5 key points to detail the user growth methodology!

Before doing product operations and promotion with user growth as the core, we should start from several aspects - creating core functional points, clear conversion methods, user feedback and conversion, appropriate communication channels, and establishing viral communication rules.

In 2017, Coca-Cola, a company known for its marketing, abolished its 24-year-old Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and replaced it with a Chief Growth Officer (CGO) to unify the leadership of global marketing/customer/business/growth strategies.

In the past, China’s rapid Internet development was mainly dependent on the demographic dividend. From the PC Internet era to the mobile Internet era, we have experienced a process of population explosion. Internet companies are able to acquire large numbers of users at extremely low costs. However, with the decline of smartphones and the saturation of user numbers, traffic has clearly bottomed out. It is becoming increasingly difficult and costly to acquire traffic.

All mobile Internet products are essentially doing one kind of business, which is the [traffic business]. This is the foundation for the survival of the mobile Internet, and all Internet business models are built on the basis of traffic.

The acquisition of traffic can be divided into two categories based on the source: traditional channel traffic and decentralized scene traffic.

(1) Channel traffic

Channel traffic mainly depends on channel purchases, and mainly depends on advertisements from major app stores and major traffic platforms.

Traditional channels include: app stores, SEM acquisition, mobile phone pre-installation, alliances, WAP, etc.

(2) Dispersing traffic

As the traffic dividend disappears, traffic becomes extremely scarce, the cost of user acquisition increases year by year, and the price of traffic acquisition through traditional channels also increases. For enterprises, finding ways to acquire traffic at a lower cost has become a must.

Traffic dispersion mainly refers to obtaining traffic from other apps through traffic management, traffic exchange or paid purchase from some traffic products. It is no longer traditional channel traffic.

If you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools. Before promoting a product that focuses on user growth, you should consider the following aspects:

1. Create core functional points

In today's era, operational activities are overwhelming, and there are more and more fission gameplays, but there is more traffic than retention, and the core of retention is still the core needs of the product. Otherwise, after the excitement, there will be only a mess left.

In the wrong interpretation of the 80/20 rule, it is believed that if a product scores 20 points, it can meet 80% of the user's needs, which is indeed the case. However, competitors are everywhere in China’s Internet market, and there are dozens of products targeting every user’s pain point. Will users use a 20-point product? It is not enough for the current market product strength to score 100 points, it is also necessary to provide an experience that exceeds user expectations. Only if you achieve 120 points can you instantly kill the market.

Therefore, the growth routine requires a core function and experience.

In December 2017, a live broadcast product was quietly launched. It took only two weeks for this APP to reach the top ten of the APP Store's overall ranking and had over one million downloads.

It is the summit meeting.

This live broadcast platform, which imitates the American quiz show HQ Trivia, attracted users to participate in live quiz shows, where thousands of people competed on the same stage to draw prizes and share a fixed high prize. It cleverly combined the then-popular live broadcasts with interactive TV programs, accurately hitting the material and spiritual needs of users. It allows users to experience the tense and exciting atmosphere of the lottery draw, while satisfying the excitement and speculative psychology of obtaining high material rewards after the lottery draw.

Top Conference APP

The founder of Snapchat is a post-90s named Evan Spiegel. The company he founded has a market value of more than 10 billion US dollars, and his personal assets exceed 1.5 billion US dollars, making him the youngest billionaire in the world. The Chinese translation of this product is "burn after reading", and it is a picture communication tool.

This social product with 180 million users has captured a fundamental pain point of users: social photo sharing among young people.

Snapchat's early users were mainly American high school students. The peak usage period for Snapchat was from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., which happened to be the time when students were in class. Students could use the social tool to chat during class without leaving any traces.

Another type of heavy users are women. The self-destructing messages reduce the psychological pressure on women to upload their selfies. Because you won’t be judged.

SnapChat

"Product is 1, marketing is 0". This is Li Wanqiang’s summary of the Xiaomi model. At an Internet conference, Li Wanqiang summarized Xiaomi's success and said:

All the intermediate links are cut out, and only if the product is screaming enough, can you have the power to amplify 10 times or 100 times. If the product is not eye-catching enough, it will be difficult to maintain it by relying solely on marketing.

2. The conversion method should be clear

Commercialization, in simple terms, means the ability to make money from traffic and make a lot of money. This requires product managers to have a certain business mindset. Although the monetization of the product has already been determined from a strategic perspective, there are many links involved, and the monetization methods of different types of products vary greatly. Product thinking needs to be continuously improved and optimized. The requirement for product managers is to have an open mind.

