Operational methodology: How to attract new users?

Operational methodology is the foundation for building operational work and a guiding light for operating projects. Summarize your own methodology. When you encounter bottlenecks, you need the methodology to help you sort out your ideas and find breakthrough points. Otherwise, you will really be crossing the river by feeling the stones and doing things based on your intuition.

Many friends complain that operations lack their own work method system, and there are no systematic education methods and materials, making it very difficult to improve. There are only some experience books published by predecessors for your reference. This is equivalent to the fact that the operations staff not only have to figure out how to do their job on their own without any guidance, but also have to compile a set of "textbooks", which can be called the HARD mode!

I believe that every friend who has been in contact with operations for some time will think about what is the methodology of operations? Is there an operational “formula” that can be applied to all projects?

I would like to share with you my own methodology here. This methodology starts from the underlying logical thinking of operations, emphasizes the cooperation between operations and "products" (products in a broad sense, which will be discussed below), and gradually breaks down and formulates operational strategies based on goals and underlying core. There aren't many technical things, but it can be said that there is a lot of practical stuff.

What is the essence of operations?

The core essence of operation, or the underlying logic, is to "meet the needs that target users 'think' of", which can be divided into three parts here: target users, "thinking", and meeting needs.

So it can be said that all the work of operation must start from these three parts. Under these three parts, they can be divided into more detailed operation types, which are introduced one by one below:

Target Users

That is, find those target user groups. Basically, it is a part of user operation, such as user analysis, research, etc., to determine "what are the target users"; after determination, promotion is carried out, that is, "finding those target users", which is basically channel operation and most of the work of marketing promotion.

"Thought"

What is meant here can be interpreted as "the user originally had it but was unaware of it, and was stimulated by the operation". Note that here it means having it but not knowing it, not not having it, because if it doesn't have it, it can't be stimulated no matter what. For example, you can't sell shampoo to a bald head. Only if you have it but don't know it can you find a way to stimulate it. For example, if a bald person is replaced with a person with hair loss, he can still be sold because you can focus on hair growth.

It can also be understood as exploring potential needs at a deeper level than "product operation". If you want to do it well, you need to deeply understand user needs and psychology, and even explore the weaknesses of human nature. Combining the Malos needs with the Seven Deadly Sins (Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Lust and Gluttony), we can find some points of fit.

Malos's fifth-tier requirements:

1. Physiological needs (needs for food, water, air, and shelter are all physiological needs);
2. Safety needs (the need for personal safety, stability in life, and freedom from pain, threats, or disease);
3. social needs (needs for friendship, love, and belonging);
4. Esteem needs (a personal sense of achievement or self-worth, including recognition and respect from others);
5. Self-actualization needs (developing one's own potential and achieving certain goals).

Physiological needs - benefit guidance; social needs - social guidance; self-actualization and respect needs - show-off guidance;

Therefore, strong operational intervention is required here, and most of the operational work actually revolves around this link. For example, event operations, e-commerce operations, and some content operations.

If users do not have the need to buy, through operational optimization (activities, etc.), users will have the desire (demand) to buy and are guided to buy. This is basically e-commerce operation.

The users themselves do not have their own opinions on a certain matter, but through (inflammatory) content, they start to pay attention to it and generate a desire (demand) to discuss it. This can be considered content operation, and the best example is of course Mi Meng;

The users themselves have no demand for the product, but through new user activities, such as red envelopes, users are encouraged to download and use the product.

Meeting the needs

The demands here can be understood as regular demands, rigid demands, and demands that can be slightly explored. The first point is more about functionality, while the second point is more about user subjectivity. Taking the medical industry as an example, a user who registers online for illness may later have the need to buy medicine online, which basically falls into this category; if a user who registers online also has the need to buy insurance or have a physical examination, it can basically be considered the second category.

This part basically covers the routine work of operations. Most of the work related to user operations and product operations falls into this stage.

(Before points 2 and 3, the boundaries are not very clear or unchanging, and they often change in work. As for how to distinguish them, it is actually not very meaningful. The introduction here is just to build an understanding of the essence of operations)

Operations and products complement each other

The products mentioned in the article are not limited to apps, but are products in a broad sense. Their positioning is more inclined to be a carrier of operations. For example, a small program, a platform for publishing content, etc. are all products. During the operation process, some products can be changed (independent research and development), while some products cannot be changed (third-party content platforms). However, for products that cannot be changed, it is only the technology that cannot be iterated, not the product itself that cannot cooperate.

1. Goal-oriented operational steps and strategies

The core essence of attracting new users is "finding target users, meeting their needs, and guiding them to register and use the service"; it can be broken down into key action points: "finding target users", "meeting their needs", and "guiding them to register and use the service". If you want to attract new users, you can start with the above three points.

1. About "find"

The core here is "finding target users", which includes both "quality" and "quantity".

It is easy to understand starting from "quantity", which is nothing more than traffic exposure and so on. It is necessary to conduct a specific analysis based on the existing operating methods to determine whether it is possible to maximize exposure and promotion with the current resources. If the answer is no, then you need to take stock of what other resources you can use to expand promotion and exposure?

