User operation, how to increase user growth?

If you have a tactical way of thinking about problems, you will be able to respond to changes with the same strategy. No matter what demands and goals you receive, you will be able to develop and advance them step by step in an organized and logical manner and ultimately achieve your goals.

Whether you are doing operations, user growth, product manager, or...

Whether you have just started working, have been working for a while, or even have been working for quite a long time, you will find something interesting.

That is your colleague, or your leader, or your boss. Among these people, there must be someone who has very clear ideas. They always know what goal they are working towards, what are the key indicators that affect the goal, what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Working with them, you will deeply feel what it means to be clear, step-by-step and steady.

They will not treat headaches by treating the pain or feet by treating the foot pain:

• For example, the daily active users have dropped recently, so I thought of doing some activities to increase the daily active users;
• For example, the retention rate has dropped recently, and we are scrambling to find the reason;
• For example, when the number of new cases has not increased, people try all kinds of desperate measures.

All of the above-mentioned temporary blind situations will never happen to them. You will feel that these people already have a complete goal plan and a very clear route to do things in their minds, and everything they need to do is very clear in their minds.

I believe that such people possess the most important core ability for operations, user growth, and product managers: tactical execution.

People with such abilities, when given a specific growth target by a company or team, can quickly sort out what to do first, what to do second, and what to do after that. Even if they cannot sort it out quickly, they will quickly sort out the direction of what they want to do through skillful analysis, disassembly, and research.

This is also the core ability that all key employees, middle-level and senior managers, and entrepreneurs in the workplace must possess. I believe that this kind of tactical execution ability can be built through conscious training.

The core of this conscious training is: you need to learn to build your own "tactical board".

Well, today I will talk to you in detail about user growth: how to build a “tactical board” for user growth.

As an aside, if your boss, leaders, colleagues and you are all confused and no one has such ability, then remember to change jobs as soon as possible.

01

The first thing to do when building a “tactical board” for user growth is to determine the real tactical goals of user growth.

Don't laugh when you see this sentence. Based on my five years of experience in the business world, it is really not an easy thing for most people to clearly define their goals and know what they really want.

This tactical goal may be the North Star indicator of your product, your performance indicator, or your KPI.

For example, if you are engaged in e-commerce operations, then sales volume is your tactical goal; if you are engaged in product operations, then monthly active users are your tactical goal (not absolute, just an example). If you are engaged in new media operations, the number of fans of your public account may be your tactical goal.

If you are not responsible for the entire product, not responsible for the data of the entire product, and are only responsible for the operation of a certain module within the product. For this module, you also need to find its tactical goals. For example, if you are a community operator and manage hundreds of KOLs, then your tactical goal is the number of posts that KOLs make in the community every day, or the number of positive reviews, etc.

If you are a category operator on an e-commerce platform, then the sales of this category is your tactical goal.

When building a tactical board, it is very important to determine a valuable tactical goal, because this determines the series of actions you will take based on the tactical goal. It seems simple, but in fact many people do not have this awareness at work. Not having clear tactical goals or confusion about tactical goals are common problems.

When I was chatting with the founder of a P2P website in my early years, I found that the founder’s understanding of tactical goals was extremely confused.

At that time, the founder repeatedly told me that he wanted to add an accounting function to his platform to provide a better service experience for investment users.

At that time, I told him that I didn’t understand: your website platform should use investment amount as a tactical goal, but you use resources on a project like "bookkeeping" that has nothing to do with the tactical goal. Do you really not know what your goal is?

In fact, this situation often exists in many startup companies and teams. Therefore, it is very important to clarify your own tactical goals, the company's tactical goals, and the team's tactical goals.

02

After clarifying the tactical goals, the next thing to do is to break down the formulas and obtain variables.

Once you have a tactical goal, you need to break it down in a formulaic way to obtain the "variables" that affect the tactical goal. With these variables, we can continue to break down the "key indicators" that guide us to achieve our tactical goals.

In a sense, formulaic decomposition is also a test of a person's ability to deeply understand his or her own business module.

For example, if your tactical goal is: monthly active users, then you can break it down into: monthly active users = 30 days of new users + retained active users, and you will get 2 variables.

For example, your tactical goal is: sales. That can be broken down into: Sales = New user's first order conversion rate + Old user's repurchase rate, and you will get 4 variables.

If the tactical goal is the total number of fans of the official account, it can be broken down into: Official account fans = daily new followers + new fans attracted by activities - fans who unfollow you, and you will get 3 variables.

etc……

I would like to emphasize the following points:

1. The formula you break down for tactical goals is not absolute and there is no standard answer.
2. The formula you break down for tactical goals is not absolute and there is no standard answer.
3. The formula you break down for tactical goals is not absolute and there is no standard answer.

Say important things three times.

What the final formula is depends on the level of your position, the resources you have, and your deep understanding of the business. For example, if you are the e-commerce operations director in a large brand’s Tmall store, the formula for user growth you deconstructed is: sales = new user’s first order conversion rate + old user’s repurchase rate.

