There is a saying that goes: "The difficulties faced by Internet people support a coffee market worth hundreds of billions of yuan."

Faced with this red ocean market, not to mention Starbucks, Luckin Coffee, and Lian Coffee, even McDonald's and KFC in the fast food camp, 7-11 and FamilyMart in the convenience store camp, and even Zhong Xue Gao, which sells ice cream, and Sinopec, which sells gasoline, have joined the coffee race.

△ Sinopec's Easy Coffee, whose products are named after gasoline numbers

△ Zhong Xue Gao launches coffee

Driven by them, freshly ground coffee has become the mainstream trend, and instant coffee represented by Nestle and Maxwell has gradually been disliked. Everyone seems to have forgotten the era when people were "complacent after drinking a cup of instant coffee."

With the arrival of the third wave of coffee, if anyone dares to say that they are making instant coffee now, they will most likely be asked "Are you crazy?"

Amu recently noticed a boutique instant coffee brand called "Santonban". The appearance of this line of coffee beans looks very good, but it does look like a trash can at the entrance of a community.

This is the brand that started making instant coffee. But it is still doing well?

The dark horse of the coffee industry

In our minds, instant and premium are two incompatible antonyms. However, the Santonban brand combines the two together and positions itself as "premium instant coffee" .

In their own words, the LABS (lossless flavor extraction system) technology they participated in developing can preserve the coffee flavor to the greatest extent and achieve 3-second instant dissolution. (In the actual experience of Amu, it is indeed instant dissolution, but it still needs to be stirred slightly).

As more and more retail brands enter the coffee market and the competition between Starbucks and Luckin Coffee intensifies, these brands have cultivated consumers' coffee drinking habits and established their dependence on coffee, which has given Sandunban more room for growth . After all, there are always times when you want to drink a cup of coffee with a good taste but can't.

"During last year's Double 12, Santonban ranked second in the entire coffee category (Nestle ranked first). During this year's Double 11, Santonban's transaction volume was ten times that of last year's Double 11. Its sales on that day exceeded that of the entire year last year, surpassing Nestle and becoming the number one brand in the coffee category " - 36氪Pro

You know, Nestlé had occupied the Tmall coffee throne for ten years before the emergence of the dark horse "Santonban", which broke this pattern.

In the crowded coffee market, Santonban can be said to have successfully found its own place to survive. As a niche brand, Amu also found that it has its own set of user operations.

Building close relationships with users: Sandunban’s strategy of “casting a net to catch fish”

To most consumers, Sandunban seems like an internet celebrity brand that suddenly emerged, but in fact, this boutique coffee brand, which was founded in 2015, has always had the potential to become an internet celebrity.

The packaging is very similar to the traditional instant coffee packaging: the plastic bag packaging is abandoned, and the highly recognizable "cup packaging" is chosen to create a super symbol of the brand. Many users also like to keep the cups and use them to plant plants or make other decorations.

This unforgettable little cup is not only a package but also an advertisement, it is also an interactive touchpoint between the brand and the user, making consumers reluctant to throw it away after use. It is said that building a brand is like falling in love with users, so how does Santonban "cast a net to catch fish"?

1. Cold start in "Xiachufang" and find a group of seed users

Santonban, which we see now, was popular on the "Xiachufang App" before it became officially famous. I believe that foodies are familiar with this app, which gathers a large number of food lovers who have more discerning taste buds than ordinary users.

Santonban sent product samples to some users for testing . Based on their feedback, Santonban’s early products were continuously optimized, improved, and polished, and even attracted the attention of the official team of Xiachufang , which provided traffic support.

After the product matured, Sandunban shifted its focus and began to develop Taobao stores, and the group of seed users of Xiachufang also successfully became fans.

2. Set up a mysterious pilot and use "tap water" to divert traffic

Many brands have their own "unspoken rules", such as Hermès' mysterious "distribution rules", Michelin restaurants' extremely secretive undercover selection mechanism... and Sandunban has also designed a mysterious "navigator" role.

It’s not that you can become one just by buying a lot. Instead, Santonban has someone specifically responsible for keeping an eye out for brand-related UGC content on various channels . If the team predicts that someone has the “potential to be a navigator,” they will send the product to that person and keep in touch with them to understand their experience and thoughts on the product in a timely manner.

