In the history of Internet giants making a fortune, "ground promotion" can not be ignored.
"ground promotion", as the name suggests, is ground promotion. Looking at its development history, the most talked about is that when Alibaba started, it relied on a "Iron Army of China Supply" to visit one company after another, opening the door to the Internet.
With the "entry" of e-commerce, takeaway and then community group buying , the ground promotion army has relied on point-to-point promotion, supporting Internet projects one by one. The "cost" may be the mention of eggs, a bag of laundry detergent, or the right to use it for free at one time.
According to statistics, there are 1.051 billion netizens in China in 2022. Such a huge user scale makes no one disconnected from the network. Perhaps behind this number, the contributions of the local promoters cannot be ignored. They once appeared in bustling streets and shopping malls in various cities, such as Sanlitun, Beijing and Chunxi Road in Chengdu. There were ground pushes in places where there were crowds. They exchanged the gifts in their hands for the first download of users. This gift could be a cup with the " Starbucks " logo printed on it, a "Bingdundun" key chain or a "dumpling skin" that is now popular.
In recent years, the sinking market has become a new territory for local promoters. Users get small profits, and local promoters can make a living. Merchants such as " Yiwu " clear the final products, while major manufacturers have added new users, the data is good, and the traffic base is available.
But as Internet users become increasingly saturated, the team-based promoters also encountered some bottlenecks: after the community group buying was out, they had not yet waited for the next "top stream" to appear.
The expansion of Internet companies
80 and the ground push in the memories of post-90s may be the once shining school network in the memory of youth. This year, Xiao Ye has been graduating from university for 12 years. She was invited by a senior to register in the campus network in the university cafeteria with the temptation of listening to Coke. Later, the school network was renamed Renren , and then to its current transformation. She couldn't help but sigh.
The time node for Renren.com to flourish is exactly the chaotic period of "fighting" between major group buying websites. By 2015, Meituan won the Thousand Groups battle with with a strong execution ground promotion team. Until today, the ground push has not ended.
Chen Mingming joined the company in 2018 and became a land promoter. She remembered that after passing the interview with this leading Internet company, she came to an office building located in a bustling area in the city. In the conference room, the supervisor held an laser pen and to teach new employees how to calculate salary. At that time, she was confused and only remembered the most important point. The supervisor said that if she did well, her monthly income could reach 10,000-20,000 yuan, and there would be no cap on it.
Chen Mingming felt that she might be lucky. At that time, this income figure was a great temptation for her. But in actual operation, difficulties follow one after another. During the period of opening up a project, the seemingly pushing up profits is exchanged for local promoters with the ""feeding" spirit. The mature stage of the project, the almost saturated market share also makes the monthly KPI seem quite tricky. After staying for a long time, Chen Mingming felt that this circle is very "river", but society is already very complicated, and it is inevitable that in the local promoter circle where performance is king. After several years of training, she The last project she handled was community group buying, which is the last "hot spot" mentioned in the circle. During the "Hundred Groups War", the market demand and potential were great, which allowed her to catch up with a wave of bonus . At that time, new users registered and received a box of eggs for free. She relied on the low-price traffic at the entrance of the community to attract a group of early customers.
is not only a user registration, but also a promotion of group purchase pickup points. "The thicker the face, the more you can stand out. "Chen Mingming said that she went to several residential areas a day at that time. Regardless of whether the bosses could understand her introduction or not, make sure to keep the business card in place. When the market is good, just send the business card, and a phone call will come in a few days.
But as the capital of community group buying leaves, the dividend period also ends.
ground push "entering" timing is very important
On a working day in February this year, a lot of office workers gathered next to a small cart in Sanlitun, Beijing. "Download for free to get cups", a middle-aged couple was greeting the young men and women coming and going. Scan the QR code to download the fast version, and you can get the cup immediately. Few people explore what this Starbucks-like cup came from.
