User operation: user growth in the post-traffic era!

The decline of traffic dividends is now an irreversible situation. Under this situation, how to define user growth in the new stage and how to achieve user growth in the WeChat mini-program ecosystem are the key points I want to share with you today.

1. Current situation and difficulties of traffic growth

Back to the traffic itself, there are three major problems with the current status of traffic growth:

1. Dispersed traffic inlets

I have listed here the main channels such as paid promotion, brand placement, content distribution, and offline acquisition. The first three channels are mainly on mobile phones, and the offline end is another battlefield.

To truly do well in each channel requires a very professional operations team. Otherwise, it will be difficult to ensure user loyalty when there are so many homogeneous brands and products. And this is just the current situation. After the advent of the 5G era, user information reception will shift from mobile phone screens to more screens. For example, rice cookers, refrigerators, ovens, etc. will also become traffic entrances and can also display advertisements.

Under this trend, traffic entrances are becoming more and more dispersed, and brands need to take care of more and more entrances. For enterprises, how to find suitable channels based on their product forms and user characteristics will be a very important issue.

In terms of the relationship between users and channels, we have also summarized three stages:

Phase 1: Find users in the channel

This was our initial idea when we went online in 2017. We looked for our users on Toutiao and WeChat. However, once the traffic entrances are dispersed, this channel acquisition method will become very difficult.

Phase 2: Where the users are is the channel

This is what we are doing now, shifting our focus from the channel to the users themselves. Our channels should be located where users are and what applications they interact with. For example, our user survey shows that there are more users with children, and they often go to movie theaters, so we are now also launching campaigns in offline movie theaters and other scenarios.

Stage 3: Users as Channels

This is the approach we are exploring, and social e-commerce is doing relatively well in this area. Our users are mainly men aged 30-45, but currently there is no very good fission propagation method for this group of users in the market. We are also exploring how to enable this group of users to become small KOLs in their own circles, and have them develop new channels and bring in new traffic. I believe this is an important proposition that needs to be explored in the future when making consumer products that men desire.

2. The average advertising cost per person has increased

This is a report from iResearch. From 2012 to 2018, the cost of online advertising per Internet user has been increasing. For ourselves, we can clearly feel that the ROI is constantly increasing, and it is difficult to lower it.

3. Flooding of fake traffic

With the proliferation of fake traffic, we cannot figure out which traffic is from real users and which is from robots. This also led to our current adjustments to the traffic acquisition pirate model.

Based on these three traffic dilemmas, let’s think about what changes will happen to user growth at this time? Is user growth now a marketing behavior or some other type of behavior?

2. Defining User Growth

In the past, user growth may have been the work of the marketing or operations team alone, but in the future it will be a proposition that requires the company to connect all departments and work together as a whole.

1. Evolution of user growth

Here is our analysis of the evolution of user growth:

Single point breakthrough:

In the early Silicon Valley-style user growth stage, such as Dropbox and Facebook, growth was mostly achieved through local interaction optimization. Optimizing the color, size or text of a button on a page or improving the conversion rate of a target behavior are all single-point breakthroughs.

Platform diversion and user subsidies:

After the user growth concept was introduced to China, the gameplay forms began to become more and more diversified. There are forms like NetEase Yanxuan, which incubates and directs traffic to sub-brands or sub-platforms from large platforms, and there are also user subsidies commonly used by Meituan, Didi, and Ele.me. Although Luckin Coffee now claims to have integrated product and sales, it also has the essence of issuing coupons in a fancy way under brand marketing.

Content marketing, social communication:

Next comes content marketing and social communication, which puts forward the now popular concept of layered and precise operations, and realizes fission through the social attributes of platforms such as WeChat.

Super Member:

Last year, super membership forms such as the 88 membership card appeared. I have always felt that the ultimate goal of super membership should be to increase users' sense of belonging to the brand and platform, but currently it is only at the level of a marketing tool. At the super membership stage, a very popular direction has emerged: gamification design. For example, using a highly motivating task system to guide new users to complete target behaviors. Our company now believes that this is an important tool to improve communication effectiveness among user groups.

2. Misunderstandings about User Growth

The misunderstandings about user growth that I mentioned here should be the changes in our cognition during the evolution of user growth forms.

