There are four stages of user growth, like falling in love?

Is user growth like falling in love? It's indeed a bit far-fetched. But when a real product interacts with users, it’s like falling in love. If you like someone, you’ll see them every day. When you don’t like someone, then okay, we’ll never see each other again. But that’s how our users are, and that’s how our products are too. They were loved by everyone, criticized by everyone, and finally got together.

Back to the issue of user growth, can it be achieved purely through operations ? No, operations can only create incremental growth, but the attitude towards the product determines the size of the incremental growth. So products are also a part of growth. But product growth is also limited. Does product and operation mean all user growth? No, it depends on your marketing strategy. This strategy will determine the future structure of your brand and thus your company's business model .

Having said so much, user growth is achieved through technology, products, operations, marketing, sales, finance and other aspects. The emergence of sales is understandable, because B-end products will inevitably adopt a large-scale sales model in the end, and even C-end will need big-customer sales. And what about finances? In fact, we need to use financial models to increase our user base. For example, you need to calculate costs, ROI and other data.

Phase 1: Coexistence (sweet period)

1. Initially understand the market and business

Whether it is a market you are familiar with or an unfamiliar market, as a newly started business, you must begin to have a deep understanding of the market. We also need to have sufficient understanding of the business forms in the market. Most Internet products are understood based on the existing market and transformed into online products, with the optimization process only taking place in the market. While having a deep understanding of the business, we also have a profound grasp of the product direction.

Example: Didi

Why enter the taxi market in the early stages of the product? Because the taxi market has been established, it is easier to promote and understand the product form. There is no need to cultivate the market excessively like with private cars. So this step lays the foundation.

2. Be familiar with users

Who are your users? Did you know? Can you determine your user group based on just a few business data? Or simple user feedback? Neither. In addition to having in-depth communication with users, you also need to become friends and then protect your core customers and users. Protecting core users is protecting the core of your product.

Example: QQ

What should QQ do if there are no users in the early stage of the product? It is Ma Huateng who personally chats with users and cultivates customers. In addition to understanding customers, this also focuses on retaining customers.

3. Establish product boundaries

Every product needs product boundaries in the early stages. Our product boundaries also determine who our core users are? We need to meet those needs in those scenarios. What core functions do we need in the first phase to verify our product? Can such a product meet commercial needs?

Example: Meituan

In the early days, Meituan’s only business was group buying, but in the later stages it gradually added categories and business lines. So in the early stages, we only need one business line and product to support the market.

The first stage is more about understanding and knowing the market with a complete understanding of self-knowledge and what you do. In the beginning, everything looks good and there are no difficulties. That’s why it’s the sweet period. The level of cognition also determines the future direction of products.

Stage 2: Anti-dependence (Contradiction Latency)

1. Operational attempts and interactions

After the product is launched, operations are nothing more than promotion, retention , and activation. Impress users through content and attract new users and activate users through activities. In the early stages, you don’t need too many users to flock to the product, but rather a moderate number of users to verify the product. Although we all hope to go slower, when we speed up, it is partly due to pressure from investors and partly because we think our product can accept many users. But these attempts must be done in moderation.

Example: Xiaomi

In the early days of Xiaomi, several hundred users were recruited from mobile phone forums as initial seed users for trial use. This key attempt allowed the product to grow and laid the foundation for gaining a large number of fans.

2. Product scenario positioning

When a market is satisfied, it is important to know how to enter the market and how to find your own product positioning. The product scenario needs to be reorganized here. Especially for some initial product requirements, after verification errors, what we need to think about is how to establish new scenarios.

Example: DingTalk

After the failure of Laiwang, DingTalk still survived despite the strong momentum of WeChat . Why? In fact, it is about finding your own position, which is the work scenario. Satisfy users in this scenario and reasonably separate users' personal needs scenarios from work scenarios.

3. Establish unified goals for products, operations, technology, and markets

You ask about the product, what is your goal? We receive demands from operations, make good use of them, tell the technology department, and then figure out how to schedule them. In fact, it is not entirely correct. The more correct approach should be to establish a set of unified goals for products, operations, technology, and markets. A true team works together to achieve a common goal. A team with a complete goal will win.

Example: Alibaba

Alibaba ’s culture penetrates almost every employee. Also establish unified values. Especially during Double Eleven , everyone worked together to accomplish the impossible. This is all because everyone has a common goal: to break a certain number of trillions.

The second stage is the incubation period of dangerous factors. Many product, operation, market, technology and other reasons are lurking and can erupt at any time. When the epidemic breaks out, whether we can solve it well will be a critical period for user growth. Achievement is success, failure is failure.

