Internet finance operation: one picture analyzes user operation!

The work content of user operation is complex and diverse, including the operation of new and old users, as well as conversion, activation, loss recovery, points membership, etc. This article shares with you a core model diagram to analyze user operations, enjoy~

This article will talk about user operations in the field of Internet finance. Let's first define the user operation we are talking about. Some companies will collectively refer to all operation positions as user operations because they believe that all operations revolve around users. Now as operations work becomes more and more subdivided, user operations basically refer specifically to the operations work from the time a user comes to the time they leave .

1. User Operation Core Model

The work content of user operation is complex and varied, including the operation of new and old users, as well as conversion, activation, loss recall, points membership, etc. The operation methods are even more diverse, including community operation, event operation, targeted operation, coupons, etc.

But after careful analysis, the core of user operations is the model shown below:

The model starts from user value and user growth path and is divided into two dimensions:

1. User stratification

For a product, the value of each user is different, so users need to be stratified. By stratifying, high-value users and low-value users are separated, and different operating strategies are adopted to maximize product value and commercial value.

How to conduct user segmentation scientifically?

As briefly introduced in previous articles, key indicators are selected to quantify user value, and users are divided from high value to low value to negative value according to the quantified indicators. For detailed stratification content, please refer to my article "Beginner's Guide to Internet Finance Operations (Part 2): Say Goodbye to User Portraits of "You Think" and "Should Be"".

Here are just two opinions:

The user stratification standards are not static, but change with the changes in business.

For example, in the financial management business, what kind of users are considered high-value? At the beginning, the higher the individual's investment and the higher the frequency of financial management, the higher the user's value; after gradually turning to wealth management, the key indicators become the investment amount and the type of asset allocation, because wealth management is more concerned with the diversified allocation of assets.

Even for the same type of business, different operating strategies will lead to different user stratification.

For example, in the stock brokerage business, for most companies, users with higher trading frequency are more valuable to them because they contribute higher commissions to the platform. But for some emerging Internet securities companies, what they want more is user quality, that is, users who understand stocks. Therefore, those high-frequency users who do not understand stocks and blindly follow the trend, chasing ups and downs are not the most valuable users.

To sum up, user segmentation is not a set of dead theories that are copied mechanically, but a set of user operation methods developed in actual business based on core operating indicators.

1. User Lifecycle

The life cycle theory is also a commonly used theory in user operations. It simulates the entire process of users in the product as a human life course, and then formulates differentiated operation strategies for each stage.

The user life cycle consists of four stages:

Phase 1: Introduction

The introduction period is the user's novice stage. Many games, e-commerce, and content platforms have a set of novice guides, novice tasks, novice activities, novice camps, etc., which are classic operating strategies for the introduction period.

The core of the introduction period operation is to quickly let users understand and use the product and retain users. In the Internet finance business, an additional goal is needed, which is to quickly establish trust. After all, financial business requires a high degree of trust.

There are three common mutual finance introduction strategies:

(1) Newbie Gift Pack

I'm sure everyone is familiar with this. Every company will offer gift packages when registering, so if you want users to remember you, you have to put in some thought. Like a case we did before, in addition to receiving financial coupons, registration also provided financial security insurance.

Why is it designed like this? Because users lack trust when they first come into contact with you, and fund security insurance can help reduce users' concerns and lower their psychological threshold. Later, Dabing also saw a similar design in Baidu Finance.

Let’s take another example, the trial fee of Wukong Finance. The trial money is actually virtual money. Users can use the trial money to buy novice financial products and withdraw them to their bank cards after maturity. Users can get free interest without investing real money.

On the one hand, this design allows users to fully experience the entire financial management process, and on the other hand, it indirectly encourages users to bind their cards, while greatly lowering the threshold for financial management. It is a very good form.

(2) Newbie Tasks

Newbie tasks are also a common operational strategy, which guides users to advance step by step by setting up a series of tasks such as card binding, sign-in, first-time financial management, and single transactions of up to 5,000 yuan.

There are two key points in setting up novice tasks:

1. The tasks should be arranged from easy to difficult. Be careful not to set a task that is too difficult right at the beginning. The first task must be as simple as possible. For example, signing in or browsing certain pages makes users feel that they can complete the task easily.
2. The reward must exceed the user's psychological expectations. It doesn’t mean that the reward has to be huge, but it has to exceed the user’s psychological cost of doing the task. For example, when a user signs in, we give him a gold coin (virtual currency equivalent to 1 yuan, which can be deducted for financial management), and the user will be very happy to complete the task.

(3) Products for beginners

Newbie-exclusive products are products that are only allowed to be purchased by newly registered users, similar to privileges for new users. Generally, new products have much higher interest rates than normal products, or offer fee discounts. Through novice products, users can overcome the psychological threshold of first-time investment.

The second stage - growth stage

When users complete a series of novice tasks, they enter the growth stage. Users at this stage have already established a preliminary connection with the product, but their stickiness to the product is not high and they are very easy to lose. Therefore, the key tasks at this stage are retention and growth.

