintain the relationship, and they will bring you a steady stream of income.
But what everyone needs to understand is: even if you choose a product that has a wide audience, it can be consumed repeatedly. It just makes making money a little easier for you.
You are not the only one selling products with a wide audience. Products that can be consumed repeatedly does not mean that customers must come to you for repeated consumption.
So after we have learned to choose good products, it is more important to know how to get people to come to you for repeated consumption. This brings us to what we are going to talk about next, which is adding fans that everyone is always concerned about.
The vast majority of so-called teachers are like eunuchs teaching people bed skills. I have never experienced any actual combat. Relying on things derived from sexual immorality to harm people is more hateful than a liar. All you lose when you meet a scammer is money. When you meet those fake masters, they not only waste people's time and poison their minds, but more importantly, they miss many good opportunities in vain.
The opportunity cost is the largest. While others have bought houses and cars and become financially free, friends who have been deceived are still running tirelessly in this vicious cycle of hoarding misfortunes → adding followers → swiping screens → testing → purging people → adding followers.
Back to adding fans, I never think that this fan is from Calais, the real fans are attracted here. It should be more accurately called sucking powder. To attract people, you must first have a strong aura, as all our friends who have been in love know. A master of picking up girls doesn't need to go to beautiful girls every day and say I love you and I want to pursue you.
He may not be tall, rich and handsome, but he can dress himself neatly and cleanly, and develop some special skills, extraordinary talents and super abilities for himself. He can learn to be considerate and take care of others, making girls feel very comfortable and happy when dealing with him. When facing such a boy, I believe many girls will be attracted by him.
Our pursuit of fans is actually the same as falling in love. If you want to attract people, you must first create your own conditions for attracting people. To use a popular saying, it is called: if you bloom, butterflies will come.
For example, every time I used to talk nonsense with everyone in forums or groups, many people took the initiative to add me as a friend. Because they know that I can provide them with practical experience in the Internet and micro-marketing that they don’t understand. Maybe just a few casual chats can help them improve their performance and increase their income, so they are willing to take the initiative to join me. .
The same goes for doing business, for example: a person wants to lose weight, and you have a deep understanding of medicine, fitness and some good weight loss products. If a person wants to buy cosmetics, and you have very professional knowledge about skin, maintenance, and beauty methods, you can help them spend less money and choose high-quality products or methods that are more suitable for them. They will definitely be willing to be friends with you.
So everyone attracts fans and creates a personal aura. The most important thing is: understand the needs of customers, and then develop your own abilities to meet customer needs, such as professional knowledge and product knowledge.
After you have this ability, of course you have to go to places where people in need gather, such as forums, post bars, and other community platforms to show your abilities, strength, credibility, and character.
What needs to be reminded is that don’t forget to leave your contact information in an appropriate way, so that people who are interested in you can easily find you. After doing this, you can just stick to WeChat or QQ and request them as friends.
What I want to briefly add here is the customer needs. When you understand customer needs, you actually master another super skill. This skill is: how to find your precise fans.
We all randomly adding 5,000 people without any purpose may not necessarily have better results than having 50 precise fans.
In fact, if your product has good profits and is easy to be consumed repeatedly, having about 500 accurate fans is enough to make you worry-free.
So if you learn to analyze customer needs and find accurate fans, you will find that your business is surprisingly easy to do.
One advantage is that my family is also in business. My mother used the shampoo and thought it was good, so she used her connections to help me sell some. But on my own, I only sold 3 sets of shampoo in the first month. One is my friend, she is also a micro-business person. She bought a set of shampoos from me, but I also bought her products. One was my colleague. I told him very straightforwardly at the time that I was running a micro-business and the product was shampoo. It was very effective. You can buy it and try it at home. Then she bought it from me.
Now that I think about it, this kind of proactive promotion is very bad. Unless the relationship is particularly good, this kind of behavior is an overdraft of trust and friendship between friends, and the gain outweighs the loss. The third one I bought was from my ex-boyfriend. I feel a bit ridiculous when I tell you this, but it is indeed the case.
Some people may say that micro-business should not start from friends, but from strangers, and we should make money from strangers. But in fact, what I want to tell you is: Marketing is the same. It doesn’t matter whether you start with acquaintances or strangers. Due to space reasons, more detailed methods will be shared with you later.