But if you are the person in charge of omni-channel sales for this big brand, then the formula you break down is: sales = e-commerce channel + offline channel + WeChat channel…

Because everyone is in a different position, the formulas that are broken down are different. But whether the formula is different or not, we are ultimately heading towards that tactical goal and obtaining the corresponding variables.

There are some other benefits to doing formulaic decomposition. For example, some team leaders or founders often come to me for advice and ask me: Weidong, we are going to start a project, how should we configure the team?

This kind of team configuration can be used as a reference through "establishing tactical goals - formulaic decomposition to obtain variables".

Arrange the staffing accordingly based on the number of variables you have obtained. If the variables have a large impact, assign more people; if the variables have a small impact, assign fewer people.

The entire department, the entire structure, and the responsibilities of each individual are clearly visible through formal breakdown.

03

Once you have broken down several variables through formulating, the next thing to do is to determine the key indicators that affect the variables, conduct evaluations, and set goals.

For example, the tactical goal of monthly active users can be broken down into two variables through the formula: 30-day new users + retained active users.

Then we need to continue to break down and break down the key indicators that affect the variables. For example, the key indicator for new additions on the 30th is: daily new additions.

This is easy to understand. The number of new people added each day determines the number of new people in this 30-day cycle.

We have also broken down the old user retention rate into several key indicators: new user next-day retention rate, old user next-week retention rate, and next-month retention rate. These retention rate indicators will have an impact on the activity of retained users.

Once we have sorted out these key indicators, we list the current data for each indicator and then conduct an inventory and evaluation. For example, the picture below is part of a community product tactical board. The data is not real data and is for demonstration purposes only.

After the data is listed, we need to evaluate it, for example, whether some indicators still have room for growth? Have you reached a bottleneck? Are some indicator data very low compared with peer products? Some indicator data are already relatively advanced, do we need to continue to optimize them? Because the company needs financing, which indicator data needs to be optimized first?

We can discuss and brainstorm together about the data evaluation of these key indicators.

Based on past experience, what you have learned, data from competitor feedback, your own intuition, and the current actual situation of the product, you should evaluate it and set corresponding growth goals.

I suggest that in the initial stage, when setting growth targets for these key indicators, try not to set them too high. You can set them lower at first, or even set growth targets in stages and achieve them one stage at a time. These can all be reflected on the tactical board.

By the way, as a side note, it is best to set growth targets that are within reach if you just jump.

This is to avoid long-term failure to achieve goals, which would cause low morale for oneself or the team.

So after setting user growth goals, how do you implement them? What is the basis for its implementation?

We need to conduct a series of data analysis and user surveys.

04

When it comes to user growth, data analysis must be mentioned, and when it comes to data analysis, everyone gets a headache.

Everyone thinks that data analysis is a very advanced field that requires a lot of time and energy to learn.

However, based on my personal observation and practice, when it comes to user growth, as long as you can skillfully use three basic data analysis methods, you can provide a basic basis for most growth methods.

The first one is also the most commonly used: the funnel method.

Everyone knows about funnel conversion. As long as you sort out the entire user chain in its entirety and then develop corresponding growth optimization points for each point, you will have sufficient basis.

This growth optimization point may be an improvement in the level: for example, if a certain entrance has too little traffic in the conversion funnel, it may be that the level is too deep. The solution is to improve the level of this entrance.

This growth optimization point may also be the optimization of the cumbersome links: for example, registration is too cumbersome, jumps are too cumbersome, there are too many authorizations, a mobile phone number needs to be filled in, etc., which will affect the effect of funnel conversion. The solution is to delete, post-post or promote with copywriting, optimize the page, etc.

This growth optimization point may also be an optimization in display: for example, unclear buttons, unclear marks, unclear text, unsightly UI, etc., all of which will affect the effect of funnel conversion.

The second method is also more commonly used: contrast method.

We all know the "aha moment", when users are satisfied with a certain function or a certain benefit, it will greatly improve the retention rate, conversion rate and dissemination rate.

At this time, you can conduct a comparative analysis of the main functions, main benefits, and key behaviors within the product to find the user's real "aha moment".

For example, through comparative analysis, it was found that when users used the search function, the next-day retention rate was 50%, but when they did not use the search function, the next-day retention rate was only 35%. It can be concluded that the search function is very helpful in improving user retention rate. After that, we can develop growth measures and optimize the search function more vigorously to guide more users to use the search function.

The third method requires higher data analysis capabilities: classification method.

That is to conduct an overall analysis of a large category of users and derive many common behaviors, which can serve as the basis for formulating growth measures.

For example, a mobile phone cleaning software APP, after classifying and analyzing its users, found that 90% of users who have used the APP for more than half a year have used the deep cleaning button of the APP. This shows that most users subconsciously feel that ordinary cleaning is not clean enough, and only deep cleaning can satisfy their cleanliness obsession.

Therefore, the APP has carried out a series of optimization measures around the function of deep cleaning, guiding more users to perform deep cleaning, effectively improving the user's next week and next month retention rate.

In general, the field of data analysis is broad and profound, but for ordinary workers, as long as they are good at using the funnel method, comparison method, and classification method, they can solve 80% of the growth problems in their work that require data as a basis.