Retention, needless to say, is about continuously increasing user stickiness through operational strategies so that users are willing to stay; while promotion is about allowing users to grow rapidly from a business perspective and quickly enter the mature stage.

The operational strategy at this stage requires differentiation and precision, and it is best not to use one set of strategies to serve all users. For example, if there is a reinvestment activity for users whose first financial management is about to expire, should we give away electronic products or return coins? Which one works better? There must be a differentiation of users. Young first- and second-tier users may prefer electronic products, while some middle-aged and elderly people want more tangible cash back.

The basis for differentiation and precision is to fully understand the users. Blind differentiation without user research and data analysis is not advisable. I have already shared the content about users in the second article. I will talk about data in the next article.

The third stage - maturity

When users enter the mature stage, they have basically become loyal users of the platform and have established deep stickiness with the platform. At this point, the user's potential has been basically developed. We have formed a mature understanding of the user's characteristics and preferences and established a complete operational strategy.

The operational focus at this stage is activity, especially the activity of high-value users. The operational strategy also tends to favor identity-based and logo-based soft services such as relationship-maintaining privileges, membership benefits, and exclusive services.

Many traditional industries have done a very good job in this regard, such as bank credit cards, airline memberships, hotel memberships, etc.

Alipay is at the forefront in the field of Internet finance. Last year, Alipay made a major iteration to its membership system, incorporating all businesses and users by differentiating levels, enriching rights and interests, and increasing collusion with businesses. It can be said to be a textbook case.

Stage 4 - Decline

The decline period is not about letting users decline naturally, but about avoiding user decline as much as possible through a series of early warning measures.

Therefore, the core of operations during the recession period lies in loss warning. When we discover that users are showing signs of decline, we start to adopt early warning strategies, such as exclusive benefits, targeted activities, new feature recommendations, etc.

The key to this series of strategies lies in two points: discovering the time of decline and recalling user preferences.

For example, we found that a loyal high-investment user did not reinvest after two consecutive financial products expired. After data analysis, we found that the user was very concerned about the return on financial products and had a high risk tolerance. Because of the recent interest rate cut by the platform, the user no longer reinvested. If we want to recall him, how do we do it?

One option is to send a high-cost coupon with the equivalent amount of two financial management transactions to stimulate users to continue to reinvest; another option, based on the recent good stock market conditions, recommends a high-quality equity fund to users to guide users to cross-invest.

2. 3 User Operation Tools

The above article has broken down the core ideas and key sections of the entire user operation in great detail. I believe that everyone has a basic understanding of user operation, but it does not mean that you have mastered the skills of user operation.

I personally feel that user operation is a job that requires accumulation and experience, because our understanding of users is constantly deepening. Only with the deepening of our understanding of users and continuous attempts and reviews can we form a set of effective methodologies.

Here are three tools for practice:

1. A/B Testing

This is a method introduced in the book "Growth Hacker". It originally came from Silicon Valley and is a powerful tool for hackers to drive growth through technology. It is now also being praised by more and more Internet companies.

A/B testing, as the name suggests, is testing. Before we explore an effective strategy, in order not to disturb too many users and to explore quickly, we adopt group testing to verify which strategy is more effective, and then expand it to more users after successful verification.

Here’s an A/B test I once ran:

I needed to test the best communication method, guidance path and communication time to activate new users to complete their first purchase. To this end, I retrieved multi-dimensional user characteristics such as user APP startup data, whether the identity was verified, whether there were coupons in the account, etc., and divided the users into 8 groups based on these characteristics. I conducted tests for one month and recorded the conversion rate of each step in detail.

It was ultimately discovered that users with authenticated identities were most likely to convert and had stronger investment capabilities; in terms of communication methods, exposing the benefits and creating attraction points such as 9.6% and 30-day expiration would make it easier to impress users.

By copying this proven strategy to the operations of the entire user base, the final operational effect nearly doubled.

This is a small A/B testing case, and everyone can try to use it.

1. User Tag Map

We also talked a lot about the ideas of user stratification and classification operations, which must rely on labeled user graphs. Without the support of label maps, all layered and customized operations are castles in the air.

Some operations colleagues may also process some user data and analyze user characteristics on a daily basis. Of course, these are all very good and deserve encouragement and support. What I want to emphasize here is that when the number of users we face rises sharply, even to the tens of millions or hundreds of millions, this primitive method may not be enough and too inefficient, and we must rely on the power of technology.

Therefore, we must plan user tags in advance, do a good job of data collection, connect data and operations, and promote products and technologies to assist us in completing the tag construction.

1. Funnel conversion monitoring

This tool is equivalent to our eyes. The effectiveness of each operation, the location of each problem, and the improvement of each step in conversion rate are inseparable from the monitoring of funnel conversion.

Through this set of monitoring, we can clearly see every operation, conversion and loss of users after the operation action is initiated, which helps us adjust and optimize the actions. Here are some third-party tools recommended, such as: Baidu Statistics, Growing IO, Talking Data, CaoLiao QR Code, Sina Short Link, etc.

Source: Beijing Soldier