New Yellow River reporter learned that a company had previously given a policy: to get a user to download, and there will be a reward of about 18 yuan. Later, the reward for one order dropped to 10 yuan, and more rewards were tilted towards "re-logging", that is, the user who was brought back logging again, and if used for 7 consecutive days, it would be rewarded with another 20 yuan. With other series of rewards, one user could make them earn up to 46 yuan.
So in addition to attracting people to download, the couple is also attracting people to join the group and reminding everyone that "log in every day, and there are benefits." Compared with the cost of "small gifts", the land promoters are still very profitable.
On weekend nights, the commercial streets were crowded. At this most lively time node of the week, a small cart was parked on the side of the road with the key chain of "Bingdundun" on it, "It's free, it's free!" The ground promoter Wang Cheng shouted in the crowd, and people were constantly attracted, "Scan the code to download, pick it whatever you want." He further said.
Wang Cheng told the New Yellow River reporter that in the past few years, if you stayed in a business district with high traffic, you could attract at most nearly 100 new people. Internet companies that invest a lot of new costs may not necessarily increase their vitality while obtaining user data. Wang Cheng didn't know the "balance point" among them, but he knew that the promotion of an APP always had a "ceiling" and as the market deepened, the difficulty would increase. In addition to the increase in peers, there is another point that every time he takes the initiative to chat with passers-by, he invites them to go to an APP, but many of the answers he gets are: it has been downloaded.
Among the ground promotion partners that Wang Cheng knew, some people would travel around the country to find a market. I stay here for one day today and will arrive in the next city tomorrow. The weekend days are often their busiest time. In addition to video software, he also worked part-time in recruiting new products for power banks, car washing software, and parking software. He believes that for the local promoters, the timing of "entering" is very important. The commissions are often high at the beginning and the market is not saturated.
ground push can be divided into upstream and downstream. If the "user" is downstream, then the "upstream" are those merchants selling gifts. They will post appropriate gifts on their circle of friends, such as Bingdundun’s keychain, “Internet celebrity felt bag”, etc. The landlords only need to choose the money and pay the money, and then these gifts will be sent by express. A local promoter told reporters that a passerby once saw Bingdundun’s keychain look good and wanted to buy one, but he flatly refused. "This cannot be sold, you can only scan the code to download and get it." As for the reason, he said, "Everyone understands it."
sinking market is almost saturated
In 2019, Kuaishou and Douyin were in full swing. The two sides successively launched the "Speed Edition" in August 2019, and now, they are still the main force in the ground-based market. New Yellow River reporters found that compared with the main APP, the Speed Edition has distinct characteristics. First of all, it occupies a small memory and can run smoothly with low-end mobile phones. Secondly, its most attractive model is to make money by watching news and videos, so this is more consistent with its positioning population, such as users or elderly people in the sinking market.
download saturation is a fatal bottleneck for ground promoters. To this end, some people have turned to the "sinking market". Compared with the mature market environment of first- and second-tier cities, the promotion of projects in third- and fourth-tier cities has become a must-fight place for more large manufacturers because of their lag.
But the good times did not last long. As Internet manufacturers "save food and food" became the norm, the cost of attracting new products continued to decrease, coupled with the gradually saturated market and increasingly "smart" users, the best days for local promoters have ended.
In Xianyu, searching for "ground promotion", many of them are ground promotion teams looking for "financial owners". They generally face a dilemma, that is, some are mature teams and what they lack are high-quality projects.
From takeaway platforms to shared power banks, to community group buying, they are catching up with the trend and seeking dividends of offline expansion. But seizing the market is sometimes so cruel, "those who enter the market early get full, and those who enter the market late suffer."
But can ground push really become the traffic antidote for major Internet manufacturers? "Sometimes, the user has finished downloading the front foot, turned his head and deleted it, and nothing happened." said a local promoter.
New Yellow River Reporter: Xue Dong
Editor: Zhao Shanshan