Of course, the user growth methods in the tactical board will be more convincing if they can be based on data analysis.

05

In addition to data analysis, conducting a large amount of user research is also a common method when formulating a user growth tactical board.

This kind of research should be carried out continuously with every iteration and every stage of the product. It can be a questionnaire, a phone call, or a one-on-one communication on WeChat.

Take a small product I’m responsible for as an example: last year, we launched a small tool that helps employees in multiple industries record their work output. Since employees in many industries need to record their work output, the methods of recording output vary greatly from industry to industry. Therefore, in order to meet the needs of various industries, our product design has been in constant fluctuation, and the user retention rate has not been able to increase.

It's just like the saying goes: When you try to satisfy everyone, you often do a bad job. Later, in order to significantly improve the overall user retention rate, we conducted five large-scale surveys and one-on-one interviews with hundreds of people.

First, through large-scale research, determine several industries with a large number of users. Circle the area and focus on attacking. Then, through one-on-one surveys, we can understand the deeper behaviors of users in these larger industries. After that, we gave up the idea of ​​satisfying all industries and only focused on these larger industries to meet the deep-seated needs of these users.

After determining this strategy, we developed a corresponding user growth tactical board. Through a series of optimizations, the product retention rate has been rising. It is very simple, effective and direct to achieve the growth goal.

Therefore, user research is the best way to provide a basis for growth measures.

In addition to conducting user surveys, you can also gain a lot of inspiration by looking at the design ideas, interaction processes, and functional designs of competing products and even products in other industries.

Although there may be a slight suspicion of plagiarism, many growth methods and ideas are often inspired by products from other industries.

So now, whenever I encounter user growth problems with my product, I will download dozens of apps, try them out one by one, and see how others do it. It’s quite rewarding.

06

After you have obtained sufficient evidence through data analysis and user research,

What you need to do next is to develop corresponding growth methods and plans.

These can all be recorded on the tactical board, as shown below. The data is fictitious and is for demonstration purposes only. If you can't see it clearly, you can open it and have a look.

This is a relatively simple tactical board for a community product. To improve tactical goal: monthly active users.

The user growth team set growth goals and built a user growth tactical board through formula breakdown, discussion, data analysis, and research.

The specific tactical implementation plan is as follows:

In terms of new additions:

1. Continue to increase natural traffic and attract new users through application market optimization.
2. Optimize user link sharing channels to increase sharing and attract new users.
3. Increase the number of new users on Weibo channels through content optimization.

In terms of retention, there are several key indicators, including new users’ retention on the next day, old users’ retention on the next week, and old users’ retention on the next month.

Improve key indicators of next-day retention:

1. Through product optimization, increase the proportion of new users clicking on the recommendation page. Because through data analysis, it was found that the retention rate of new users who click on recommendations is much higher than that of users who do not click.
2. Through product means, guide new users to complete their first review as quickly as possible. In this way, the community’s own robot will quickly complete the reply, thereby increasing new users’ favorability towards the community and improving retention.
3. …….

I won’t say the rest.

Through this tactical board, you will find that every growth method and growth target we take are connected in series with key indicators and variables, and ultimately have an impact on the overall tactical goals. It's like when we let a butterfly flap its wings, through a series of butterfly effects, it finally turns into a storm.

That's what the tactics board is for. At the same time, it can make your user growth methods more organized, direct, systematic and planned. Instead of thinking about this and that like before.

Every means, through a series of relationships, will have a positive impact on the goal if it is targeted. This tactical board can also be shared with the team, shared with the company, and shown to superiors, so that colleagues in each module can clearly understand what responsibilities they are responsible for and what role they play in the tactical goals.

Break down information barriers so that everyone no longer has to work alone.

This tactical board can also be used as a project management table, adding new variables, updating new projects, and updating new goals at all times.

07

Today, I didn’t actually talk to you too much about the practical aspects of user growth, but more about thinking, ideas, and strategies. Because I think that compared to the endless variety of growth methods, having a systematic idea, a systematic strategy, and a systematic way of thinking are the most important abilities for user growth. It is also the essence of doing everything.

This set of tactical board ideas can be used not only in user growth, but also in many aspects of work and life. For example, if you want to manage your finances, you can set a financial goal, then break down the formula, find the variables, determine the key indicators, find methods, and develop a plan; for example, if you want to lose weight, you can also use this method; if you want to improve your test scores, you can also use this method.

In short, if you can have a tactical way of thinking about problems, you will be able to respond to changes with the same strategy. No matter what demands and goals you receive, you will be able to develop and advance them step by step in an organized and logical manner and ultimately achieve your goals.

And this is the significance of creating your own tactical board.

Related reading:

1. APP promotion and operation: How to maximize the effect of your activities?

2. APP promotion planning: 60,000 paying users increased within 7 days of beta testing!

3. APP promotion activities: How to plan a screen-sweeping event?

4. A complete list of APP promotion methods in 2019, take it and don’t thank me!

5. How to carry out APP promotion and marketing? What are the common methods?

6. APP promotion case: How to go from 0 to millions of users?

Author: Liu Weidong

Source: Liu Weidong's Operation Notes