Product-based new user acquisition: How to create self-propagation among super users?

Online traffic costs remain high, and corporate operations growth teams are also striving to innovate and attract users' attention. As APP operators, they racked their brains to attract new users : they tried all kinds of operations, such as exchanging traffic , point walls , cross-border collaboration with other brands , PR, etc., but with little effect. Even if they held an event today to attract users, the retention rate on the next day would still drop "cliff-like".

The online traffic bonus period has passed, the number of incremental users is decreasing , and traffic is becoming more and more expensive. If your thinking always stays at the level of traditional methods of attracting new fans, it will definitely not work. Instead, you need to think about how to create an atmosphere of self-propagation ( viral marketing , word-of-mouth communication, fission) among the existing super users with relatively high stickiness.

Creating self-propagation is also a key goal that many operators are pursuing now. It would be best if my product could become popular overnight, and the basis of this popularity is composed of good products, new ideas, and hitting user needs.

At this stage, we need to have a group of basic users, and then use this group of basic users to provide a mass basis for our fission. This is "user pool operation."

Make full use of the group of users who are following you now to generate more followers. Low-cost operational actions are what we often call product-based new customer acquisition, which can also be called " social-based new customer acquisition."

1. Advantages and disadvantages of market-oriented and product-oriented new customer acquisition

Now, what we call "market-oriented placement" usually refers to: network alliance advertising, paid media, SEM paid search, native advertising , circle of friends advertising , DSP and other paid methods . This type of operation method mainly attracts users to download/purchase/pay attention to your product through paid methods. The key points of this type of operation are - " rich" and "creative" . With these two points, it is easy to form a screen-sweeping trend.

Having enough budget is very important when creativity is not so sufficient. Even if you are doing a roulette wheel sweepstakes, as long as you have money to place advertisements on various social media , you can create a lot of topics and public opinion.

However, having enough funds to place advertisements is not a priority for most companies. For small and medium-sized enterprises, especially Internet startups , capital shortage and lack of resources are the norm, so they cannot just spend money on a large scale arbitrarily. At this time, you need to find another way to develop a method that can both control the budget well and attract new users in the most efficient way.

"Productization to attract new customers" is such a good way.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, "product-based new user acquisition" means: by setting baits and guiding the optimization of sharing conversions , both parties can gain benefits in this operating method. The core is to attract new users through old users and achieve exponential growth in users.

"Productization and new customer acquisition" is now a key operational action that must be taken to attract new users for various apps and mini-programs . Whether it is Pinduoduo, which has become popular in the past two years, or the popular mini -games that bombarded WeChat groups in 2018, or the popular paid course distribution in 2017, they all became popular through the "productization and new customer acquisition" action and fully leveraging the WeChat social chain of acquaintances.

The key to “product-based new user acquisition” is that costs are controllable, and more users can be generated at low cost. There is no technical threshold. The key point is that good results can be achieved by setting up baits and doing enough work on creative content. This is why many operators who are currently engaged in user growth have always favored this operating model.

2. What are the mainstream methods of “product-based new customer acquisition”?

Method 1: Value-added service product fission - suitable for industries such as education, finance, and entertainment live broadcast

(Applicable to both APP and mini program new users)

The fission of value-added service products refers to the platform's paid services (including but not limited to videos, articles, audio, courses, etc.) being given to users for free but conditionally to forward and obtain. The key points of this model are that the paid product itself is the platform's key product or a product of relatively high quality, and is provided to users for free through sharing and forwarding; and the platform's presentation method needs to give users a sense of urgency.

Take flash sales as an example: the countdown format makes users feel that if they miss this time, there will be no next time. In addition, you can also set limits on the number of products to give users a greater sense of urgency and generate interaction.

For example, Chaos University often promotes courses in the form of "flash sales" on the homepage of the APP. The reason why the course itself is of high quality is the identity of the lecturer and the brand endorsement of Chaos University. Therefore, the activity of forwarding to get the course for free is planned, which can gain more attention on the WeChat social chain and bring considerable downloads to the APP.

Method 2: Group buying fission - suitable for e-commerce , paid products, travel, ticketing services and other fields

(Applicable to both APP and mini program new users)

There is no need to say much about group buying fission. Users choose their favorite products and place an order. After a successful purchase, they become the group leader. At the same time, a sharing page will appear to guide the group leader on how to share to friends , thus promoting the formation of a group, which is convenient and quick.

