1. Introduction

The report to the Party's 20th National Congress pointed out: "We will carry out a healthy China campaign and a patriotic health campaign, advocate a civilized and healthy lifestyle." And focus on the "hard bones" that are most easily ignored by Chinese teeth [1]. At the same time, with the gradual development of social economy and network marketing, people gradually pay attention to oral health. Usmile has seized the advantage of digital media dividends and is in a leading position in the electric toothbrush industry, its use of a large number of marketing strategies such as precision marketing, deep digging pain points, cross-border co-branding, etc., is worth analyzing its role and defects and putting forward opinions.The 4P theory is the most fundamental marketing analysis method, allowing us to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of the usmile marketing strategy and product, pricing, promotion, and other factors. From January to June 2023, the online retail sales of the oral care industry on the key e-commerce platform monitored by OTOU Consulting were 11.31 billion yuan, an increase of 4.6% year-on-year. Among them, Tiktok has become the fastest-growing channel in the oral care industry, with a growth rate of more than 70%, and the growth rate of the fast-hand channel has also exceeded 60% [2]. This paper will analyze the most important aspect of promotion in marketing strategy through 4P theory.

2. The 4P theory

The 4P theory is the most basic marketing theory, which is reduced to the combination of four basic strategies, namely product, price, promotion and place. Since the English prefix of these four words is P, they are referred to as "4P" for short.

2.1. Promotion

The overall situation in the toothbrush industry declined slightly, and the market sales (excluding electric toothbrushes) were 27.45 billion yuan, a decrease of 1.9% year-on-year; The sales volume of mouthwash products increased by 85% compared with the same period in 2020, and its growth rate is far ahead of all kinds of oral products. In addition, oral care products such as water toothpicks and dental stickers have also increased significantly [2]. From the brand ranking of the electric toothbrush industry, the top five brands are usmile, Philips, Oral B, Mi Jia and Flyco, whose online retail sales accounted for 26.6%, 22.3%, 9.6%, 4.7%, and 4.4%. From the brand ranking of the water toothpick industry, the top five brands are Bixdo, usmile, Bair, Mi Jia, Panasonic, its online retail sales accounted for 17.6%, 12.3%, 11.4%, 7.8%, 7.7% [2]. This is why usmile pays attention to the consumption scene and precision marketing. Through the popular stars Xiao Zhan and Zhang Xincheng, the TV series In the name of their families, and the promotion strategy of kol and koc on social media has brought huge economic benefits to the enterprise. The advertising strategy of the usmile in TV series is worth learning. It is implanted into TV series such as the popular drama "In the Name of Family" and successfully broke the circle by relying on the deep implantation of "in the Name of Family". Usmile electric toothbrush accurately tied the integrating degree between the TV series and the brand, the content was intimately bound with the brand, and the scene integration was clever and natural, and a large number of usmile logo was implanted in the background of the heroine's dental visit in the clinic to play a suggestive role. With the popularity of the TV series, Usmile not only achieved the purpose of publicity and gained attention, but also communicated with consumers through the hit drama, conveying a more humane brand impression. Not only that, Zhang Xincheng, the spokesperson for Usmile, is the actor for He Ziqiu in the TV series. During the broadcast of the TV series, he actively interacts with fans on the social platform to expand the communication effect.At the same time, the usmile invited many average people to evaluate, and with the help of the evaluation of average people’s notes, it created an atmosphere that many people are using, so that users can know the best-selling products, enhance authenticity, improve the acceptance of fans, and strengthen the connection between the brand and fans.

Furthermore, during the last two years, as people's material living standards have continued to rise, consumers' awareness of oral health care has also been steadily rising. They now understand that maintaining dental cleanliness can help prevent oral diseases, which influences their decision-making when selecting oral products [3]. Usmile began to dig into points to understand people's real needs, and found that most users choose electric toothbrushes because they do not brush properly. The usmile is marketed in conjunction with the Pap brushing method. And in view of the contemporary young people love to eat sweets, drink carbonate beverages and milk tea, usmile developed a toothpaste with anti-sugar effect, three months on the market, sales of more than 30,000 bottles. Today's consumers pay more and more attention to the appearance of products, and the appearance has become an important choice factor [3]. Usmile carried out cross-border joint activities, and co-designed different gift boxes and internal toothbrush designs with Monet, Van Gogh and other works, and adopted Morandi design to attract a large number of buyers' eyes. Combined with the core objectives and specific tasks of the national dental prevention work [3],Strengthening oral health education and raising oral health awareness is a necessary step to help achieve the goal of a healthy China [1]. In addition to making good products, usmile has also built a continuous, professional and warm brand service system for consumers [4]. Usmile established a "Comprehensive Oral Care Officer" team to deliver brand temperature, popularize oral care expertise and answer questions.Simultaneously, oral specialists are invited to provide lectures on various platforms, including Weibo and Red, in order to show brand professionalism and generate publicity impacts. It gives the brand's painstaking attention to oral hygiene for customers through the use of an electric toothbrush as the carrier, fully integrates products with daily routines, and increases user stickiness and repurchase rates.

