Solid info! 6 customer acquisition models for APP promotion!

This time, I spent 2 days researching various popular apps on the market and their methods of acquiring new customers. I also compiled a report on app customer acquisition models for everyone to use.

Luo Pang of Luoji Siwei has been giving New Year’s Eve speeches every year since 2015, and named this series “ Friends of Time ”. In this series of speeches, Luo Pang proposed the concept of "national total time", which triggered Internet practitioners' thinking about the "direction of the second half of the Internet."

The second half of the Internet has gradually evolved from competition for new users to competition for existing users, or competition for the time of existing users.

From the data in December 2016 and 2017 in the QuestMobile report, we can see that:

The average daily usage time of Chinese mobile Internet users only increased by 8.7 minutes.

The competition and seizure of "user time" has become increasingly fierce, but the powerful giants BAT and the new "Toutiao" have occupied the vast majority of user time by operating their own products or acquiring products.

However, under the premise of fierce competition for user time, APP is no longer the "darling" of the market. Mini programs have become the dominant force in the WeChat ecosystem , and quick apps have thrived like the "prince" under the support of 11 domestic mobile phone manufacturers. Toutiao's Toutiao account and Alibaba 's Dayu account have also started to "confront WeChat head-on". APP, an ancient product form, is also under constant impact from the market.

But, ginger is ginger after all, and it will still be spicier than the older ones. Whether offline or online, APP operators are proving their mature models and new ideas to the market.

Six modes

So how does the APP acquire customers? Let’s take a closer look.

1. Human- based sales model

This is a very heavy customer acquisition model, which is also the origin of the QR code scanning street in Wangjing, Beijing in the early years. You can set up a tent in a crowded place, put some gifts, and hand out flyers to acquire customers. More meticulous promoters will distribute flyers to different people and use different sales pitches according to the person. After Tik Tok became popular, there were also people distributing flyers in cosplay costumes, which made the whole process more interesting.

Of course, as the industry has developed to date, it has also spawned some ground-based services for B-side enterprises.

2. Cross-industry cooperation model

The essence of cross-industry cooperation is traffic cooperation. In this model, it specifically includes offline mutual promotion, online cooperation and brand alliance.

On Double 12, word of mouth cooperated with offline convenience stores, using word of mouth to offer 50% discounts, which effectively directed the traffic of offline convenience stores to the APP. Recently, JD.com and iQiyi have connected their memberships to attract traffic to each other in their respective scenarios. When Uber was promoting itself in China, it was a master of brand joint marketing . At that time, it cooperated with Magnum and MINI to hold Uber Ice Cream Day, where customers could order Uber and receive ice cream for free.

3. Advertising delivery model

Advertising is a customer acquisition model that involves real money. For traffic owners who provide advertising services, there is a relatively mature pricing model. Regardless of whether it is a model that focuses on product promotion and settlement based on display, or a model that focuses on customer acquisition and settlement based on conversion , the advertising delivery model is a very important part of the APP customer acquisition model.

However, in specific operations, it is necessary to control costs and effects from multiple angles such as cost, effect, and purpose (brand promotion priority or customer acquisition priority).

4. ASO Optimization

For users, if they want to download an APP, in the current market, most of them must download it from the application market . When users download APP in the application market, there are probably two situations:

• The first is targeted search and download, which involves searching for keywords in the app market;
• Another situation is browsing and downloading attempts without a clear purpose. At this time, it is necessary to optimize the rating and display of the app market, or even paid display in the app market, so that your products have more opportunities to be displayed in front of users, and show the relatively good side to users to promote downloads and acquire customers.

The above is roughly the logic of ASO optimization, which mainly starts from the application market and optimizes the display and search of the APP to increase exposure and download conversion.

5. Social Communication Model

The social communication-based APP customer acquisition model can often detonate the circle of friends through its interesting creativity or small benefits. This is also a promotion model from point to surface. In terms of specific models, it can be roughly divided into APPMGM, red envelope fission, relationship fission and group purchase fission.

APPMGM refers to a model in which existing users of the APP invite new friends, and both themselves and their friends can receive certain benefits. This model was used quite frequently in the early stages of online ride-hailing promotion and achieved very good results.

Take Shenzhou Private Car as an example: about 70% of Shenzhou Private Car’s new users are acquired through MGM’s model. In essence, APPMGM crowdsources the task of acquiring customers to old customers, and through the design of offer thresholds and rules, it encourages old customers to participate with more enthusiasm. At the same time, it leverages the social relationships of old customers to attract new customers, who will relatively identify more with the APP.