In the second month, I still just copied and pasted the previous company's advertisement in the circle of friends, but I couldn't sell a set of shampoo. My family was actually very powerful, at least in my opinion at the time. A girl born in 1993 has a monthly income of around 300,000.
But she didn’t teach me any marketing methods, so I asked her for advice at that time. She told me: We need to use Sina Weibo. The best and fastest way to achieve sales is to invite famous people to advertise.
We can’t afford to hire celebrities, but we can hire Internet celebrities to recommend them on their WeChat, Weibo, and blogs. Her fans who are interested will find you and buy from you. That’s what she did. Get up. I was very happy at the time and felt that I had mastered Shang Fang's sword.
According to what she said, she started looking for Internet celebrities on Weibo, and sent private messages to the Internet celebrities one by one, asking them if they would accept advertising cooperation. But in fact, all the famous Internet celebrities will not reply to me at all. Only a few of them reply to me, and they are all not very famous. The asking price starts at least 500, and some of them cost several thousand in advertising fees.
Let me talk about my experience in finding Internet celebrities:
1. Having too few fans is definitely not good, but having more fans is not necessarily a good thing. It mainly depends on: how many fans there are. Live fans and hardcore fans. Nowadays, it costs less than 100 yuan to buy 10,000 followers on Taobao. Internet celebrities who want to make money quickly will buy followers on Taobao. A layman looks at it and thinks, wow! Millions of fans are so domineering! In fact, fans really don’t look at quantity, but at quality.
2. How to tell how many active fans and die-hard fans an internet celebrity has? Just look at the comments on a Weibo post posted by an internet celebrity to find out. Is it because there are more advertisements in the comments (advertising means that the fans are micro-business people and peers like us), or because there are more sincere replies from fans. If the vast majority of fans of an internet celebrity are bought with money, then basically there will be very few or no replies to a Weibo post. You absolutely cannot find such internet celebrities!
I gave up on looking for internet celebrities to advertise. I began to seriously study how to do micro-business. In addition to reading more useful information from great people on the Internet, I also started to think and summarize after executing it myself.
How to start a micro-business from acquaintances?
Each of us has our own network of contacts. The initial network of novice micro-businessmen is their family, friends, classmates, and colleagues.
Some friends feel that it is embarrassing to make money from friends. Yes, now, my friends will buy from me, but I will not make money from my friends
If you start with the mentality of making money from your friends, most of your friends will buy from you out of embarrassment. . But many of them are just one-time transactions, and then nothing happens.
In this way, the road behind will be blocked. What is more common is that there are so many micro-businesses now, and there are also many illegal micro-businesses on the Internet. If your friends hear that you are doing micro-business, if they don’t understand you, don’t buy from you and don’t block them. You are already lucky. I believe many novice micro-businesses have this experience.
However, if the product you choose is good enough and has a wide audience, it will be exactly what your friends need. You spent your own money to buy the goods and share your experience in your circle of friends. You have a good character among your friends and are a trustworthy person in life. I can guarantee that at this stage of your micro-business, which is the early stage, Not only will your friends not block you, on the contrary, many of them will be eager to try your products. The correct thing to do at this time is of course not door-to-door sales.
The correct approach is: sell it to your friends at cost price or make a small amount of money. In this way, she will definitely be grateful to you when she knows it. At this time, if you ask her to help you make a soft advertisement for your product in her circle of friends or ask her to recommend friends to add you, she will naturally be happy to help you after enjoying your benefits.
There are too many micro-businesses nowadays. People may not appreciate it if you give it to them for free. If you give her a facial mask, she will be afraid that it will ruin her face. I won’t try your products at all. Anyway, if someone I don’t know you gives me a facial mask for free, I won’t use it. Even if it’s a friend, I won’t necessarily use it. My face is very important to me, and I believe most people will have the same mentality as me. .
Like some partners who have not mastered marketing skills, if the trust between friends has been overdrawn, the road of starting from friends has basically been blocked by themselves. You can only start with strangers. But here’s a quick aside, if you have a bad character, you will definitely not make money by doing micro-business. In the final analysis, micro-business will only buy from you based on their trust in you.
