APP promotion: A brief discussion on the cold start of Internet products!

No matter how cool the concept of a product is or how good its functions are, if something goes wrong during the "cold start" and the wrong user group is introduced, it will not only be detrimental to the shaping of the product's personality, but also fail to take advantage of the accumulation of content. More importantly, due to the misalignment of the target user groups, we are unable to further improve the product and adjust product requirements through feedback. What’s more, the first version of a product usually has many problems. If you attract the wrong users, all steps will go wrong. Therefore, it is particularly important to introduce high-quality seed users using effective methods. Such a user can not only act as a product promoter, but also provide good improvement suggestions for product developers.

1. How to find seed users

What is a seed user?

Seed users, as the name suggests, are users who can "sprout" and have the potential to grow into towering trees. Seed users can attract more target users with their influence and are the first batch of users who are helpful in cultivating a product atmosphere. To understand seed users, we need to clarify the following points:

First, seed users are not equal to initial users.

Seed users must have selection criteria. Try to choose influential and active users as product users. Otherwise, even if more users are introduced, it will not help to expand the number of target users. On the contrary, it is possible that the users that have been introduced with great difficulty will be lost in large numbers because the product and users are not in tune with each other. It will also give product developers the illusion that the problem is with the product itself, not the users.

Secondly, the quality of seed users is more important than the quantity

When introducing seed users, you must be very selective, and the user's personality should be as consistent as possible with the tone of the product, or the user's influence should be able to reach the target user group as much as possible. The quality of seed users is more important than their quantity. At this time, having fewer but better users is not a bad thing. On the contrary, the more low-quality users are introduced, the more detrimental it will be to the shaping of the product’s character. It will also affect the real seed users’ perception of the product, causing them to form prejudices and even leave the product. Low-quality users are worse than having no users. In other words, our goal is to introduce a large number of seed users rather than a large number of registered users.

Low-quality users are worse than no users.

Finally, seed users can provide feedback on product suggestions

Excellent seed users not only use the product frequently, but are also active in the product community, often making comments to drive discussion and interaction among other users, and most importantly, they are able to provide pertinent opinions and suggestions to product developers to help the product continuously improve its performance and functions. Users with a sense of ownership are the best seed users. Therefore, it is not the case that the more user interaction the better. The content of the interaction also matters. If it is just meaningless ridicule, complaints or even rants, it will not only fail to provide useful suggestions to product developers, but will also affect the community atmosphere of the product. It is said that the first five employees recruited by Douban's founder Abei were all Douban's seed users. It is believed that these seed users must have been people who interacted actively and provided Abei with many pertinent suggestions.

Channels for finding seed users

After clarifying the definition and selection criteria of seed users, the next step is how to find these high-quality users. The following are some commonly used acquisition methods summarized by me, for reference only.

(1) Celebrity Effect

That is, invite imaginative celebrities to register and use the product, and use the celebrity's popularity to attract grassroots users. These celebrity users are not necessarily representatives of opinion leaders, and may not produce much content (celebrities are generally very busy and have little time to immerse themselves in a product). If the celebrity's personality traits and personal brand type match the temperament of the product, it can also achieve the effect of promoting the product. For example, famous examples include Zhihu and Sina Weibo . In the early stages, these two products relied on attracting celebrities to join the products.

Many of Zhihu's early users were professionals from the Internet industry and various industries, as well as well-known entrepreneurs and critics; for example, Kai-Fu Lee, Xu Xiaoping, Zhou Hongyi, Keso, etc. These people have a certain authority in terms of the professionalism and breadth of their knowledge, which is consistent with the product character of Zhihu's knowledge sharing community, and is therefore very conducive to the aggregation of seed users. Sina Weibo, by leveraging its media advantages and connections accumulated over the years, has attracted more well-known people and opinion leaders, including a large number of entertainment celebrities. These people are consistent with the early product characteristics of Sina Weibo - bold and outspoken, light-hearted and entertaining.

However, having said that, it takes a lot of effort to invite famous people, and this method is only suitable for companies with strong financial strength and network of relationships.

(2) Beauty Effect

The "beauty" here not only refers to beautiful users, but also refers to content and topics related to beauty.

Sex is always a rigid demand of human beings. The truth that opposites attract and everyone loves beauty applies not only offline but also online. If you can get the beauty, you can get everyone. By introducing a large number of female users , especially beautiful women, in the early stage, a large number of male users will naturally be attracted.

For example, Momo, which used to skirt the rules in the early days and relied on the "monthly artifact" to gain popularity, attracted its initial users by relying on this. When the product gradually matures and the number of users reaches a certain level, it begins to enter the "whitewashing" stage; on the one hand, it whitewashes the colored and illegal users, and on the other hand, it promotes the new character of the product through brand marketing , gradually correcting people's brand perception.

