How to improve user registration conversion and user activation

User registration conversion and user activation have always been one of the key tasks for marketers . An excellent product needs to ensure user activity, high retention rate and low churn rate to the greatest extent possible.

The process of "user click ( marketing ad/activity) - user registration conversion - user activation - user retention - user payment conversion" constitutes a typical user funnel model . In fact, each link can be regarded as an independent funnel model.

Growth hackers emphasize using data to drive growth, so for each independent funnel model, we can also use funnel analysis, group analysis, retention analysis and other methods to gain insight into user behavior trajectories. The ultimate goal is to increase registration conversion rates , retention rates and improve user lifetime value.

This is the main point of growth hacking, keep it in mind.

In the previous article, we analyzed the "Step-by-Step Growth Hacker Guide: Finding the Best Fit between Product and Market (PMF)". In this article, we will mainly explain how to improve user registration conversion and user activation. To some extent, this can be equated with how to acquire customers/ attract new users.

Because no matter what method you use, when it comes to attracting new users, you will face the following problems:

• Can you identify your target audience ?
• Can you judge whether your copywriting is good or bad?
• Can you judge the quality of your channels ?
• Can you measure landing page conversion performance?

I don’t know if you have discovered that what you do to attract new users actually involves four key points: users, content, channels, and conversions . So this article will start from these four perspectives.

1. How to find target users?

• User Profile
• User segmentation

First of all, user portrait is an old issue, so I will not go into details here. One point that needs to be made clear in particular is: user role ≠ buyer role, user portrait ≠ marketing target.

Let’s take a simple example – who is the target customer for children’s books? Is it the child or the parent? Children as readers means that we can regard children as the user role of the book and parents as the buyer role, because parents are the final decision makers in purchasing children's books for their children.

So if you are a product manager for children's books, you need to comprehensively consider your user persona and buyer persona, user portrait and marketing target, so that you can formulate your sales strategy correctly.

Secondly, user stratification and grouping is a group concept and a marketing strategy for refined operations . Its greatest value lies in the fact that different measures are adopted for different user levels.

To give an example, if we operate a social e-commerce product, the strategies for new and old users are often different: for new users, we often guide them to make their first payment conversion; while for old users, we want to stimulate them to repurchase. If you have a "data-driven" mindset, your operational strategies for new and old customers should be treated differently.

You can refer to my past articles, sort out the user portraits and user stratification carefully, and make it clear who the target users of your product are? And what value does your product provide to them?

Only when you know your exact target customers can you make targeted copywriting plans. Be careful not to cast a wide net.

2. How to identify good and bad copywriting?

After knowing who your target users are, you need to make a marketing plan targeting your target users. Copywriting skills and marketing planning abilities can reflect the true level of a marketer.

You need to clarify what is the purpose of your copywriting/marketing planning? Is it about the brand ? Is it about attracting new users? Is it a paid conversion? Or something else? The copywriting for different purposes is different. You need to use your copywriting to lead the user's thinking, for example -

• If you want to create a pure brand story, your copy can introduce the product value, entrepreneurial history, etc.
• If the purpose is to attract new users, you can combine it with User Referral and other activities such as user referral reward mechanism;
• If the purpose is to convert paid customers, for B-end products, you can emphasize the value of the product, for example, your product can save the company 40% of costs, or improve efficiency by 50%, etc.; if it is a C-end product, then you can emphasize the popularity of the product, or do promotional activities, focusing on cost-effectiveness.

The above are just simple examples. In short, the importance of copywriting is self-evident.

So how do you identify good or bad copywriting? How many copies of documents are needed for the same event planning?

My suggestion is to prepare 2 or more copies - because we need to do copy A/B testing .

A/B testing of copywriting is very important, and it is a very important part of the user conversion funnel model.

2008 Obama campaign copy and button A/B testing

In 2008, when Obama was running for president of the United States, his online marketing planning team was responsible for his campaign fundraising website. The core goal of the website is to allow visitors to complete registration and raise campaign funds. Obama's online marketing planning team conducted a very successful experiment at the time: they conducted multiple AB tests on multiple different styles of video copy and bottom buttons.

A/B testing of Obama campaign video copy in 2008

In the end, the optimal version on the far right of the picture above increased the website registration conversion rate by 40%, and these 40% of new users directly brought in $60 million in fundraising funds.

