During the National Day holiday, some friends in the tourism industry asked me why their scenic area livestream sales were not going up, even though they had done everything, and they couldn't figure out what went wrong.

At the same time, I always see peers making a fortune on Douyin, with billions of transactions in a quarter. When it comes to themselves, it's easy to lose money.

But when I ask them how they actually do it, few people offer their own methodology; it seems like a task that has to be done.

Every time I hear colleagues complain to me, I remember that in the past, almost all scenic areas and parks needed their own official accounts, just like every scenic area has its own livestream today.

Livestreaming seems to have become standard for online marketing. I may not be able to do it well, but I have to do it.

Why is this?

It seems that many colleagues have a common misunderstanding that livestreaming is very simple.

Many people say that livestreaming is not difficult and there is no threshold. Just find someone with good looks to talk in front of the camera, right?

On the surface, it seems to be the case.

But because the "feeling" of the threshold is low, anyone can do it, the competition is becoming increasingly fierce, and most of the novel and unique methods you can think of have been played hundreds of times by others.

These days, I chatted with Wu Hao, vice president of Yinji Tourism Group, about how scenic areas should do content and operations on Douyin. Some of his views are quite constructive, and I'd like to share them with you.

In recent years, there has been a saying in China: "Nan Changlong, Bei Yinji." In the theme parks focusing on animals, Yinji International Tourism Resort has emerged, and a series of popular topics and marketing events on Douyin, such as "self-photographing tigers" and "warm male clowns," have quickly become popular. This is inseparable from Yinji Tourism's innovative full-link marketing approach.

Speaking of this year's marketing status quo, Wu Hao mentioned that in the digital age, consumer behavior and purchasing paths have become increasingly complex.

He proposed a full-link marketing theory explored in practice. This is an integrated online and offline, multi-channel, multi-touchpoint marketing strategy that hopes to build a seamless, coherent consumer experience, a bridge that allows products and consumers to establish deep connections, and become a practical approach to achieving the integration of product and effect.

Yinji's ability to achieve steady growth requires good products and scenarios, good content and services to provide better emotional value outlets, and finally, the combination of diverse new media dissemination.

Today's marketing is no longer an era of blindly following trends. Projects with strong interaction are more popular than purely sightseeing projects, and novel and unique projects have more selling points.

This is similar to what I have observed: once someone sees a platform making money, countless people will flock in. At this time, competition intensifies, the survival of the fittest, and the requirements for content marketing and operational capabilities are higher. Casual efforts won't yield good results.

Times are changing, the market is changing, and consumer demand is changing. Wu Hao mentioned that Yinji discovered the precise accessibility of Douyin's platform tools and set up a special team. Therefore, Yinji Tourism has achieved a closed-loop consumption of tickets on Douyin and achieved the integration of product and sales.

Why spend so much effort?

His reason is that since you're doing Douyin, you should treat it as a business base, and slow work produces fine work.

Building a solid 60-point infrastructure, understanding the different attributes of the platform, using the right tools, and doing precise targeting can lead to good results in the application of various methods.

Through diverse content forms such as short videos, livestreaming, and challenges, Yinji Tourism Group has not only improved its brand awareness but also achieved a significant increase in sales conversion rates.

So the correct logic should be: earnestly study the platform's gameplay, carefully do every livestream and every video, and the offline scene should have corresponding products and services. Otherwise, customers who come because of online traffic may very well lose money through their own efforts.

Makes sense.

After clarifying the underlying logic of scenic areas using Douyin, the next question is what Douyin can bring to scenic areas?

To answer this question, we first need to understand what kind of platform Douyin is and where its differentiation lies.

As a platform that can provide users with very rich and complex information, if we only regard it as a "real-person sales OTA," it is indeed a bit of a waste of its potential.

On this point, Wu Hao also shared with me during our chat that Douyin's platform has strong information reach capabilities. Combining Yinji Tourism's innovative full-link marketing approach, plus the 4P theory, to drive the overall growth of Yinji Tourism.

