Tips and strategies for doing fission activities!

This article is mainly divided into 5 parts:

First, I will talk to you in a relatively basic way about how to achieve fission growth, as well as some underlying methodologies and specific operational steps during the activity.

The second is about the data analysis of fission activities. Here we will provide a template to tell you how to record and analyze data after the activity, which indicators to analyze, and what the analysis ideas are.

The third is how we should convert and track the conversions after attracting new users through fission.

Fourth, I would like to share some key indicators summarized from the activities we have conducted. These summarized data can directly guide you in setting up each link when doing activities.

Finally, I will talk about what are the minefields around fission growth and provide some personal suggestions. For example, how to achieve growth in the education industry from 0 to 1, how to prevent being blocked and having followers deleted, how to avoid being fleeced and how to deal with those who fleece the platform.

First, let’s talk about the key principles of fission activity.

This part may be relatively basic for students who have already managed fission activities and can be skipped. It is very necessary for students who are new to fission to understand it.

Let’s first look at the various processes of fission activities: the specific details of each link will be discussed later.

After clarifying your campaign objectives and target users:

In the first step, we need to select baits that are more targeted and can screen out this specific group of people based on the needs of the target users;

Step 2: Design a poster for the fission event and determine the rules of the entire event (including the number of invitees, prize collection method, etc.);

Step 3: Configure the relevant information, scripts and other details of the activity in the Taskbao background.

Step 4: Configure personal accounts. After users complete tasks, guide them to add personal accounts or communities to maximize the value of these new users.

Finally, at the end of the event, awards will be distributed and data analysis and review of the event will be conducted.

When we do fission activities, the core goal for the official account is: user growth or net increase in users.

After determining the core goal, stand from the user's perspective and ask yourself: What steps does a user need to go through to go from knowing nothing about you to becoming a follower of your official account? Listing these steps in sequence forms a user map of fission activities:

When a user wants to participate in your event, he or she must first see your event poster, then scan the QR code to follow your official account to see the rules and participate in the event, then forward the poster, invite friends to scan the QR code to help, and finally invite the required number of people, complete the task, and receive the reward.

Based on the activity data obtained, we can observe the conversion rate from the previous step to the next step on each path of the user map:

1. From seeing the poster to scanning the code to follow, this step corresponds to the ratio of your total number of exposed users to the total number of channel users, which is your activity reach rate (or exposure rate). We use this to measure the quality of this launch channel.

2. Next, from the step where users see the poster to scanning the code to follow, the corresponding indicator is the participation rate of the fission activity. We can use this metric to measure the quality of bait selection and the quality of poster design for an event.

3. From the time a user scans the QR code to the time he forwards your event poster, the corresponding value is the forwarding rate of the event. The main factors that influence him are the user's response words after participating in the event and following the official account, as well as your event rules.

4. From forwarding to invitation, this ratio corresponds to the activity's new user coefficient, that is, how many friends can each user who shares the poster bring to the table? The main factors affecting the new coefficient are the attractiveness of the bait, the design of the poster and the forwarding copy.

5. The ratio from invitation to task completion is called “activity completion rate”. We use this to determine whether the invitation threshold for your event is reasonable. If the invitation threshold is too high, it will affect growth, and if it is too low, it will increase the cost of acquiring customers.

Based on the user map and the conversion rate of each step, we get this fission growth model, which can be described by a formula:

Number of new users following via invitation

= Total number of channel users * Open rate * Scan code participation rate * Forwarding rate * New coefficient

Now that we have this most basic growth model, how can we maximize its utilization?

On the one hand, it can reveal the input variables that affect growth, which is the number of people we are exposed to. Use objective data to guide our subsequent growth experiments. Secondly, it can break down our ultimate goal into specific impact indicators one by one. You will find that you know more clearly which aspects you need to focus on improving, instead of just staring at the poster and thinking about what to change when you do an event.

On the other hand, once you have the baseline data for each link (it should be mentioned here that the baseline data refers to the average value of various indicators obtained from your past growth experiments), you can compare the activity data with it to judge the quality of the activity.

The third is that it can help you break down large growth indicators and reversely deduce how many users you need for exposure.