In the past, user growth was more focused on attracting new users. We would pursue local ROI on the front end such as PV and UV, and use a single dimension, such as whether a purchase was completed, to measure the value of users. We would try every possible way to attract users to have their first contact with the product. This is a way of thinking that limits user growth to a local area. But now, the understanding of user growth has begun to develop from local to holistic.

There are several changes:

(1) Develop more commercial indicators

Indicators like PV and UV can only reflect user flow, not retention. To retain users, the indicators set by the entire company need to be more commercial and valuable. For example: cost recovery period, which reflects the cost of user acquisition and how long it takes to recover. This indicator is more efficient and commercial in judging operating mechanisms and capital utilization.

(2) Establish multi-dimensional labels to measure user value

In fact, it is about user tagging. I believe many of you know it, but not all of you have done it. Because of its high technical threshold, I also very much look forward to more support from third parties.

(3) User thinking

The growth team’s mindset needs to shift from traffic thinking to user thinking. Traffic thinking is more from the perspective of user acquisition, while user thinking is to clearly understand the overall path of users from acquisition to activity to purchase conversion. This series of user behaviors is closely related to various functions such as operations, marketing, products, and customer service.

Such a company may consider integrating the resources of various departments and providing services to customers as a whole package. This reflects two key points: consistency and continuity.

• Consistency means that users see the same company image at every touch point.
• Continuity means providing customized services based on the different feedback from users at each touchpoint, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

3. Break down user growth metrics

Based on the above understanding, our company's indicator for user growth is more effective user growth: Effective user growth = user number growth x user retention rate x user monetization rate

We believe that the logic of user growth should revolve around products and services, combined with data insights, to maintain touchpoint comfort and drive growth.

There are several key words here:

(1) Focusing on products and services

We believe that user growth today is no longer a marketing behavior, but a service behavior combined with data insights. Our marketing and operational behaviors no longer rely on the brainstorming and inspiration of a group of people, but on real data.

(2) Comfort of contact points

Now, when we do user growth, we no longer just invest heavily in a certain point because we think it is good. We need to be patient to draw a user touchpoint map. For example, when users see advertisements, receive push notifications from mini-programs, or leave messages on official accounts for consultation, these are all user touchpoints, and any slight carelessness at any of these touchpoints may result in user loss.

Our company breaks down the entire user growth into several detailed indicators:

The first is retention rate. We have two main places to stay in the WeChat environment, one is the official account and the other is the personal account. Personal accounts are the private traffic pool that has become popular recently. We will retain high-net-worth users in personal accounts and make friends with our users.

The second is the first-order conversion rate and the first-order repurchase conversion rate. Through data analysis, we found that users who purchase twice and rate once will become our loyal customers. This kind of behavior can be traced. You can observe what behaviors your users are likely to exhibit before they become long-term users. If you can find it out, when you operate the user later, you just need to guide the user towards this behavior.

Finally, there are VIP customer orders and stable repurchase intervals. We have handed this work over to the private domain traffic operation team. They will provide users with more customized services based on the different needs of each user through their service and professional attitude.

3. Construction of retention path in WeChat environment

The previous growth model was arranged in the order of customer acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and recommendation, but in this situation, many people would fall into traffic thinking, focusing too much on customer acquisition and failing to retain customers. Companies with a growth mindset will put retention first and build a user retention path on WeChat. At this stage, mini programs are undoubtedly our starting point.

Mini Programs are the super traffic entrance of WeChat. From the quiet period after its launch to its wild growth and then to the current regular army period, many companies have built a mini program matrix in WeChat. Compared with APP or WeChat public accounts, mini programs have many inherent advantages, such as low usage threshold, wide audience, accurate interactive reach, and fast ripple propagation.

However, mini programs have a very big feature - you can use them and then leave. Are the users who have used mini programs in the current scenario real users? Can we create a second scene to reach them later? It is actually very difficult to rely on just a small program, so what should we do?

We believe that we should build a matrix based on the WeChat ecosystem and centered on mini-programs.

Mini programs cannot be used as apps. Some companies make mini programs like APPs and put all the functions into one mini program. Putting aside whether this is too tiring for users, after the WeChat update, the mini-program entry interface looks like the desktop.

