How to promote and attract new users during the cold start phase of APP?

As the threshold for APP development is lowered, many startup teams often face: limited funding, insufficient manpower, lack of resources and zero data. But the project has been launched, and how to attract new users through cold start of the APP has become one of the important tasks of the team.

1. How to find users

How should a startup team operate when faced with a lack of information on money, people, resources, data, etc.? Now that the project has been launched, the product positioning and target users of the APP have been determined from the beginning of the team formation. Clarifying product functions, that is, "What is this APP used for?", is the core function that hits the user's pain points. All research and development and optimization are carried out around this point. Only by clarifying the product positioning and target users can you choose the application category more accurately when listing.

The product will be rough and simple in its early stages of development, but it must be ensured to be effective. For example, WeChat was originally a simple and free instant messaging tool. As long as both parties were connected to the Internet and running WeChat, they could send and receive text messages for free with no limit on the number of messages sent.

After all qualifications are prepared and the app is listed on various app markets, try to apply for the first release and other free resources in the app market, and use the main features to attract app store users to download and use it. In addition, using the main function as the entry point, free promotion can also be carried out through large-traffic free channels. For example, establishing official accounts through mainstream traffic platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, and Douyin, or acquiring users through target user communities and competing products.

2. Where do seed users come from?

Seed users, also known as core users, are not the same as the first batch of users. Instead, they are heavy users of the product who dare to try new things, can tolerate product defects and are willing to provide feedback and suggestions for the product. Their pain points are more intense than those of ordinary users.

So, how do users obtain seeds? Startup teams are short of resources in all aspects, and the functions are simple, rough, and not well-known, so they can only attract very limited users in the early stages. However, this also means that more time is left to communicate with these users, which can help build closer relationships with them and help discover and cultivate seed users. The quality of seed users is more important than quantity, and we should not blindly pursue quantity.

By building trust and loyalty through frequent interactions, seed users can help us improve the product experience. Timely handling of bugs, demands and suggestions of seed users and keeping information synchronized and transparent will help users continue to pay attention to and trust the product, and the operations team will also be able to find the real needs of users.

I believe many people have heard the story of Xiaomi seed users. Lei Jun and Li Wanqiang have told it on many occasions. When developing the Xiaomi mobile phone system (MIUI), Lei Jun set a target: to achieve 1 million users of MIUI without spending any money. Therefore, Li Wanqiang, the person in charge of MIUI, could only build word of mouth through forums: he went to forums all over the world to find senior users. Several people registered hundreds of accounts, flooded mobile phone forums with advertisements every day, carefully selected 100 super users to participate in the design, development, and feedback of MIUI, and even gave the title of "Honorary Development Team" to outstanding seed users. With the help of word-of-mouth spread by these 100 people, MIUI was quickly promoted.

(Photo source: Miyou Community)

At that time, Lei Jun would spend an hour every day replying to comments on Weibo, and even engineers had to reply to posts on the forum on time. According to statistics, there are about 8,000 posts with substantive content on the Xiaomi forum every day, and each engineer has to reply to an average of 150 posts per day. There will also be a status behind each post, showing the extent to which the suggestion has been adopted and the ID of the engineer who solved the problem, which gives users a sense of being valued.

It can be seen that seed users bring users a sense of importance and honor through operational behaviors, making users closely connected with the products.

3. How to promote the initial product

Startup teams have limited funds, so promotion expenses must be carefully calculated. In the process of cultivating seed users, you can stimulate users through benefits such as prizes, VIP privileges, and attract traffic from external channels through event planning to promote conversions.

If the product cannot be put on the shelves temporarily or has not been put on the shelves yet, users can be guided to QQ/WeChat communities, official accounts, mini-programs, etc. to achieve quick product experience and lower costs. You can also use traffic platforms such as Weibo and Tik Tok to spread your products.

For example, before the sports and fitness product Keep went online, it recruited experience officers to try free fitness classes. Such activities reduce channel promotion costs, but activity costs still have to be paid.

4. Summary

Startup products can use high-traffic platforms to establish official accounts and use welfare activities to attract users who are willing to try new things. But don’t be blindly focused on the number of users; quality of seed users is more important than quantity. Ensure the use of core functions, discover and cultivate seed users, attach great importance to the opinions/suggestions/demands of seed users and handle feedback in a timely manner, gradually guide seed users to optimize products, and then start vigorously promoting them to achieve rapid growth after the functions are mature.

source: Enjoy