Starting from the "quality" point, it is necessary to consider the accuracy of the target users. If you want to expand the user pool at this stage, you need to consider:

1. Are the current channel resources accurate and meet the user profile? It is obviously inappropriate to promote maternal and infant products on a platform where teenagers gather.
2. Consider the target user portrait and whether the scope of the target users can be expanded. For example, a product for mothers and babies can be promoted among pregnant women. Although it may not be 100% in line with the target users, it may gain a large number of users in a few months. This type of traffic is related to the target users, and there is also pure "waterproofing". For example, Douyin's early positioning was urban fashionable youth, and it used a new way of playing that combined music with videos. In the later stage, the promotion gradually moved to the grassroots level, so naturally the traffic increased a lot.

Therefore, when formulating operational strategies at this stage, the common ones are:

• Replace resources/strive for budget, expand promotion effect/exposure?
• Clarify the target user profile (early stage of product) and conduct targeted promotion

1. About “Meeting Needs”

The core of this link is to meet the needs of target users . In order to attract new customers in this stage, a perfect combination of products and operations is required. The products can be expanded in both breadth and depth, while operations basically expand user needs, focusing on the "thought" mentioned above.

(1) Breadth

Expand product functionality and positioning to expand the scope of target users (traffic pool). For example, medical service products can add health functions to attract most users who have no medical needs but only health care needs. The most typical example is Ping An Good Doctor, which provides medical care on one hand and health care on the other, so naturally the daily active users are also very impressive.

(2) Depth

To expand the usage recommendation rate of surrounding users, to put it simply, is whether one target user can bring in a bunch of target users. A classic example is the function of sharing baby photo albums with family members on the maternal and infant product Qinbaobao, which can really be said to be very in-depth.

The author believes that many products that incorporate social networking may also have this level of consideration. Of course, not all products are suitable for adding such functions. Specific analysis is required based on the specific situation. Unsuitable products can be expanded from the operational level.

(3) Operational expansion

This can be understood as the common "sharing" in operations, which requires exploring the potential needs of users. We can plan various forms of sharing and attracting new customers based on product positioning and user needs, such as the most common sharing and red envelope activities of major food delivery apps, the buy a book and give a book to a friend for free feature of WeChat Reading, etc.

1. About "Guided Registration and Use"

At this step, the focus is basically on improving conversion rate. The main issue is whether the product registration process is simple and clear, and whether the operational means are used to assist in guiding registration. For the latter, there are analyses in many operational experience posts, so I will not elaborate on them here.

To sum up: Based on the case, we can see what operational strategies we need to formulate if we want to attract new customers.

Case analysis: What methods can a WeChat public account (subscription account) that mainly targets mothers and babies and regularly produces health science content use to attract new users?

We analyze according to the above steps:

First, how to find the "target users"? The operation strategies are:

Expand promotion effect/exposure:

Ways to spend money include Guangdiantong, self-media alliance, WeChat advertising and other promotion methods (depending on the company's resources and budget);

Free methods include exchanging resources for mutual promotion, posting in major maternal and child communities (water army), and attracting people through WeChat accounts (communities).

Expand user target range:

Just like the example given in the article just now, can we promote some content related to pregnancy and childbirth to attract these expectant mothers and babies? Can we promote some content that the elderly care about to attract these non-mothers and babies but users who help their children take care of their children?

Secondly, how to "meet needs". Here our product is the official account, and the functional point of the output is content.

The operating strategies are:

Produce high-quality content:

Content quality is the core of "product" meeting needs. I feel that I can write another article about how to create high-quality content. This article focuses on strategic direction, so I will not go into details here.

Strengthen content sharing and traffic diversion:

According to the "product breadth expansion" mentioned above, it has been mentioned in the expansion of the target user range, so content diversion is mainly considered from the depth of the product. How to make users willing to share the article? In fact, it is also the product orientation mentioned above, considering more from the content itself:

• Useful information type: users feel that the content is valuable and are willing to share it for the purpose of learning.
• "Incitement" type: full of emotions, can resonate with readers, say what you want to say on behalf of others, and users share it to speak for you, etc.
• Curiosity-seeking type: The content expresses subversive viewpoints, which makes users curious and willing to share.

There is no clear boundary between the above types, and the best content, of course, is something that has all of them.

Regular activity sharing and traffic diversion:

Because the official account is a product that cannot be changed (it does not support independent changes to product functions), the operation-oriented approach to "sharing" is more focused on sharing activities.

Combined with the normal changes in WeChat, there are different sharing methods in different periods, such as voting activities and sharing benefits when induced sharing was not yet prohibited. In the later period, since most sharing guidance was prohibited, sharing can only be carried out through some more circuitous ways, such as social poster activities that swiped the screen. Although it is not a direct way to guide attention to the official account, it is within the WeChat ecosystem and is also a better sharing method.

Finally, for official accounts, guiding registration and use is actually guiding attention. Because the process of this part is very simple, which is to get users to pay attention. When WeChat does not prohibit inducing attention, we can also attract users' attention through some benefits, virtual prizes, etc., and then reply with passwords to receive them. It may not work for the time being, so it is difficult to make too many conversions in this link. There are only header and bottom animated pictures in the article to prompt users to pay attention.

Source: Cai Cai