User Operation | Three Ways to Cultivate Super Users: Single Point, Fission, and Being a Nanny

Quote: "They are real, real users, they provide you with food and clothing, and you still dare to carelessly call them 'traffic'?

At the end of 2017, Luo Zhenyu claimed at the New Year’s Eve conference that he had found a new way to play: super user thinking. The concept originated from Wu Sheng, the founder of Scene Lab. In the process of moving from traffic thinking to super user thinking, companies should not care how many users there are, but should care more about how many super users there are.

"They are real, concrete users, they are your bread and butter, and yet you still dare to carelessly call them 'traffic'?" Luo Pang’s voice is still ringing in my ears, deafening. The Internet has collectively entered an era of "growth anxiety." Yes, the demographic dividend has disappeared and the traffic era has ended. All we can do is "activate and retain users". Super user thinking has occupied the main position of marketing theory.

Survival has never been an easy thing for a business. Entrepreneurs who believe in business Darwinism will use various business means to make themselves invincible. It's not just about cooperation and competition, sometimes it may be the direct destruction of the opponent. Being able to directly destroy the opponent, one's ability is naturally many levels higher than that of the opponent. At this time, the cost of cooperation is far higher than destruction. Just like the cost of killing a mosquito is much lower than communicating with it. "What does it have to do with you if I destroy you?"

Therefore, in order to ensure that the weaker party is not "harvested", cultivating super users is the only lifeline. Just like if the extinction of mosquitoes would lead to the collapse of the ecosystem, then mosquitoes would not be killed.

Adhere to the "80/20 rule" and select super user seeds

Here is a life-threatening question: You and your wife go shopping, and a single lady asks you to help unscrew a bottle cap, what will you do? I believe that most men now know that they cannot help with this because their wives will be angry. Therefore, no matter how many ordinary users/single ladies there are, they cannot compare to one super user/wife. Moreover, the proportion of super users is the golden "80/20 rule", that is, 20% of super users create 80% of the value for the enterprise. Even if the proportion is lower, the amount of value created is higher.

Super users are so important, so how do we define super users? The main thing to look at is user activity and conversion rate. Activity refers to users' dependence on the product, high-frequency interaction with the product, and more prominent depth of visits. Conversion rate is the user paying to purchase products and services. In some cases, non-paying users can also be super users, but inactive users are definitely not super users. Therefore, the first measurement indicator should be user activity.

The important reference factors for defining activity are mainly the ratio of the number of users and the length of time they spend. The former determines the proportion of super users, and the latter determines the depth of users' understanding. For example, if 15% of users use the app for 2 hours, then the two-hour usage time will be the selection criteria for super users, and 15 out of every 100 people will be super users. Of course, different industries have different definitions of the ratio of people and duration, and not all industries’ super users are identified based on duration.

For example, in the short video category, there is no trace of super users from the browsing time alone. The development of short videos is affected by the quality and quantity of content. Higher quality and more UGC content can attract more users. Therefore, dimensions related to content quality need to be taken into account in the definition of super users, and those that reflect content quality include likes, comments, and reposts.

In addition, the standards for super users vary depending on the business development cycle. The business life cycle is divided into four stages: preparation, rising, stable, and new cycle/decline. Each cycle requires common and differentiated indicators to comprehensively define super users.

Single point breakthrough, amplifying the Matthew effect

The belief and doubt about the Internet's "80/20 rule" come from the debate over the disappearance of the demographic dividend. Those who agree that the demographic dividend has disappeared believe in the "growth black hole" theory and think that under such conditions, digging deep into the value of retained users is the only way for a company to survive and develop. Representatives include Luo Pang and others, and their expression is "paid membership."

Those who are skeptical about the "disappearance of demographic dividend theory" believe that China's human resources are undergoing a revolution from inefficiency to high efficiency. Compared with young people 30 years ago, young people now and in the future will have higher personal qualities and higher personal efficiency. The demographic dividend does not simply refer to the population size, but the overall quality of the population. The representative of this side is Pinduoduo, which is manifested by entering the "downstream market".

Whether it is an incremental market or a stock market, the core focus is the population issue, or more specifically the issue of consumer population. Without growth, there will be no stock, and if the stock cannot be activated, the enterprise cannot survive. Adding new customers costs money, and if customers don’t make purchases, there is no hope for the business. Accurately targeting high-quality individual users, enabling them to have a particularly in-depth understanding and experience of the product and making single-point breakthroughs can effectively control customer acquisition costs and realize user value.

Single point breakthrough and gradual expansion is one of the most effective strategies for Internet marketing. For example, TikTok makes Tencent feel anxious. TikTok is a master at single-point breakthroughs. Some videos have hundreds of thousands or even millions of likes and comments. An important reason for this is that Douyin relies on the traffic pool of Toutiao and uses powerful artificial algorithms to recommend videos based on the data to a greater extent according to the Matthew effect, making the strong stronger.

In addition, the video production process has been optimized, making it almost fool-proof for users to shoot videos, making it easy to use, popularize and promote. It doesn’t matter if you can’t write copy, you can lip sync; it doesn’t matter if you can’t divide the shots, you can take photos together; it doesn’t matter if you are not photogenic, you can use filters and beauty accessories at will. In short, users will find no reason not to take photos or selfies. The extremely simplified operation mode can make up for the personal abilities of the users.