At this moment, I suddenly thought of the famous WeChat. I still remember when public accounts were first launched, there were also countless public accounts with pornographic content in WeChat to attract a large number of users to subscribe. Although I don’t know whether they were really created by users or operated by people hired by companies, in short, it is true that with the help of the primitive driving force of sex, users were cultivated to use public accounts.

(3) Word of mouth

Compared with high-profile and expensive celebrity communications, word-of-mouth communications relying on seed users are more low-key and cost-effective. However, this places higher demands on the product: in addition to meeting the core needs of users, users must also enjoy the product, find it valuable, and have fun using it; and feel a sense of belonging, so that users are more likely to actively and voluntarily help you spread the word.

Douban is a good example. The developer Abei did not put too much energy into product promotion, but instead focused on making the product itself. Abei didn't even bother to come up with a creative name for the website, but simply used his own residence - Douban Hutong. There is an author named Nuanyu on Zhihu who summarized an article titled "The Road to Douban", which details the update process of all functions of Douban in the first year after its establishment. For specific details, please see: (For more details: http://www.douban.com/group/topic/1024317). From this list, we can see that a new feature is launched almost every one or two days. Every time it is launched, Abei will use concise and capable words to explain the new changes of the product to seed users and encourage users to try it. There are no exaggerated promotional texts from developers, nor are there any hired writers to write product soft articles. What there is is only the developers' meticulous craftsmanship of product functions and the enthusiastic interaction of seed users.

Douban is a very low-key platform. It was launched in March 2005 and only accumulated 20,000 users in the first six months. Douban still only had one employee, Abei. However, in the following months, the growth rate accelerated significantly. For example, the number of users increased by 20,000 in just two months from September to November, and by 20,000 in January 2006 alone. The growth of these numbers comes from the recommendations written by well-known users on their blogs after using the product, but I believe that more seed users come from word of mouth.

(4) Vest Operation

Some products, especially community products, need to guide seed users to form a discussion atmosphere that matches the product's tone. This requires developers and operators to register a number of fake users in batches. On the one hand, they need to produce high-quality content that matches the product's personality and recommend it to users; on the other hand, they need to simulate real users to interact well with seed users.

For example, you can describe to the other party the happy and positive feelings of using this product, introduce the newly discovered functions to the user, or introduce him to other seed users to get to know each other. Compared with the cold, rigid and stereotyped answers from customer service staff, it is much more humane.

Although this method may be suspected of deception to a certain extent, it is still an effective operational technique for a startup team with little capital.

(5) Internet practitioners

Invite some people working in the Internet industry, such as product managers , designers, engineers and Internet enthusiasts, to use the product. Because these people have experience working in the Internet, their experience and opinions on the product are often more professional than ordinary users, and they are even more willing to try the product.

For example, a product manager can analyze whether the product meets the user's Kono needs from the perspective of product functionality, while designers can provide useful suggestions on the product's interaction and interface based on their professional aesthetics. Engineers can also use their learned professional skills to evaluate the product's implementation mechanism. For example, some front-end JS rendering can be implemented using a newer framework to reduce page loading speed, improve user experience, and so on.

But everything has two sides. Since such users have professional knowledge, they will also look at the product with professional biases. Due to their identity and long-term work habits, there are some limitations in their thinking framework, and they may even easily misunderstand their own needs as the needs of ordinary users, and have a self-satisfied sense of accomplishment. Therefore, developers should also treat such user feedback with caution. At the same time, we also need to consider whether there are stronger competitors among these users to prevent the product from being copied. It would be very tragic if the product died in the womb and we had no way to seek justice.

(6) Invitation mechanism

Zhihu and Qiushibaike both used the invitation code mechanism to accumulate initial users. Xiaomi Technology, an atypical Internet company that has been very popular in recent years, also used F codes similar to invitation codes to market and promote its products.

First, since the number of invitation codes is usually limited, it gives people the illusion that the resource is scarce. In people's general consciousness, scarce resources often mean good quality, which naturally arouses people's curiosity and thirst for knowledge.

Secondly, due to the scarcity of invitation codes, the cost of obtaining them is relatively high, so it is said that “a code is hard to come by.” Once obtained, people will cherish this rare opportunity more, use the product more actively and proactively, and promote the product better.

There is also a related theory in psychology that the more people pay for something, the higher their evaluation of it will be. There was once information about reselling Zhihu invitation codes on Taobao. But there is also a risk here: if the product itself is not well made, these users’ evaluations will often be lower because the efforts they put in do not get the expected returns. Fortunately, products like Zhihu and Xiaomi are relatively excellent.

(7) Cross-promotion

This trick is often used in game apps. The life cycle of a game is relatively short, and newly launched games often increase their exposure by buying rankings and cross-promotion, in order to maximize the number of users.

