Efficient customer acquisition | Teach you how to achieve "high-quality" new customer acquisition through data

Almost all operational work is carried out around the four links of " attracting new customers ", " retention ", "activation" and " conversion ". We often face this problem: we finally attract a group of users, but they disappear while we’re playing, not to mention conversion and monetization. Therefore, the starting point of refined operations is “attracting new customers.”

The ultimate KPI of the product is the scale of active users

When developing products and doing operations, one often encounters a difficult problem - after working hard to attract users, one finds that most of them never open the product again, let alone continue to consume here.

Therefore, the "total number of users" is a vanity metric (this number will only grow over time and cannot convey information about user behavior : What are they doing? Is it valuable to you? Many of them may just register and never use it again. - Reprinted from "Lean Data Analysis "). Only truly active users can generate commercial value. Focusing on the "number of active users" and " retention rate " is the right thing to do. The ultimate KPI of the product is the scale of active users.

The scale of active users can be divided into two numbers, one is the user scale and the other is the scale of active users. What is the difference between them? The user scale refers to existing users. The number of users who have registered since the product was launched is the existing users. Active users refer to how many users are still alive and have the potential to generate value, so these two data are the two data we look at most often when doing user operations .

There are many definitions of "active" in the active user scale, which depends on the business characteristics of different industries. For example, for news and information products, we hope that users will use them every day, so we may define users who log in for 2 or 3 consecutive days as active users. For fast-moving consumer goods e-commerce products, the product positioning goals are different, so users who come once a week may be considered active users.

Therefore, whether the active user scale is based on DAU, MAU, or quarterly AU cycles needs to be determined based on product characteristics, product positioning, and product usage expectations. During this process, user operations mainly focus on three things: increasing revenue, reducing costs, and maintaining activity:

Open source, increase user registration, the registration process should consider entry + conversion;

Throttling, not letting users leave, if they leave, pull them back, that is activation;

Maintain activity, and let the "alive" users in the plate turn from inactive users into active users, from active users into core users, and from core users into loyal fans. On the one hand, it can drive other inactive users, and on the other hand, it can assist customer service in solving some problems, just like the " KOL " in the community and the moderators in the forum . The process from "inactive" to "active", then to "core" and finally to "loyal users" is the construction of the user growth system. In addition, there is a user incentive system as a supplement. In the process of user growth, different means are used to encourage users to "leap and upgrade".

Today, I will start with "open source"~

Open source portal: focus on quantity, but also on quality

The traffic dividend has disappeared and the cost of acquiring customers continues to rise. If at this time, the KPI of the marketing department is still simply based on the number of customers acquired, without considering user retention and business conversion, it will inevitably lead to a large number of new users who are of low quality/do not match the product. Although a large amount of cost budget has been spent, there will be no significant improvement in the long-term user scale and business growth. Therefore, the "extensive" customer acquisition model is no longer applicable, and it is imperative to increase user growth in a "refined" data-driven way.

Therefore, when evaluating the quality of user acquisition channels , we should not only pay attention to the number of customers, but also pay more attention to the quality of customers and whether the new users can achieve core conversions. Taking the virtual data of Internet finance DEMO in Zhuge.io's official website as an example (see the picture above), you can not only directly view the number of new users, but also view the conversion of new users after login and the conversion of successful payment.

From the above picture (the data in the picture is Zhuge io's DEMO virtual data, for reference only), you can quickly sort (the red box columns in the above picture all support "sort after clicking"), and draw the following conclusions:

The top three channels for acquiring new users: Baidu > Sina > Sogou

The top three channels for login conversion: WeChat > ​​Sohu > Sogou

The top three channels for successful payment conversion: Sohu > 360 > Sogou

——Therefore, the channel with the highest number of customers is: Baidu, but the login/payment conversion rate of users entering through Baidu is not high; overall, Sohu's customer acquisition quality is higher, so companies can base their promotion purposes on this. If the main purpose is brand promotion, they can place ads on Baidu. If the purpose is business growth, they should pay more attention to Sohu's placements.

In addition, you can check the conversion status of each promotion channel . Each number is clickable to further view each user in the user group. For example, among the 349 new users obtained through the sogou channel, 207 people successfully logged in and converted, and 73 of these 207 people completed the payment conversion after logging in. (See the picture below)

Click on each user in the "Name" column (i.e., username) (in the image above) to see every action that user has taken. (See the picture below)

It can be seen that the user named "Yan Hongchun" first came into contact with the product through the channel (utm-source): sogou. At 9:42 on October 9, he completed the payment and purchased the long-term financial product "Niannian Youyu 2-Year Plan" with an annualized yield of 9.80% and a minimum investment amount of 10,000 yuan. The payment was successful through Alipay , thus truly restoring the scenario of users using the product.

Focus on attracting new customers at different stages of the product life cycle

Due to differences in industries, products, and company resources, no two companies in the world use exactly the same new customer acquisition strategy. The same new customer acquisition strategy will have different effects on the same product at different stages, as shown in the figure below.

Operations must carry out new user acquisition work throughout the entire life cycle of the product, and it is necessary to formulate appropriate strategies at different stages to encourage more new users to join.

1. Start-up phase

The main goals of this stage are to identify user pain points, conduct functional analysis, quickly launch verification, and gain recognition from seed users .

[ Channel Promotion Suggestions] During the trial period, when the product is just launched, it is not easy to acquire the first batch of seed users.

1) User group positioning

User demands are becoming more and more diversified, and it is increasingly difficult to satisfy all user needs with one product. Even popular platforms like Didi and Ele.me do not target all users. In the early stages of the product, Didi mainly served users who had difficulty hailing a taxi, and Ele.me mainly provided food delivery services to campus users.