As an indispensable part of current marketing tools, Douyin's value to scenic areas is particularly reflected in seeking incremental business.

If we break it down further, the A side of incremental business is regional increment, and the B side is customer increment.

How should this be understood?

First, let's look at regional increments. Wu Hao gave an example: in the past, Yinji's customers were mainly from surrounding areas and North China. This year, the increment of channels and regions has increased, such as Ningxia and Inner Mongolia provinces. In addition to traditional travel agencies and hard advertising, a new media matrix has also been established.

Wu Hao mentioned that Douyin has a significant advantage when doing increments. The results are different depending on the use of different channels, different market levels, and different time points. It is necessary to be able to flexibly adjust strategies according to different market levels to achieve the best results.

So he chose local content creators and group-buying KOLs from Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, and spent three days polishing and repackaging the mature product for promotion. After a period of time, the number of self-driving tourists from Ningxia and Inner Mongolia to Yinji Holiday Resort increased significantly.

In fact, for an unfamiliar market, concentrated content delivery in the short term is effective.

Looking at the increase in customer base, Wu Hao said that he checks the customer portrait every month to find breakthroughs for growth, adjusts product strategies through audience positioning, and achieves precise exposure.

For example, young people are easily attracted by interesting videos and down-to-earth live streams; they like romance, excitement, and thrills.

Wu Hao would look for KOLs with mainly university student fans from Douyin's group-buying KOLs and content creators' fan portraits, mainly promoting 99 yuan afternoon tickets for young people aged 18-24. After attracting customers to the scenic area, he would use popular photo spots, interactive mini-games, and amusement facilities to ignite their emotional value, creating another wave of "self-generated traffic" on Douyin and bringing in a new wave of customers.

This vertical promotion strategy in terms of content, product, price, and channel is an end-to-end marketing approach. The goal is to penetrate the minds of young people, making them feel that not coming to play would be a disservice to their youth.

It has to be said that this strategy has mastered human nature and maximized the value of Douyin as a marketing tool.

From the results, over the years, the proportion of young customers at Yinji International Tourism Resort has increased from 12% to 22%, and Wu Hao and his marketing team have put a lot of effort into creative approaches and end-to-end marketing.

From the single product to the explosive product's mind share, from niche to mass market breakthrough, and from traffic to user stickiness, the perfect integration of innovative end-to-end marketing methods and new media platform tools has achieved today's results, and it is precisely this marketing approach on Douyin that has led to rapid growth.

In addition, Wu Hao also put forward an interesting theory. Because of the characteristics of Douyin's information dissemination platform, the increase in Douyin traffic will also lead to an increase in traffic from other marketing channels, so it is very suitable for pre-sales.

To summarize, the two ends of scenic area marketing have never changed.

One end is "people," and the other end is "goods".

The only thing that changes is the road between the two ends, that is, what timing, audience tags, and regions should use what marketing channels to sell the "good goods" and attract "tourists".

Wu Hao proposed the concept of channel increment and incremental market, which is in stark contrast to traditional market operation strategies. When developing new markets and new customer groups, Douyin can be used for outreach. At the same time, the effectiveness of Douyin will vary at different market levels and nodes.

For example, some scenic areas offer price policies across all channels, but they should actually be given according to channel characteristics. For example, for new regions, new customer groups, and pre-sales, Douyin is the most suitable channel. Then, target different consumer characteristics to create matrix accounts for customer groups such as parents and babies, and young people who love group buying.

Today, the transaction volume of Douyin's life services is still growing. Learning to "find the right time" and "find the right customer group" in this ecosystem is crucial for scenic areas seeking growth in a highly competitive market.

Everyone understands the principles, but why do many scenic areas still find it difficult to use Douyin today?

