Taking P2P as an example, how to build a member growth incentive system from scratch?

I have been engaged in Internet product fields for four years and have witnessed the establishment of two membership systems from 0 to 1, one is catering ERP, and the other is the P2P system I am currently engaged in.

The so-called one connection leads to a hundred connections, and they are all based on the business logic of their respective industries. I also experienced various pitfalls during the process. Based on the principle of learning from failures, I reviewed the entire process myself and would like to share it with you.

This article mainly talks about the membership system of P2P fundraising/funding, please read it patiently.

This article is organized as follows:

• This article is divided into two parts: membership system design and membership rights design

• Explain the establishment of the membership system in four steps: membership judgment basis, membership level division, membership level titles, and membership upgrade and exit rules

• Completely build member benefits in four dimensions: emotional factors, interest factors, benefit categories, and cost accounting

1. How to establish a membership system

Every company will measure whether to do something based on its internal and external environmental variables. The same is true for the membership system. If it is done well, it will be a positive guide for users; if it is done poorly, it may harm hard-earned users.

For most companies, the ultimate goal is to make a profit, and the establishment of a membership system cannot deviate from this scope. The environment and problems faced by each company are completely different, so we will not discuss here the need for a membership system.

1. Background

Company background: The company as a whole is considered a group, with four sections with independent accounting. Currently, except for the profitable P2P section, all other sections are loss-making.

Product background: P2P currently has five types of financial management . Except for current financial management (cashed in 10 days), the shortest period for other products is 90 days. At the same time, there is an upper limit on the investment of each financial product. If you need reference, please compare it yourself. It is tantamount to hooliganism to talk about the analogy of results without considering the premise.

(Figure 1: Company and Products)

In order to give everyone a clear understanding, before we start, we will put the final membership system framework here:

(Figure 2: Membership system framework)

2. System establishment

Is there anyone like me who encounters the following situation when receiving a task: "This is from XX, it looks like this, just copy it."

How many people go to their competitors’ products to take a look and start drawing prototypes when they are working on something? It is okay to learn from others, but we must "know the facts and the reasons behind them". Based on the attitude of "knowing the reasons behind them", let us gradually build a membership system from 0 to 1.

The criteria for becoming a member must be based on the core strategic demands of the membership system during that period.

If the company is out of money, and there is no income, everyone will have to eat dirt, so making money is the most important thing at this time; if the company has no money in its account, but the investment institution is about to do due diligence, then the operating data may be the most critical...

As for what the core strategic demands are at this stage, it is necessary to be symmetrical with the necessary decision makers and the market conditions of the industry. This is the basic premise for all correct decisions. I have learned a lesson full of blood and tears here.

According to our platform's own demands, the classification basis is set as follows: the amount of money to be collected in the personal account for 30 consecutive days (excluding product A1)

When we determine the membership basis, we need to consider:

• Is the grading basis relatively fair?

• Rating based on whether all users are covered

• Check whether there are loopholes in the grading basis - to prevent cheating and wool-collecting parties

• Whether the classification basis is widely applicable - the classification basis is not suitable for major changes in a short period of time

When talking about membership levels, some people will think of points.

The existing P2P membership and points systems on the market can be roughly divided into three types: a single points system, independent membership levels and points levels, and a fusion of membership and points systems. Each of the three methods has its pros and cons.

Because a single reference dimension is relatively rough and incomplete, multi-dimensional segmentation and quantification of each user's behavior will be more detailed, fair and multi-level, and points can be used as a yardstick for segmenting and quantifying user behavior.

3. Membership level classification

Member classification requires analysis using established measurement criteria after obtaining the data. No verified conclusions have been found to guide how to classify members. I personally use the pyramid model for classification. As for why the pyramid model is used, I will not discuss it here. For a deeper understanding, I suggest you read some books on history and sociology.

As shown in the figure below (anonymous), the amount range I set when analyzing is based on the investment data. Because it is not an equal interval, the specific pattern cannot be seen. However, if it is divided into equal intervals, the relationship between the user investment amount and the number of people is pyramid-shaped.

(Figure 3: Investment Amount Distribution)

When establishing standards for each level of membership, it is necessary to formulate them based on the size of the platform , including the total number of users, the number of investment users, the proportion of investment users in each range, etc. Build a membership pyramid system for your own platform based on the above data.

The ratio of the number of members in each membership level established on our platform is approximately 1:3:5 from high to low, and the levels are as follows, where X is the amount to be collected in the personal account for 30 consecutive days.

