3 Steps to User Growth Strategy

John has written about some methods of fission before (portal: fission must rely on social platforms). During the product iteration process, product managers are always accompanied by the question of "how to achieve user growth goals after the version is launched". But do you know that there are five types of growth: "activity", "new customers", "retention", "monetization" and "recommendation", so every time you vow to set a demand target, what kind of growth can it actually bring?

When talking about user growth, we have to talk about a company called "Pinduoduo". What kind of growth strategy has allowed this company to reach 400 million active users (DAU is about 130 million) in just four years, and in the near-monopoly industry of "e-commerce"?

Looking back at these e-commerce platforms, especially Pinduoduo, it seems that the logic of doing e-commerce is to "add a shopping scene to the game." Group buying, flash sales, bargaining, support, and lucky draws for users are all a game. What users get is the money-saving experience brought by group buying, the social experience brought by invitations, the entertainment experience brought by assistance, and the surprise experience brought by lucky draws.

Pinduoduo jokingly calls it a gamified shopping experience, which seems to be true. In essence, it is also about marketing services that are direct enough to users (group buying, support, bargaining, lucky draws, etc.). Don't forget that marketing is only the basis for user growth and acquisition. Behind it, it also requires operational results of retention, activity, and recall, as well as operational management among new users, active users, and lost users.

Product managers all know that growth strategy is essentially a content carrier plus a marketing system method. Marketing methods are nothing more than how to give users excitement through rewards and incentives. But the content carriers may be high-quality courses, fun games, efficient tools, etc. If we count the content carriers, the most widely used one is gamification scene design.

So today John wants to use a case to illustrate how a business can be gamified. In fact, through this example, the carriers for other contents later are just reskinned.

Case: The company’s core business is K12 online education products. Live classes are the current core product, and the service model is to connect teachers and students.

Goal: Increase user base by 20%. (The product is currently in the growth stage)

Strategy: The core of educational products is the high quality of content. How to get a piece of the pie from industry giants? While producing high-quality content, think about acquiring customers through the Internet. For example, the user operation model is a relatively weak part of the giants, so the product strategy can also be considered from the user operation level.

The underlying thinking of user operations is product acquisition and user activation.

Positioning considerations: There are two ways to acquire customers: advertising and content. The essence of advertising is to spend money to buy users, which is mainly a matter of funding and user stickiness, so we position ourselves as "content acquisition."

Another thing to think about is that active learning is always anti-human for K12 students, so where does "content acquisition" start? What kind of content do students like? Will you take the initiative to participate?

Let’s talk about it from three levels: product thinking strategy, product content (gamification) strategy, and product growth strategy:

1. Product thinking strategy

1. The users of the product are K12 students (the core users are 6-15 years old), and the paying group is parents (average age 30-42). In the past, parents took the initiative to enroll their children in classes, but these were mainly offline courses, and online education enrollment was relatively weak. The user conversion cost is high, so this is the main reason why the customer acquisition cost of online education is high.

2. The best way to create a scenario where children want to learn is through a gamified experience. It can be understood as gamification experience + high-quality courses. For example, similar to Jiliwawa, Xiaoxiang Programming and so on.

2. Product Content (Gamification) Strategy

For products that provide gamification experience for children, most of them focus on a map-unlocking level-breaking mode. Players unlock new maps by breaking through levels until they piece together a complete map. The corresponding game interactions include reward systems, team systems, etc. Then integrate it into the course, that is, add the task mode.

The whole game is done through virtual media. John uses a mind map to sort it out:

3. Product Growth Strategy

1. Active growth strategy

Strategy method 1: that is, establishing a virtual media strategy. For example, the growth value mentioned above is obtained by completing tasks, consumed through the mall and unlocking new maps, and matched with different values ​​accordingly. (Common tasks are divided into regular tasks and limited tasks)

Strategy method 2: Intervene in the lottery system and give different numbers of lottery draws based on multiple dimensions such as active time and check-in time.

The purpose of daily active users is to allow users to complete tasks every day, develop a strong awareness and preference for our products, content, and brand, and become active users and paying users after a certain period of time. In terms of game psychology, we use a stable sense of gain, a sense of random surprise, and a fear of loss to stimulate users to participate every day.

2. New customer growth strategy

Strategy 1: Invite users. When you invite a new user, both parties can gain M growth points.

Strategy 2: Assistance. For users who sign up for courses, they can ask their friends to help them sign up with low thresholds and prices.

The overall marketing system is built on the basis of rewards for both parties. Acquiring new users through old users and task settings is the core strategy for attracting new users, and this is the key to reducing customer acquisition costs. We increased the weight of new users in game design.

3. Retention growth strategy

Strategy 1: Rankings. For example, there are multi-dimensional rankings such as the highest growth value, the most unlocked maps, etc., and corresponding reward mechanisms are established.

Strategy 2: Random rewards. A corresponding reward mechanism is provided according to the different lengths of time users are active in the product and the courses they have studied.

The strategy for retention growth is mainly based on a sense of showing off and a sense of gain. Especially for K12 students, they can gain knowledge while also showing off.

4. Monetization strategy

Strategy 1: Course monetization. In essence, online education platforms monetize through courses.

Strategy 2: Marketing monetization. Marketing monetization is essentially course monetization. The purpose of monetization is achieved by purchasing courses at low prices through marketing means.

The key to improving monetization conversion rate is "logical and relevant", which is the greatest value of gamification design. Without a gamification scenario, the entire conversion model can only be advertising (traffic) - conversion (sales), and the consequence is high traffic costs and inefficient conversion rates.

Here are some of John's past cases using a few pages of PPT:

Of course, user growth strategies for products vary from industry to industry, but the superficial marketing system will not change. It becomes a way of content carrier. While we are thinking about the product structure, we also need to prepare for user growth...

Author: Product Dog Gathering Place

Source: Product Dog Gathering Place