How to analyze a product from an operational perspective?

In this article, I will provide a set of thinking logic from the perspective of operation to deeply analyze the operational logic behind a product and the essential value of its existence.

Case Study

We all know that operations are very complicated and trivial. If we look at operations in modules, they may be divided into: content operations , event operations , and user operations .

If we analyze the operational logic behind a product from these branches of operations, there is no doubt that this matter will be very complicated, and there will be a lot of overlapping and intersecting parts in the middle.

Since we don’t know where to start from the operational branch, what dimension should we use to analyze it in order to truly sort out the logic and essence behind it?

At this time, we need to think about, if we look at operations from a business perspective, then which aspects should we focus on?

If we look at it from a business perspective, operations focus on three things: user acquisition, user retention, and revenue generation . Think back to your own operations work and see if it is included in these three things.

Therefore, from a business perspective, analyzing the operational logic and essence behind a product becomes very clear. This is a set of thinking methods and logic.

Next, I will take the " Get " APP product as an example to analyze and explain it in detail.

Let’s first take a look at the development history of “ Luoji Siwei ” and “Dedao”.

• On December 21, 2012, the knowledge-based video “Talk Show” was officially launched, and the “Luoji Siwei” public account was also officially launched;
• On August 9, 2013, "Luoji Siwei" launched a paid membership system, which was limited to WeChat payment . It was sold out in just half a day, easily earning 1.6 million yuan;
• On December 27, 2013, "Luoji Siwei" started recruiting its second batch of members, limiting payment to WeChat , and recruited 20,000 paying fans within 24 hours. 8 million yuan in deposits;
• In 2014, the number of followers of the "Luoji Siwei" WeChat public account exceeded 2 million;
• In November 2015, the "Get" APP was officially launched, and "Luoji Siwei" officially transformed from Luo Zhenyu 's personal show to a knowledge payment platform, inviting experts from all walks of life to open columns.
• On December 31, 2015, the first " Friends of Time " came to an end at the Beijing Water Cube.
• In June 2016, Li Xiang’s knowledge service product, Business Insider, created by veteran media professional Li Xiang, was officially launched on Get.com at a price of RMB 199 per year, and the number of subscriptions quickly exceeded one million.
• On December 31, 2016, the second “Friends of Time” event was launched in Shenzhen;
• On December 31, 2017, the third “Friends of Time” kicked off in Shanghai.

After taking a rough look at the development history of "Luoji Siwei" and "Get", I conducted an in-depth analysis of the "Get" APP from three aspects: user acquisition, user retention, and revenue generation .

1. User acquisition

(1) Luo Zhenyu brings his own traffic

Luo Zhenyu, the founder of the "Get" APP, was the host of some programs on CCTV before founding "Luoji Siwei" and was a celebrity in his own right. The star effect brings its own traffic. Luo Zhenyu's identity is destined to bring a wave of attention to "Luoji Siwei".

(2) Accumulation of “Logical Thinking” and diversion of public accounts

Before the official launch of the "Get" APP, Luo Zhenyu first founded "Luoji Siwei", which attracted a large number of users through its high-quality talk show knowledge content, and accumulated a group of very core seed users through the form of paid membership. Before the launch of the "Get" APP, "Luoji Siwei" spent 3 years exploring and accumulating experience, which was enough time to create greater possibilities for this.

When the "Get" APP was officially launched, Luo Zhenyu further directed the users accumulated by the "Luoji Siwei" public account to the "Get" APP through the daily 60-second voice and other knowledge-based content. There are many core users among them, which also solves the problem of finding seed users for the product in the early stage.

(3) The annual New Year’s Eve speech by “Friends of Time”

It has to be said that "Friends of Time" is a very good way to build the "Luoji Siwei" product brand . Since its launch, it has created a screen-sweeping effect at the end of each year, resulting in hundreds of millions of disseminations. This is similar to a super event marketing , which will attract the attention of a large number of users.

(4) KOL effect

The authors on "Get" are all elites and big names from all walks of life, and the authors themselves bring a lot of traffic. Think about it, is your attention to "getting" or even paying for it largely related to a certain author?

(5) Others

User self- recruitment

The "Friend Invite" function of the "Get" APP encourages existing old users to invite new users through two-way discounts. This is also a function or operation method that many products have.

Event Marketing

Earlier, Luo Zhenyu attracted a large number of users' attention by selling books and mooncakes. Many people in the industry are also interpreting and reporting on this incident.

Conventional means of attracting new customers

For "Get", there are definitely many ways to attract new users, such as on-site and off-site activities, SEO / SEM / ASO , content dissemination, advertising , etc., which I will not go into details here.

2. User Retention

User retention mainly focuses on two points: user retention and user activity . Let’s take a look at what Duoduo has done or can do in terms of user retention.

(1) Make users pay

As a knowledge-based paid product, the most important thing to retain users is to get them to pay. When users complete their consumption on the platform, retention rate will be greatly improved. The same logic applies to other consumer products. For example, on consumption platforms like Meituan and Ele.me , new users can get an instant discount of around 20 yuan when placing an order, which almost means they can have a free meal. The purpose is to improve user retention and activity.

