Jack Trout listed five mental models of consumers in “The New Positioning”. These five mental models have important implications for cross-border e-commerce companies:
(1) Limited mental capacity: Consumers can only receive limited information. In other words, in the same category, consumers can only remember the top brands. Therefore, we should strive to rank in the top 3 in the category on the e-commerce platform (not just the top 10 currently counted by Alibaba International Station by default). If there are already stable top 3 in the same category, we should try to choose other categories or further subdivide the category (this will be restricted by the e-commerce platform).
(2) The mind hates confusion: Consumers like simplicity and hate complexity. When doing brand advertising, the simpler the slogan, the better. As for store selection, we should pay attention to controlling the product segmentation of a single store, especially B2B stores. We once tried to sell Bluetooth headsets and kitchen electronic scales in one store. We first promoted Bluetooth headsets for a month through P4P, then stopped paid marketing for Bluetooth headsets and switched to marketing electronic scales, but the effect was very poor. Such a serious problem can occur with only two categories. Therefore, although Alibaba International Station allows a store to choose multiple categories, it should still be carefully selected.
(3) Lack of mental security. Consumers often lack trust in new products. At this time, when launching new products, appropriate marketing is needed to encourage consumers to try them. New product recommendations and related recommendations are both good strategies. A sense of security is the guarantee for building a membership system. In some specific categories, using a sense of security may have a better effect in improving loyalty.
(4) Mindset is difficult to change. Consumers’ impression of a brand will not change easily. New products should pay special attention to this when pricing them for the first time. A suitable brand premium strategy is beneficial to the brand, while a discontinuous brand premium strategy will damage the brand image.
(5) Mindset loses focus. Many B2B merchants believe that the best state is when production and sales basically match and customers are also quite stable.
When this optimal state is reached, merchants will stop all advertising investment. This practice is not advisable. It is suggested that after reaching the optimal state, the investment in performance advertising can be appropriately reduced, but the total marketing budget should not be reduced. The saved performance advertising expenses should be invested in brand advertising. The rhythm of advertising investment can also be appropriately adjusted, adding advertising during festivals or peak seasons, and reducing investment during off-seasons to maintain a dynamic balance of the optimal state. This requires superb balancing skills, so the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) should insist on analyzing data and constantly summarizing the rules.