Gold: 10,000 ≤ X ＜ 100,000

Platinum: 100,000 ≤ X ＜ 500,000

Diamond: 500,000 ≤ X

4. Membership Level Title

Two points need to be clarified here: First, the supporting level takes into account the scalability of the title. Such as gold, platinum, diamond, how are the subsequent levels named? Red diamond? Purple diamond? Black diamond? Second, which is more important, the difference in titles or the user’s perception of levels?

Many people think that the terms gold, platinum and diamond are already common. As a person with style, how can we highlight our abilities in this way? Is this the reality?

Let me give you an example. When I was working on the catering ERP, a client asked me to help set up membership level permissions in the system. After getting the membership level division, I felt for the first time that the exam-oriented education system was killing people. The levels are No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, Jinshi, Juren, Xiucai... I believe that 80% of the readers who see this article do not have a complete understanding of the ancient imperial examination system.

However, because the title of this membership level fits the tone of the store (decoration, clothing, culture, etc.) , and the number of users that the teahouse can cover is limited, it is not enough to cause trouble for value communication. However, if the number of users is huge, it will definitely cause trouble to users.

5. Member Upgrade and Withdrawal Rules

The usual practice for upgrading rules is to obtain data on the distribution of investment amounts among the population and formulate relevant rules. Once the rules are clear, the background will automatically monitor the data and automatically upgrade the members. I will not go into details.

When a member withdraws, the membership service period is completed and the member will no longer enjoy membership privileges and services.

There are two common types of services: periodic services and real-time services.

Periodic service: After paying, you can enjoy membership services for a certain period of time, such as QQ, series diamonds, and Xunlei ;

Real-time service: Dynamically monitor a certain standard/threshold, provide service when the standard is reached, otherwise stop service, such as mobile phone charges, campus card, etc.

(1) Periodic service

When user A becomes a member, he enjoys n days of service. After the period ends, the system will make a judgment and continue to provide membership services of the corresponding level if the membership conditions are met.

During the membership service period, if the user reaches a higher membership level standard, he/she will need to upgrade and provide corresponding services (the membership cycle of our platform is also refreshed at the same time, and each platform can set it according to needs , but it must be clearly informed to the user).

(Figure 4: Periodic service)

(2) Real-time service

Take our platform as an example: if the amount to be collected in a personal account is ≥ 10,000 yuan for 90 consecutive days, membership services will be provided (for example only).

Membership services are provided when the amount to be collected in the user's personal account is ≥ RMB 10,000 for 90 consecutive days; otherwise, the statistics will be recalculated based on the starting date that meets the rules.

(Figure 5: Real-time service)

The advantages and disadvantages of these two methods are very obvious, and decisions need to be made based on one's own platform. It is also best to communicate with developers at the beginning of the design to prevent the situation where the plan cannot be implemented after submission.

At this point, the basic framework of the membership system has been formed, and the next step is to design member benefits.

4. Membership Rights Design

It should be pointed out in advance that the rights and interests brought to users here are not just rights + interests. From a certain dimension, the ultimate goal of the membership system is to strengthen the relationship between users and the platform through this system and operational means and methods.

For P2P or most Internet financial platforms, this relationship is:

From no relationship to weak relationship: registration, real-name authentication, bank card binding;

From weak relationship to strong relationship: first investment, repeated investment, and regular fixed investment.

Therefore, the corresponding interpretation of the term "rights" here is all factors that can positively influence and strengthen the relationship between users and the platform.

1. Emotional factors

The core service of Internet finance revolves around money, and it does not require a very hard process of thinking about monetization like many Internet sub-industries.

Therefore, some people think that since the services are all centered around money, and for P2P, many people ask what the annualized rate of return is, then we just need to increase the annualized rate of return given to users, and users will naturally come, and they will naturally stay.

But appearances are usually not the truth.

There are three factors that P2P users are concerned about: security, liquidity, and yield . Different users or the same user at different stages will appropriately change the weights of liquidity and yield, but security always comes first.

The following explains what we can do around user emotional factors? At the same time, the following categories of emotions are divided into very detailed situations, and sometimes one thing can cover them all.

sense of security

Maslow's needs model has long explained that a person's sense of security is second only to the physiological needs of the human body.

(Figure 6: Maslow's needs model)

There are many factors that contribute to a man's success in proposing to a woman, but the most critical and necessary basic factor is a sense of security, whether for love or for others. Therefore, it is not so difficult to accept that a house is a necessary condition for most people to get married nowadays. For love? Love is not as important as security needs in the demand model...

