Rethinking the audience

Buying traffic through KOLs and paid ads had hit diminishing returns: high exposure, high engagement, low return, and brand mindshare and assets were quietly draining away. For its Xiaohongshu seeding, Thermomix had to move from a traffic mindset to an asset mindset, balancing the short term and the long term and putting its effort into accumulation.

1. Audiences

   22 candidates, ranked by similarity

   Twenty-two candidate audiences were ranked together by how closely they resembled Thermomix’s interested and buying audiences, with no assumption about who the buyer was.

2. Three tiers

   Core, high-potential, broad

   The core was Thermomix’s own interested and buying audience, the high-potential tier was category buyers and five types of mothers, and the broad tier was students abroad and people preparing to marry. Each tier was judged on different metrics.

3. Formula

   Audience × need × context × buying point

   Each audience got its own pain point, scene and benefit: students abroad who could only afford costly Western meals, couples preparing to marry who wanted a dowry gift that was practical and impressive, mothers who struggled to shape baby food.

4. Creators

   Different audiences, different creators

   Creators were matched to each audience’s content interests and search habits, from appliance reviewers and baby-nutrition writers to family-food, study-abroad and home-style creators, one group per audience.

5. Adjusting

   Compare, then move the budget

   Exposure, engagement, seeding and deep-seeding costs were compared across groups, and the budget moved to the more effective combinations.