Zhou Yulin, Chairman of Tianyu Digital Intelligence: Empowering marketing with digital intelligence and paying for results | WISE2024 King of Business
The environment is constantly changing, and the times are always evolving. The "Business Kings" follow the trend of the times, insist on creation, and seek new driving forces. Based on the current major transformation of the Chinese economy, the WISE2024 Business Kings Conference aims to discover the truly resilient "Business Kings" and explore the "right things" in the Chinese business wave.
From November 28 to 29, the two-day 36Kr WISE2024 Business Kings Conference was grandly held in Beijing. As an all-star event in the Chinese business field, the WISE Conference is now in its twelfth year, witnessing the resilience and potential of Chinese business in an ever-changing era.
In the present where all marketing is converging to traffic platforms, more and more enterprises are feeling the pressure brought by the continuously rising traffic prices. When the cost of marketing is getting higher and higher, what strategies can enterprises adopt to cope with it? In the predicament where the cost of investing in traffic is constantly compressing the profit margin, is there a way out for enterprises? In response to this, Zhou Yulin, the founder and chairman of Tianyu Digital Intelligence, put forward his own solution. The following is the speech record of Zhou Yulin's "The Pioneer of the New Generation of Digital Intelligence Marketing System - Empowering with Digital Intelligence and Paying Based on Results":
Hello to all friends of 36Kr on-site and in the online live broadcast room!
Zhou Yulin, the founder of Tianyu Digital Intelligence, published a new book in October this year. It sold 100,000 copies across the entire network in 30 days and became a bestseller this year, called "The Sales Presentation Skills Everyone Needs".
What is the core theme of my speech today? I think everyone can focus on what value I can create for you. Many enterprises that appear on the platform today are very excellent, but what I am more concerned about is what kind of value I can create for the friends on the scene. We specialize in marketing planning, which is to help enterprises achieve performance growth. And the biggest difference between us and other companies in the industry is that We are the first company in China to propose a zero planning fee and a pure commission cooperation model. In contrast, many marketing planning companies in the market will charge high planning fees, which can reach hundreds of thousands or even millions. Our company fully proposed a zero planning fee in 2023. We obtain the commission for the growth of the enterprise along with its development. The better the enterprise develops, the more commission we extract. Therefore, we build our results in this direction.
When I went to the brand sharing yesterday, a reporter asked me, Zhou Yulin, how dare you propose this strategy? It is difficult to achieve in all industries. How do you do it? I just said the core three words, called digital intelligence.
Next, I would like to present our products and services to you. All entrepreneurs and brand parties, if you have a new product to be launched in the future, you might as well make a new friend, Zhou Yulin from the south.
What exactly is the new generation of digital intelligence marketing system that we have constructed? In fact, I have heard many guests sharing in the past few days, saying that many enterprises may move towards IP and live streaming in the future, and there may be many marketing methods, and almost all of them will have some innovations. The boss moves towards IP, and everyone moves towards IP. I can responsibly say that this is definitely a huge trap for Chinese enterprises, and this marketing model is an irreversible marketing trap, and it may even lead many brands from a previously well-developed state to an irreversible situation.
I will analyze the reasons behind it. I personally divide marketing into five stages. The 1.0 era is called "Finding Business at Home", and in the 2.0 era, we go outside to find customers.
From 2019 to 2021, the leverage used by all well-developed leading enterprises in China is called investment promotion. And through the form of advertising bombardment, the products are first implanted into the users' minds, and then many channel distributors are recruited through investment promotion. Under this model, many enterprises have grown from a few hundred million to one billion, two billion. However, this situation came to an abrupt end in the past few years. Because the epidemic came, all the marketing models that existed offline in the past are no longer applicable.
In 2019, many enterprises used the investment promotion model to find channel partners, and finally we coached the distributors and partners of the branch companies. There are also provincial and municipal agents under the distributors. The headquarters structure is very heavy. The general manager has to hand over things to the director, the director to the regional manager, and the manager to the employees, and this has not yet reached the customers. We need to carry out many rounds of transmission. Some companies are relatively excellent and begin to learn to set up a planning department to create content and let the front-line team do it. There are also many enterprises that will build a business school system to reach users through these means.
The marketing model from 2012 to 2019 is highly dependent on the headquarters. However, due to the epidemic, all the intermediate links have been skipped, and a large number of enterprises have begun to enter the 4.0 marketing era, which I call the e-commerce era, relying on short videos and private domains. All enterprises are forced to go online, and the entire environment has changed. At this time, a model emerged where the brand directly invests in users. This is the model that many enterprises today directly create IP, create live streaming, and play with private domains. Indeed, there are many individual entrepreneurs who did not have products in the past but knew how to create content. In one year, an individual can earn even more money than a listed company. Therefore, a large number of people began to go online to create IP, including many bosses. I want to tell you that this is definitely a big trap and a short-sightedness in a company's strategy.
I would like to ask the brand parties, assuming that you can directly reach the user end through short videos and live streaming, then what do I need distributors for? Can I give up the development of distributors? Has anyone made this choice? Yes. Between 2020 and 2023, many enterprises faced a choice of giving up distributors for independent development. Another option is to hold onto distributors and wait for the epidemic to pass.
