The operation model of increasing 100,000 followers at 0 cost: budget ≠ resources

We are at a loss in the anxiety of zero budget, but in fact we are confusing two concepts: budget and resources. In 2018, I organized a small campaign and increased my followers by 100,000 at zero cost. The conversion rate of fans to registered users also reached a very high rate of 20% (the case will be analyzed in the next article). The idea I followed was: budget ≠ resources.

It’s the end of another year. When I browse some posts recently or talk with friends, I often hear people mention the word “budget”. It is generally believed that the budget determines how much we can do.

For operational partners, getting a little more budget means being able to add more channels for the event, buy more prizes, invite more influencers, and do more SEM. I have also seen many operational cases, where methodologies such as "increase 100,000 fans at 0 cost" and "attract 10,000 registrations with 0 budget" are promoted everywhere, causing many operation partners to fall into deep anxiety and unable to sleep at night.

The budget is like the operator's weapon. If the budget is large, I will carry an RPG to the battlefield; if the budget is small, I will carry a machete to the battlefield. With 0 budget, I just go into battle with nothing and wait to hand in a blank paper. But now more and more companies do not provide enough budget for operations. Instead, there are more and more requirements for you to convert hundreds of thousands of dollars for the company at zero cost. Many operations partners are shouting that their bosses are idiots, while being caught in a dilemma and at a loss. Is operations becoming more and more difficult?

From my personal operating experience, this is not the case. We are at a loss in the anxiety of zero budget, but in fact we are confusing two concepts: budget and resources. Many people tend to think that budget = resources. In 2018, I organized a small campaign and increased my followers by 100,000 at zero cost. The conversion rate of fans to registered users also reached a very high rate of 20% (the case will be analyzed in the next article). The idea I followed was: budget ≠ resources .

1. What do budget and resources mean?

1. Budget

When we mention budget in operational work, we generally mean the financial support provided by the company centered around the activity to cover our various expenses in the activity. Common ones include channel placement costs, material purchasing costs, transportation venue costs, etc.

All of these projects require money to complete, especially channel placement, which determines the source of traffic for the event. In recent years, online traffic has become increasingly expensive, and this alone consumes a large amount of budget. Sometimes it’s really scary to see huge amounts of money being spent but the traffic to the landing page is increasing at a snail’s pace. The double-digit CPA at the activity summary is really embarrassing.

2. Resources

The meaning of the word "resources" in operations, I understand it as our consumption in activities. In most cases, resources need to be purchased with money, such as the channels, materials, venues, big V invitations, prizes, etc. mentioned above. I think what we need to pay attention to here is that the "resources" we use in operational activities do not necessarily need to be purchased with a "budget".

The company's brand awareness, internal experts, existing materials, available manpower, etc., are factors that help our operations and are also resources, but they do not take up our budget. The concept of operation ≠ budget helps us broaden our thinking. When planning an event, we should bring in all available resources, borrow other people's flowers and offer our own Buddha (event data).

2. What are the dimensions of resources?

1. People

This is easy to understand. Company colleagues, users in existing communities, even friends in your own circle of friends, big Vs with whom you have collaborated several times and have a good relationship, partners in the business field, etc., are all resources.

For example: I follow a WeChat official account of a medium-sized company. Every time this official account pushes an event, the content is very beautiful, and it can be seen that the editor is also very attentive, but the number of readings basically fluctuates around 30-50, and the number of likes/likes is 0 or less than 5. This actually reflects a problem, that is, it is very likely that in this company, except for the editor himself who forwarded the picture and text, other colleagues did not forward it.

This is actually a waste of resources. As the owner of the event, I think it is not only understandable but also a good habit to integrate resources to encourage all colleagues around you to forward your activities/articles.

2. Channels

The channels here refer to all channels that can promote operational activities. In addition to paid channels, the distribution channels of partners mentioned above, some social groups and communities that you join, resources for mutual promotion and other free resources, if fully utilized, are not much less effective than paid channels.

3. Materials

There are many subdivisions of this, including the remaining materials and prizes from the previous event, the reusable idle materials left over from other departments' operations, the materials that can be sponsored by partners and sponsors, etc. Collect all the materials that can be used by you and use them for yourself.

4. Content

Unlike the dimensions mentioned above, such as people, channels, and materials, which are easy for everyone to understand, the dimension of "content" is often overlooked. The content here refers to the copywriting, courses, core content, etc. required for some operational activities.

For example, another operations department developed a set of online live courses for PC portal websites. The live courses were very effective, bringing in more than 300,000 clicks and the peak number of online attendees reached more than 5,000. So has this course, which cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars and the instructor more than ten hours to record, accomplished its mission?

Definitely not, you can still continue to use this resource. If we use this set of courses to conduct a knowledge payment fission targeting WeChat users (I won’t go into details about how to do it), can we attract a new group of mobile users?

If there are conversion guides embedded in the course, the registration conversion volume will also increase accordingly through your fission activities. Of course, this is an example in a specific context, but in actual work, there are many cases where a set of content is used multiple times and in multiple forms to maximize its value.

3. How to integrate free resources

1. Go out and communicate more

This is easy to say, but if you observe your surroundings, you can find that many operations colleagues have turned themselves into "autistic" people. I think it is inappropriate to position operations as a technical job, but I think it is appropriate to position it as marketing.

Operators need to go out and communicate and connect more with peers in different industries. In addition to improving their own knowledge and careers through communication, they can also have the opportunity to establish good relationships with many peers, share their resources, and build their own circles. What the circle can help you do is not just simply forwarding your activity links to friends circles and groups. A lot of resource sharing, demand matching, etc. will bring you surprises.

2. Owner mentality, actively promote communication

When operators are carrying out operational activities, they must establish their own duenr mentality - I am responsible for my activities to the end, and if the activities require resources or support, no matter if you are a manager or director, you should help me get them. With this mindset, we will integrate all available resources and not miss out on anything that can be used inside or outside the company.

Once a colleague of mine organized an event, in which he treated everyone to ice cream and optimized the event procedures, while also helping the neighboring operation team to improve their data. He also successfully pulled 20 audio prizes that the neighboring operation team had in reserve for his own use, which resulted in the neighboring operation team having to purchase new gifts for their event. You can see how strong his coordination and connection skills are.

To sum up

Budget ≠ resources is a way of thinking. On the one hand, we urge operations and marketing colleagues with large budgets to use funds efficiently, carefully select delivery channels, and control activity expenditures to improve the input-output ratio. On the other hand, for most partners who have tight budgets or even no budget, it helps us to open up new ideas and integrate all available resources. Even without a budget, we can still fight a well-organized marketing campaign.

Source: Ziv Zhao