Users are also human beings, and their need for a sense of security is the same as that of ordinary people. What services can we provide based on this?

By depicting the user's complete operation path in the platform, we can clearly find out where we need to give users a sense of security. After cross-screening the platform limitations and input-output ratio, what remains is what we can do. Some of them are listed below for your reference.

Personal information security (fingerprint unlocking, periodic password expiration) - prevent personal information leakage

Login notification/reminder (information interaction feedback) — SMS, WeChat

Complete user guidance or manual service after forgetting/losing passwords - reduce the anxiety caused by password loss to users

Project expiration and exit reminders——APP, WeChat, SMS

Fund changes, including successful top-up, successful withdrawal, investment, interest payment, and withdrawal—APP, WeChat, SMS

Loan due repayment reminder - APP, WeChat, SMS, phone call

Account security insurance - in some cases, the user's losses can be compensated after the account is stolen

Sense of Identity

I define identification as the user's recognition of the overall image (product or service) that a company presents to the outside world.

Smartisan Technology 's "born with pride", "not beautiful enough to look talented", "responding to pride and prejudice with pride and paranoia" are all about explaining the values ​​of the technology company founded by this non-mainstream CEO to the outside world in order to gain recognition from people with the same values ​​and to find the same light in the vast crowd.

P2P identity is reflected in users' recognition of the company's products, brand endorsement, project, and project collateral.

The role of identity is that you can transform this identity into trust, which is the greatest overdraft of users' trust in you. Through commercial means, trust can be converted into commercial value.

Xiaomi's original "full payment pre-order" mobile phone purchasing model was designed to obtain funds for capital turnover before production, thereby ensuring its own cash flow. Another industry that relies entirely on trust is crowdfunding, which uses everyone's money to realize one's dreams or business plans when everything is just an idea.

Sense of belonging

The sense of belonging can be big or small, from family or village to the country or nation. Humans have evolved to be social creatures, and from childhood to adulthood they have been trying to position themselves and define their own place. When the class is divided into groups to compete for academic performance, when the class holds a tug-of-war competition, when you meet fellow countrymen on the road, when you visit the Yasukuni Shrine in a foreign country...

This sense of belonging also exists in P2P. Only when we share happiness can we share difficulties. Take the most common P2P marketing activity "anniversary celebration" as an example. On how many platforms does the probability of winning the physical lottery is not 0?

I can’t share too much with you about the technique of building a sense of belonging among users. The only thing I can share is the word “sincerity”. If you work hard and treat users sincerely, users will definitely feel it.

4. Trust

Trust is also mentioned in the sense of identity. For example: In actual investment targets, if an overdue occurs on the asset side, even a small part of the overdue may cause users to panic and trigger a run. Among them, if there is a "voice leader" who has great trust in the platform, he will play a huge role.

When our platform used QQ groups for user management, a user discovered that there were errors in the start and end time of a project in the project description and questioned the platform's false targets. When the customer service asked their superiors for instructions, the "opinion leaders" in the group had already stepped forward.

Vanity

After the release of iPhone 8, I was bored and posted an anonymous questionnaire on my Moments . Two questions:

1. If you were to buy one, which new model would you choose: iPhone8/iPhone8P/iPhone X?

2. Why?

89 valid questionnaires were collected within one day, and 90% chose iPhoneX. The reason is that the difference between iPhone7 and iPhone8 is not obviously perceptible.

But if you ask them one by one, no one will admit that it is because of vanity. Because in China's traditional cultural attributes, "vanity" is engraved in its cultural genes and is not a positive word.

Furthermore, as long as Apple continues to maintain its industry-leading innovation, the iPhone will not be unsellable due to its high price. It is worth it even if it is just to maintain the title of the most expensive mass consumer electronic product. Given the profit margin of Apple products, price changes have little to do with price fluctuations in the supply chain.

All of this has already been explained in "Positioning". This book was written by Americans. I don't believe that Americans don't understand this.

In this case, is it possible to rank people when doing various activities? Is it possible to have honorary moderators when running a forum? Can I add a highlight when sharing my financial management experience? Can investor meetings set a benchmark?

At the end of each year, you can make some meaningful physical souvenirs , but be careful not to use cups, banners, etc., as they will only lower your quality. If no one posts on WeChat Moments, your souvenir will be wasted.