The third stage: independence (conflict outbreak period)

1. Operational data mining, back to users

What is data? The most important thing is to analyze the problem and then solve it. This is the key to data analysis and the value of data. We find different users based on different indicators, analyze, sort out and understand them, and finally go back to the users to verify the answers and solve growth problems.

Examples: Taobao , Toutiao

Based on big data and data analysis, Taobao continuously optimizes personalized products for users, thereby continuously increasing sales. Similarly, Toutiao also uses human editors and algorithms to recommend things that users like, constantly discovering problems and making corrections, thereby increasing stickiness.

2. Find the core needs of the product from the users

What are the core requirements of the product? This is the most confusing part of every product. Often, the overlapping of functions causes the product to lose its focus. We found that when users operate certain products, they actually only remember a few functions and operations. This is the real core demand of users.

Example: WeChat

Whether it is the circle of friends , scanning, payment and other functions. The core product function is still the product’s social circle of acquaintances. Try every possible means to return the product to its essential core functions and make users addicted.

3. Keep interacting with users

Communicate with users continuously through feedback, email and other functions to discover interaction problems in the product. Discover scenario problems in the product. Deep thinking about these issues can not only solve product problems, but also major issues such as user growth in operations. A small bug may cause a lot of users to lose. So whether it is communication or human-computer interaction, these two interactions are very important

Example: WeChat

In the early days of WeChat or FoxMail, Zhang Xiaolong constantly communicated with users in this way to improve the product and perfect every user scenario.

4. Marketing strategy, continuous explosion

The best method is actually to continue marketing. Many pricing strategies in marketing, especially price differences, can cause users to buy impulsively. Continuously holding festival activities is also a common method used by e-commerce products, which can constantly stimulate users to have a reason to buy things.

Example: JD.com

Use the price difference, for example, how much does one pack cost? Buying three packs is much cheaper than this. Based on this price gap, users are encouraged to purchase more products or more expensive items. The same goes for coupons, which make users think they are getting a great deal, but in fact it is all due to the price difference.

5. Ultimately, it comes down to user psychology

In the final analysis, it is all about maintaining users with heart. The product is thoughtful, what is the user's mentality when using the product? Is it to solve loneliness or to make people happy? Then, if you operate with sincerity, does it make users have a moment of impulse to help you promote your product? Do you particularly like this product?

Example: Zhihu

Why has Zhihu been able to grow? It’s because every question is very professional and every answer is very thoughtful. Such products are obtained through continuous maintenance. And the most important thing is to be sincere.

The third stage is when conflicts break out. We need to correct ourselves around our users, the people we like, or make them understand you. In this process, everyone understands each other and grows together. Finally, to increase the feelings for each other.

Stage 4: Symbiosis (Stable Period)

1. Product closed loop

In the end, the product will form self-growing users, who will be active themselves, pay for the products themselves, and help promote the products themselves. Finally, a virtuous business closed loop is formed. Such a closed business loop determines product stability and success.

This positive feedback mechanism leverages product growth.

Example: Meituan

Meituan’s business now covers almost all areas, including movies , group buying, food delivery, hotels, finance, etc. All of these businesses are built around scenarios where users use the service outside. These scenarios all require fixed payment or need to be completed offline. So this is a product closed loop centered around the user.

2. Continuous operation

Operations continuously build IP through high-quality content and find product hotspots through activities. This keeps users coming back to use the product. Such continuous operations make the success of a product an absolute possibility.

Example: Meituan

Meituan’s business now covers almost all areas, including movies, group buying, food delivery, hotels, finance, etc. However, Meituan did not stop these businesses. Instead, we continue to expand our business. Such operations allow the product to continue to grow.

3. Brand continuation

Finally, in order to reduce financial costs, we all hope that the cost of user acquisition will be reduced and our marginal benefits will be reduced. The premise for the reduction is to maintain old users, and then the old users will naturally attract new users to achieve this. Here we maintain products through relationships. We hope that products can enhance user growth through interactions between users.

Example: WeChat

With QQ as its big brother, a large number of users have imported into WeChat through the QQ address book. It was a success almost overnight. In fact, this is the brand continuation of Tencent’s own products. The inheritance of social product attributes enabled WeChat to achieve rapid growth in its early stages.

The fourth stage is when your product is completely successful. Your users cannot live without your products, just like we cannot live without Apple, WeChat, and Alipay . These products have become part of our lives.

The author of this article @晓翼 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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