Another example is the game PUBG. I won’t say much about the number of downloads and daily active users, it is absolutely at the king level. However, the core players of PUBG do not rely on skills, there is no skill competition, they are born in civilian clothes, and they rely on picking up equipment. Only the brave will win when they meet on a narrow road. Players do not have much room for thinking about skills or teamwork. If you want to make a single breakthrough, you need to make the game simple and eliminate the entry barrier for users. This is also the first step in cultivating super users. To maximize a user’s pain point is a single point breakthrough.

Social fission, new growth in the lower-tier markets

When talking about social fission, we have to mention Pinduoduo. How come Taobao, which has been around for 20 years, has been made so embarrassed by Pinduoduo, which has only been around for three years? What is Pinduoduo’s core advantage?

Taobao’s goal is to increase traffic on the homepage and then distribute the traffic to each sub-category. But Pinduoduo is not like that, it is a diffuse traffic and is holistic. Taobao obtains traffic from the existing traffic pool, while Pinduoduo obtains new traffic. Taobao is also paying attention to new traffic in the sinking markets in third- and fourth-tier cities, but it is far less specialized than Pinduoduo in its business. The first time users use Pinduoduo, they are attracted by bargaining and group buying. In order to continue, they have to use their circle of friends, and they are very happy to use the circle of friends. Pinduoduo is equivalent to having a super salesperson who does not receive a salary but uses his own network of relationships to conduct word-of-mouth marketing for Pinduoduo. This is social fission. Users are no longer just the traffic of the enterprise, but co-participants in the enterprise's marketing. This is a change in the relationship between the enterprise and users.

In the past, the relationship between enterprises and users was managed exclusively by the marketing department, and marketers were responsible for developing effective paying users. But now, super users form the marketing department of the enterprise, and individual users are salesmen, specializing in doing business with regular customers. Under the inducement of preferential benefits, geometric galaxy communication and product promotion are much more efficient than salesmen contacting customers one by one.

There is a classic example in the movie "Dying to Survive": To launch a new drug as quickly as possible, first find the group owners of all cancer patients' QQ groups, let them experience the efficacy of the drug and get the drug at the lowest price. Then, based on the trust relationship between group members and group owners, the group will promote the drug. Each group owner is a spontaneous regional agent, and word-of-mouth communication is used, with fast shipments, high concealment, high user loyalty and low risk.

Pinduoduo's terrifying social e-commerce model has caused traditional e-commerce giants to sigh, and has also led to the trend of social e-commerce.

Nanny-style marketing to activate and retain users

In simple terms, marketers regard themselves as nannies and provide one-on-one services to users. Nanny-style marketing was created to solve the problem of how to quickly improve trust with users in the "brand era". Its core is the realization of what a nanny is: a profession that does all the housework (things) that the owner is unwilling or unable to do. Its core lies in "doing everything that the owner is unwilling or unable to do".

Nanny-style marketing refers to the general term for creating various sales conditions by adopting a nanny's working attitude and hands-on working methods. The main feature is that marketers assume corresponding responsibility for problems, turning "talking into doing", and requiring that most problems be handled personally by marketers.

For example, OPPO and VIVO under the BBK system use "nanny-style" marketing to increase the terminal listing and inventory turnover of mobile phones at the retailer level. Not only do they implement full price guarantee and full return and exchange for products throughout the entire life cycle from listing to delisting, but they also provide full price guarantee for unsold retailer inventory. In the early stage of cooperation, they are also equipped with manufacturer's standard counters, standard displays, and luminous background boards, which is not only to enhance the professional image of retailers, but also to expand their own brand image. The key point is to firmly grasp the super users (retailers), which greatly improves the enthusiasm and initiative of retailers in cooperating with the company.

In the Internet era, when almost all brands are emphasizing channel flattening, OPPO and VIVO have always adhered to the tiered + regional flattened channel management model, and have used this channel management method to perfection, making the price of their mobile phones one level higher than other brands of terminals at the same level.

For enterprises, creating more value for users more quickly and doing things that "make users proud" is the fastest way to increase user stickiness. Moreover, this value must continue to improve as his personal level improves, and the level of corporate output must also continue to improve.

In short , whether it is an incremental market or an existing market, realizing customer value is always the bottom line. Super users are proportional values, the incremental market is about changing the denominator, and the stock market is about increasing the numerator. The final key is to achieve the goal of increasing the proportional value, so the result of the dispute between incremental and stock markets is still the same. What remains unchanged is the super user mindset and the brand concept of serving customers.

Related reading:

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2. User operation: How to use B-side operation thinking to increase user growth?

3. Product operation: How to use data analysis to drive product user growth?

4. APP user growth: One model solves 90% of growth problems!

5.How to increase users? Take Pinduoduo and Xiaohongshu as examples

6. Triggering user growth: Is user operation just about attracting new users?

7. User operation: What else can you do to attract new users without fission users?

8. User operation: how can financial products awaken dormant users?

9. User Operation | How to perform user behavior path analysis?

Author: Seven Princes

Source: PR Home