This article will use the Internet finance industry APP as an example to analyze the six driving mechanisms that have not been summarized in the industry to improve user retention !

This article will use the Internet finance industry APP as an example to analyze the six driving mechanisms that have not been summarized in the industry to improve user retention !

In the AARRR model , user retention is in the third link: acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and referral.

If we divide the user life cycle into five stages: beginner stage, growth stage, mature stage, decline stage, and loss stage, their relationship is roughly as follows:

After a new user has passed the novice period, he will enter the retention stage. The retention stage occupies the longest time in a user's life cycle. It can be seen that retention plays an important role in a user. Therefore, all user operations (except attracting new users) need to do is to extend the user's "survival" time in the APP as much as possible.

According to the definition of Internet APP retention rate , we can divide the retention rate into next-day retention rate, 7-day retention rate, and 30-day retention rate. This is the most general view of retention. For a specific Internet finance APP, we must also look at the specific retention indicators based on the attributes of the APP. The product value of each company/APP is different, so the dimensions of consideration are different.

For example, the initial investment rate, reinvestment rate, initial borrowing rate, initial accounting rate, initial repayment rate, etc., the prefixes are generally the next day, 7 days, or 30 days. For example, the 7-day initial investment rate is 40%, the 30-day reinvestment rate is 80%, the 7-day initial repayment rate is 20%, and the 30-day initial repayment rate is 30%.

After defining this meaning clearly, let’s look at several strategies to improve user retention. The first one must be product value.

6 strategies to improve user retention:

1. Product value drive

2. Tool -driven development based on life and consumption scenarios

3. Content Value + Community Driven

4. Activity Driven

5. User Growth System

6. Refined User Operation

1. Product value drive

Product value refers to why a user is attracted to the APP and what he or she initially came for, which determines the long-term reason for staying . Therefore, it is fundamental to improve product design, enhance product performance, optimize product experience, and enhance product value.

For example, the product value provided by financial management APP is to help users manage their finances. Before P2P was regulated, the entire industry’s demand was: to make as much money as possible. The atmosphere of the entire industry has fallen into a chaotic situation of competing to see who can provide higher returns. Users are confused by the interest rates that are always higher than those of other companies. If the benefits offered at the promotional point are not as high as those of other companies, they may take advantage of the benefits once and never come back again.

After the financial crisis, users withdrew all of their money at once, and all the promotional points fell on the endorsement of fund custody, repayment guarantee, and stable investment. Users no longer believed in high returns, and safety was the top priority. At this time, only choose products with good reputation, excellent experience and stability.

2. Instrumentalization based on life and consumption scenarios

In fact, this is also a point that improves the value of the product, but because all major Internet finance products have begun to use it and it is universal, it is singled out as a separate point. The toolization of life scenarios means: focusing on the user's life and consumption scenarios, exploring more tool attributes that can solve user needs, and using it as added value for one's own products.

The essence of a tool-based strategy based on life and consumption scenarios is to increase product value and increase user usage frequency.

This is best illustrated by Alipay . The earliest Alipay was Yu'ebao, a financial product. But now Alipay can be used to check traffic violations, recharge phone bills, pay various bills, check provident fund and social security, watch movies , order takeout, book hotels, make offline payments, shop, and pay in installments. It can be said that it is now a large and comprehensive life service tool.

The following screenshots are 51 Credit Card (water, electricity and gas bills), JD Finance (mobile phone recharge, car owner services, etc.), Baidu Wallet (takeout, movies, etc.), all of which illustrate that the products are gradually becoming life and consumption scenario-oriented.

3. Content Value + Community Driven

In addition to thinking of your own APP when you have something to do, can you also use it when you have nothing to do? Content value + community-driven strategy - accumulate relevant industry content around product value, and even establish communities where users connect with each other to solve users' thirst for knowledge and relationship links. Content creation is inseparable from BGC ( brand produced content), PGC (professional produced content), UGC (user produced content) and PUGC (professional user produced content).

• BGC (branded content) is generally produced by brands or companies hiring professional editors.

• PGC (Professionally Produced Content) refers to inviting experts who have a certain degree of fame and voice in the field to produce content.

• UGC (user-generated content) refers to content produced independently by a company's own users. The quality of this type of content varies greatly, and in the Internet finance industry, the content output is mostly professional. Ordinary users mainly browse, ask questions, and communicate silently. UGC is hard to come by.

• PUGC (Professional User Generated Content) is between PGC and UGC. It is more professional than ordinary users and has a certain output quality guarantee, but it is not up to the level of big Vs in the industry. This type of users is the key training target.

With these four types of users, we can provide a steady stream of good content, and ordinary users can also gain growth value (thirst for knowledge) from it, and a virtuous circle is created. Moreover, knowledge payment has been increasingly applied to Internet finance products. All platforms with PGC and PUGC are eager to try out classrooms/training camps/themed columns, hoping to attract both users and money.

The picture shows the classroom of Alipay’s financial service area:

Under positive guidance, the value of content will become community-based. In addition to learning and communicating, users will occasionally like, leave a message, ask a question, solve a problem, add BGC, PGC, UGC, PUGC, and other users as friends, interact with them, and relationships are established, and the product has social attributes. The content communities in the Internet finance industry are generally related to financial management, stocks, funds, and workplace learning. Some will also have women's columns and cover life topics, increasing community activity by capturing female users .