Wu Hao has profound insights into the evolution and innovation of Douyin marketing. He believes that with the development of the market, the needs of scenic areas are also constantly changing, from the initial pursuit of traffic to later brand awareness, and now to innovation in business models.

This year, it is clearly felt that the platform has higher standards for merchants providing good content and good products.

So, for scenic areas, since the platform requires high-quality content, whether the scenic area does it itself or finds external KOLs and service providers, there are higher requirements.

Scenic areas are not afraid of spending money on marketing; what is scary is spending money without value.

Today, many scenic area merchants' understanding of Douyin is to find a group of people to film tourists and tourist facilities frantically, and then conduct live streams to sell tickets. This is not wrong, but today's Douyin is no longer a stage where simply posting a large amount of content will generate traffic.

Live streaming is just a node in the overall operation of Douyin. What is impressive is not the anchor's words, but the scenic area's construction of the entire operating system behind the live stream room.

Just like when brushing short videos, some people may think that it's only a few minutes or even tens of seconds, and anyone can shoot.

But when you actually write a short video script, you find that it's not easier than writing a 2500-word business observation to explain something clearly in just a few minutes and ignite the reader's emotions.

Behind a hit product, there are often some techniques.

Similarly, you think those live streams that sell well for scenic areas are simple because you have a smooth user experience.

But the smooth experience felt by the audience is the result of countless details accumulated by the scenic area.

As a scenic area marketing operator, Wu Hao's views are quite constructive. He believes that live stream innovation is not just about inviting celebrity KOLs, but more importantly, how to better introduce brands and products through live streams to enhance brand value and customer stickiness. This is just a "point" approach.

What is a "linear" live stream marketing approach?

If you really want to master a platform, you need to invest more resources, understand the rules behind the platform, and persist in the long run, rather than just making a quick buck.

To clarify the importance of marketing strategies, Wu Hao believes that the foundation of marketing is product, price, channel, and promotion; these are the basic skills of scenic area marketing.

He emphasized that no single model can be effective forever; strategies must be continuously upgraded and iterated based on market conditions and product characteristics.

Overall, the overall operation and different product strategies vary under different market conditions. Douyin is not about blindly promoting live streams and products; it requires an overall strategic operation.

On Douyin, build a 60-point infrastructure, plus a variable sales combination. The core strategy is to study platform rules and exposure mechanisms, such as how to invest in traffic before live streaming, how to get on the best-selling list and popularity list, and improve store quality scores and operation scores. Only then will the live stream business be successful.

In short, understanding consumer needs and using diverse marketing strategies combined with suitable platform inventory and pricing systems can yield good results, rather than simply brute forcing it. Doing all this is the key to success; it's hard for a livestream to not become popular.

In response to this, Yinji proposed a service philosophy called "The Kindness of Strangers".

What does that mean?

He explained that the most important aspects of marketing are service and content, especially conveying kindness to tourists and providing maximum kindness to enhance their experience.

Wu Hao shared that this year, we've used cameras to record many such moments of kindness. A video of a clown interacting with a little girl went viral online and became a trending topic.

This video shows a clown playing rock-paper-scissors with a child during a parade. The clown deliberately slows down his movements to let the girl win, and she's very happy to receive her prize. Wu Hao emphasized that this kindness is not an isolated incident but rather the norm for the scenic area's staff.

In these two case studies, the emotional value is undeniable. The combined effect of conveying kindness, emotional resonance, positive emotion stimulation, need fulfillment, creation of emotional memories, and the demonstration of social value enhanced the tourist experience, increased the attractiveness of the scenic area, left a deep impression on tourists, and successfully made it to the trending list.

Marketing isn't about doing one big thing at once, but about doing a series of small things right.

As long as you do a series of small things correctly, you can achieve success.

Just like the question of doing business on Douyin, it's not just testing one person. Some choose to sleep at their desks, while others continue to look for solutions.

Those who diligently study and answer the question correctly will win everything.

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