You will find that the enterprise groups that coexist and perish with the distributors are wiped out, and some companies that choose to develop on their own have developed. However, in 2024, the counterattack of all marketing environments has emerged, e-commerce itself is a traffic business, and it goes wherever there is traffic. Many Taobao brands emerged on Taobao back then. How many of them are doing well today? Continuously investing, the traffic cost is being squeezed, the manufacturer's price is determined, and users will always anchor their minds with the lowest price of the purchased product. In the end, the brand parties have no money to earn. Offline, the price can obviously be raised by 10 times for profit distribution, but because the e-commerce model has emerged, the intermediate space has been completely squeezed out.
So in the past few years, many enterprises have been in a difficult situation. Where is the difficulty? It lies in that if our brand enterprises do not use short-video methods to develop, they feel that they cannot expand customers. Now that customers have been expanded, problems are found. The prices in our live broadcast rooms are constantly being rolled down. Now, almost nothing can be sold unless it is the lowest price across the entire network. Once the bonus of the Douyin brand disappears, does it mean that the brand's vitality also disappears? So in 2021, I said that if this path is followed, the 4.0 marketing model and the 3.0 marketing model will conflict, and there will be problems where the real economy is difficult to grow.
It is too difficult for distributors to learn short videos and live streaming. Assuming they cannot learn and cannot expand customers and cannot empower the brand parties, the brand parties can also directly form a team to sell the goods. Then, is it that a large number of distribution teams and circulation teams in China have no money to earn? Because there is no money to earn and no money to be distributed in the industrial chain, I can only go to the live broadcast to sell cheaper goods, and thus the anchor is boasted to be more important than the sky. Because the price is the lowest across the entire network, this model has also eliminated the traditional distribution model, resulting in no money to be distributed in the middle. Ordinary people have no money and can only buy cheaper goods. Assuming that today's Chinese physical business owners still think that I want to do live streaming, I want to do short videos, I want to create IP, and I want to be an intermediate, then you will find that the entire real economy will really face great challenges.
Later, I put forward a concept. I said, who exactly is playing with short videos and live streaming? Let's envision an idea. In the past, the brand parties were responsible for product research and development, and the distributors were responsible for selling goods, including live streaming, private domains, etc. Distributors should learn these, but it is too difficult for them to learn. Then, can my headquarters complete the content and let the distributors do the forwarding and conversion?
Therefore, I drew a model back then, which is also the current marketing 5.0 model, that is, the marketing middle platform of the headquarters does not directly target C-end users, but creates content. What kind of content? Content that is needed for the dissemination of the times, including videos, private domains, live streaming, etc. The circle of friends we create is not an article one by one, but a script. We want to create short videos that convey value to customers, not just to attract everyone's attention, but to convey from our scenes, products to product selling points, and among customers. I need to turn the circle of friends of each employee of the distributor into a communication chain. What is the intermediate channel? The headquarters' system directly empowers the channel distributor boss, the boss authorizes, and reaches the employees below, and the employees forward. Who will meet with the customers? It is my headquarters that will help the distributors meet with the customers, the benefits belong to the channel distributors, the users continue to introduce users, and the users' benefits are also linked to the distributors.
I remember that when we drew this model, it received the recognition of many people, but we also found that we needed to find tools that matched the model, but at that time, there was no set of technological tools in the market that could solve the above problems for us. Later, I thought, since no one is doing it, then I will do it. So I gradually entered the technology industry from being a marketing planning teacher. We built a marketing butler platform. In the case where 300 bosses are not familiar with a product, we use our system to direct them to work. In the just-ended November, we used 20 people to direct 300 partners across the country, remotely guiding them on how to sell goods, and we sold a product with a GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) of 20 million.
From September 15 to October 30, 2024, a team of 20 people completed a GMV of 20 million in 45 days. This is our business system. We assign the task goals to each person, and all distributors forward. Some of them are bosses, and some are partners we recruited, etc. For the content they forward, we will divide all the transaction information with the structure of short videos. We will do the entire content design with a very marketing logic - such as which ones are for seeding, which ones are for facilitating, and which ones are for conversion, etc. After we use the script model for them to complete the forwarding, when someone sees the video, they will reach our live broadcast room. What we broke through in three months is this book, a book priced at 59.8 yuan, forming our overall fission. After users make a purchase, they will be automatically captured into our community. Corresponding to the current offline marketing, a WeChat group of mine is equivalent to a store. In fact, many products do not necessarily need to put heavy assets completely offline. Some need to, and some can actually use the online community as the carrier of the business.
Finally, we did a round of live broadcast collective monetization. We made a challenge and sold the most difficult product in China, which is the course. The course is the most difficult product I have ever sold in my life. However, we completed a GMV of 20 million through the entire business process online. This is our new generation of intelligent marketing system, the entire business model of the Marketing Butler. What industries can it be used in? Currently, we have broken through education and training, knowledge payment, consumer goods, and many intelligent hardware, etc. Using our system, we can connect all the distribution systems and employees of the entire company.
Some people ask what Tianyu can create for everyone today? Zero planning fee and pure commission cooperation. In the past, some people regarded lecturing and training as fraud, and those who do marketing planning as bluffing. Why? Because a set of solutions cannot be implemented after it comes out, and the days of many enterprises are particularly difficult. Later, I put forward a concept. Assuming that as a marketing company, I cannot help enterprises grow, and I still take the planning fee, I think this is very unreasonable. Chinese bosses are not unwilling to pay, but they are afraid that after paying the money, there will be no return. Therefore, we are making a revolution, using digital intelligence marketing to help Chinese enterprises achieve performance growth. If the enterprises have results, we will benefit along with them. If the enterprises do not profit, we will not take a penny. We want to make Chinese entrepreneurs in the future fall in love with marketing companies. Thank you!