Therefore, if "Dedao" wants to retain new users for a long time and maintain subsequent activity, the first thing it needs to do is to let users pay. So how do you get new users to pay? "Get" does several things:

Content Targeting

The essence of "Get"'s business is to provide knowledge services that can save users time.

There are two key words : one is "saving time" and the other is "service" .

" Saving time " can be understood as being able to greatly reduce the time cost for users to acquire knowledge. For example, it may take a user one hour every day to learn about what is happening in various industries, but by subscribing to a column on Get, it can be done in 10 minutes.

" Service " can be understood as greatly reducing the effort users put into acquiring knowledge. For example: If you want to study the business model of a certain product, you may need to spend weeks or even months exploring and analyzing it, and you may not be able to figure it out. On Get, you only need to subscribe to a column and listen to it for a few dozen minutes every day, and you may be able to understand the matter in a week. This is the power of "Get": extracting and integrating difficult-to-understand knowledge from all walks of life, and then converting it into easy-to-understand expressions and delivering it to users, who can easily accept and understand it.

One more thing to say is that since it is a service, it should essentially form a closed loop. "Dedao" is now more focused on selling products, but when a user signs up for a course, does he actually learn anything? How are you doing with your studies? What problems did you encounter during the learning process? "Get" is not paying attention to this series of things now, but this will be the focus of "Get" next. Once a closed loop is formed, user retention and activity will definitely be greatly improved.

Content Quality

The high-quality content route that "Get" has always followed has also been shaping this perception among the public. The columnists of "Get" are all big names and elites in various industries, and many of them spend almost all their energy on "Get", leaving them with no spare time to do other things. This is how good content quality comes about. If the content is of high quality, users will naturally be willing to invest their time and energy in it.

Content Strategy

"Get" gradually encourages users to pay by presenting and guiding them with some free content.

Imagine first that for a new user, after entering the "Get" app, all the content inside is paid, and you cannot watch it at all without paying. At this time, there is at least a 90% chance that new users will choose to leave. Because when users have no idea about the content, it is basically impossible to get them to pay.

There is some free content on the "Get" APP. After users watch and learn and gain further understanding, will the probability of users paying increase? And if we further guide users to pay within the free content, will the user conversion rate to payment increase again? User retention and activity will naturally improve.

(2) Content form

All the content in "Get" is in the form of audio + text. Firstly, the audio method can make the efficiency of knowledge acceptance higher and reduce the user's learning cost. Secondly, by adopting the audio format, users can listen to it anytime and anywhere, which is much more convenient than simply reading text. When users can learn anytime and anywhere, and the learning cost is very low, users will be more willing to open the "Get" APP to learn in their fragmented time.

(3) User-level operations

For a product with tens of millions of users, in order to maximize the value of each user, tiered user operations will definitely be adopted. Based on the business of Get, we can define users and classify them from the following dimensions:

User growth cycle: primary user, growth user, mature user

How to define the user's growth cycle can be done through data analysis and mining. For example, it can be defined based on the time when the user "gets" registration. Those who have registered within one month are primary users, those who have registered for 1-3 months are growing users, and those who have registered for more than 3 months are mature users. In short, we need to analyze the background data and find a definition method that best suits the "Get" platform itself.

User life cycle: active users, declining users, lost users, dead users

How to define the user's life cycle, like the above method, also needs to analyze the background data and find a critical value, then it will be easy to define these users clearly.

Through tiered operations of users, we can maximize the value of users and perform differentiated operations. If done well, it can greatly improve user retention and activity. I won’t go into details here, and I will do a deeper interpretation and analysis of this later.

(4) Other conventional methods/means

Coupons

"Get" will consider many factors and issue coupons to users with the aim of encouraging users to consume. Once users complete their consumption, the churn rate will be greatly reduced. Coupons are often a very effective way to operate users in a tiered manner.

medal

I won’t go into details about the methods used to promote activity, such as medals, points, titles, and levels. Here I need to mention one thing that "Get" does very well: when a user obtains a badge, he or she can choose any audiobook as a reward. This move can also effectively improve user activity.

other

In addition, "Get" will definitely do a lot of things to maintain users, such as: on-site and off-site activities, content planning, user care, etc. Due to limited space, I will not go into details.

3. Earn income

As for the income, it has been mentioned before, mainly from two sources:

(1) Course sales

As a knowledge-based paid product, a very important source of revenue definitely comes from users paying for courses. As for the fees that users pay for subscribing to columns or knowledge, "Get" shares the profits with the columnists.

(2) Product sales

"Get" has a special mall entrance that sells various goods, such as gift boxes, books, office supplies, etc. This is also a very important source of income.

Furthermore, "Get" can also use events to encourage users to purchase other products. For example, Luo Zhenyu also sells books, moon cakes, etc., which is also part of the source of income for "Get". That’s all about earning income.

Through the above analysis and interpretation, now from the operational perspective, it becomes very clear. I have always emphasized that learning ability is the most important thing for operations . You must always keep an eye on the outside world, have a strong curiosity, and learn and think anytime and anywhere, only then will you be able to leverage more possibilities through operating this thing.

Source: Zhou Bin