If you only have one mini program, it is equivalent to occupying only one entrance in the battle to occupy the desktop. If the product ecosystem or the scenarios that suit users are rich enough, we can split the various scenarios into different mini-programs, which means that there will be multiple mini-programs on the user's desktop. This is an important reason why mini-programs should be made into a matrix format.

As far as attracting new users is concerned, mini programs are naturally advantageous in terms of fission. It all depends on how to grasp the interest points of target users that cause fission behavior. In addition, there are ecological advertising exposure and offline QR code traffic. Offline QR code traffic generation is an advantage of the retail industry, because we will add some small program QR codes in the packaging materials, and you can directly follow the official account by scanning them.

The activity of mini programs is closely related to service accounts, personal accounts, and subscription accounts. Their relationship is a bit like arteries, veins, and capillaries.

The service account publishes the main information of the brand, and the subscription account serves different users and pushes different information content. Our company has more than a dozen subscription accounts. Firstly, it is to diversify risks. Secondly, our users have a wide age span. The things that 30-40 year old users pay attention to are different from those of 40-50 year old users. If we expand in the future, the content that young or female users pay attention to will be different. This is why we have multiple subscription accounts.

In addition, we will now direct all users who have purchased three times or more to personal accounts. The ladies who operate the personal accounts are completely friends with the users. They will chat with users, understand their needs, make purchase follow-up visits, and also post brand content or related consultations in their circle of friends. This method is very effective and worth promoting.

Make good use of the various push systems in the WeChat ecosystem, such as service notifications and template messages. These push systems can allow users to flow from mini-programs to anywhere you want.

I divided the specific operation into four steps:

(1) All contacts are occupied

There are many entrances to mini programs, and users also have many touchpoints during the interaction process. We must find ways to occupy them. For example: After the user completes the payment, we will guide him to go to the official account, follow the mini program, and the shopping list just posted on the mini program can guide the user to add the purchased or collected items to the good things circle. These are the entrances that users can see, and these touch points need to be checked, made into a map, and covered one by one. In addition, for each touchpoint, we need to think clearly about which part of the WeChat matrix just mentioned they belong to.

For example: Previously, our payment completion page had two guides: view order and follow the official account. Viewing orders actually allows users to jump to another of our mini programs. But we found that in this scenario, users tend to slowly forget about us while waiting for delivery. Later, we removed all the previous entrances and replaced them with exclusive consultants, completing the operation of retaining users to official and personal accounts through the chat page.

(2) Matrix jump

The picture below lists three mini-programs: the first one is for advertising promotion, the second one is the main mall, and the third one is for operational activities and gamification.

Never limit users to only one functional point in the matrix. Every function and product in the matrix needs to have an entry point to jump to each other. For example, you can jump from the promotion order to the main mall, you can jump to the event mini program when participating in an event, and after participating in the event, you can jump back to the order mini program, and you can even connect the mini program and the official account. In short, it is to make users come alive in the ecological matrix.

(3) Focus on experience

To draw a user experience map, in simple terms, is to break down every link of the user in the entire product life cycle, understand why the user comes, what he experiences, and with what mood he leaves.

Take the example of a user selecting different collar customization options on MatchU: We found that many users are novice users who have no idea whether the collar or sleeve type they choose matches, and they will be confused when given the option. We simulated user psychology at the time and decided to open up simple functions for novices, such as directly ordering model models. Although this function goes against the original intention of our product, we still respect the needs of users. After the function is optimized, the successful conversion rate of product add-to-cart and direct purchase has increased by 150%.

(4) Layered recall

After a form submission is made in the Mini Program, there will be a service notification every 7 days. Service notifications can be used to guide users to re-enter the mini program or follow public and personal accounts. In addition, after the user completes the payment, there are three more push opportunities. As long as we grasp the content well, these are all very good recall channels.

Let me share with you a very magical public account "Pinduoduo". There is not a single article in the public account, but users can receive a lot of article push notifications through message templates every day. This method is also worth learning from. Finally, I hope that in an environment where traffic is becoming increasingly expensive, everyone will change their perception of user growth, seize every touchpoint between each user and the product, design it well, and work carefully and patiently.

Related reading:

1. User operation: new funnel model for conversion analysis!

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?

Author: Wei Xin

Source: GrowingIO