Sense of ceremony

The sense of ritual was mentioned above. It is also a very important part of most people’s lives. It is very important. The Little Prince says that a sense of ritual is what makes a certain day different from other days, and a certain moment different from other moments.

Don't believe it? Come and see, starting from the time you are born.

Full moon banquet, hundred-day banquet, first birthday banquet, birthday banquet, graduation banquet, teacher appreciation banquet, coming-of-age ceremony, engagement ceremony/proposal, wedding ceremony, reincarnation after the birth of the child... the final funeral... the cycle of life continues.

I think the most interesting answer to the question "What exactly is a sense of ritual?" on a certain website is: it is to treat the seemingly boring things in life with a solemn and serious attitude.

The same thing has become very important because of the extension of thought.

This rule can be used to consider product design in P2P or other similar Internet products. Here, it is set according to the user's path in the product. But what we need to do is to extend the ordinary things into thoughts.

For example:

1. Login greeting: If you greet users with "Good morning/Good afternoon/Good evening" when logging in, it may make users feel humane, but that's all.

If we go further and add “Good morning, the morning sets the tone for the day”, the user may think of “spring sets the tone for the year”, thus prompting the user to think about the passage of time; if we go further and add “Good morning, the morning sets the tone for the day, today is another fruitful day”, the user’s thoughts may be pulled into another space and extended.

The early morning is still the same early morning. Getting up late, forgetting to bring the bus card, being squeezed like sardines on the subway, being scolded by the boss at a meeting, etc. still happen. But even a garbage collector hopes that the trash cans he passes by are filled with recyclable garbage.

When these are presented to users in a somewhat unexpected way, they will be successful if they can cause a little psychological fluctuation in users. These things occupy the minds of users for a long period of time. When I have what others don't, and I am better than others, word of mouth will emerge. I am just throwing out some ideas here, I believe you can do better.

2. Interest factors

Benefits are factors that can be measured in money that attract non-members to become members or to change from low-level members to higher-level members.

In simple terms, what benefits does becoming a member bring to users?

Before talking about the benefits that membership brings to users, let’s first list the moments that can benefit users. After all, there is no love without reason…

These event nodes that can bring benefits to users include: becoming a member, upgrading levels, member birthdays, marketing activities (all kinds of holiday activities that can be thought of). Of course, in addition to these, they can also be reflected in daily usage experience.

(Figure 7: Membership Reward Time Node)

The membership benefits of P2P platforms on the market are roughly listed as follows: investment red envelopes/investment vouchers, interest rate coupons, physical objects (a good way to take advantage of marketing hotspots), service fee rate differentials, withdrawal fee reductions, etc.

(Figure 8: Membership rights of P2P platforms on the market)

I haven't listed more, but you know there are more, and the most core one is to reflect differentiation through artificial formulation.

For example, I recently added a new "message notification" function to our product, which is divided into WeChat and SMS. The main reminders include login reminders, recharge reminders, withdrawal reminders, product exit reminders, new logo reminders...

The difference we make is that I separate it into basic reminders and privileged reminders. For example, for withdrawals, since our platform allows withdrawals as low as 1 yuan, the basic reminder is that you will only be reminded when you withdraw 100 yuan or more, and the privilege is that you will also be reminded when you withdraw 1 yuan; reminders for new bids are also privileges. The new bids here are not ordinary bids, but medium-risk and high-return bids, which are usually sold out within seconds.

When the reminder function plan came out, some departments said, " A text message only costs a few cents, and we can afford the cost even if we send reminders to all users. We must give users the best experience." In fact, I didn't consider the cost at all. The reason for doing this is to let users feel the difference in levels, or to let member users feel a sense of superiority.

3. Equity categories

I define what you have and others also have as basic rights and interests, which are the common methods and means adopted by all platforms on the market. For example, investment red envelopes, investment coupons, interest rate increase coupons, physical exchange, and service exchange.

We will not go into details about the conventional rights and interests here. In addition to the conventional rights and interests, there are also special rights and interests.

Definition of special benefits: Using the company’s own advantages and resources to help users obtain benefits that are not available to previous users.

It seems a bit confusing. For example, ordinary Homeinn members can get a 10% discount on their stay, Homeinn internal staff can get a 25% discount, but I can only get a 30% discount.

I offer my 30% discount on Home Inn hotel stays to users, a discount that 99% of users will never be able to get. This privilege is extremely scarce, so it can add points to our membership benefits and enhance our brand image.

