During the National Day holiday, some of my friends who work in scenic areas asked me why their livestreaming sales weren't going up, even though they were doing everything right. They just couldn't figure out what was wrong.

At the same time, I always see colleagues making a fortune on Douyin, with billions of transactions in a quarter. But when it comes to themselves, they often end up losing money.

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

Every time I hear colleagues complain to me, I remember that 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?

Many colleagues seem to have a common misconception 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 "perceived" 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 already been tried hundreds of times by others.

These days, I had a chat with Wu Hao, vice president of Yinji Tourism Group, about how scenic areas should create content and operate on Douyin. His views are quite constructive, and I'd like to share them with you.

For 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, with a series of popular topics and marketing events on Douyin, such as "self-photographing tigers" and "warm male clowns," which have quickly become popular. This is inseparable from Yinji Tourism's innovative full-link marketing approach.

Speaking of this year's marketing situation, 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 marketing strategy that uses multiple channels and touchpoints online and offline, hoping to build a seamless and coherent consumer experience, a bridge that allows products and consumers to establish deep connections, and become a practical approach to achieving both effectiveness and efficiency.

Yinji's ability to achieve steady growth is firstly due to good products and scenarios, secondly to good content and services that provide better emotional value outlets, and finally to 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 takes place, and the requirements for content marketing and operational capabilities become 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, achieving the integration of product and sales.

Why spend so much effort?

His reason is that if you use 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 making precise investment can lead to good results when using 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 easily lose money.

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, it is a bit of an underestimation to only see it as a "real-person sales OTA".

On this point, Wu Hao also shared with me during our chat that Douyin's information reach is very strong. Combining Yinji Tourism's innovative full-link marketing approach, plus the 4P theory, drives 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, it has increased channel increments and regional increments, such as Ningxia and Inner Mongolia provinces. In addition to traditional travel agencies and hard advertising, it also created a new media matrix.

Wu Hao mentioned that Douyin has a significant advantage when it comes to increasing volume. 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.

He thus chose local content creators and group-buying KOLs from Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, and spent three days refining and repackaging the existing two-day, one-night tour product for promotion. After a period of time, the number of self-driving tourists from Ningxia and Inner Mongolia to Yinji Holiday Resort indeed increased significantly.

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

Looking at customer growth, Wu Hao said that every month he would analyze customer portraits to find breakthroughs for growth. Through audience targeting and adjusting product strategies, precise exposure is achieved.

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 then look for KOLs on Douyin whose fans are mainly college students, focusing on promoting the 99 yuan afternoon ticket for young people aged 18-24. After attracting customers to the scenic area, he would use popular photo spots, interactive games, and amusement facilities to amplify their emotional value, creating another wave of "self-generated traffic" on Douyin and bringing in a new wave of customers.

This vertical promotion strategy across content, product, price, and channels is a full-link marketing approach, aiming to penetrate the minds of young people and make 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%, demonstrating the significant efforts Wu Hao and his marketing team have put into creative approaches and full-link marketing.

From the positioning of a single product to a blockbuster product, from niche to mainstream, and from traffic to user loyalty, the perfect integration of innovative full-link marketing strategies with 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 proposed an interesting theory: due to the characteristics of Douyin's information dissemination platform, an increase in Douyin traffic will also lead to an increase in traffic from other marketing channels, making it very suitable for pre-sales.

In summary, the two ends of scenic area marketing have never changed.

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

The only thing that changes is the path between the two ends—that is, what timing, audience tags, and regional marketing channels are used 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 tailored to the characteristics of each channel. 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 groups such as parents with children, and young people who love group buying.

Today, the transaction volume of Douyin's life service is still growing. Learning to "seize the right moment" 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 market development, the needs of scenic areas are constantly changing, from the initial pursuit of traffic to 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.

Therefore, for scenic areas, since the platform requires high-quality content, whether the scenic area does it itself or hires 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. While not entirely wrong, Douyin today is no longer a stage where simply posting a large amount of content will generate traffic.

Live streaming is just one node in the overall operation of Douyin. What is truly impressive is not the host's speaking skills, but the scenic area's construction of the entire operating system behind the live stream.

Just like when brushing short videos, some people may think that anyone can shoot those few minutes or even tens of seconds.

But once you start writing short video scripts, you'll find that explaining something clearly in just a few minutes and igniting the audience's emotions is no easier than writing a 2500-word business observation like mine.

Blockbusters often require some techniques.

Similarly, you may find those live streams that sell scenic areas well simple because your user experience is smooth.

But the smooth experience the audience feels 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 loyalty. This is just a "point-like" approach.

What about "line-like" live stream marketing?

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 instead of just making a quick buck.

Wu Hao emphasizes the importance of marketing strategies, believing that the foundation of marketing is product, price, channel, and promotion—the basic skills of scenic area marketing.

He stresses 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, building a solid foundation (60 points), combined with flexible sales combinations, 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 and popularity rankings, and improve store quality 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 have recorded many such moments of kindness through cameras. A video of a clown interacting with a little girl went viral online and became a hot 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 the girl is very happy to win a prize. Wu Hao emphasized that this kindness is not an isolated incident, but the norm for the scenic spot's operating personnel.

In the two case studies shared, the emotional value is undeniably high. The combined effect of conveying kindness, emotional resonance, positive emotion stimulation, need satisfaction, creation of emotional memories, and the embodiment of social value enhanced the tourist experience, increased the attractiveness of the scenic spot, left a deep impression on tourists, and successfully reached the trending list.

Marketing is not 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 right, you can succeed.

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.

Recommended Important Cultural and Tourism Events

(3 days, 14 forums, 100+ guest speakers)

←Swipe left and right to view details→