This group buying fission can be regarded as the success of Pinduoduo. Pinduoduo's group buying fission gameplay is also something that many operators should study. We will not introduce it in detail in this chapter, because everyone may be familiar with the gameplay of e-commerce.

Then let’s study the recently popular Internet coffee, such as: Lian Coffee.

Lian Coffee Group Buying Mini Program is a group buying model that has been popular recently. The group buying mini program is based on the gameplay of "old users bring new users", which is essentially an activity to attract new users: old users invite new users to participate in group buying and enjoy the discount of purchasing goods at low prices.

This group-buying mini program helped merchants attract a lot of customers shortly after it was launched, which shows how popular it is.

(1) Lian Coffee Group Buying Mini Program Group Buying Rules

1. Old users select products, initiate group purchases, make payments, and then invite friends to join.
2. If there are 2 new users joining the group within 2 hours, it will be considered a successful group formation. The goods will be stored in the user's coffee library and can be ordered and delivered at any time.
3. If the group is unsuccessful, a full refund will be given.

(2) Creative gameplay of Lian Coffee group buying app

Personalized sharing card:

The sharing card of Lian Coffee Group Buying Mini App is displayed much better in WeChat groups than the link. In view of this feature, Lian Coffee has continuously optimized the copy and design of sharing cards so that new users can know how to form a group at first glance, thereby lowering the threshold for new users to participate.

Tiered pricing:

Because the original prices of the group buying items are different, the group buying prices are also set in a tiered manner, divided into three levels of 1 yuan, 5 yuan and 10 yuan. The step-by-step group-buying method of Lian Coffee’s group-buying app is the basis for this explosion, and the relatively large discounts are the catalyst.

(3) Product advantages of Lian Coffee Group Buying Mini Program

1. Group buying mall: a new type of group buying mall where customers initiate group buying and invite friends to shop together at low prices through sharing and forwarding.
2. Based on WeChat: A group buying mall based on WeChat mini-programs . Lian Coffee group-buying mini program integrates the shopping process through WeChat access, dissemination, and WeChat payment .
3. Social e-commerce: WeChat group buying, through social relationships, forms autonomous dissemination, is more likely to form trust relationships, and has a high purchase conversion rate .

Lian Coffee’s group-buying app innovates its gameplay by forming groups of three people and offering tiered pricing. Through the group-buying model, it allows old customers to develop the habit of actively sharing with friends as part of their social interaction.

Therefore, it is not difficult for an old user to attract two new users to share the group buying discount price. Old customers attract new users and continue to fission, which can help merchants develop more new customers.

Method 3: Brand linkage fission - products suitable for any industry

(Applicable to APP to attract new users)

When doing operations, it is inevitable to carry out cross-industry cooperation. Cross-industry cooperation can enable resource sharing, and most importantly, it can achieve the effect of 1+1 being greater than 2 . Therefore, any product with a little traffic will cooperate with some fast-moving consumer goods. You provide the resources and I provide the traffic and exposure, killing two birds with one stone.

When choosing cross-industry cooperation, we must grasp two points:

1. The first one is to follow the hot topics, for example: you can discuss cooperation with the latest popular movies ;
2. The second is the degree of fit with the target audience. The target audience of your product must have a high degree of fit with the cooperating brand and must not be in a competitive relationship.

In terms of hot topics, the recent "Creation 101" is considered to be the hottest variety show since May this year, and Wang Ju's sudden popularity has pushed "Creation 101" to a peak climax since its launch. When fans want to vote for their favorite girl, the voting channel becomes an opportunity for new users.

As one of the cooperative voting brands of "Produce 101", OPPO Community has contributed a large number of new users to the APP through the voting opportunity of this hot IP. The fans of the contestants themselves have a certain degree of stickiness, so when a user votes for his or her favorite contestant, there is a high probability that he or she will continue to encourage his or her friends to help vote, so this provides a good growth environment for fission.

Method 4: Cash fission - suitable for "task-based" products

(Applicable to APP to attract new users)

Qutoutiao , a dark horse in the information field in 2017, ranked among the top ten in terms of both daily active users and penetration rate growth last year, with specific daily active users exceeding 8 million. Why did a product that lagged behind Toutiao for many years become a dark horse in the information field in 2017?

