2017 Taiwan Growth Hacker Annual Conference: Make full use of media and public relations to ignite the engine of success for inbound marketing

In the forum “Future E-commerce Growth Strategies from Inbound Marketing” at the 2017 Taiwan Growth Hacker Annual Conference, the organizer invited industry experts such as Qiu Yuting, Li Zhenwei, Jian Shijie and Xu Youjian to discuss the use of a wider range of inbound marketing (Inbound Marketing), combining pull (content) and push (advertising, public relations) and other methods to form new driving forces for e-commerce growth.

For enterprises, public relations has always been a popular and feared publicity tool. The mentality of “both looking forward to being hurt but also afraid of being hurt” can really be used to describe the mood of bosses and public relations and marketing personnel when facing the media. In fact, as long as the media is properly used to build a brand bridgehead, the follow-up tools of inbound marketing can have a bonus effect.

Let the media speak well of you and build consumer trust

I still remember that in our previous [First Content Hacker Seminar] (https://www.contenthacker.today/2017/11/2018-contentmarketing-trends-summary.html), we mentioned that one of the trends in content marketing in 2018 is that the boundaries between owned media (Owned Media), advertising (Paid Media) and public relations (Earned Media) are gradually blurring. The reason is that in addition to the fact that these information sources “borrow” from each other, the main factor is that the average reader does not actually care about the differences between the sources; what the reader cares about is the “relevance,” “accuracy,” and “credibility” of the information.

Public relations is the primary tool for building an image. Its main basis is to “let others (the media) say good things about you” rather than “say good things about yourself” in the form of advertising. Therefore, it is easier to establish initial trust among the audience and become the engine and accelerator of inbound marketing.

Inbound Marketing Accelerator─Media PR

When it comes to using media public relations as an inbound marketing accelerator, Ken Hsu, the founder of Fudi Catering (https://www.facebook.com/TheFoodieGroup/), who is known as Sour Brother, believes that the current era is one of distrust. In view of the rampant use of fraudulent ads on Facebook, most people are helpless. When marketers think that ad settings are all happiness, they forget that consumption always comes from human nature. Trust is built on the evaluation of a company by other media or consumers.

Image source: Ken Hsu

Xu Youjian took his own Fu Di Catering as an example. The reason why this private chef was able to quickly gain popularity was entirely through public relations and social connections to attract people and then build a reputation. In the marketing process, the digital tools used include:

• Branding: Use media and magazine promotion to attract customers who have never been exposed to before.

• Facebook & ADs: writing from a media perspective and communicating with consumers.

• LINE: Provide materials that regular customers can share and utilize permission-based marketing.

• SEO: Use media coverage to increase SEO.

In addition, Ken also shared two cases of combining media and public relations (note: this part should actually be counted as Paid Media and not within the scope of Earned Media). They used TV programs to promote “Consumer Expert x Health Food” (bringing a turnover of 6 million yuan), and “Variety Show x Food E-commerce” (ROAS averaged 18 in seven days), which drove considerable customer acquisition results. This tool can be used repeatedly, but the important thing is that the target audience must happen to be those who can be reached through the channel of television (for example: mother-in-law, mother) in order to produce corresponding effects.

[](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhArMRP4YosUIHxqtUfzuxqRmqGpW-yJ9bTiKjgyWT0rPwsnH J5LgwHjKxzwKZ2kj6dm5fltywC-IS5Vs8niO-GN6obrc3fb9hm-IwJ5catJWHEwmnAymQBJrmkAjd913n7lhOGCVQEmoc_/s1600/hsu-3.jpg)

Image source: Ken Hsu

Overall, although many people put their efforts and most of their budgets on Facebook, Ken also reminded everyone not to underestimate the power of traditional media public relations. After all, the customer base that mainstream media can reach is much wider and deeper than we imagine. If the resources and power of media and public relations can be properly utilized, it can ignite the engine of success for inbound marketing!

Forum: Insights into future e-commerce growth strategies from inbound marketing - Xu Youjian | 2017 Growth Hackers Annual Conference from awoo

★ Content Hacking Activity Preview:

• January 2018 Content Hacking Lecture (CHL3)─Create your content marketing strategy

• February 2018 Content Hacking Lecture (CHL4)─Creating calls to action for your content

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Further reading

• 2017 Taiwan Growth Hacker Annual Conference: Green Vine Vitality, using warm content marketing to create atypical rapid growth
• Taiwan Growth Hacker Annual Conference 2017: Can inbound marketing bring Taiwan’s e-commerce industry back from the ashes?
• Taiwan Growth Hacker Annual Conference 2019: Zeng Youzhi shared how to use data to manage customers and set routines starting from goal-driven

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