Red envelope fission is quite common in the food delivery industry. When users complete consumption behavior in the product, they can share the red envelope to the social circle, and friends can obtain an indefinite amount of consumption red envelopes or discounts in the red envelope. In the early stage of the product, red envelope fission can bring great energy to customer acquisition. In the middle and late stages of the product, red envelope fission is also very helpful for activation and awakening.

Relationship fission refers to embedding strongly correlated social relationships such as family ties into product design, allowing users to pay on behalf of their relatives and friends on the consumer side through account association.

In the past, Internet customer acquisition focused more on young people in first- and second-tier cities. However, as the traffic in first- and second-tier cities has almost entered the red ocean stage, the sinking of customer base and the silver economy are increasingly becoming the direction of competition for Internet products. The fission of family relationships can well meet such needs on the product side.

The group buying fission is mainly a surprise brought to us by Pinduoduo. After users initiate a group purchase or help on Pinduoduo, they share the product to the social circle and invite friends to help bargain and help. Users can get more discounts and also achieve the purpose of getting new users to download the APP.

The group buying model has a very obvious effect on price-sensitive customers, and it also gives users more preferential options.

6. Internal Conversion Mode

The internal conversion mode refers to different products within the enterprise directing traffic to a certain APP, or different carriers of the same product directing traffic to the APP. The rationale for this model is that companies can first acquire users through lighter models ( official accounts , mini-programs, etc.), and then use operations to make secondary conversions on the APP and redistribute the traffic.

NetEase has done a lot in this regard. After users log in to the web version of NetEase Mail, they can often see it directing traffic to NetEase-affiliated e-commerce platforms such as Kaola and Yanxuan. At the same time, under the marketing matrix of "two Weibo and one Douyin", more and more companies are obtaining traffic through layouts in high-traffic areas of the Internet, which has led to increasing attention to the diversion of traffic between different product forms of the same product.

summary

Three cases

In order to better understand the model of APP customer acquisition, I also made a relatively detailed analysis of several very popular APPs or APPs that have done relatively well in customer acquisition marketing. It is mainly some of my own thoughts, which I would like to share with you.

1. Pinduoduo: An APP that takes the “WeChat analysis-fission customer acquisition” group buying model to the extreme

Open Pinduoduo, and you will see its various product features displayed in key positions on its homepage, most of which are related to social fission . The group buying of "limited time flash sales", the red envelope opening of "get cash every day" by sharing with friends, the bargaining for "get it for free" by sharing with friends, the unit price discount of "mobile phone recharge", etc., all reflect the innovation of product design made by Pinduoduo in fission customer acquisition.

Of course, the realization of this model must also open up social channels . As Tencent's godson (Tencent holds shares in the company), Pinduoduo has also connected the data of its official account and APP on WeChat, and has achieved differentiated discounts on WeChat and the APP, guiding users to the APP based on the discount results. Such differentiation is very effective and targeted for Pinduoduo's users (price-sensitive users).

2. Tmall 21-day vitality plan : a typical case of fan acquisition

Fan acquisition is a model of cross-industry cooperation. Tmall ’s 21-day vitality plan invited Yi Yang Qianxi to be the spokesperson. The idol released 6 vitality videos in succession. Users can download the Tmall APP and sign in for 21 days, or invite friends to download the APP and help themselves, so as to get a chance to win a lottery, and the highest chance is to get a ticket to the idol’s birthday party.

During the implementation of this activity, many rules were formulated to promote activation and conversion, so that the entire fan acquisition activity was not just about acquiring customers, but also brought a lot of value to monetization and communication.

3. Douyin advertising : product promotion first, customer acquisition second

After the huge popularity of TikTok, it has become a traffic hotspot that advertisers are vying to enter. Internet companies including Alipay have begun to operate their own Douyin official accounts in the form of native videos. Starting from different operating content and methods, combined with their own brand characteristics, they convey the value of their brand to users, and then acquire customers after brand recognition.

Summarize

APP customer acquisition is in a stage where it is gradually maturing but also full of creativity. The collision and fusion of different customer acquisition models, and the final chemical reaction, all give the market more directions.

Of course, what belongs to others is ultimately theirs. In the specific implementation process, you have to start from the characteristics of your own products and the stage you are in, choose a suitable model or partner to carry out detailed customer acquisition plans and arrangements, and continuously adjust and optimize through data feedback in the process until the goal is achieved.

Author: Tong Qi, authorized to publish by Qinggua Media .

Source: I am Tong Qi (ID: greatlife007)