Many friends who are doing growth have told me that running an event depends entirely on luck.

When the data is poor, we don’t know where the problem lies. After a lot of effort, I finally created a hit event, but I still don’t know why it became popular and I can’t explain the reason. So the next time you design an event you still won’t be able to replicate it.

In fact, by applying this model, based on the comparison of the conversion rates of each path with the average indicators, we can determine which link has problems and which link is doing better, so that we can make more targeted adjustments, optimizations and summaries.

We often say: "Data is dead, but people are alive." Behind the data is actually the result of countless real users’ behaviors aggregated together.

The user map represents the action path of each user. After establishing the user growth model, it is also necessary to analyze the reasons that affect each user's decision from various angles based on psychology to understand how users make decisions behind each path.

Specifically speaking, the activities can be understood as follows:

Behavior: We want users to follow your official account, share event posters, invite friends, and generate a series of valuable behaviors.

Motivation: How much the user wants the reward you set and how attractive the reward is to him. A good activity makes users feel that the value of the prize is far greater than the effort of participating in the activity.

Ability: whether the action is achievable for the user, how difficult it is to complete, and how much time it takes. Corresponding to the event, it means what is your invitation threshold, what are the rules and requirements for receiving the prize, and whether the event can be understood by users.

Trigger: It reminds users to take action, share the poster, invite friends, and complete the number of invitations. (So ​​the corresponding activities are your guiding copy and reminder push)

When designing a fission activity, we hope that users can continue to follow our instructions and eventually complete the entire activity. At this time, we can divide the rewards into multiple stages to provide feedback to users, that is, set up 1st-level rewards and 2nd-level rewards, so that they can feel the satisfaction of completing a task and the feedback of "I have paid a certain investment cost" during the experience of participating in the activity, to motivate them to complete the entire activity. That is to let him complete a single closed loop.

In addition, the reason why fission growth is one of the most important means of growth at present is that it allows old users to bring in new users, and new users can continue to bring in new users after joining. Therefore, the value of each user is magnified, forming a closed loop of growth. We can also call it a multi-person closed loop.

From designing and planning activities to their implementation, there are three core issues that we need to pay attention to at all times, namely: how to control growth costs, how to improve growth efficiency, and how to ensure growth quality.

To sum up: spend less money, invest less experience, and acquire more high-quality and accurate users faster. How to do it specifically will be described in the following content.

The success of an event must be the result of the superposition of four factors: promotion channels, bait, posters, and event rules.

To ensure that there are enough new users, the promotion channels can be divided into owned channels and external channels. Own channels, for example, your app and the communities established for each fission activity. External channels include social groups for exchanging traffic, purchased soft articles, etc.

The bait needs to reflect the value of the event, so that users can understand what they can get by participating in the event and what benefits it will bring to them.

The poster determines whether users can be attracted after seeing it. Some poster designs are too aesthetically pleasing, leaving users confused as to what they are supposed to do after viewing them. Therefore, posters should amplify important information such as bait and titles, and key information should be visible even if people don’t click on the large picture when posting it to Moments. You can even produce several versions before the event starts and post them in Moments or communities for AB testing. Finally, the posters with the best effects are selected and widely disseminated.

The rules are the first notification about the event that users receive after entering the official account through the QR code in the poster. Clear and concise rules can increase the probability of event participation.

After explaining the underlying logic of fission activities, let’s look at the execution level.

Before the event starts, we can prepare based on the needs of target users, time nodes and competitive product analysis.

The selection of prizes is generally based on two perspectives: the perspective of one's own business and the perspective of the industry user group. This ensures that the quality of users you acquire does not deviate from the scope of the industry.

The most common and effective bait in the education industry is "materials, courses, books, and school supplies." In terms of packaging, the main entry point is around the users’ vanity, greed and laziness.

It should be mentioned here that baits targeting students are more effective than baits targeting parents. For example, a book about learning methods is far more effective than one about family education. This also needs to be done based on the actual situation of your target users.

The above PPT page shows my scoring of commonly used baits based on four aspects: amount, effect, speed and accuracy.

