An Architectural Coating Company Quickly Attract Business with the Help of Online PromotioN

Mr. Wang started his business in a legendary way. In the first half of 2013, he was only a floor manager in a bar. If you had been to such entertainment venues, you would know that all the bar floors were made of marble or exquisite tiles which were very smooth. Instances of people slipping over the floor covered with water were not rare to see. Mr. Wang had to deal with these disputes from time to time.

The floor of the bar Wang worked in back then was made of smooth marble.

One day, a cleaner made a mistake and poured a bottle of oxalic acid on the marble floor. Disfigured as the floor was, it became unusually non-slip. Even if more water was poured on it, people wouldn’t slip anymore. A light went off in Mr. Wang’s head at that time. Why didn’t he start his business and specialized in anti-slip treatment. So he quit his job immediately and focused on the business. Thus Shiqing Anti-Slip Protection Company was founded.

After a few months of hard work, he finally developed his own anti-slip coating. He went store-to-store to promote the product, but didn’t receive any order in two months. Then, thinking of using online promotion, he opened a personal store on Taobao, divided his products into small bottles as samples, and had them sold on Taobao at the price of 1 yuan, while he bore the loss of packaging and express fees which were dozens of yuan for each order.

A sample of an anti-slip agent sold on Taobao in 2013

One month after running the Taobao store, Wang met the first big customer in his career, the head of a high-speed railway station in Inner Mongolia who was distressed recently. When the tactile paving on the platform got wet with rain and snow, people were particularly prone to slip over it. He had to deal with several relevant disputes every year. In order to solve the problem once and for all, he started searching for solutions on the Internet. He bought a bottle of Wang’s sample and found it effective. So he invited Mr. Wang to the station to deal with the problem of the entire tactile paving. The project cost was more than 20,000 yuan. It was not Wang’s first bucket of money, but he saw hope in it.

The construction site of Hohhot East Station in autumn 2013

A few months later, the head of the high-speed railway station was transferred to Beijing high-speed railway station in charge of safety, and the anti-slip work of the platform was the first project after he took office. Naturally, Mr. Wang got the anti-slip project for the whole tactile paving of Beijing railway station, and got the real first bucket of money— more than 2 million yuan.

The construction site of a high-speed railway station in Beijing in winter 2013

Many entrepreneurs thought of buying cars or houses first after getting the first bucket of money, but Mr. Wang would more like to use it to develop his career. After deliberation, he made the right decision— since the first bucket of money came from online promotion, he should invest all the earned money in brand building and network marketing. As the anti-slip project for marble and tiles was more of a vertical market, there were very few competitors. Plus, no one dared to spend so much money promoting products on a variety of online platforms. As a result, the business grew rapidly and inquiry calls kept coming every day. Then he just picked out orders with a large project volume and carried them out. Before 2018, Mr. Wang was always on the way, running back and forth across the country with his own engineering team. But due to limited energy and manpower, the annual sales could only reach about 4 million yuan at most.

Employees of Shiqing who were working on a high-speed railway station in 2017

With the business growing, some of his customers, especially those who ran cleaning companies, wanted to be his agent and helped him expand his business in their local areas, as long as Mr. Wang could provide anti-slip coatings and technical support. After careful consideration, he made another big decision in 2018: Instead of taking on projects on his own, he decided to create a nationwide network of franchisees. To facilitate this, he set up a product showroom and training base at Shanghai headquarters to provide all-round support and services for franchisees. But there was just a minority of his old customers who intended to join in, after all. So Mr. Wang still relied on online promotion to increase the number of his franchisees.

Actually, Wang had another choice at that time, that is, to outsource the business to a third-party party specializing in investment invitation. He had examined several related companies, but only to find that those companies simply invited potential customers to a meeting through online promotion and convinced them to sign the contract with the meeting marketing method. The weakness of handing it over to a third-party company was that these companies only wanted to find a good project and make fast money in it rather than make real achievements in their career. Therefore, they often exaggerated before inviting investment, and left after the investment was invited, which brought many hidden problems to party A who was serious about the business.

Practice base for Shiqing’s franchisees

Though Wang didn’t work with third-party companies, he did learn their marketing skills. Back to his company, he created very nice conditions for the investment engagement conference, leading to various other companies doing the same. There was even one of his competitors who sent three of their employees to work in Shiqing to learn various marketing skills secretly.

Mr. Wang would give lecture personally at each training site for franchisees

Shiqing’s product and construction effect showroom

The well-conducted offline marketing also made online promotion easier. Ever since the rise of short videos and the change in people’s habits on the Internet in 2018, Shiqing has been stepping up efforts in short video marketing, especially during the peak season for inviting investment every spring, when the advertising cost on TikTok is more than 2 million yuan for a single month.

At the same time, the traditional search engine marketing is still Shiqing’s main source to gain customers. After years of operation, Shiqing manages to rank high whether in the brand ads and paid ads on search engines, in natural listings, or on free information platforms. As to the natural ranking of the website, Shiqing made SEO for multiple websites (site group optimization). When searching with keywords like “anti-slip coatings”, you will find not only a whole screen of Shiqing’s ads but also many Shiqing’s websites ranking on the first SERP, which truly realizes what all online promoters dream for, that is, “occupy the screen” with only their company’s information.

No matter where you are, when you search with keywords related to “anti-slip”, Shiqing’s ads can always be found at the top. Note that these “brand ads” are displayed on both the left and right side of the search results. No need to worry about malicious clicks because the cost is made by week instead of by click.

Shiqing’s headquarters and its regional agents have three websites in total ranking in the first SERP of the term “anti-slip”, which are natural listings without advertising costs (achieved by using SEO techniques)

If a company intends to work with its agents at all levels to create an online promotional environment, there are normally two ways, one of which is to guide agents to conduct online promotion by themselves, thereby saving the marketing costs of the head office. But this model comes with a prerequisite that the agents should focus on the parent company’s products and no longer sell products of other brands. The Fortune 500 company SAP is using this way. But Shiqing’s agents are mainly engaged in decoration, cleaning, flooring, etc. Apparently that model is not suitble for them. So Wang adopted the other way, that is, the group conducted online promotion for the agents. Although the marketing costs are high, but the brand effect achieved and sales leads acquired will be the best weapons to attract and manage franchisees.

For instance, if there is a project for anti-slip protection in a provincial capital, the first one to get the news is not the local anti-slip engineering team but Shiqing’s headquarters, because whatever search term the customer uses on the local network, all he can find is Shiqing’s information instead of local enterprises. Okay, now if there are three agents in that city, who the headquarters will assign to upon receiving the sales lead? Of course the one who is reputable and pleasant to work with. Even if some of the franchisees want to use other brands of anti-slip agents, the customer may not agree. Because as long as they search for information related to anti-slip protection in the local, they are overwhelmed by Shiqing’s ads. This is the brand effect. As a result, in a tender project for anti-slip protection in this provincial capital, though there were several different companies bidding for it, the materials they used were all Shiqing’s anti-slip agents.

A well-stocked warehouse for finished anti-slip agents to ensure the goods can be transferred to franchisees at any time