How should the Internet finance APP be promoted?

As the saying goes, traffic is as valuable as gold, so how should Internet finance apps be promoted? This article will tell you the answer~

User portrait, determine promotion goals

Determining the target group is a prerequisite for promotion.

Who are the users? Where do the users come from? Where can the users go? This is an ultimate philosophical question. "When you look at a mountain from the side, you see a mountain range; when you look at it from the front, you see peaks; they look different from different distances and heights." The division of promotion targets will vary depending on the company's products and the stage the products are in, and their user groups will also be different. Today, I will take the stocks in the initial stage as an example and give you a detailed analysis.

From: Qinggua Media (www.opp2.com)

01. Preset user groups

At the beginning, the MECE principle can be used to list the original target users and analyze them from the four attributes of the user portrait: user static attributes, user dynamic attributes, user psychological attributes, and user consumption attributes. The MECE principle can be simply understood as a method of decomposing user groups that accommodates "rock, scissors, and paper."

1. User static attributes

It mainly refers to the user's basic information, such as gender, age, education, residential address, income, nature of work, etc.

For example, male users are generally more interested in stocks than female users, and the proportion of those who like high risks is significantly higher than that of female users; users aged 25-40 are more likely to invest in stocks than those aged 15-25; users with higher education are more likely to invest in stocks or manage finances. These speculations are all based on the entrepreneur's preset perspective of the target group. Do men prefer high risks more than women? What is the proportion? They are all pre-set and have not been verified by data or even feedback from market surveys.

1. User dynamic attributes

Refers to the user's behavioral preferences.

Such as frequently used APPs, time spent using APPs, scenarios in which APPs are used, mobile phone brands used, interactive behaviors, etc. The commonly used apps are WeChat and Sina Finance; the time to use the apps is from 8 to 9 in the morning; the scenarios for using the apps are on the subway, bus, etc. These target groups are also based on personal expectations. Will the number of stock traders who install the People's Daily APP be lower than that of Sina Finance? Will people click on stock trading ads when they see them at 8 o'clock in the morning? Will more people use the APP on the subway than at night? This information is also pre-conceived by entrepreneurs.

1. User psychological attributes

Refers to the user's emotional changes.

For example, the mentality for stock trading is stable, aggressive, and proactive, and the purpose of stock trading is experience, speculation, and value preservation. These are the psychological characteristics of users. Understanding users’ psychological characteristics is sometimes more important than understanding their static and dynamic attributes.

1. User consumption attributes

Refers to the user's investment awareness, direction, etc.

Do users of Sina Finance APP have the awareness of investment and financial management? Is it strong? Do they focus on stocks or funds? These are all ways to divide mature users. User psychological attributes and user investment attributes are often accompanied by changes in user static and dynamic attributes. The user portraits initially preset by founders and product-related personnel are mostly characteristics of certain users separated from specific scenarios. In addition to intuitive static and dynamic attributes, they also include psychological and investment attributes in specific environments.

02. Competing user groups

Product A's competitors include established stock trading websites such as Tonghuashun and Eastmoney, as well as the newly emerged stock community Snowball, users from securities companies and Wind Data, and users of Internet financial management such as Alipay and JD Finance. These users are likely to be the focus of this promotion.

However, it is impossible to obtain the user information of these competitors, and it is necessary to rely on third-party data platforms for analysis. Common third-party data platforms include TalkingData, iResearch Qianfan, etc. On the third data platform, multiple stock-related user portraits are listed, focusing on static and dynamic user attributes such as age, region, and preference for using APP. For competing or similar products, find out the more critical indicators and compare them with the preset user portraits to see what the differences are. But in reality, whether it is TalkingData or iResearch Qianfan platform, the user portraits are limited, and the data provided are for reference only.

03. Market research user groups

This is a process of face-to-face communication with users. You can conduct questionnaires and collect user feedback. Specifically, it means going to stock bars, stock QQ groups, Weibo, stock sector forums and other places where stock traders exist, and chatting with people around you who trade stocks. This is all part of the market research process.