Some people think that high-priced products must be liked by many people, after all, everyone likes to get a bargain! But for operators, using high-priced goods will increase the cost of acquiring customers. Secondly, under the inducement of high interests, the users brought in become too diverse and inaccurate, resulting in a high rate of unfollowing in the later stage.

In addition, before the activity is widely disseminated, we can first use small channels such as social networks and WeChat Moments to test the conversion rate of each link. If it exceeds the average indicator, we will increase investment in promotion.

Of course, these three baits can also be randomly combined in the same activity. Use materials or courses to stimulate users to forward posters and guide them to personal accounts, and then use books or other physical rewards as a means to increase the coefficient of bringing in new customers.

The above picture shows the various time nodes corresponding to the education industry. Using the information on this chart combined with holidays, you can basically understand what activities you need to prepare for in different time periods. For example, now that it is September, everyone can plan activities around the start of the school season. After the start of the school season comes Teachers' Day, Mid-Autumn Festival, National Day and midterm exams.

The picture above is a template for competitive product analysis. Used to accumulate and analyze competing product cases on a daily basis. The explicit content is: theme, time, rules, and rewards. Implicit content: its purpose, cost, risk control methods, data, publicity channels, and execution rhythm. How to analyze after recording?

Pay more attention to competitors and learn about their past push notifications, menu bars, communities, and customer service account circles.

When you see their event poster, it is best to scan the code yourself to participate, see how their copy is written, what theme they use for packaging, what prizes are given, and at what time the event will be held.

If the event has a ranking list, see how many places you rank in their event ranking list. This is the total number of participants in this event of your current competitor. Let’s take a look at the changes in this data after a period of time.

Look at the corresponding invitation threshold for winning the bait of the competitor, that is, how many friends you need to invite to participate in the prize. If it is a physical object, you can go to wholesale platforms such as Alibaba and Pinduoduo to search and find out the corresponding prize price.

See how many people have completed the tasks in its activities and the total number of participants. By multiplying the unit price of the prize and the number of winners by the total number of participants, we can roughly estimate its customer acquisition cost.

After estimating the other party’s customer acquisition cost, compare it with your expected cost to evaluate whether it is worth doing. At the same time, use your previously accumulated customer acquisition costs, event poster forwarding rate, task completion rate and other indicators to estimate a reasonable invitation threshold.

In order to maximize the utilization rate of traffic and fully magnify the user value brought by a fission, we can link the service account, community and personal account when designing fission activities. Please refer to the above picture for the specific process. It is recommended to use the first method for physical rewards and the second method for virtual rewards.

Of course, we can also combine the two strategies mentioned above into the same activity. Please refer to the words given in the picture above. Here, after completing the first-level task, users are guided to add their personal account to receive the course. After completing the second-level task, users are guided to add their personal account to query the express delivery number.

Next, let’s learn how to quickly detonate your activities: grow faster, cover a wider range, and reach your goals in a shorter time:

First, lower the threshold for first-level rewards as much as possible: through first-level rewards, drive users to take the first step of inviting friends. Usually we will set up 1 to 3 people.

Secondly, we try our best to direct users who participate in the activities to personal accounts and establish welfare groups for the launch of other subsequent activities.

Many friends who are doing growth have been suffering from the small amount of their initial start-up. Using this method, you can slowly build up your own user pool, and even use these groups to exchange traffic and promote each other later.

Finally, use the Taskbao tool to label all users who participated in previous fission activities. When you have other fission activities, push template messages to these users. (More details about push will be given later)

When the activity has been going on for a while, how can we make it burst out again?

First of all, you have to prove the authenticity of the event to users. Many users have a distrustful attitude towards this type of event. After mailing the prizes, we can synchronize the order number within each community to let users in the group know that the event is real.

When the user receives the prize, guide him to share the actual photos of the prize and the event poster to his circle of friends, and give him additional sharing rewards. This will also stimulate those users who have been watching but have not participated in the event, as well as those users who have participated but have invited fewer people to help and have not yet reached the number of invitations.

In addition, you can also use the ranking gameplay to motivate "super users" with additional higher benefits. For example, if friends help you reach a certain ranking, you will receive extra rewards.