Currently, many application apps have a module called "App Recommendation". In addition, game apps themselves will also help recommend other similar game apps through pop-up ads or Tip ads. There is a principle in finding such promotion channels, which is to look for apps or web sites that have similar product temperaments and a large overlap in target user groups.

(8) Social media promotion

There are many ways to promote your products with the help of various media tools , such as:

Industry website reports: For example, 36Kr, Huxiu, Geek Park, Kuailiyu and other industry websites that focus on entrepreneurial projects. Cooperate with them to write soft articles or reports. Since these websites themselves have a certain degree of popularity in the circle, their exposure will also bring many seed users in the circle.

Blogs of well-known media people: When well-known people write blogs, they mention the product and their experience using it, which is a bit like the celebrity effect that is talked about comprehensively. It’s just that celebrities have to take the initiative to promote the product, and here it refers more to the users themselves actively posting, so it is more conducive to the product’s reputation. For example, Douban has appeared in blog posts by famous bloggers and has taken the initiative to promote its products.

Weibo Marketing: The preferred platform is Sina Weibo, followed by Tencent Weibo. On the one hand, cooperate with big V accounts, assist in forwarding, and use the public influence of big Vs to quickly increase popularity. On the other hand, you can open a corporate Weibo account and operate it, interacting with fans in a humanized way. The account should have personality traits and should not be lifeless and dull. On the other hand (also my guess): by utilizing Weibo's big data, accurately carving user portraits and grasping user attributes, accurate information delivery can be carried out to the target user group. The first two aspects can easily introduce a lot of non-target users, so this method can effectively balance this shortcoming.

WeChat marketing : that is, opening a WeChat public account. However, WeChat is more used for product operations and services, and because WeChat tends to be social among acquaintances, it is relatively private and has limited promotion capabilities, so it may not play a big role in introducing seed users.

SNS communities, QQ groups and forums with high target user overlap: Note that you must choose communities where target users gather, not just any community. Only where target users are can you attract seed users. In order to lower the entry threshold for seed users, they can log in directly with QQ and Weibo accounts, and import QQ and Weibo relationship chains to make full use of social dividends.

(9) Offline Promotion

The above 8 types all belong to online promotion, in addition there is offline promotion . One is to encourage friends and family around you to register, and the other is to cooperate with traditional paper media. For example, Douban advertised in the "Reading" magazine in the early days. Since Douban's literary temperament (mainly focusing on audio-visual and books) is similar to the tone of "Reading", it was a good choice. In addition, there is the early Vancl, which was mainly promoted in "Readers" and "Youth Articles".

In short, although the promotion methods seem complicated, it is enough to remember one thing: while ensuring that your own resources and operational capabilities are sufficient to cope with it, look for products with a high degree of overlap in target users. Where the target users are, there are the seed users.

2. How to retain seed users

Simply attracting seed users is just the beginning. The most important task is how to better interact with seed users and use appropriate incentives to retain users.

1. Use rewards to buy users

The first batch of registered users can get small gifts, coupons, special privileges and preferential policies customized by the company. This utilizes the "reciprocity principle" in psychology, which states that when people receive gifts, they feel obligated to give back (explained in detail in the book "Influence"). On the one hand, users actively register in order to obtain material rewards. On the other hand, after receiving material rewards, users may have a more positive view of the product and the company and are more likely to cooperate with various subsequent interactions with the product. For example, any user who grabs a Xiaomi reservation code can buy a Xiaomi phone at a lower price, and Mi fans have a more positive attitude towards Xiaomi's corporate values, mission and culture.

2. Attract users with content

No matter what kind of website it is, if it only has users and relationship chains but no attractive content, it will be difficult to maintain. "Content is king" still makes sense. For new users, their relationship chain has not yet been formed, so they can only rely on consuming content, looking here and there. If the content is interesting, users will have behavioral interactions and gradually shape the relationship chain. Otherwise, they will soon quit due to lack of content, and the seed users who have been hard to attract will run away. For users who register for the first time, Sina Weibo will add content topics of interest to the user guide for them to choose from because they are not following anyone. There are different accounts under each topic. When users follow this topic, it is equivalent to following all users under this topic. In this way, the user's feed will not be empty and the user will have something to read.

3. Impress users with sincerity

Communicate sincerely with users about their product experience and express gratitude for their feedback, because users are under no obligation to help us and could have simply uninstalled the product or left quietly. Therefore, we should be grateful for the participation, opinions and suggestions of every seed user. The process of cultivating seed users is also a process that tests the patience of developers. There should be a healthy friendship between product developers and users, following the spirit of equality and freedom, creating a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere, and fully demonstrating their product values, culture and attitudes to users.

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The author of this article @高天泽 is compiled and published by (APP Top Promotion). Reprinting this article must be approved by Top Promotion , and please attach the link to this article!