How to operate B-end products?

When the platform expands B-side users, are there any differences in methods at different times and stages? Is there any focus? . . .

1. What is platform B-side operation?

How to define it?

The so-called B-side operations refer to people who carry out operations activities for business (commerce, enterprises).

Specific to the business, such as Meituan Dianping (corresponding to offline merchants), Taobao and JD.com (corresponding to online Taobao/flagship store owners), app stores (corresponding to enterprises/application developers), search (corresponding to website owners/enterprises), self-media platforms (self-media people/content entrepreneurs), etc.

Of course, there are more types. Even in the field of short videos, creators or organizations that post videos can be generally referred to as B-side users.

The biggest difference between B-end and C-end users is that the decision-making process is lengthy, there are many decision makers, they are calm and vigilant, and they only focus on benefits and costs.

We once held a conference with hundreds of participants. Although the atmosphere in the meeting was lively, a subsequent survey showed that more than 80% of the participants said that "what they heard was very valuable and they would go back and report to the boss", and only less than 10% said that they had made the decision and decided to join, but they would go back to the company to discuss the specific implementation steps and time nodes.

After one month, only about 20% of users actually actively accessed the platform, and the rest mostly relied on BD and operations to push for access one by one.

This is completely different from the decision-making path of one person, at most two or three people, or a family on the C-end.

2. What does the B-side operation business focus on?

What aspects do you personally focus on?

The operation of the platform's B-side users focuses on the following four points:

1. Attract new customers and promote activation:

Through various means (ground promotion, conferences, content dissemination, lead acquisition, cooperation, etc.), B-side users are attracted to the platform and actively participate in and carry out business activities. In fact, these have been discussed a lot in various articles.

2. Access construction:

In the process of introducing resources, establishing a smooth and universal B-side introduction path is the basis for ensuring the rapid development of the platform.

For example: how to attract B-side to enter Baijiahao, and how to motivate them to post articles after entering. How can Meituan merchants upload dishes and instructions, and independently set reasonable pricing and other functional operations?

3. Rules and audit:

Formulate B-side rules, guide users to abide by the rules, participate in the formulation of anti-cheating strategies, and lead the audit & operation team to punish and communicate with the B-side in a timely manner.

Here I would like to focus on compliance. For a platform, having a group of compliant B-side users who can continuously produce high-quality resources is the most important thing for the platform.

It can have a long-term impact on the platform's tone, style, and subsequent security and risk control. The more solid the early work, the lower the subsequent costs. Otherwise, it will bury an increasingly larger hidden danger and become a time bomb for the platform.

Compliance requires a lot of cost and effort. At the same time, it also requires people with a strong sense of responsibility and risk awareness to hold it.

4. Gameplay creation:

Work with the B-side to develop a mature and usable business growth and monetization model; and promote and reuse it on more B-sides to achieve overall market growth.

Many platform operators need to understand one thing: B-side users are not your leeks. The two of you are interdependent and you have the same parents for food and clothing.

Therefore, the process of helping B-side users increase their income is also the process of increasing your own income. Taobao has achieved high growth by relying on the prosperity of its merchants, and Apple has achieved App Store by relying on the prosperity of its developers.

Therefore, working together with the B-side to explore high-quality gameplay and profit models is a clear and win-win approach.

3. When the platform expands B-side users,

At different times and stages,

Is there any difference in the method? Is there any focus?

Just in terms of "expanding B-side users", there are many differences.

In general, it includes the cold start period, accelerated growth period, and steady growth period.

During the cold start period , what is most lacking is sufficiently convincing case studies and sufficiently optimistic prospect benefits accompanying the cases. It is also a cold start story on both the B-end and the C-end.

The C-end will not be discussed this time.

However, for B-side users, various benefits are given to pioneers through various means, such as BAT developer subsidies, Toutiao content creator subsidies, and even when Meituan, Ele.me and Didi started their businesses, they had to pretend to be users to order takeout and take taxis. These are all to convey confidence to the B-side and keep them in their laps.