In addition, filtering out all the users who have not won awards, labeling them, and sending template messages to remind them that the event is about to end can also promote user invitations. For users who have completed the task, a template message will be sent to remind them to join the leaderboard and receive higher rewards.

Data is the foundation of growth. Data analysis is the best means to verify hypotheses in advance, assist in decision-making, and to check results and discover patterns afterwards.

Ask yourself these questions:

What is your average baseline for activity?

Is this event getting better or worse.

If we want to improve, where should we start?

Every activity you carry out is not as simple as changing the bait or the poster. We need to be clear about why you do this and why not do that.

We all know that activity review is important, but the real importance of review is:

What feedback can you get based on this review?

How can this review guide your next event design?

In most cases, the review of our single event output cannot verify any conclusions, and many of them are just assumptions and inferences we make based on the phenomena. Both the good and the bad aspects need us to verify again.

Next, let’s talk about how to do data analysis.

First, you need to record the data. The picture above is a template for recording each activity. You can use it directly. It basically and comprehensively records all the required indicators. Later, you can do data visualization analysis based on the records.

If there are any imperfections in the table, you can also add them by yourself.

The four most commonly used formulas in data analysis are:

1. The attractiveness of the bait = the number of people who scanned the code to participate in the event / the total number of people exposed to the event

2. The proportion of new users = the number of new followers / the number of people who scanned the QR code to participate in the event

3. Poster forwarding rate = number of people who forwarded the poster / number of people who scanned the QR code to participate

4. The new user coefficient of the activity = the total number of new followers of the activity / the number of people forwarding the poster

The above picture is a new trend chart of the fission activity. From the [Today] option, you can see the data for each time period of each day, and from the [All] option, you can see the data fluctuations for each day in the entire activity cycle.

Usually, pay more attention to today's trend chart to see at which time points users participate in activities more frequently. In all trend charts, see which days of the week users participate in activities more frequently. Make more summaries so that you can know more clearly when to promote it later.

At the same time, we can also use this data fluctuation to infer which means will affect the effectiveness of the activity. The activity shown in the picture above has three peaks during the promotion process, namely 1 big peak and 2 small peaks. What causes the appearance of the peaks?

When the first peak appeared, we guessed that it was because some people had received the prizes after delivery, and then recommended the event to their friends. This time point was also shortly after the first batch of rewards were shipped. Later, we verified this answer again based on the appearance time of the next two small peaks and the time of prize distribution.

During the event, we should also observe the unfollow rate of the event at any time to see whether the unfollow rate of new fans is within a normal range, so as to judge the quality of users brought by the event and the promotion channels of the event.

There are several important retention nodes that we need to pay special attention to, including the day, the next day, the 7th day, the 30th day, and the tweet day. The unfollow rate trend chart above is a visual analysis made after exporting background data.

We talked about the fission growth model at the beginning. After recording the data of each path, we can use a data visualization tool called BDP to create a conversion funnel for the activity and observe the conversion rate between each step.

This chart is a fission level analysis. The so-called fission level represents the spread of your activities.

We measure the quality of an activity from three aspects:

The first level of people, that is, the number of people who start the activity;

The total number of levels of the activity, that is, the breadth of the activity;

The fluctuations between levels, to see whether each level is increasing or decreasing.

Comparing these two hierarchical graphs, we can see that the first one has a larger number of starting users and more levels, while the second one has a very small number of starting users, but there is an obvious growth trend between the subsequent levels. But overall, the activity in the second picture is more worthy of our efforts to expand channels and promote it.

When an activity is launched online, it will definitely require various channels for promotion and exposure. But how do you understand the data from your various channels to judge whether it is good or bad?

If promoting in social networks, which groups have higher quality?

When cooperating with other companies to exchange traffic and promote each other, how can we judge the quality of the results?

Here you need to use the [promotion code] to monitor each of your promotion channels and monitor every poster that is disseminated.

Our ultimate goal in user growth is definitely to increase revenue. In this part, let’s talk about user reach conversion.