If you want to become bigger and stronger, you cannot rely solely on friends. You must also develop a market of strangers. Many novices don’t know the correct marketing methods at the beginning, and they swipe the screen like crazy. Friends have long been numb to your product, and those who are tired of you have already blocked you. It is no longer easy to start from friends. We must develop the market of strangers. At this time, many novices started to start the crazy adding mode again.
In micro-marketing, is it true that the more people there are, the better?
The answer is definitely not. As Haoyu said: 50 accurate fans are worth much more than 5,000 zombie fans. If you don’t have accurate fans, no matter how well you build your circle of friends, you will still be selling combs to monks and it will be difficult to achieve sales. What's more, many people who have been added will block you, delete you, and block you when they see that you are a micro-business person, and you are faster than a rabbit.
I also very much agree with Haoyu’s point of view: fans are attracted by personal aura. For example, I currently have 1,572 friends. In addition to more than 100 friends, most of my clients have more than 50 transactions.
The best way for me to attract fans is to share valuable articles and leave my WeChat ID in a suitable way to attract others to add me. The people who come to add me are all interested in the product, because they already know what I do when they add me. Who would join a WeChat business if they are not interested in the product and get swiped every day?
Some people may say that my writing skills are poor and I cannot write soft articles. Actually, I’m not good at writing either, so what did I do?
Because I make shampoo, I found a lot of posts on the Internet about hair care, beauty, skin care, and weight loss. I integrated the content together, modified it appropriately, and added some of my own experiences, and it became Share your articles with everyone and connect the product’s selling points with the customers’ G-spots. This kind of text will be more attractive. Those attracted in this way are basically precision fans.
Most of the products of micro-business are aimed at female customers. Any girl who loves beauty will be interested in sharing content about hair care, beauty, skin care, and weight loss. As long as your posts are attractive enough and have high exposure. If you are high enough, a steady stream of fans will come to add you.
My experience is: in micro marketing, value is king, otherwise it is just a rogue.
Where can I find soft articles? In this era of the Internet, you can collect a lot just by moving your fingers. For example, various forums such as Tianya. No matter how bad it is, Baidu keywords include how to lose weight, how to skin care, how to care for hair, and put together the posts yourself.
If you are too lazy to do these, you can also pay someone to write it for you, but I personally do not recommend it. When we are doing micro-business, it is better to be more diligent ourselves.
Profitable micro-business does not mean that you can make money just lying down without working hard, as some people have claimed. Micro-business must also develop the skills of micro-business. For example: a vegetable seller can’t say I can’t shout, a person selling things in a physical store can’t say I can’t sell, and as a micro-business, you can’t say you can’t write.
If you really can’t write, then learn it! Read more, imitate more, write more, and you will eventually come up with your own style. It’s not that I can’t write or don’t want to write, but I also want to attract customers. This is very contradictory.
Attracting fans is only one part of the entire marketing. After the traffic is completed, customers may still not necessarily place an order immediately. How to use Moments to achieve transactions involves a lot of skills and knowledge. Due to space limitations, I will share it here first.
2. How to choose products for micro marketing?
In fact, judging from the current market, China does not lack commodities. When our entrepreneurial team was operating, many businesses talked to me, including those who made honey, rice, and various fruits. Which thing should we choose as the entry point for micro marketing?
Take our team as an example. When we started working on this product, we conducted market research. In the domestic market, there are about three types of ducks: roast duck from the north, led by Beijing roast; then there are braised duck from Sichuan and salt-fried duck from Hunan.
The reason why we chose Hunan’s salted duck is because: first, it is a very well-known snack in Hunan, but in other areas, it has almost no reputation. If so, the competition is relatively less fierce; secondly, we can position it as an office snack to increase its entertainment.
3. Find a good entry point, strengthen team operations, and ignite topics
After the product is positioned, we started a series of "operations."
First of all, we have to give our product a name. The two words "called duck" in the mouth of the Chinese people must be talked about after dinner. For example, someone asks you "Did you go to the duck shop today?" "Did you call duck today?" Through this interesting name, young people can attract many topics and eventually think of our products. I believe there are many such entertaining and shareable terms. You can think of them in conjunction with your own products.
