How to identify and acquire high-value super users?

Super users are users who are willing to pay for products and identify with the brand’s values. To attract super users, you need to listen to them respectfully, continue to provide value to users, and give super users "status."

1. Why does the concept of super user thinking come into being?

The answer is always born out of the emergence of a problem. Super user thinking is the answer, so where is the problem that triggers it?

Over the past decade, the size of China's mobile Internet users has been rising, while the growth rate of Internet users has been declining and has fallen below 10%. At the same time, the penetration rate of mobile Internet has reached 97.5%, with only 2.5% not covered. It is obvious that existing users have become the main battlefield for App developers to compete for.

The past was the era of traffic Eden, where online stores needed traffic and offline stores also needed traffic. But as traffic becomes more and more expensive and increasingly scarce, we must move out of the Garden of Eden and move from the "hunting and gathering era (obtaining from traffic)" to the "agricultural era". How big the land you enclose is up to you, but the crops in it are what you use for food.

They are not clicks , they are real living users, they are your bread and butter, and yet you still dare to call them "traffic"? I think this is the greatest disrespect we have towards our parents who provide us with food and clothing in this era.

From this we can deduce a question: How to acquire high-value users and how to reduce the loss of existing users? This is the biggest challenge we face as operators in the current environment.

2. How to identify these super users?

Luo Zhenyu said:

"The current method of identifying so-called super users is actually very superficial and crude, which is to ask you to pay a fee. But don't think that paying is the purpose. Paying is identification. Now, almost all Internet companies are brewing their own super membership mechanism, Alibaba Super Member, JD Plus, Ele.me Member, no matter what company it is, they all want to identify their relatives among the masses. Of course, the most effective way to identify is for you to pay."

In other words: the most direct and distinctive feature of super users is payment. Let me ask you, is there anything that can better demonstrate the close relationship between you and your users than paying for your products and services?

So are paying users necessarily “super users”?

This is not necessarily the case. I think another important characteristic of super users is that they identify with the brand’s values. Become a brand's word-of-mouth amplifier and a channel to connect new users, and become a fission user that can bring exponential growth to the company.

Just like for Xiaomi, in addition to its product strength formed by rapid iteration of cognitive efficiency and cost-effectiveness, it is the existence of Mi fans as super users that makes it successful.

3. How to become a “super user”?

For this problem, Luo Pang gave two suggestions:

1. Only do things that make users proud;
2. Never do anything that embarrasses users.

Obviously, these two sentences are too freehand. Many people were excited when they heard them, but they didn't know why afterwards.

In fact, in the book "Super User", the author gave a very good suggestion. The author believes that:

Listening, feedback, and maintaining a keen curiosity are very important.

To attract super users, listen to them respectfully without defending the company, arguing, or making excuses.

I think it can be divided into two aspects.

1. Continue to provide value to users

For companies providing enterprise services, it means "customer success." When they sell products, they have to think about how my products can help you create value. After the customers purchase, I have to explore how I can help you create more value faster. Because users buy your product essentially to solve problems.

Whether a service is "good" in the eyes of users may depend more on whether you are continuously providing value to them. Moreover, this value should improve as their personal level improves, and the level of your output should also continue to improve.

2. Give super users status

Make super users feel that they are important to you, and you will consider their feelings first when you do anything. It is very appropriate to use a "fatal question" mentioned by Luo Pang in his speech here. The question is called: bottle cap test.

"When you are watching a movie with your wife or girlfriend, and a good-looking single lady next to you asks you to open the bottle cap for her, will you open it or not?"

If you say: He is alone and can't open it, just help him.

Sorry, no. Because your wife will be unhappy if she sits next to you.

The correct posture is this:

"Wife, here is a drink. Can you help me unscrew the bottle cap? Wife said she couldn't do it either. Then you said, Wife, I'll help you unscrew it."

This fatal test tells you: no matter how good your relationship with your ordinary friends/ordinary users is, please pay attention to the feelings of your super users first. So if some members no longer renew their memberships, it may really be because you answered this fatal question incorrectly. In this matter, Luo Pang said that there are two principles for the Get App:

1. Do things that make users feel proud. It makes users feel that Luo Pang and his team are serious, and I feel proud.
2. Never do anything that embarrasses your users.

In fact, a typical example here is that VIPKID leveraged 200,000 users to generate 5 billion in revenue, which is the growth model brought by super users.

In 2017, VIPKID's rapid development was a typical example in the field of online education . In VIPKID, 70% of users come from word-of-mouth recommendations from old users, which once again proves that truly serving super users and forming self-channel capabilities for fission users will produce amazing value amplification effects.

Super user thinking is a design method for business models that emphasizes inward-looking high-value connections and the construction of small ecosystems. It is also the formation of a new valuation system and valuation capabilities that comes from the continuous delivery of user value.

Super user thinking will surely leverage more business opportunities, build more amazing growth models, and become a breakthrough for the birth and evolution of new species.