Products with commercialization capabilities need to consider the user conversion path.

The conversion path is mainly reflected in the specific process of the product's social fission project. The simplest way to put it is to allow users to share and spread through the simplest and most natural path. From whether the Fenxi County reward strategy is attractive to which step of the login conversion process needs to be processed, all are path optimization. Otherwise, setting unnecessary thresholds at any link will be like randomly setting up isolation belts on highways, causing "traffic accidents" in transmission and affecting the effect.

In this process, there are several principles to follow:

• Don’t ask users to input anything that can be completed with a single click.
• If the function or process can be completed in one page, don't use two pages;
• Shorten the conversion path for users to interact and reduce the complexity of operations;
• Don’t force users to enter sensitive information;
• You can see more updates and messages from other people, especially familiar relatives and friends, so as to interact with them.

3. User Feedback and Conversion

In addition to combining the basic capabilities of the product itself to provide basic services to users, it is also necessary to promote user activity and stimulate conversion of retained users, which is also a good way to provide user feedback. The establishment and polishing of the event mall will greatly enhance the operational capabilities of the product.

1. Selling goods

The basic capabilities of e-commerce products rely heavily on the procurement of goods. How to ensure the quality and price of purchased goods will directly determine the composition and active ratio of e-commerce product users, and affect marketing methods and user groups.

• In the initial stage of establishing e-commerce products, the supply can be targeted at fast-moving consumer goods and consumables. It can ensure the high frequency of consumption scenarios, guarantee the continuous consumption of users, and promote user repurchase and activity.
• Introduce branded products, attract users through the brand, and increase conversions through brand exposure.
• Event marketing drives user growth and promotes activity.

2. Virtual Tokens

Virtual tokens refer to currency-like products with a certain purchasing power that are circulated within a limited scope of use. The establishment of a virtual token system such as a points system is an effective means of motivating users. Currently there are forms such as virtual points and virtual currency. The token system is widely used in e-commerce platforms, such as JD.com's gold beans, which have a redemption ratio of 100:1 and can be used for shopping discounts but cannot be withdrawn.

In general, a complete user points system is the basic prerequisite for the existence of e-commerce products, and it also provides users with a path to continuously obtain profits. This will then guide users to use their points to redeem goods.

A complete token system can attract users to continue consuming and cultivate user usage habits. However, it should be noted that the value and redemption conditions of virtual tokens, that is, the "exchange rate" of the tokens, need to be clarified, the ROI of the product needs to be calculated, and the estimated distribution cost should be within the range of activation costs.

When evaluating the value of a product and the cost paid by the user, you can first simply calculate the cost of making or purchasing the product, and use the cash value of the pure physical object to correspond to the user's payment and cost. Then, evaluate whether the user is willing to pay these costs, and finally measure how much user value this redemption process can bring. The value here includes not only the actual monetization value, but also the potential user stickiness and word-of-mouth value.

The value of the token system can accelerate users' judgment on whether they get positive feedback from using the products. If users can quickly determine the value of their usage behavior, then the circulation of this token system is basically completed.

3. Membership system

The membership system is an effective means of motivating users. There are currently two main features: membership levels and membership privileges.

(1) Membership level

Membership levels are used to stratify members, and members at different levels enjoy different privileges. Commonly used in financial management products. According to the rules for promotion and demotion of membership level, it can be divided into two types: both promotion and demotion, and only promotion without demotion.

The setting of promotion and demotion rules is related to the cost of privileges enjoyed by members. For example, high-level members receive higher points rewards, material rewards, etc. Generally, a membership rule with both promotion and demotion is adopted. For those with zero cost or low cost, a membership level system that only increases but never decreases can be adopted. Such as: members’ exclusive avatars, special logos, etc.

The main advantage of the membership level system is that it retains old users and has a strong appeal to the retention and conversion of old users. Disadvantages: New users have a weaker perception, and the customer acquisition ability is weaker than other non-tiered membership systems.

(2) Membership Privileges

Membership is an effective means of distinguishing users from free users and stratifying them. Because members are paying users, they deserve special benefits compared to ordinary users. The key to setting membership privileges is to evaluate the cost paid by users and the value obtained by users. Evaluate whether you are willing to incur these costs from a user-centric perspective. Therefore, user research is essential. Design the system only after making sure that users are willing to pay.

