Activity case: How to conduct fission activities through product thinking?

In the second half of the Internet , the user dividend is fading and the cost of acquiring users is getting higher and higher. The cost of acquiring users has become a key indicator of whether a company has growth potential. This article describes how to use product thinking to plan user growth activities.

There are two ways to acquire users:

• External traffic import
• Internal traffic fission

In the second half of the era when user dividends are fading, more and more companies are reducing the import of external traffic and gradually focusing on internal traffic fission, achieving user growth through refined operations of internal traffic fission.

User acquisition is important for two purposes:

• Continuously acquire users
• Stable and continuous acquisition of users

Below, we use an activity as an example to explain how to use product thinking to plan user growth activities around the two goals of user acquisition in a way that sees the big picture from the small.

This example is very representative, and the various constraints encountered are very interesting. The entire activity from start to finish is similar to the development cycle of an Internet product.

During the operation of the entire event, we also abandoned the idea of ​​doing events just for the sake of doing events, and introduced the method of doing events with product thinking.

A few months ago, I came into contact with a project providing maternity services in Beijing. My task was to help this project acquire more target users .

The following are the limiting factors of the project:

Target users of the project: pregnant female users , that is, pregnant mothers

(This time, the target user group requires the most precise user group among the entire Internet user group)

Region requirement: Beijing (with specific region restrictions)

External traffic introduction:

• Advertising . Excluded, the cost of advertising for a single precise pregnant mother is between 80 and 100 yuan, which is high, and the project party does not have the budget for advertising;
• Cooperation and mutual promotion. Excluded, the project parties have no previous successful examples of cooperation and mutual promotion, and there is no experience and process to learn from.

Internal traffic introduction:

• Users accumulated by the service account. The number of users is very small, and the average number of readers of articles sent by the service account is between 1,000 and 2,000. The content output can only be described as a failure. The service account users have been imported into communities and personal accounts, which means that there are very few new users available on the service account.
• Users accumulated by personal accounts. A certain proportion of existing users are not target users and have already given birth to children. There are also additional restrictions, and you cannot use too many personal account users.
• Users who already have a community. Existing community users are mainly used for conversion and cannot provide help for acquiring users this time.

Personal disadvantages: I have never studied the pregnant mothers group before, and my understanding of the pregnant mothers group is basically zero; as a man, I have no way to experience the real needs of pregnant mothers.

These limiting factors mean that with zero understanding of the target group, it is necessary to acquire the most accurate and difficult to obtain pregnant female users in the Internet industry without any external help and under the limited conditions of basically zero internal resources, plus there is an additional geographical restriction in Beijing.

If it were you, under such conditions, how would you plan an event to acquire target users?

• General operators will certainly think of going to the WeChat and QQ groups of pregnant mothers and using manpower to attract pregnant mothers one by one; Disadvantages: It consumes manpower, is inefficient, and the pregnant mothers who are attracted have no sense of identity and are not sustainable.
• A more capable operator would think of going to pregnant mothers’ forums and communities to attract traffic through posts; Disadvantages: low efficiency, forum communities have strict review of such posts, it is not easy to operate, and it is not sustainable.
• Some operators will definitely talk about advertising. What activities are there to do if there is no budget? Disadvantages: No budget, no way to place ads.

Remember the two goals of user acquisition: continuous acquisition of users; stable and continuous acquisition of users.

How do I acquire users under such restrictions? Let’s break it down step by step:

1. Market Research

First, search for previous years’ data on newborns in Beijing on the Internet, and then infer the market size of the target user group.

It is clear from the data in the table that the number of newborns in Beijing in 2017 was less than that in 2016. In the second year after the country relaxed the family planning policy, the birth rate actually decreased, which leads to the conclusion that the number of newborns in Beijing in 2018 will be less than that in 2017. That is, the number of newborns in 2018 will be less than 196,700, which means that this is a stock market.

By determining the market size of target users, we can decide how much time and effort to invest in new customer acquisition activities. This is a very important judgment point.