Why WeChat mini programs can explode quickly? Because everyone can see the cases and benefits. It is built on a low threshold and rich imagination.

During the accelerated growth period , the contradiction is not that the B-side does not understand the benefits, but that many B-sides do not know where the platform is, how to successfully access it, and how to operate it smoothly...

Many platform products have a series of problems such as rules, review processes, inability to operate, product bugs, etc., which result in a large number of B-end users "coming with excitement but leaving with disappointment". Not only did they fail to successfully open the access, but they also wasted many of their own valuable resources.

When users are at a loss when looking at a bunch of platform feedback. Operations need to intervene in a timely manner and reduce user costs and improve efficiency through detailed and meticulous services and tutorials. Common ones include beginner guides, detailed Q&A, and instructor course sharing.

The period of steady growth . Being able to enter this period means that the platform has been initially verified and has survived the competition. At this point, driven by proven interests, large, keen-nosed, and powerful B-end parties have already connected to most of the parties.

At this time, we should focus on exploring more mid- and long-tail user markets. Since they lack the corresponding strength and resources, most cases are not noticeable to them, or they are "willing but unable". Only the success stories of people “around them” (companies of similar size to theirs) can make them alert and motivated.

This stage mainly relies on discovering and packaging mid- and long-tail cases, and attracting decision makers to promote through successful cases.

4. Platform for B-side users

What kind of classification is based on what conditions?

This is a big problem. Different platforms have their own characteristics and classification methods, and may even use multiple models together.

But in general, classification is a combination of multi-dimensional intervals rather than a single line segment distribution.

For example, a certain large enterprise has very good offline sales, and its sales volume ranks among the top in the country. But out of caution, their online store is barely operational, and their data indicators are not as good as those of many second- and third-tier companies in the industry. If we simply rank them into different grades, where would this company rank?

It is obvious that if we classify products into different levels, the original competitive landscape will eventually be repeated and the market will remain the same without any changes. However, this is not conducive to the differentiation and personalization of platform development.

Here I will talk about a classification method, which evaluates from two aspects: platform revenue and B-end revenue. Through the four-quadrant rule, it judges the closeness of the relationship between the B-end and the platform, and the platform chooses the B-end that best matches and is most suitable for itself.

Although the four-quadrant diagram looks simple, it requires B-side platform operators to truly understand the nature of their own platform and B-side revenue, and make judgments based on multiple factors such as income, cost, and brand.

Although in theory a platform should be all-encompassing, in reality no platform has achieved this so far. After all, human resources are limited, and the development of the Internet is not a story of one platform dominating the market.

Bilibili does not buy currently popular TV series because the profits for the platform and the B-side are not great.

Zhihu does not do Q&A like Baidu Knows, because although the platform’s revenue is high, the B-side revenue is small.

Douyin will not recommend Kuaishou-style videos to you because the platform’s profits are small or even harmful, and the profits on the B-side are even smaller.

When we touch the B side, we give priority to the first and fourth quadrants, followed by the second quadrant. If the relationship between the two is divided into the third quadrant, we can basically put it aside for a while and observe it later.

As time goes by, the position of each B-side will change greatly, and we must also follow up in a timely manner.

5. What different operational methods are used for different categories of B-side users ?

How to motivate them to produce more?

Which of these methods are more acceptable to B-side users?

What does the B-side pursue? It is all the means and abilities that can enable them to gain benefits.

Money, traffic, reputation, popularity, users... and all the product features, operational capabilities, and technical capabilities that can obtain these things...

I hope that every platform operator will take stock of what they can provide and what additional benefits they can provide that are different from other platforms before trying to touch the B-side.

What we are often asked is: How are you better than XXX platform? What is the difference between you and XXX? XXX has 12345 incomes, do you have them? ~This kind of words.