At the same time, you can also monitor public accounts, Weibo, web information, headlines, newspapers, etc., collect this data, and do a public opinion data monitoring to understand where users are, what content they are watching, and how they respond to the information. For example, if we monitor the keyword "stock" for 10 minutes, the data collected on WeChat will form the following distribution chart:

Analyzing the target user profile from the perspective of preset user groups, competitor user groups, and market research user groups is a process of mutual verification. For a newly launched product, making basic judgments about users from these aspects before starting to promote it can save costs, especially for companies that have neither their own resources nor sufficient funds. Although there are more aspects to consider, you can also get familiar with users at an early stage.

If we start from the MECE principle when analyzing user attributes, we will find that there is too much information. This user information represents the user. In actual promotion, it is impossible to cover everything, so it is necessary to further determine the promotion goals and expected effects of the promotion. OMTM is a word mentioned, which means one metric that matters (OMTM). It was determined that the target group for this promotion was male white-collar users aged 25-35 in first-tier cities, and the basic scenario was established. The purpose of promotion is to attract new registrations, and there are also single key indicators for KPI assessment.

Develop a plan and identify the only key indicator

Promotion activities start from two aspects: new customer acquisition channels and material preparation:

01. New customer acquisition channels, including free and paid channels

1. New channels, including free and paid channels

After early products were launched, most of them were tested on free channels to understand the market's attitude towards the product before deciding whether to pay for it.

1. Free channels

First of all, we can look at the existing traffic entrances, including the company’s official website, Weibo, official account, media interviews and reports of the founder or entrepreneurial team, and course sharing. Secondly, SEO and SEM optimize websites, keywords, etc. on the PC side; finally, there is the exchange of business resources, such as official accounts, advertising space for partners in offline activities, etc.; product word-of-mouth self-propagation or the use of an invitation system, with old users bringing in new users, etc. There are also free channels such as live broadcast and audio. Furthermore, these resources are not free because they require manpower to maintain them, which means labor costs.

1. Paid channels

Paid channels include online delivery. They are search keywords, navigation advertising positions, and search alliance delivery; information flow such as Today’s Headlines, Weibo, and Moments; APPs such as application stores and third-party APP opening pages; self-media such as official accounts, Baijiahao, live broadcasts, audio, etc. Paid channels also include offline delivery. They are offline salon activities, exhibitions in the financial industry, billboards in subways and buses, and CCTV/local satellite TV stations. In most companies, offline salon activities and industry exhibitions are what they can use in the initial stage. Other offline channels are more suitable for credibility notarization and brand exposure.

In the first part of the user portrait analysis, it was determined that the target group for promotion is male white-collar users aged 25-35 in first-tier cities. At the same time, combined with the promotion channels, it is basically possible to determine where the target users are. Suppose that OPPO Store, Sina Finance, and Guangdiantong (public account - mobile application promotion) are finally decided as the promotion channels.

02. Coordinate resources from multiple parties and prepare materials

Before promoting an event, prepare at least two sets of materials and conduct A/B testing. The personnel involved include ASO, copywriter, technology, design, product, BD and other staff. This type of promotion is usually led by the promotion team, but can also be led by product personnel. The personnel responsibilities are arranged as follows:

The work content of all personnel this time is centered around the purpose of attracting new users and completing registrations. Deliver to specific target groups through specific channels. Advertising does not mean there is no cost control. On the contrary, it requires careful calculation and good cost budget control, and constantly adjusts the advertising proportion during the advertising process.

Cost budget control and optimization of delivery allocation

Advertising is a job that can be fed back by data. Data can reflect problems in the formula and further optimize the delivery to reduce costs as much as possible. There are 5 formulas below:

1. Improve conversion rate = increase exposure * improve conversion rate at each step

When it comes to attracting new users, we optimize by increasing the number of registrations and reducing the cost of each registration. To increase the number of registrations, you need to increase exposure, and increasing exposure means increasing costs, so you need to optimize the user conversion rate after each exposure. Reducing the cost of each registration is also seeking to optimize the user conversion rate after each exposure. It can be understood as improving conversion rate = increasing exposure * improving conversion rate at each step. There are two factors, increasing exposure and improving conversion rates at each step.

a. Increase exposure

Participate in special events held by OPPO stores, add keywords, increase bidding, etc.; increase the number of first-tier cities covered by the campaign and increase the duration of the campaign; increase the duration of the campaign on Sina Finance’s information stream; and adopt the same approach for public accounts. Therefore, the exposure can be changed according to the delivery time and scope.

b. Improve the conversion rate at each step

When it comes to advertising, the fewer steps there are, the less likely users are to churn. When promoting and registering an APP, there are generally four steps: click, download, install, and register. It can also be simplified to click and register, but it will cost more to activate users later.