2. Conduct user research on target users

There are currently two commonly used methods for user research: qualitative research and quantitative research.

• Qualitative research is divided into: user interviews, situational interviews, and sampling surveys;
• Quantitative research is divided into: questionnaires, data analysis , and A/B testing .
• Qualitative research is suitable for small sample sizes and direct feedback, but it is not a scientific study and requires the visitor to have high empathy, social skills, and the ability to capture effective information;
• Quantitative research is suitable for studying large sample sizes and drawing scientific and objective conclusions through data analysis and processing.

To ensure the accuracy and objectivity of user research, I chose user interviews in qualitative research and data analysis in quantitative research.

Ensure that within a limited time, I can directly, objectively and scientifically understand the group of pregnant mothers, so as to help me formulate the next plan.

1. Clues obtained from interviews with pregnant mothers

• Women need to create a profile when they are pregnant;
• Women need to learn a lot of pregnancy knowledge when they are pregnant;
• Women like to discuss and communicate with other pregnant women when they are pregnant;
• Women feel psychologically insecure when they are pregnant;
• Women’s pregnancy period is divided into early pregnancy, mid-pregnancy, late pregnancy and postpartum;
• Women in early pregnancy do not like to share pregnancy-related things on WeChat Moments .

2. Data analysis of pregnancy knowledge

For specific data analysis, please refer to "3 steps to establish a public account content system?" I will teach you with 4000 words of practical knowledge

1) Analyze and process the micro-course materials during pregnancy

Micro-courses are a common way for pregnant mothers to obtain knowledge and information about pregnancy. Other channels such as self-media articles and health lectures also need to be analyzed.

(There is a lot of data to analyze, only the analysis of micro-class data is shown here)

2) Extract keywords from pregnancy knowledge

3) Combine data to find the pregnancy information that pregnant mothers are most concerned about

Through data analysis, the pregnancy information that pregnant mothers are most concerned about can be divided into four stages: early pregnancy, mid-pregnancy, late pregnancy, and postpartum; issues in each stage can be summarized and classified.

Through user research, we finally found a breakthrough in acquiring users from the pregnant mothers group. The breakthrough is to take advantage of the real needs of pregnant mothers for pregnancy knowledge and to conduct user fission activities by providing them with pregnancy knowledge materials.

Finally, through data analysis, the following information was selected for common problems during pregnancy:

3. Determine the type of activity to acquire new users

It is not enough to find a breakthrough, you also need to conduct in-depth investigations into similar activities of competing products. After in-depth investigation, it was found that competitors also have similar new customer acquisition activities that provide pregnant mothers with pregnancy information. The process is to join the group and share a screenshot of the poster to receive the information.

We selected a competitor's activity as a research case and found the following problems:

• The sharing operation is not flexible and is not suitable for pregnant women in the early stages of pregnancy;
• The information provided is not summarized and organized, and the content of the information is easily accessible;
• The event poster is not impressive and affects pregnant mothers’ sharing.

After the analysis of competitive activities was completed, a complete framework for attracting new customers targeting pregnant mothers was finally developed.

• Design an e-book on pregnancy knowledge, which includes common questions in the four stages of pregnancy: early pregnancy, mid-pregnancy, late pregnancy, and postpartum;
• The pregnancy knowledge e-book is a small product that helps expectant mothers to learn about pregnancy and guides them to spread the knowledge through fission.

Once you have a preliminary idea for a new customer acquisition campaign, you need to verify it quickly. The verification method commonly used in the Internet industry is used here: testing and iteration through the MVP method, and constantly adjusting and improving the solution.

MVP Testing:

• The pregnancy knowledge e-book is named "Expectant Mother Skill Pack", which contains carefully organized pregnancy information, including common questions and answers during the four stages of pregnancy;
• Give 20 pregnant mothers the e-book "Expectant Mother Skills Package" and listen to their real feedback;

Test results:

• Pregnant mothers who received the "Expectant Mother Skills Pack" were very surprised, and 90% of them recognized the pregnancy knowledge in the skill pack;
• 70% of pregnant mothers gave suggestions and feedback on the articles in the skill pack;
• Pregnant mothers are very receptive to the skill package e-book format and believe that it can help them solve problems during pregnancy.