2) Channel matching

After identifying the target user group, you need to find the right channel. The key to determining channels is to understand the attributes of the channels and the mainstream user groups of the channels.

Currently, marketing channels have expanded from offline to online and mobile. In addition to television, radio and other media, subways/focus media/outdoor advertising have also been popular channels. There are countless online navigation websites/forums and other social networking sites, and the emergence of popular mobile apps, such as live broadcast /news information platforms, application stores , etc., have also rapidly expanded the number of marketing channels.

There are too many channels to try and error out on all of them, so it is necessary to understand the characteristics of the channel’s own user base. For example: As news and information platforms, Tencent News has more young users, while NetEase News , Phoenix News , and Sina News have more users who are highly educated and have high "three-highs". If your product users tend to be younger, it is recommended to use the resources of Tencent News. If you need to acquire high-quality consumer groups, it is recommended to use Sina News and Phoenix News. If the user group coverage is wide, it is recommended to use Toutiao . Most of the characteristics of a channel’s user base must be verified through exploration (refer to the above for channel evaluation) or initially understood through secondary information, and then ways to verify its authenticity are sought. Channel exploration needs to be carried out step by step, with gradual exploration and accumulation to form knowledge sedimentation, which will be beneficial to future channel matching.

2. Growth stage

In the growth stage, the product has passed the seed user period and has also gained the recognition of seed users. At this time, it is necessary to quickly increase the product's traffic/sales and brand awareness through marketing means.

The main goals of this stage are to acquire users, convert them into cash, and establish brand reputation.

[Channel Promotion Suggestions] During the period of large-scale channel launch, brand influence can be built through media advertising. This type of media advertising can be subway advertising or online advertising such as social networking sites. With the rise of mobile Internet , information flow advertising on super apps such as WeChat and Toutiao has also become popular. Wherever there is traffic, there are advertisements.

Brand Case 1: Social + Promotion

Audi discovered that people like to post photos of their beloved cars, so it launched an activity on Instagram: inviting users to share photos and content covering a certain topic, which may be reposted by Audi, taking advantage of the social psychology of users who like to share stories of having fun with their cars in bad winter weather.

Brand Case 2: Content + Promotion

Use the UCG (user-generated content) method, rely on users to impress users, and create a "chemical reaction" in online and offline traffic - each music review in the music review train is a story, using user UGC comments to express emotions, allowing subway office workers to see the power of music; use playlists to express emotions in a concentrated manner, allowing users on airplanes to feel the power of music during their journey; use music to connect graduation stories, giving graduates and social groups who have already graduated a sense of youthful courage and strength.

3. Mature stage

In the mature stage, the product has become stable and it is difficult to achieve breakthrough growth. The main goals of this stage are to activate and retain old users, while maintaining the growth of new users and continuing to achieve stable revenue and profitability.

[Channel Promotion Suggestions] During the channel iteration and optimization period, the promotion effect of each channel can be clearly seen through the user conversion rate , order conversion rate, and channel return on investment ROI of each channel. In the subsequent large-scale launch, focus on high-conversion and high-return channels.

During this stage, more new users are brought in through word-of-mouth marketing from highly loyal old users. After all, word-of-mouth traffic is the best quality among all traffic, and the conversion rate of word-of-mouth traffic is very, very high, higher than 60%. In this era where everyone is a self-media , the purchasing behavior of each of us will be influenced by our relatives, friends and colleagues. We find that users are not just users, but also our communicators and salesmen, helping companies promote, recommend and sell products. Therefore, a company’s greatest marketing resource is not advertising in any one media, but the power shared by every consumer. User word of mouth is a very important communication asset.

4. Decline

In the decline stage, the product is going downhill and has gradually lost its competitiveness. Its sales and profits continue to decline, and it cannot adapt to market demand. Better competitors have emerged, and its own user churn rate is also increasing.

The main goals of this stage are: first, to attract users back through operational means, and to actively innovate and seek new opportunities for transformation.

[Channel Promotion Suggestions] During the channel contraction period, reduce channel investment and retain key channels.

Brand Case

WeChat, as one of the most successful products in the social field, has the social belonging brought by the entire chain of acquaintances. However, voice intercom has no curiosity for users. The "Shake Nearby" function was successfully whitewashed after bringing a surge in users, but basically no one uses it after completing the mission of user promotion and expansion. We are also becoming more and more accustomed to the endless Moments , WeChat groups and public accounts , and the little red dot no longer makes me anxious. At the same time, the number of likes decreases, and the increase in psychological thresholds makes the experience of superiority worse and worse. Finally, the number of friends continues to increase, the number of acquaintances decreases, the social pressure increases and the relationships are diluted, the status of friends in the Moments decreases, and irrelevant articles increase, all of which lead to a decrease in users' sense of belonging.

However, WeChat did not fail quickly due to the decrease in these psychological satisfactions. Why can WeChat still grow healthily? The core of a product is the value it provides, the essence of business is improving efficiency, and the core of Internet products is to improve the efficiency of production, dissemination and transformation of information.

From psychological stimulation to efficiency dependence, from impressing users at first sight to making users unable to live without you, this is a process of love and also the core wisdom of business growth.

With the intensification of market competition, the traffic dividend has disappeared, and data-driven refined operations are the future direction. The starting point of refined operations has extended to the customer acquisition stage before users enter the product, which has completely subverted the traditional promotion ideas, from "quantity-oriented" to "quality-oriented", and from pursuing new growth to assessing retention.

Attracting new users runs through the life cycle of products and users. Operations need to formulate corresponding strategies based on the characteristics of products and users in different periods. In addition, based on business conversion data as the basis for channel quality, find customer acquisition channels that are truly valuable to business growth, continuously reduce customer acquisition costs, and improve customer acquisition quality.