In fact, it includes both the WeChat dividend factor and Toutiao’s own product mechanism innovation. Unlike Pinduoduo, which acquires customers through group buying, Qutoutiao acquires customers through peer-to-peer recruitment.

To put it simply, accepting disciples means inviting them to get rewards. Once a friend registers for Qutoutiao through the QR code or invitation code you shared, you will be able to get a certain cash reward. Not only that, for every article the apprentice reads on Qutoutiao, the master will receive a tribute of 20 gold coins.

Therefore, in terms of product mechanism, in addition to invitations bringing in new users, Qutoutiao also encourages a series of subsequent active behaviors from users.

A user shared on Baidu Tieba how he stimulated his apprentices to "pay tribute". He first pulled all the apprentices into a group, and then when he saw that the apprentices had not logged in for a long time, he sent them a small red envelope to stimulate them.

In fact, the master will receive a reward of 1,000 gold coins for each apprentice awakened. The so-called awakening is to send a link to the apprentice through QQ or WeChat. The apprentice is considered awakened successfully if he clicks the link to log in to Qutoutiao and effectively reads 3 articles.

On Qutoutiao, recruiting disciples is the fastest way to make money .

According to the official total income list: the user ranked first currently has 40,397 apprentices, and the total income from recruiting apprentices is 79,218.25 yuan, which means that on average each apprentice can bring about 2 yuan of income to the master.

In addition, Qutoutiao has also launched a cash apprentice recruitment campaign. The rule is that users will be rewarded 8 yuan for each apprentice they recruit, but this 8 yuan will be paid out in 12 installments, and the triggering condition is the apprentice's tribute. In other words, simply recruiting apprentices will not earn you rewards; users must encourage their apprentices to be active in order to receive the full 8 yuan reward.

On the one hand, this approach utilizes the user's relationship chain to ensure the daily activity of the product, and on the other hand, it curbs the wool party by increasing the reward limit.

Therefore, although cash incentives are a very money-burning method, their advantage is that costs are controllable and they can both attract new users and promote activation. Therefore, if cash fission is used well, user growth will most likely experience explosive growth.

The above-mentioned “product-based new user acquisition” methods are now being used in many apps or mini-programs . So why can some of them successfully achieve rapid user growth, while others are like throwing money into the sea without even a splash?

I think the difference here lies in not grasping the key factors in the fission sharing link.

So when we plan this “product-based new user acquisition” mechanism, we must analyze the key points before, during, and after users share.

In the figure, old users have already recognized the product quality or certain services of the platform, so they stay and continue to pay attention to the content or services of the platform. However, this group of old users may just be at the stage of "just using the products or services you provide, which does not remind them that I want to recommend them to my friends", so designing a "productized new user acquisition" action needs to solve this problem.

Then you need to come up with bait that can make old users share and forward it to their friends, so this is when the platform’s value-added product coupons, physical gifts or cash incentives need to come into play.

When sharing, you also need to study whether your sharing copy can impress them and then click in to view your activities. And whether your sharing format is a link or a picture, because sharing pictures or links has different focuses.

For example: If you want to share a link, the advantage is that the thumbnail and title can attract the target audience to click. After clicking in, if the content quality is good, it can achieve conversion and the link itself is highly guiding.

The disadvantage is that if you share a link to your circle of friends, the link occupies a relatively small area and is easily ignored, so the opening rate is actually very low.

So you can see that when many APPs or mini-programs are used for sharing, if they only have a function of sharing in Moments, the sharing format is only in the form of pictures. Because its advantage is that it can make the activity clear at a glance, maximizing the exposure of the activity and making the pictures more ornamental.

For example: Himalaya FM recently launched a "0 Yuan Purchase" event. As long as you share this event (displayed in the form of pictures) in your circle of friends and invite three friends to participate, you can get books for free.

The sharing channels are nothing more than the mainstream ones: WeChat, Moments, QQ and QQ Space. Now most of the activity fission is concentrated on these four platforms, and many are even on WeChat and Moments, but not on QQ and QQ Space, because this is also determined by the target audience attributes of their own products.

The most important thing is: WeChat is now a super platform with more than 1 billion users. As long as it captures this group of people, it has basically covered the whole of China. WeChat, as a super platform, is also a communication base that integrates communication and WeChat payment, so it is easier to succeed in sharing fission on WeChat.