The best version of Obama's 2008 campaign video copy

3. How to distinguish channel quality?

This is an era of highly developed new media / social media , which gives us more options for media publicity. However, when we carry out marketing activities , we must eliminate low-quality channels, screen out high-quality channels or channels that match the user portrait of our product, and then invest more marketing funds and manpower to focus on operations.

So how do we judge the quality of a channel? Specifically, we need to determine how many visitors each channel has directed, which channels have a higher user registration conversion rate, and which channels have better user quality.

Let’s take a look at this example of channel analysis:

Channel – Customer acquisition channel

According to the customer acquisition funnel model diagram above, we can understand that Facebook and Google ads have the most visitor traffic.

But the above two channels are only for traffic diversion , what about the user registration conversion situation?

So we can further analyze the funnel to determine the user registration/payment conversion of each channel——

Funnel – User registration/payment conversion rate of each channel

We can see from the above figure of user registration/payment conversion rate of each channel that users from Facebook channel account for 40% of the total number of paying users ; and the registration and payment conversion rate of users from Instagram is the highest; on the contrary, although Google advertising marketing diverts 25% of users, the registration/payment conversion rate is only 6%.

Therefore, based on the above two funnel analyses, we can judge that Instagram has the best channel quality, and we can increase the marketing budget on Instagram after the product is launched. On the contrary, the quality of Google advertising marketing is relatively poor, and we can reduce the marketing budget after the product is launched.

When we conduct channel analysis, we need to track the channel situation and evaluate the quality of the channel based on indicators such as the number of visitors, registration conversion rate, and payment conversion rate (depending on product attributes). This is the correct way to use data to drive growth.

4. How to improve the conversion effect of landing pages?

Landing page A/B testing is a way to quickly increase registration conversion rates. The main points are:

• A/B testing of title image copy
• Key copy description A/B test
• CTA Button
• Online form filling should be set on the current page and filled out concisely

Mastering these four key points can basically improve the registration or payment conversion rate of the landing page to some extent.

Please note that there is no better or worse between different solutions before A/B testing. Only after A/B testing can you determine which solution is more suitable for your product. So the following cases are just examples -

A/B testing of title image copy

Key points: The title copy should highlight your advantages as much as possible, such as how much cost can be saved, how much sales can be increased, and how much efficiency can be improved.

A/B testing of key copy

Key points: The description of key copy must highlight the value of the product. The importance of key copy is second only to the title , and it is a key factor in improving user registration conversion rate and payment conversion rate.

CTA (Call to Action) A/B Testing

Key points: A/B testing of CTA includes many aspects: buttons of different colors need to be tested, the wording of the button copy needs to be tested, and the location of the button on the landing page also needs to be tested. Finally, select the best one according to the test results.

Online Form Filling A/B Testing

Key points: Online forms should be set on the current page and filled out concisely, not complicatedly, to reduce user operation costs.

5. How to improve user guidance and promote conversion?

If your product is an App, how can you promote user registration conversion by improving user experience ?

User onboarding is a good way, I hope it will be helpful to you.

Onboarding has three functions:

• Introduce product features and realize product value;
• Provide users with operation instructions using basic gestures;
• Guide users to complete key steps: such as registration, completing personal information, posting, shopping, etc.

Onboarding

Key points: The boot map of the startup page needs to concisely tell users the value of the product, the product's functions, etc. Taking QQ Reading as an example, the copywriting of its user guide page captures the core pain points of users: large quantity, free, and fast updates. At the same time, the copywriting is neatly parallel and completed in one go, which is very easy for users to understand and quickly guide users into the product.

Onboarding

Key points: At specific user operation nodes, use gestures to provide users with necessary operation instructions to reduce user operation costs. This onboarding pattern is simple, yet useful, and it can be implemented in many different ways.

Guide users to complete key operations Onboarding

Key points: A key point of onboarding is to guide users to complete the core product functions on the App, as well as to guide users to complete the key steps of the product, such as registration, completing personal information, posting articles, shopping, and collections.

If your onboarding is set up properly, your user registration conversion rate will definitely increase.

Summarize

As for how to improve user registration conversion and user activation, the key lies in the four key points of "user, content, channel, and conversion". The difficulty here lies in data analysis . If you can implement funnel analysis, retention analysis, A/B testing and other methods on each key point, find the crux of the problem, and then operate in a targeted manner, then improving user conversion rate will not be difficult.

Source: Xi Wenyi