There are four common steps to follow here. Text and pictures are the key to influencing clicks. If the click-through rate is low, optimize the text and pictures. When downloading, consider the size of the installation package and whether to adjust it to a third-party store for download. Compress the download package as much as possible and use third-party optimization platforms such as App Store. During the installation process, generally there are no errors on the system and it can be completed smoothly. Registration optimization includes the design of the registration page and registration rewards.

1. Landing page click rate = number of people clicking the download button / number of people showing results page

In the information flow, the color of the picture and the content of the text are crucial. Combining a suitable picture and attractive copy can often achieve twice the result with half the effort in terms of clicks.

Taking the advertisements on Sina Finance APP as an example, the titles and contents of Figure 1 and Figure 2 are very coordinated; Figure 1 and Figure 2 are endorsed by the credibility of the industry. The credibility of Figure 1 comes from a ten-year veteran stock investor, and the credibility of Figure 2 comes from the celebrity Li Xiang. Layout also affects clicks. The large-image mode in Figure 2 is obviously better than the single-image mode in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Therefore, without changing the channel, the improvement of the click-through rate of the landing page mainly focuses on optimizing these two aspects.

1. Download and installation conversion rate = number of successful installations / number of successful downloads

In the installation process, if it is an APP promotion, "clicking on the landing page" should be equivalent to "downloading", reducing the levels and directly prompting users to download and install. The main influencing factors are the size of the APP and system bugs.

a. The larger the APP is, the more traffic it requires and the longer the user has to wait

Waiting is a very challenging thing for users. For impatient users, they may just jump out. Figure 3 is a stock advertisement on Toutiao’s information flow, which solves this problem better. After clicking “Download Now”, the user can clearly see the download progress bar and the consumed traffic of 9.88M.

Figure 4 is an advertisement placed in the circle of friends. Clicking "I'll apply for one too" will start the download. There is also a download progress bar, and the APP installation package is also very small, and it quickly enters the installation state.

b. System BUG

First, during the download process, it is easy to need to open the browser and then download. Technically, it is necessary to connect with the platform in advance to avoid this situation;

Second, if the APP encounters abnormalities when opened after installation, such as crashes, test it on different mobile phone models in advance to avoid unnecessary user loss.

1. Registration conversion rate = number of completed registrations / number of successful installations

In the registration process, guiding users is particularly important, mainly starting from product design and operational methods.

a.Product design

Registration is a two-step process: mobile phone number + mobile phone verification code, simplifying the registration steps as much as possible. Even if the registration is not completed, but the mobile phone number has been filled in, the mobile phone number can also be sent to the data backend. Later, the manual customer service can call the user to ask why the user has not completed the registration and guide the user to complete the registration.

b. Operational means

Exclusive offers for new users, trial fees, red envelopes, interest rate coupons, etc. are all ways to further guide users to register.

1. Unit price of customer acquisition = total promotion cost / number of new user registrations

After determining the target group and delivery platform, every adjustment and optimization during the delivery process will reduce costs. After the activity ends, the customer acquisition price can be calculated.

In the user life cycle AARRR model, this article only selects the first link - user acquisition, and mainly analyzes it from three aspects: user portrait, plan making and cost control.

Whether it is the cold start of the APP or the stage of intensified promotion, acquiring users is the most basic task, and reducing the cost of acquiring customers as much as possible is also the responsibility of the operators.

Recommended reading:

1. How to operate the WeChat official account new media of Internet finance products?

2. Mutual Finance and Credit "High Cost-Effectiveness" User Growth Method (Routine)