Secondly, how to attract everyone to understand us. Attract 100 "seeds" through soft articles. We have now published an article on crowdfunding. What we are raising is not money, but people. We are looking for 50 hanging wires and 50 big names. 50 hanging threads are used to share our products in various circles of friends, and 50 celebrities come to give us "trust endorsement". Through this method, we can increase the number of fans and fan stickiness.
Next, we designed a series of copywriting, pictures, and marketing activities to spread the word through local promotion. However, we found that the effect of local promotion was very poor, but at the same time we gained other gains. : That is, we found that some travel friends are very interested in our products. When they get tired halfway, some people will take them out and share them with others.
This entertaining and shareable product has gradually been implanted in some groups of travel friends. They also like to bask in the sun, go to point A, bask in the mountains, and go to point B. , bask in the sunrise, and of course there are many "calling ducks" to bask in. Friends from different teams will lose purchase links if nothing happens. Within the first 2 months, we have gained a lot with minimal investment. At least this attempt has given us more confidence to continue.
4. Where to start?
Let’s talk about the essence of micro-marketing. The first is the product, the second is the team, but the most important thing is: execution.
With the emergence of the grassroots economy, the number of entrepreneurs is gradually increasing. I feel that if a new person does not have a lot of resources, the first thing he must do is: improve his credibility and turn himself into a "trustworthy person". "Brand or business card", through your personality, the influence slowly begins. Even if you have less than 100 fans now, if all of them are your "iron fans", you are still very amazing. Xiaomi relied on these 100 loyal fans to achieve its current position.
In addition, you have to think about how to increase customers’ experience with your product, and make sure that the experience is in place so that they can fully understand you, your product, and your brand. I believe it will not work. One day, you will do it.
Generally, businesses in traditional industries can basically make money as long as they master three types of resources.
One is called mastering upstream resources, which usually refers to specific products, technologies, and relationship backgrounds.
One is called mastering information resources. That is to say, using information asymmetry, buying low and selling high, or using nothing. Usually we call this kind of businessman: a dealer, a banker or a karate player
One is called controlling downstream resources. This is what we usually call mastering channels, good store location, and traffic flow.
In fact, micro-commerce and e-commerce businesses are similar to traditional businesses, but they just move the traditional business model online.
The first batch of micro-business methods to make money basically have the following three methods:
One is to rush in by accident, with relatively strong execution ability and not waiting and watching. Missed opportunities in the process. Many of the first batch of successful micro-businesses are not actually very capable, but they just took a step early. That is what we call seizing the bonus period. While others are chatting and picking up girls in ignorance, their business awareness is the first to awaken and seize the bonus.
The second is to master the upstream resources. When WeChat first came out, there were very few products suitable for WeChat business. If you have a similar product suitable for WeChat marketing, you can seize the market.
The third type is to control the downstream resources, have a large number of agents, distributors, and at last have a small team of several people or a few die-hard fans.
Wechat business has been developing for three or four years now. Especially in the past year, products and practitioners have exploded, creating many multi-million dollar giants. and leading enterprises.
But we know that any industry will go through a process from germination to growth, to prosperity, and then to decline.
The competition among micro-businesses is becoming more and more fierce. For example, in the beauty category, you can see many facial masks of different brands in each customer’s circle of friends. Those who have been involved in micro-businesses for more than a month have Almost everyone has a facial mask for sale. Today’s Moments are recruiting agents and selling products everywhere. There are many more micro-business people than those who buy things, and many more agents are hired than agents.
This year, when the probability bonus of violent screen spamming slowly recedes and people generally wake up, both retail and recruiting agents are facing huge difficulties.
If you are still using software and fake pictures given by the previous company to rape your circle of friends, and you are still brainwashing and recruiting agents in the group from dawn to dusk, you are also planning to use a three-no product team to hype or deceive the next one. Storing trouble is like entering a modern war with ancient cold weapons and formations. Undoubtedly digging your own grave.
Many friends who want to enter this industry ask me: What products can make money now, and how can I make money?
I basically ask them to conduct a self-analysis first. For example, among the three resources we mentioned today, which one can you master?
The short-term success of the bonus period and the excessive watering of blood have caused too many children to lose their energy and blood and become impetuous and angry.
Few people understand that any success is the realization of the value of yesterday, today, or tomorrow. If there is no monetizable value now, what you should do is not waste time and energy on useless screen swiping, but allow yourself to add value quickly and efficiently.