However, this special benefit is basically not a pure Internet service, as one of the characteristics of the Internet is that it is easy to copy. Therefore, this kind of special rights and interests can usually only be enjoyed offline, so it has the following characteristics:

(1) It is necessary to consider the overlap between the geographical distribution of users and the distribution of services

That is, the distribution of users should coincide with the geographical location of the benefits provided, and preferably the location of the company/branch.

First, the services found locally are easier to operate and less costly. If we are in Shenzhen and find a service provided by a company in Beijing, won’t we have to pay for round trip travel?

The second is the breadth of coverage of local services among the user group. Assuming that 80% of the platform’s users are in Hangzhou, is it really appropriate for me to provide them with Quanjude Roast Duck coupons?

(2) The practicality of the service needs to be considered

The so-called practicality means that it permeates into users' food, clothing, housing and transportation. One is strong demand, and the other is high frequency.

Lianjia currently has a relatively wide distribution, but if you offer "Lianjia waives the agency fee for one house purchase and sale", how many times can an ordinary person buy a house in his lifetime?

Combining the above two points, we list a few of the services we provide:

Car wash service - a well-known car service brand in the city, with more than 40 stores covering the entire city. Usually it’s 40 yuan per time, and the lowest price users get is 30 yuan per time (pre-paid), while the cost we can get through strategic cooperation is 20 yuan per time.

Auto insurance service - a business carried out by a certain division of the group, characterized by high profits and huge operating space.

Travel vouchers - cooperate directly with airlines and can be packaged to be particularly high-end.

Free physical examination service - at a well-known physical examination hospital in the city, we got dozens of full-body examinations for about 1,200 yuan, which was priced at 3,888 yuan.

There are many reasons why we provide these services, and it is right to provide these services based on the above two considerations. From a practical point of view, our platform is relatively small, and the number of users is not that large. If we provide users with online services without geographical restrictions, we will not have any advantage, and it will be difficult to get relatively low-priced services. The same is true for the development of the P2P platform itself.

(3) Temporary benefits

Temporary benefits refer to the inclusion of a membership system in some marketing activities for collaborative operation, providing members with short-term privileges.

Most of the information here is needed for activity operation and product operation , so I will not cover it here. Here are a few examples...

During a Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day event, there was a lucky draw "wheel", with A-level members getting one chance per day and B-level members getting two chances per day...

In a certain activity, there is a "limited time exchange for interest rate increase coupons/investment red envelopes". For the same coupon, the A level has 5,000 points, and the B level has 4,000 points...

4. Cost accounting

When calculating costs, the circumstances of each company will vary greatly. For example, the purpose of membership establishment, membership level, perspective deviations between senior leaders and executors, and company profitability may all have a greater impact on cost tolerance.

Taking our company as an example, the lowest level membership requirement is to hold a principal of 10,000 yuan to be collected for 30 consecutive days, and the membership is valid for one year. We calculate the minimum profit that the 10,000 yuan that users bring to the platform in the membership rules.

Because each product has different profits for the company, assuming the smallest profit is 2% annualized, then 10,000×2%÷12=16.7 yuan. What services can be provided to users in terms of this profit?

From another perspective, an investment of 10,000 yuan is the threshold for effective investors set by our company, and the cost of an effective investor is over 500. Becoming the lowest-level member is an effective investor. From the perspective of acquiring effective investors, it is cost-effective for us to increase the cost of providing services to members by 500.

The requirement to upgrade from primary to the next level of membership is to hold a principal of 100,000 yuan for 30 consecutive days. According to the data, an investment of 100,000 yuan is considered a relatively high-quality user, and there will be different value judgments for this type of user.

At this time, it is necessary to calculate the user life cycle value (LTV) based on the platform data, that is:

LTV (Lifetime Value) > CAC (Cost of Acquisition per User) + COC (Cost of Operation per User )

The membership system is part of COC and can be applied to the formula to calculate the price range of the services provided.

V. Conclusion

The membership system has been completed at this point, but the work of membership operations is far from over.

When a company is at different stages of development, different data will be listed as key indicators. At this time, the company's overall operational goals or strategic actions can be coordinated through different focuses on member benefits.

Users in different life cycles (introduction period, growth period, maturity period, dormancy period, and churn period) have different understandings and demands for membership rights, which need to be determined based on actual conditions.

“Water flows according to the terrain, soldiers win according to the enemy, soldiers have no constant position, water has no constant shape.” The membership system has been established, and those who make good use of it are called gods.