When we think about it carefully, the so-called adoption of different operating methods or motivating them to produce output is actually nothing more than nine words: low cost, high returns, and long-term prospects.

1. The B-side entrepreneur has just started his business and needs more exposure and more users, but you calmly say that the advantage of our platform is better conversion and retention. They don't need this at this stage.
2. Xiao Zhang on the B-side is in the deep waters of a fierce battle. He needs higher returns and better conversions to improve his own data. As a result, you say that we can help you accumulate a group of new users on this platform. Xiao Zhang thinks to himself, do I really need these users from you? Maybe it's repeated...
3. On the B-side, Lao Ma has become a giant in the industry, but their current strategy is to acquire more users from other platforms and thus build their own closed ecological loop. As a result, you came to me and said that we can achieve a closed loop of the user life cycle within the platform, which not only reduces the loss of users to other platforms, but also has a higher conversion rate on our platform. ~ Lao Ma: I’ll give half of my life to you? Are you here to sabotage?

For the B-side, the gameplay is just a carrier. If you want to operate the B-side, you still have to rely on "hard core" interests. When you let them earn more money, even if you don’t do any operations, the B-side will join in an endless stream (Taobao in the early years, official accounts in the middle period, and Douyin now).

6. Does the platform provide a user growth system for B-side users?

Why yes/no? What kind of system is it?

Other B-ends may not have it, but the B-end of the platform must have a growth system.

As mentioned earlier, platforms need to continuously cultivate and build B-ends that are in line with their own tone. They can serve as showcases to attract more B-ends to participate and bring new C-ends to the platform.

Do users go to Taobao or to stores on Taobao? This is very important to think about.

The B-side user growth system we often talk about is often carried out through a platform academy, which allows users to master more knowledge and skills through learning on the platform, thereby improving their business capabilities and their various data indicators, and ultimately feeding back to the platform and promoting its prosperity.

The above is the best B-side growth system in China, Taobao University. It covers everything from newcomers opening stores to advanced professional training, as well as the growth from ordinary B-side to instructors with personal brands. The whole idea is very worth learning from.

Similarly, there are Baidu Search Academy, Baidu Marketing Academy, JD Business School, Tencent University, etc., all of which combine product development and user needs to build a growth system for the B-side.

7. B-side users and platforms

What is the reason for them to contact each other (B-side users contact the platform, and the platform contacts B-side users) ?

What are the contact tools? QQ group? WeChat group? mail?

Which of these methods is more effective and useful? Why?

The main theme of this article from the beginning is that the two are interconnected because of interests.

Just like when Meituan finds that merchants have not yet joined the platform, it will have a group of BDs to strongly push and guide them to join. Correspondingly, some businesses find it profitable and do not need BD to come to their door, so they find ways to find BD and ask how to join.

Of course, in addition to the above reasons, we will also contact each other because we need the B-side to participate in activities, the B-side encounters bugs and needs to contact the platform, etc.

However, in the use of contact tools, although all the above maintenance channels will be used, each has certain characteristics and advantages.

But I still recommend that the platform establish a customer service system and use formal customer service channels.

Because when feedback is provided on the B-side, the customer service channel has two major characteristics: formality and privacy. One-on-one communication is not as easy as reporting problems in a group chat, which can easily lead to problems fermenting quickly or being exploited by interested parties to cause a public opinion crisis.

But when it comes to maintaining users and operating activities, based on my personal experience, QQ groups are still the best.

QQ groups have the capabilities of muting, group files, group spaces, multiple group announcements, and direct private messaging with group members without adding friends. They can effectively avoid and control speech within the group and carry out the most effective PUSH activities.

8. When operating B-side users,

Will the platform ask B-side users if they have encountered any difficulties?

For example, if he doesn't want to do it anymore, do you often ask him what difficulties he has encountered?

As I understand it, this question is actually asking whether there is awareness of proactively providing B-side services and conducting B-side user research. However, this is a basic skill for B-side operations and must be understood. It is best for the platform to set up a dedicated communication service channel for this purpose.