It is said that the number of pilots has now grown to more than 500. When dozens of pilots make the same suggestion, the product will definitely be improved.

According to them, a navigator is "someone who points out the path and direction for the product", or in other words a "tester". If we interpret it in the terms of the marketing circle, Sandunban's action is to discover and cultivate "KOCs".

According to the information revealed on their official website, these navigators are not necessarily big Vs in a certain field, but more of them are amateurs, and most of them are full of "literary and artistic temperament", such as photographers, illustrators, pastry chefs, etc. Not only do they conform to the brand tone, but many product pictures circulating on the Internet are contributed by this group of "navigators".

3. “Little tricks” make you a repeat customer

In addition to finding seed users and cultivating KOCs, whether users can repurchase after trying new products depends largely on the strength of the product. But in addition to this, Santonban also has a "unique" user retention plan - the "Return Plan", which means an empty can recycling plan .

The brand has cooperated with some specialty bookstores, shopping malls and other offline spaces to set up outlets. Users can make online reservations to go to the "return point". The empty cans provided can store "energy" and be used to exchange for coffee or other peripherals, which silently makes you feel more favorable towards the brand.

This reminded Amu of a takeaway brand in Japan called Tamagoya, whose tableware is not disposable, but instead sends people to recycle lunch boxes from customers every afternoon. Although it is time-consuming and laborious, it not only alleviates the environmental damage and waste of resources caused by disposable tableware, but also adds points to the positive image of its own brand. This alone has attracted many fans.

The reason why Santonban has become a brand that people fall in love with at first sight is largely because every step it takes is towards "establishing a close relationship with users". Rather than being a marketing expert, it is better to say that it is a love expert.

To sum up, what marketing tricks did Santonban Coffee use?

1. Conduct trial and error on a small scale and communicate closely with seed users.

When it comes to cultivating seed users, many brands only stay at the "finding" level and lack the subsequent action of "continuous communication".

Xiaomi's entrepreneurial story is talked about a lot because it attracted many digital enthusiasts and mobile phone enthusiasts to speak out in the Xiaomi community in the early days and give product feedback. The brand continued to communicate closely with users and paid attention to user voices, which made these seed users become Xiaomi's earliest "supporters". Until now, Xiaomi still writes "Because of Mi fans, so Xiaomi" on every sales receipt.

Amu previously wrote in the article "How did Lululemon, which made Nike anxious, make a comeback with a pair of yoga pants?" He mentioned: "When brands let consumers participate in product design, they are actually giving themselves low scores and letting users give their opinions. Because the attitude is low enough, users are more likely to have a good impression of the brand."

In addition, as traffic becomes more and more expensive, the cost of trial and error for brands becomes higher and higher. In the early days, Santonban and Xiaomi were “restrained” in marketing, rather than rushing immature products to the market.

Of course, there are cost limitations, but the process of user participation in product polishing not only strengthens communication between the brand and fans and cultivates loyalty, it is also a small-scale trial and error process that allows the product value to be continuously verified, thereby increasing the success rate and reducing risks on the road to "expanding the brand."

2. Instead of rescuing people from the vast ocean, it is better to start cultivating loyal fans from a tributary.

Before going public, Zhong Xue Gao, which sells ice cream, chose Xiaohongshu, a platform that best matches its products. However, Zhong Xue Gao did not just use Xiaohongshu as a distribution channel, but hoped to gain more support and resources from Xiaohongshu from the perspective of brand cooperation.

To this end, Zhong Xue Gao tried every possible way to let every staff member of Xiaohongshu try Zhong Xue Gao's products to impress them, and finally received support and training from Xiaohongshu. It took only more than three months to become the number one in the number of notes and topics on Xiaohongshu.

When launching a product, we most easily think of top traffic platforms such as WeChat and Douyin. However, Sandunban chose a vertical platform for its launch , which is more accurate, has high stickiness, and is easier to gain support from the platform, obtaining more traffic support and content feedback , helping start-up brands optimize their products and promote them on large platforms after the finished products are mature, with a higher success rate.

But we must also realize that no matter how many methods and strategies there are, they are always centered around good products. Good products + the right marketing methods can achieve the effect of adding wings to a tiger.