B-side product operation skills!

The C-end is for all users and can be used by anyone without any threshold.

The B-side is for certain users, while other users do not need or cannot access such products.

B-end products can be the company's internal systems, such as financial management and process management; externally, they can be customer-oriented software, such as restaurant CRM and Kingdee CRM; they can also be products targeting a certain group, such as doctors, teachers, and drivers.

The key to the first two methods lies in the online and visual implementation of actual business processes, and they can be promoted and used by providing segmented permission management and data statistics.

The latter is targeted at a specific group and is the type that is most biased towards the C-end among the B-end. Product managers need to expand customer acquisition to complete the launch, guide conversions to increase activity, try payment to explore commercialization, and so on.

So, for the latter specific group, how can we make a B-side product that they will love and can’t put down?

By thinking from the following three dimensions, you can create a successful B-side product from 0 to 1.

1. Complete basic requirements

Complete basic requirements determine whether the product can be used.

There is basically no small step and rapid iteration in B-side product iteration. The B-side group is not isolated, but is generally a group of people in a certain profession or job. The purpose of making B-side products is to improve the efficiency of this type of people, not to entertain them.

What is efficiency? Provide complete closed loop efficiency. B-side products that do not follow the correct process will not be usable.

Basic needs revolve around efficiency. Help to bring offline processes of specific professions online. For example, for a driving instructor, the first thing the B-end product Coach Handbook needs to accomplish is to make the teaching process online and manage the students’ progress. The coach used to record these movements in a small notebook, but now uses an app to improve efficiency.

Basic needs have little innovation and are mainly based on current scenarios. The professional process is fixed and generally should not be changed easily. Just properly follow the existing process to complete the online migration. There is no need for drastic innovation. Compared with innovation, the habitual process is extremely simple, has low education costs, and is easy to create a sense of immersion.

After the complete basic requirements are provided, will the B-side definitely use it? Not necessarily, they might not. It is not used but it must be there, and the function must be there when you want to use it.

Therefore, the first stage of B-side products is to complete the basic needs to make the product usable. Only when it can be used can it be possible to expand the group.

Optional added value

Optional added value to enhance product activity and stickiness.

The basic requirements in the first stage determine whether the product can be used. In the second stage, we need to solve the problem of why to use it.

People have the inertia of being stuck in their comfort zone and unwilling to change. They think the current situation is good enough and are unwilling to try new things, so they remain stuck in where they are. Therefore, the product needs to provide additional motivation to encourage them to use it.

The motivation comes from the B-side profession itself. Every profession has its own interest points, and you can leverage them around those interests. Compared with the divergence and experimentation on the C-end, B-end careers focus on personal growth and benefits, which can be divided into spiritual and material needs.

Spiritual needs. Career development is upward, and most users have an enterprising mentality. The first added value of B-side products is to help them grow.

Improvement of professional capabilities. Improving capabilities is an urgent need. Most apps now sell courses, but what they are actually selling is the anxiety about one’s own growth and development. B-side careers generally have a clear development path. For example, the doctor group includes doctors, attending physicians, associate chief physicians, chief physicians, etc. Since there is a path, you need to keep killing monsters and upgrading. Therefore, after meeting the basic needs of online consultation/Q&A, B-side products for doctors can create an active community by providing promotion guidance, training, communication, etc. At the same time, medical apps can provide access to more medical records for scientific research, which is also a demand for doctors to improve their use of products.

Industry visibility and influence. This is another demand relative to promotion, which emphasizes influence. Building influence is an ongoing process. When the platform provides B-side professionals with opportunities to increase their influence, this motivation will allow the group to continue using it. For example, on the online doctor side of Haodaifu, the evaluations and data that doctors continuously accumulate during the consultation process are a good endorsement of the doctors in the industry.

Material needs. Direct or indirect benefits can be obtained by using the product. For example, for the real estate broker group that relies on Anjuke and 58, the Super Broker App is a B-end product that helps brokers find customers. Brokers acquire customers and convert them, and they can earn commission income when the property is sold.

Similarly, the monetization capabilities provided by the platform to the B-side group will determine whether the group can continue to use the product in a stable manner. For example, the several departures of Zhihu big Vs were due to the problem that after their popularity was established, monetization could not keep up with the pace.

The added value is to meet the needs of the group. Constantly provide stimulation to arouse the desire to use B-side professions.

For mature B-side products, added value will gradually replace basic needs and become the focus of iteration. Under the free Internet model, added value is more likely to become a breakthrough point for commercialization.

3. Necessary product barriers

In the third stage, we need to build the core competitiveness of products and establish product barriers based on basic needs and added value.

In fact, there is no very high threshold for B-side products. By focusing on typical individuals in the group, completing the cold start of the product, and iterating through the process, it can be promoted. Solving one person's problem often solves the problem of a group. At the same time, as long as there is sufficient interest guidance, groups will migrate. Therefore, it is necessary to establish product barriers as early as possible.

The barriers can build an ecological closed loop from the B-end to the C-end based on the product itself. The B-end group does not exist in isolation, there must be corresponding C-end users, which is a two-sided platform. The groups on the two-sided platforms have natural mutual checks and balances, and the platform is indispensable to this process. For example, brokers are to home buyers and doctors are to patients.

Barriers can help or promote the development of the industry from the external environment. Go deep into the industry and cooperate with B-side professional associations to build product awareness and influence within the industry. Ideally, products provide underlying technical support to the industry and help it develop. This is the story of industrial Internet.

Summarize

Make users love the product and form a habit of using it.

Complete basic requirements ensure the integrity of functions and solve the basic problems of B-side users.

Provide added value, help users grow, explore the intersection of user value and commercial value, increase stickiness, and try to monetize.

Go deep into the industry, open up the industry ecology, help the industry develop, empower the industry, and form product barriers. Just like that, one step, two steps, three steps, until you can't let it go.

Author: Wang Hai

Source: Wang Hai