4. Establish viral rules

Virality refers to the use of social relationships to make marketing spread like a virus. From the product perspective, when designing the product, the product itself should have a certain self-propagation ability. With the help of users' active sharing, more people can understand and use it.

1. The model of old employees leading new employees

The old-to-new model refers to a strategy of returning profits to old users by inviting new users to download. Since rewards are given only after successful activation of new customers, the actual cost of attracting new customers can be clearly identified, ensuring the controllability and predictability of the delivery.

The strategy of attracting new users first started with the points wall and task crowdsourcing platform. The platform directly distributes tasks to users who have installed such applications, stimulating users to download and activate them to obtain cash back, thereby achieving the purpose of attracting new users to the corresponding task products.

Qutoutiao has transformed this model by directly grafting the functions of the task platform onto its own products, eliminating the middleman of task crowdsourcing and directly rewarding users. At the same time, it has the advantages and characteristics of point-to-point communication between the two parties of new customer acquisition and real-time acquisition and real-time cash deposit.

In addition, you can also add auxiliary gameplay such as step-by-step rewards based on attracting new users. That is, the more people you invite, the additional rewards you will get after achieving a certain goal. To further increase the enthusiasm for attracting new users.

Qutoutiao completed its rapid graduation through a series of new user acquisition and activation methods such as a pyramid scheme-like model and a gold coin system. It was truly dazzling. It directly hits the user's desire to get a bargain, and uses China's interpersonal network to achieve point-to-point new user acquisition and activation.

2. Marketing fission model

Xin Shi Xiang once created a hot marketing campaign to sell courses by swiping the screen. It achieved real-time price increases and real-time profits through swiping the screen. Participants received rebates through first-level purchases and profits through second-level purchases, forming a layered sharing network. The real-time price increase created a sense of tension, causing users to forward the content crazily and compete for offline dissemination.

New World's Marketing Methods

Pyramid schemes that deceive consumers are not desirable, but limited user rebates are still the biggest motivation for users to spread the word.

5. The communication channels should be appropriate

In traditional channels, mobile phone manufacturers are major users of traffic. The brands with the highest shipment volume are Huawei/OPPO/VIVO/Xiaomi/Apple, which account for about 90% of the domestic market share. Huawei ranks first with shipments exceeding 200 million units. This may seem like a very high number, but compared with the traffic empire Tencent, it pales in comparison.

Data from Qimai Data

WeChat has 800 million daily active users and over 1 billion monthly active users. Based on the daily opening data alone, WeChat accounts for the combined traffic of the world's five leading mobile phone manufacturers. Tencent's WeChat and QQ cover the social activities of almost all Chinese netizens.

For social fission of product or operation planning, the choice of communication channels is particularly important. In combination with the activity itself, it is necessary to plan and match different communication channels, select or combine them according to their different characteristics, and deliver them with focus. Here are some common channels with different characteristics:

• WeChat Moments - a relatively private closed social circle. It requires users to share among their acquaintances and consumes a lot of social credit costs, but the target users are precise and it is suitable for more high-end marketing activities that can show the user's taste and temperament.
• QQ Space - a relatively open social circle with younger and more open users, suitable for launching fresh, fun or competitive activities to young users.
• Sina Weibo - the most open social circle, where users are composed of interests and entertainment gossip, and can host interactive activities related to entertainment and popular stars.

The above social channels do not have any order of priority or importance. There are many similar channels, such as Momo/TikTok, etc. When a product or activity requires social channels to be disseminated, you may wish to use them first based on the actual situation. Perhaps you can evaluate the basic dissemination effect of the upcoming promotion plan in advance.

Summarize

All business models are based on traffic. Traffic can bring attention, attention can increase influence, and influence can be monetized through various channels. This is what everyone often calls the "attention economy", which is essentially the "traffic economy".

If traffic is regarded as currency, then it must be the hard currency of the Internet, similar to the role of gold in real life. Traffic is like rain, scattered and ubiquitous.

There are two main ways to obtain traffic: channel traffic and dispersed traffic. This is commonly known as inner pull new and outer pull new. Channel traffic is mainly converted by obtaining internal traffic from traffic apps; dispersed traffic is channel buying, which acquires users through channel advertising.

The core of user growth is user operation, which is led by operation, with product responsible for implementing functional requirements and operation directing product. Both parties cooperate and focus on several key links such as attracting new users/short retention/long retention/activation/recall, etc. The system is data-driven and the effects of real-time monitoring of product and operation are achieved.

Author: Zhao Wenbiao

Source: User Operation Observation (ID: yunyingguancha)