LinkedIn’s logout process illustrates the importance of the community: if a LinkedIn user wants to log out of his account, a retention box will pop up after he clicks the logout button. The box displays the five friends he frequently contacts, and the text informs them: If you leave, your friends will no longer be able to see your updates, so please reconsider. In this situation, it is natural to imagine "5 friends who are frequently in contact are anxiously waiting for the user's status update". This action reduced the cancellation rate by 2%.

4. Activity Operation Driven

The value of activity operation drive in every company is obvious. In Internet APP, activity operation presents a standardized feature, that is, activities are productized, serialized and branded .

Productization means that after an activity is designed around a certain purpose (all the ones mentioned in this article are retention purposes) and is launched online for a period of time, it is found to be effective and then becomes a product feature that is launched long-term. There is a rigorous mechanism in the background for activity effect data monitoring, participating user management, and automatic prize distribution.

For example, Alipay's Ant Forest was initially a public welfare activity, but its effect was so good that it was operated as a mature product; Ant Farm, when it first went online, was a small game aimed at motivating user activity and retention. Behind these complex game mechanisms of Alipay in the picture below, it actually reveals Alipay’s intention to engage in social networking.

Another typical example of activity productization is sign-in and clock-in . Although the forms of sign-in and clock-in tasks of major APPs are different, the logical purpose behind them is the same, and they are all launched as a long-term fixed activity.

In the picture, JD Finance is packaged as an "early check-in" challenge, and you have to pay 1 yuan to participate in it. Does it arouse your desire for challenge?

The productization of activities also includes operational actions of an activity nature that are embedded in the product usage scenarios. For example, if your first investment is successful, you will be given several repurchase discount coupons and interest rate increase coupons, and every time you successfully repay the loan, you will be given a reward or a chance to participate in a lottery (such probabilistic mini-games not only increase user feedback, but also reduce pre-payments). They are individual activities, but also fixed operational actions.

The serialization and branding of events are just like the events held by e-commerce companies . They cannot stop every month and require a long-term fixed time to stimulate users: We have always been here and we are excellent! For example, there is a "Credit Day" or "Wealth Day" at a certain time every month/quarter, and the 818 every year is a festival activity created by the Internet finance industry similar to 11.11. At this time, major APPs will fully prepare ammunition and go full firepower.

5. Establish a user growth system

The user growth system can enable users to gain a sense of belonging, honor, and dependence on the platform. A complete user growth system includes all stages of attracting new users, promoting activation, retention, monetization, and fission. However, since this article only talks about retention, only the system parts that are directly related to retention are introduced.

1. Daily tasks

Daily tasks mainly refer to signing in or some APP-specific operational action guidance related to key links.

2. Points Task

Points tasks are also reflected in the APP in the form of experience points/growth points. It is a systematic incentive method. Points are obtained by completing guidance on key actions in the APP, and the points can then be exchanged for material or spiritual rewards.

3. Points Mall

Points must have a strong value outlet to be effective. The points mall is the aggregation window for all redeemable products, and bank apps are the best at points redemption.

The points mall includes many forms: points exchange for physical/virtual items, points lottery (small bets for big prizes), points game, points exchange for APP-specific services (financial training camps, consulting services), points exchange for charity, etc.

4. Membership Level Privileges

Member level privileges are generally closely related to point tasks. Most of them are similar to the level privileges of Alipay. When a certain amount of points is reached, there are certain rights. There is also a kind of member level privilege, which is that users purchase rights themselves, similar to Taobao 's 88 membership. Improve retention by screening high-quality users through paid purchases.

6. Refined User Operation

There are several key points in user-friendly operations:

1. Develop a reasonable awakening mechanism , which includes: push , SMS, email, and phone call (debt collection department). Among them, the activity operator can also achieve the awakening effect by giving some material rewards.

Users will not be disgusted by push notifications, but only by content. By pushing content that users want, we involve stratifying users and distinguishing their interests (division of content browsed in the APP), regions, ages, investment amounts, loan amount requirements, whether they have applied for xx credit cards, etc., and creating user portraits and labels, and pushing different content based on different portraits and labels.

The picture shows the push mechanism of an APP for new users. It has been deleted and only part of the content is shown:

2. Regarding the push time , the WeChat public account 10w+ article time distribution diagram is selected. Push can choose 8:00, 12:00, 20:00, 21:00

Conclusion

This article only breaks down one R (Retention) in the AARRR user growth model and summarizes the retention application strategy trends in the Internet finance industry.

In fact, several strategies overlap and merge. For example, mini-games like Ant Forest and Ant Farm driven by activity operations actually contain social strategies, which serve to connect APP users. After activity operations are productized, they often become an important part of the user growth system.

Just imagine an idea: an APP with the same tone will link sign-in and step count together, and a pair of shoes will be donated to the children of Hope Primary School if a certain number of steps are taken. When this activity is first launched, it is just a one-time activity. If this sign-in activity performs well and is fixed and productized, it will become another feature of the APP's sign-in and clock-in.

In addition to the core value of their own products, Internet finance apps are gradually moving towards product tooling, providing more added value around related life and consumption scenarios.

All links in the A AR RR model are aimed at user growth and monetization, so it is related to the business model and rhythm of the product itself. Some APPs use all of the above strategies, while others only apply part of them, depending on their own products.

The above strategies are not only applicable to the Internet finance industry, but also to other industries.

Source: Lingxi