2.2. Product

In terms of product, the usmile covers all categories of oral care, uses FMCG logic, electric toothbrushes and water toothpicks to increase customer unit price, and uses fast-selling products and consumables such as toothpaste, floss, mouthwash and broom heads to increase re-purchase rates and brand power. Compared with traditional toothbrushes, electric toothbrushes do have many advantages. Its reasonable exercise program can correct some people's incorrect brushing methods, and some high-tech design features, such as the sonic vibration function can be more effective in cleaning the mouth [5]. Meanwhile, Chinese toothpaste and toothbrush product technology has developed rapidly, the industry as a whole has entered a stage of high-quality development, and China has become a global oral cleaning care products production-country.In particular, new oral products such as mouthwash, dental powder, oral spray and dental cleanser are emerging endlessly. Green environmental protection, high safety, and good efficacy products are more and more favored by people [3]. Not only that, the usmile attaches importance to unique product design, using marble style, Roman column design, and 10-series joints. Today's consumers pay more and more attention to the appearance of products, and the appearance has become an important choice factor [3]. At that time, when it was mostly in industrial design, usmile's macaron color system attracted a lot of young people's attention. Usmile also attaches importance to product scientific research, independent research and development of motors, electronic chips, etc., and created more than 450 patents, such as sine wave drives.

2.3. Price

In terms of price, the overall price of the usmile is slightly higher than that of other brands, which can be obtained through the following chart:

Table 1: The unit price and monthly sales of the usmile, Philips, Ale B and Shook

The table compares the price and sales of the least expensive electric toothbrushes from usmile, Philips, Oral B, and Shook. It can be seen that usmile ranks the second most expensive compared with these four brands, but it can still maintain a high sales volume.

2.4. Place

In the direction of place, usmile is divided into online and offline directions, but the main marketing direction is online. The present market traffic of mass brands is divided into three parts: intra-station traffic and traffic from all channels e-commerce platforms; information flow, such as Tiktok, Red, Kuaishou, and so on; and brand potential [6]. On the online channels, usmile mostly adopts the e-commerce method, which sells a large number of single products in the e-commerce channels, so as to improve the ranking and enhance its popularity.Its main e-commerce channels are China's three major e-commerce platforms, JD, Taobao, Tiktok and some small platforms. Usmile launches pop-up stores and stores in popular cities, and adopts a strong sensory store design to bring consumers closer and understand the experience products. At the same time, it also enriches the publicity field for multi-platform bloggers, driving people to understand and enter the offline store rather than limiting themselves to online understanding.

3. Problems and suggestions

3.1. Problems

In the continuous understanding and analysis of usmile's brand, products and user feedback, it can be concluded that usmile still has some problems.The first point is that the quality of usmile products is uneven, and in most of the buyers' pictures, the products received by users are good and bad, which has to be suspicious. The second point is that the price of usmile is higher than that of most brands, which may cause users to directly choose other brands because of the price problem and not have a deep understanding of usmile's products. The third point is that usmile's sales channels are not rich enough. From the comparison between online and offline, usmile still mainly sells online channels, while there are only a handful of offline channels, which reduces the experience of consumers. The fourth point is that usmile's after-sales service is not perfect. Customers' questions were not fully answered, and there was no follow-up visit.

3.2. Suggestions

In view of the first problem, usmile can reduce quality defects by changing product design or set up product supervision departments to improve product quality. The second problem is to attract consumers by frequently participating in promotional activities, designing exclusive brand festivals, or upgrading services to make consumers think that products and services are equal to each other to increase sales. The third problem can be reduced by increasing overseas marketing, offline stores and word-of-mouth marketing. The fourth problem requires usmile to train after-sales personnel, improve their service level, and increase after-sales channels so that consumers can enjoy after-sales service at any time. It is more important to set up an after-sales service supervision group to protect the brand reputation and after-sales quality while protecting the rights and interests of consumers.

4. Conclusion

Based on the optimization of social and economic conditions, people's attention has gradually focused on their own improvement. However, with the national and social attention and research on oral care in recent years, the marketing strategy of oral care brands based on the 4P method has not been fully studied.

Every brand has its own marketing strategy, so each brand has its own uniqueness. In this paper, the basic marketing method of the 4P is used to solve the problem of the uniqueness of each brand.Based on the four general directions of product, promotion, price and place, it uses subdivision research and analysis, and reflects the brand characteristics of usmile through the comparison of price and sales and the analysis of various marketing strategies. But, it is also found that the brand still has many problems, such as product quality, after-sales service, price and other aspects need to be improved through staff training, the establishment of special departments and other methods.

There are still two aspects of this paper that need to be further improved. On the one hand, it is necessary to refine and complete the data of the usmile and other brands. There are some limitations to the comparison based on current prices and sales. On the other hand, this paper only studies the 4P method, and there are still many marketing or research methods that can improve the accuracy of the usmile marketing strategy research.