With the MVP test results, we have a better understanding of the pregnant mother group and have confidence in fission activities.

MVP method testing can help us trial and error at the lowest cost and fastest speed. MVP testing must be carried out when planning an event.

4. The e-book "Expectant Mother Skills Package" is officially launched

When designing your campaign, always keep in mind the two goals of user acquisition. We repeatedly verified whether the "Expectant Mother Skills Package" new customer acquisition activity met these two goals.

• Continuous acquisition of users: Pregnant mothers have a strong demand for pregnancy knowledge, and the "Expectant Mother Skills Pack" e-book can solve this problem and satisfy the continuous acquisition of users;
• Stable and continuous acquisition of users: The e-book "Expectant Mothers' Skills Package" introduces the iterative thinking of the product and conducts iterative design based on actual conditions. Each iteration encourages expectant mothers to share and spread the information, thereby satisfying the stable and continuous acquisition of users.

1. Determine the process of attracting new customers for the "Expectant Mother Skills Package" activity

2. Design of the e-book "Expectant Mother Skills Package"

After 3 iterations, the final version before the event was as follows:

The "Expectant Mother Skills Package" is 2.3M in total, which is very suitable for sending on mobile phones.

The skill pack electronic number consists of two parts:

1) A letter to the expectant mother;

(Partial screenshot)

2) data from four different stages of pregnancy;

3. Determine the type of event poster

After testing and iteration, the three versions of the poster are as follows: (Data points and parameters are added to the poster, and the data speaks for itself)

The style and text of the poster are very impactful in the context of WeChat Moments, and are very different from previous posters of competitors and project owners. They can attract the attention of pregnant mothers at a glance in the context of WeChat Moments.

When determining the poster style, you must communicate in depth with the designer to ensure that the designer fully understands the importance of event posters and the limitations under fixed scenarios. Don't compromise, posters play a very important role in fission activities.

4. Finalize the tweet copy

The tweet copy mainly consists of four parts:

• Common problems encountered by pregnant women during pregnancy;
• The current pregnancy data available on the market is flawed;
• Problems that the skill pack e-book can solve;
• Rules for skill pack activities.

5. Activity process testing and activity execution confirmation

Test the user's path and thoroughly investigate any problems that may be encountered in the activity process;

Confirm the activity process and provide additional information on issues related to the activity execution for colleagues who need cooperation.

At this point, all the preparations for using product thinking to plan skill packages to attract new customers have been completed. The next step is to wait for the activity to start and verify the data.

In the process of planning new user acquisition activities, we followed the product development thinking, productized the new user acquisition activities, introduced iteration and MVP testing methods, and achieved the two goals of acquiring new users.

Activity Results:

• After the launch of the "Expectant Mother Skill Pack" activity, 1,000 skill pack e-books were given away in a very short period of time;
• The new user acquisition rate of the poster in WeChat Moments exceeds 50%, and the activity poster has penetrated into other pregnant mothers’ groups (such as large pregnant mothers’ communities such as Babytree and Mama.com)
• The final new user acquisition ratio remains at 1:1.5, that is, one user can attract 1.5 users to follow.

Advantages of product thinking new customer acquisition activities:

• Start from the real needs of users;
• Activities can be carried out continuously and iterated continuously;
• The users who participate in the event are all accurate users;
• The activity itself creates an interactive relationship with the user.

V. Conclusion

Steps to plan new customer acquisition activities using product thinking:

1. Conduct market research on target user groups;
2. Conduct user research on target users;
3. Determine the type of new customer acquisition activity;
4. Conduct MVP testing to test activity requirements;
5. Carry out data collection for poster iteration;
6. Test the process and understand each link.

With 10% improvement in each iteration and the number of iterations increasing, we will eventually stay ahead in the red ocean competition.