A good soft article can not only increase the sales volume of the enterprise, but also is a high-quality entrance that allows users to enter the continuous marketing scope of the enterprise.
(I) Direct role of soft articles
1. Attract users
Whether it is a soft article for direct product marketing or a soft article for expanding brand awareness, it is necessary to truly attract users, arouse their interest, and stimulate their attention and purchasing behavior.
2. Improve brand awareness
Provide readers with unique views and perspectives, and help readers solve practical problems through keen insight. While improving readers’ trust, it can also have a positive impact on the publicity and promotion activities of the enterprise, and to some extent, it can effectively improve the visibility of the enterprise.
3. Spread corporate culture
The enterprise can show the corporate image to readers through soft articles and leave a good impression in the readers’ minds. If the content of the soft article is good enough, it can also attract people with the same views for in-depth discussion.
(II) Indirect effects of soft articles
After many years of development, some marketers have expressed sincere admiration: soft article marketing has been widely used, and the audience has become increasingly “difficult to deal with” and has become immune. Indeed, compared with the marketing miracles created by Melatonin, Haier, and Gree in the 1990s through soft articles, soft article marketing in today’s Internet era may not be able to directly create glory again, but it has a new vitality due to its powerful indirect effects. The indirect effects of soft articles include external and internal aspects.
1. External effects
For excellent soft articles, even if we do not consider their direct improvement in marketing performance figures and profits, they have the following positive effects in external display alone.
(1) Accumulation of trust. Sales are based on trust. Taking WeChat Moments marketing as an example, users are more willing to buy products from acquaintances than from strangers. Under the soft article marketing in Moments, although readers will not buy a specific product in the soft article, they will also develop a unique sense of trust in the publisher due to their reading behavior and experience, and continue to accumulate trust, and eventually buy other products.
(2) Mutual reposting. Different marketing teams or communication platforms can expand their reach by reposting each other. For example, Weibo and WeChat can form a foundation for continuous dissemination and viral marketing through the reposting of friends. This not only can gain advantages in the marketing of a single product, but also expand the future value of the communication channel.
(3) Word-of-mouth effect. Soft articles can make people who originally do not care about the product or brand remember its value and occasionally express it in daily communication. This effect will bring about a group effect. When the number of word-of-mouth spreaders reaches a certain range, no matter when and where the audience sees an advertisement for a certain industry, they can think of the unique brand of the industry mentioned in the soft article. This deep and long-lasting impression is better than the short-term marketing effect brought by hard advertising.
(4) Appeal. If the marketing team can continuously publish excellent soft articles in media channels and create a popular sharing trend, it is possible to in turn influence the minds of the media and readers and unconsciously cultivate their long-term dependence on the marketing team. For example, some Weibo and WeChat celebrities will even receive “rewards” (i.e. cash support) from readers after sending soft articles.
2. Internal effect
Soft articles are mainly used for buyers, but if their value is fully utilized, they can also play a positive indirect role in the internal management and operation of the enterprise.
(1) Cultural marketing. The construction of corporate culture is inseparable from the promotion of soft articles in internal publications. By reading soft articles about advanced deeds and product concepts, the ideological quality of employees can be effectively improved. Whether it is team spirit, loyalty, execution, etc., they can be achieved through repeated “training” of soft articles.
(2) Reduce costs. Although hard advertising can obtain better traffic, the audience group is not accurate and the advertising cost is also high. In comparison, the price of a single soft article is much lower than that of hard advertising that requires bidding. If we consider that better soft articles will be reprinted a certain number of times, the actual cost paid by the enterprise will be lower.
(3) Clarify product positioning and manage marketing context. Soft article marketing is both a specific marketing method and a marketing management method. Before and after the positioning, planning and writing of soft articles, enterprises need to conduct systematic research, careful planning and dynamic adjustments. This process requires enterprises to improve their marketing plans, clarify the positioning of brands and products, and adjust the focus of marketing channels.