These screenshots are what I received continuously after I followed a public account. This message mode is called 48-hour customer service message, and it can be pushed an unlimited number of times.

After setting and editing the copy and time in advance, once new users follow you, you will receive messages one after another, guiding users to learn about the product, purchase courses, participate in low-cost training camps or participate in other fission activities.

The recommended setting times are 0-4 hours, 24 hours and 48 hours.

Of course, you should also pay attention to the quantity, find a balance, and try to control the number of pushes to within 5 or 6 times.

In addition to text + link, the message type of 48-hour customer service messages can also be presented in the form of pictures, graphics, and mini-programs.

In addition to being automatically triggered after following, you can also choose to actively push at a certain point in time.

We mentioned earlier that tagging users and pushing template messages can also be used as a means to promote monetization.

Compare several message types and choose the one that suits you to reach your users.

Using template messages and customer service messages can overcome the limit of only 4 pushes per month. In comparison, customer service messages are more secure than template messages. WeChat has recently adopted stricter controls on template messages, so please use them with caution.

For every event, in addition to looking at the number of new users and retention, another more important indicator is revenue conversion. Some users may have a longer payment cycle and require continuous tracking. So how do we track the payment value of fission users?

After each event, all user information of the event is exported from the information list page of participating users in the Taskbao background, which contains a column of openid records.

Get a unionid based on the openid data and the appid of the official account. This part can be helped by developers or data analysts.

At this time, if your product allows users to bind their WeChat account, or if you are using a third-party mall such as Youzan, you can use this uinonid to match the corresponding user payment records and amounts to understand the user's conversion payment status.

After tracking the payment behavior of fission users, we can calculate the following indicators to better guide your subsequent activities.

Input-output ratio = total cost of fission / total payment amount of new users added by fission

Average user value = total amount of payment by new users / total number of new users in the activity

In addition, we can also calculate how long the average payment cycle of users is, and judge the payment situation of users brought by different baits and different promotion channels based on the payment amount, so as to judge the quality of the channel.

In short, our growth goal is to obtain the highest LTV (user value) and long-term active users with the lowest CPA (customer acquisition cost).

Next, I will share with you some reference data conclusions based on the data summarized from the activities I have done.

The baseline data we have been talking about before is the average value summarized from multiple activities.

The average conversion rate from exposure to code scanning is 25%, the average forwarding rate is 9.4%, and the new user coefficient is 8.74.

The above chart is a summary of the activity task completion rates for different invitation thresholds.

For no-cost activities such as electronic materials and courses, we must set relatively high completion rate thresholds such as 1, 3, and 8.

For physical activities, we don’t want the completion rate to be too high or too low. Too high will increase the cost, too low will affect the effect. So 9 to 12 is a better choice.

Of course, the results may be different when this data is applied to different groups. Here it mainly provides a way of thinking. You can calculate the completion rate of your activities by yourself.

The above figure is a summary of the poster forwarding rates for Tier 1 and Tier 2 rewards with different invitation thresholds.

It can be seen that in the level 1 task, 5 and 19 are relatively poor data. In the second-order task, 19, 29, and 31 are relatively poor data.

In the above picture, we mainly look at the new coefficient corresponding to different invitation thresholds. That is, how many friends each person who shares the poster can invite to follow.

We have mentioned before that a task completion rate that is too high or too low is not good, so when doing physical fission activities, you need to choose a new coefficient that is close to the invitation threshold but less than the invitation threshold. In the picture, 8, 9 and 19 people are all better choices.

Having said all of the above, let’s talk about what to pay attention to when doing activities.

Whether growth activities can achieve the desired results depends on controlling costs, and there are many constraints hidden behind this. Of course, the more restrictions there are, the lower the effect will be, and constant weighing is required during actual application.

The cost control measures summarized are as follows:

1. Reduce customer acquisition costs by controlling material costs: for example, choose electronic materials or courses with zero cost; find high-quality and low-priced partners, and control the free shipping price within 15 yuan. In addition to saving costs, it is more conducive to setting activity thresholds.