Now we come to the last link after sharing. There are two key points to attract new users to click: one is whether the impact of the copy and the inducement of benefits are strong enough.

Next, let’s continue to talk about whether new users are attracted to this activity after solving the problem of active sharing by old users, and what measures can be taken to retain new users after they come to the platform. At least the operator needs to maintain the next-day retention rate of this group of new users at a high level.

3. After new users come in, is there any way to retain them and continue to contribute to the “productization and new user acquisition” action?

As we said above, whether you can attract users to scan your QR code or click on the link depends largely on the impact of your copywriting and visuals as well as the degree of interest incentives. For example: If we take the sharing copy of Pinduoduo, you can understand why users who participate in group buying are so willing to share it to their Moments or WeChat groups.

Guide you to share to the group for the first time, and then after the sharing is successful, make the user feel good at the first time, and then use pop-ups to trigger sharing.

Then it guides you to share it with your friends, and the share button guides the text from "group" to "friends". Of course, this is just a copywriting. Pinduoduo will never let you choose to share to a group or friends. Clicking anything will directly open the WeChat conversation page. Finally, the sharing is completed. In case you did not share on the previous page, a pop-up reminder will be given to you when you return to the list page.

This is the copywriting guidance of Pinduoduo when sharing, and the words between the lines of the copywriting reveal that it makes users feel happy and makes users feel that they are getting a good deal.

As for new users, after they are attracted by interest incentives, how to keep them is another thing that operators need to consider. Because after the "productization and new user acquisition" action is completed, new users need to have a full understanding of your platform. At this time, you must provide some guidance. This guidance is not just asking the product manager to make a text description of the module and tell them where to click! Instead, give him a chance to experience the core features of your product.

This is because many new users may uninstall your product after completing the first or second step, before they can see what makes your product special. This is actually unsuccessful in attracting new customers for the product.

So here I provide two methods to increase your next-day retention rate to a higher level.

The first method: send money and bind Alipay (mobile phone) to withdraw cash

In order to increase the registration rate of their products, some apps actually require users to log in after downloading and opening the app. For example, the opening page only has two buttons: "Login" or "Register", but no "Take a look" button. Even if there is a "Take a look" button, it is weakened.

Even so, there are still many users who see this button and first choose to take a look at the things on your platform. If there is something I like, I might register and log in; if not, and you don’t even know the user’s last name, then this traffic diversion is unsuccessful.

Therefore, when many APPs use certain core functions within the product, such as following friends, mentors, using live broadcasts, etc., a pop-up window will pop up prompting you to register and log in. This is not a good idea, but some users have left before they noticed your core functions, so you need to guide them by showing them their benefits on the homepage.

For example: many APPs will give out coupons, books and other privileges to new users, but what I want to talk about today is an APP that directly gives out money, and the way to give out money is to ask you to bind Alipay (that is, your mobile phone number), because of the industry attributes of some products (for example: finance, real estate, education and other industries), it is necessary to directly lock the user's mobile phone number.

If you directly give away money and ask users to bind their mobile phone numbers before they can withdraw cash, you have a reason and the binding is not so mandatory, so users will be happy to accept it. Moreover, Alipay's cash withdrawal mechanism allows funds to be instantly credited, which users will like even more.

The second method: Sign in continuously to get the gift pack, plus speed up to get the gift pack to experience the core function

This feature is designed to encourage new user retention and experience the core functions of the APP.

In the product settings, you can have a message pop up when the user completes registration and clicks on the [My] page for the first time, guiding the user to sign in continuously to get a gift package. Days 1 to 6 will give away cash/coupons/free items, and the 7th day will give away a mysterious gift package (needs to be packaged). If users want to get the gift package faster, they can be guided to complete novice tasks and click on user behaviors such as likes, comments, and sharing to get the gift package in advance.

The above two methods are two modules of the user incentive system . If the APP wants to continuously incentivize the replacement of new users with old users, it needs to build a complete user incentive system. However, the above two methods can prolong the time that new users stay in the product, and enable new users to quickly experience the core functions of the product and discover the surprising functions of the product.

Only by keeping new users can we turn them into old users, and then continue to carry out "productization to attract new users" actions, forming a virtuous cycle of user ecosystem and continuously achieving sustained growth in the number of users.

The author of this article @艺林小宇 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games