As a platform operator, you need to control the context of the B-side at all times, but I suggest that you generally don’t ask questions like "What difficulties do you have?" or "What troubles do you have?". These questions lack value and are not the core of operations.

A good question is usually : What help do you need most at this stage? Do you need certain education and training on product features and profit methods? Do you need case references and lecturer sharing? Are you willing to communicate and improve together on profitability and monetization?

From an operational perspective, the goal is to improve the other party's operational capabilities as much as possible. This is something that operations personnel need to spend time and energy thinking about every day.

Your ultimate goal is not to focus on a few means or feedback on product bugs. After all, Mr. Ma also said that you should help people make money instead of thinking about how to make money from them first.

If you just want to know whether there are any bugs in the product function, or what parts are not working well, you need our feedback. The platform's customer service channels are packed every day, and the various questions left by users on various forums, Baidu Knows, Experience, and Tieba are not waiting for the product to collect them. Instead, the operations department spends half a day asking questions and only gets feedback on a few cases. Does this really reflect the value of operations?

9. In order to allow B-side users to have more and better output,

What tools can the platform provide them?

The tools provided by the platform are generally divided into two types:

1. One is the platform foundation , such as CMS tools, store opening tools, etc. Without these tools, business cannot be conducted, and of course they are also the foundation of the platform.
2. One is a revenue product that can help the B-side save costs, improve efficiency and even directly increase revenue. Common ones are developer assistance kits, advanced data analysis tools, free AI capabilities, quick website building templates, etc.

When providing tools to the B-side, we must consider their real needs rather than just giving them what is available on the market.

At the same time, for the B-side, it is imperative to ensure that the benefits outweigh the costs. Although many platform products look great, they either lack universality, or have extremely complicated processes, or charge too high fees. The B-side may feel that these products are bright in the early stages, but after a few months or even a few weeks, they will give up on these products and vote with their feet, leaving you embarrassed.

As an operator, you need to continuously couple the needs between products and users in this process, guide users in use, promote functional improvements, and stabilize user confidence. But remember not to force promotion or trick the B-side into purchasing and using it.

After all, B-side users are not the leeks of the platform, but a group of people. The more money they make, the more money they can help you make. Therefore, improving their capabilities and working hard to clear obstacles are the key to testing the B-side platform's operational capabilities.

10. What do you think?

Operation of B-side users,

Is there anything I need to pay special attention to?

There are probably three points:

1. Never try to think that you are more professional than B-side users.

You run a food delivery platform, and you tell your boss that your rating on the platform is average. I have big data, so let us teach you how to cook, and that way your rating will go up.

The boss said that I have been running the restaurant for 30 years and it has not gone bankrupt. Do I need your guidance?

My husband and I, an old couple, don’t know how to operate it at all. A lot of things went wrong and we had to apologize. If the young man who asked me to join hadn’t talked so much about it, I would never have used your crappy platform.

At this time you are dumbfounded. As an operator, what you need to do is to help the B-side perfectly embrace the platform, rather than teaching them how to cook better.

2. No matter how big the B-side enterprise is, the person connecting with you is still a "person".

Understand everyone's joys, sorrows, anger and happiness, understand the differences and distinctions between personal growth and business growth for them, and operate and help improve in a targeted manner.

Before doing any activity, when you separate the two, B-side activities will be easier to do. For example, in the case of Taobao, should it recommend star companies or star lecturers?

3. Don’t try to be partial or treat the B-side as a brother.

We are business partners, and what you need is to complete a series of operational behaviors fairly and impartially. When you don’t do this, it will not only destroy the ecological balance, but also have extremely adverse effects on other B-ends. At the same time, there will definitely be eyes watching you from behind.

There are thousands of laws and regulations, but compliance is the first one. If you don’t do things in accordance with the regulations, you will suffer a lot.

Source: Mushan