2. Control through time: for example, set the duration of an activity, and the activity ends after it exceeds the duration. (Usually 7 to 10 days)

3. It is controlled through the prize inventory quantity: for example, the number of prizes for level 1 or level 2 can be set, and the activity will automatically end when all the prizes are given away. (This comparison is applicable when the budget is fixed.)

4. Control through reward conditions: For example, inform participating users in advance that before issuing rewards, if a friend unfollows and fails to meet the reward conditions, the recipient’s eligibility will be cancelled, and the user will have to invite the friend again to make up the difference before receiving the reward. This method should be used with caution as it may result in complaints.

5. It is possible to limit it through the redemption mechanism: for example, for activities such as distribution, rebates, and red envelopes, the accumulated amount can be set to a certain amount before withdrawal can be made.

When doing fission activities, especially those that involve giving away books or physical items, the biggest worry is often the existence of freeloaders in the activities. Otherwise, even if the scale of the activity is increased, the users will have no value to you and the money will still be wasted.

After the event is completed, you can go to the participating user’s information page, click on invitation tracking, and view his invitation data.

First, look at the user’s invitation level. Normally, a user’s invitation will bring at least a small number of third-level users.

Secondly, we look at the invitation time to see whether the friends invited by the user are concentrated in a short period of time.

Finally, check again half a month to a month after the event ends to see if the invited friends have unfollowed you.

When you see a user who only has 2 levels of invitations, the time for inviting friends is relatively concentrated, and the WeChat names and avatars of the invited friends are relatively similar. And if no one unfollows you after one month, you can consider blocking this user so that he cannot participate in subsequent activities to avoid freeloaders.

Of course, you can also use the anti-brushing detection function when creating an activity.

Finally, here are some suggestions to prevent your account from being blocked:

We all know that WeChat is very strict about check-ins, fission, and private domain traffic. So how can you avoid having your followers deleted or even your account blocked? What should we pay attention to?

First of all, when designing an activity, you must provide an entrance for users to find you, respond to user inquiries in a timely manner, and avoid user complaints as much as possible.

Don’t rush to organize activities for a newly registered public account. Post articles first to nurture the account before promoting it.

When the number of fans is less than 20,000, you must not be optimistic about creating a hit product, and try to control the number of fans per day to within 5,000.

For old accounts with more than 20,000 users, the daily increase in followers should be controlled to around 10,000.

During the activity, keep an eye on the growth of the official account to prevent it from growing too fast and exceeding the threshold. Try to use matrix diversion and multi-public account matrix diversion and fission. It is safe to control the daily increase in fans within 100,000.

Never include activity rules in tweets, such as inviting friends to help, sharing, and following. Do not modify the rules and prizes during the event.

After the event, the prize delivery should be arranged in a timely manner, and users should be informed of the delivery time and order number.

In short, as long as you control the speed of increasing followers, you can still continue to do fission.

Next, let’s see how the service account in the education industry can achieve fission from 0 to 1.

During the preparation stage, you need to push at least 5 original contents first. On the one hand, this is for safety reasons, and on the other hand, new users can also quickly understand the positioning of the official account through historical messages.

After the tweet is completed, you can use the existing big account to forward the small account article, and reverse the amount between the matrix accounts by simply checking the whitelist, adding a QR code at the end of the article, and implanting bait at the end of the article.

At the same time, you can start to do some material and course fission, pay attention to the quality of materials and courses, and control the growth in the number of people. This stage is your seed user cultivation stage.

When the number of fans of the official account exceeds 20,000, you can add books and other physical rewards as bait. The inventory is generally set at 200 to 300 to prevent the activity from breaking out. The threshold is set between 5K and 8K.

At the same time, in the early and middle stages, you can choose the large + small matrix fission method, and the traffic distribution ratio of large: small = 1:9, so that once the activity breaks out, there will be no waste of traffic. There is a large size at the back to follow up.

When the number of fans reaches about 100,000, you can set the threshold to 20,000, add a new matrix account to the participating public account in the background setting, and allocate 10% to 20% of the traffic to the account.

In short, in the current context of increasingly stringent rules, we should not expect rapid and large-scale growth.

Author: Zhu Xuya

Source: Growth Operations (zxgrow)