How to acquire a large number of accurate users at low cost?

In 2017, the operation method of increasing fans by fission was popular. The company wanted to use fission to increase fans, but the product manager disagreed, saying that fission was too low-level and did not match our high-end temperament.

Later, I saw my peers using fission and their fans increased rapidly. At that moment, I felt that there was such a big difference between the thinking of operations and product.

Sanlian Life Weekly and New World View have also done fission fan-increasing operations, but no one thinks they are low; Pinduoduo does group buying and forwarding to grab red envelopes, and everyone thinks Pinduoduo is low, that's because Pinduoduo's products themselves are of poor quality, and the fakes are so fake that it makes people doubt their lives.

So the Low issue has nothing to do with the customer acquisition method, but has more to do with the product itself. There is no distinction between high and low in terms of customer acquisition methods, the only difference is expensive or cheap. Whether the cat is black or white, as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.

So what are some ways to acquire customers at low cost?

1. Follow the trend

When a new antibiotic is developed, the more time a person takes the new drug, the more likely the body will develop resistance. At this time, in order to maintain the efficacy of the drug, the dosage has to be increased, and increasing the dosage will further increase drug resistance, resulting in higher and higher dosages. The new operating method is like a new drug. When it is first used, it has low cost and good customer acquisition effect. When peers start using new gameplay, users will develop "resistance", the gameplay becomes less and less attractive to them, conversion rates decrease, customer acquisition costs increase, and finally tend to a high level, and the gameplay enters a mature stage.

When another new way of playing emerges, it will lower the customer acquisition cost, and then everyone will use the new way of playing crazily. After a period of time, the new way of playing will become the old way of playing, and the cycle will be repeated over and over again.

(The drawing skills are limited, please bear with me)

From this rule, we can find the point where the customer acquisition cost is the lowest, which is when new gameplay becomes popular. If it is too early, the new way of playing has not yet been put into practice and the best implementation path has not been explored; if it is too late, users' "resistance" has become stronger and the cost has already been pushed up.

Tencent follows a similar logic when copying other people's products. It lets others take the lead and blaze a trail while it quickly follows up, using its traffic advantage to defeat its opponents and rush to the forefront of the industry. This saves a lot of costs caused by making mistakes.

At the beginning of this year, Xin Shi Xiang pushed the WeChat group fission method to a new climax. A few months later, this way of playing became less and less popular. Recently, it was said that Tencent's rules were also being tightened, and the restrictions on group-building software were becoming increasingly strict.

Another popular thing is the mini program . After repeated iterations over the past two years, the mini program is completely different from when it was first launched. E-commerce group buying and red envelope grabbing are smoother in mini programs, and the cost of acquiring customers is also lower. According to public information from Mogujie , 109,455 people shared a single product on WeChat , and the conversion rate after sharing among WeChat friends was 44%. In one and a half months, the number of new customers exceeded 3 million.

Such high customer acquisition efficiency is unmatched by any other method.

There is also the apprentice recruitment system of Toutiao , giving money for reading articles, pseudo-mining on the blockchain , etc. When Q&A became popular, some financial products even developed Q&A software to attract customers. Users will generate income after answering questions. If they want to withdraw cash, they must upload their ID information and bind their bank card. This is obviously the registration process for financial products. Upon checking, the subject is indeed a financial product.

I haven’t seen where the next emerging gameplay will be, but it may be just beginning to emerge. Therefore, operators must always pay attention to new gameplay in the circle, follow up immediately, and enjoy the first wave of dividends.

2. Play by the mature methods of the industry

What?

Didn’t you say earlier that the cost of acquiring customers using mature methods in the industry is high?

Why do you say we should follow the mature methods of the industry?

Don’t be in a hurry. Although the cost of acquiring customers is high through mature methods, the cost will be even higher if you want to explore new ways of playing on your own. Because the first person who dares to eat mushrooms will most likely eat poisonous mushrooms.

Of course, this is not absolute and can be divided into two situations. The first type is a startup company whose product is just starting out. In this case, it is best to operate according to the mature practices of the industry.

Because the industry's original customer acquisition methods have been repeatedly verified by people in the industry, there will be no better way unless a new way becomes popular in the short term. At this time, the product is in urgent need of users, needs to acquire users in the most predictable way, and find a way to support itself.

Nowadays, many companies are thinking about subverting their original industries as soon as they are founded. "The original operating methods of the industry are very low, we can't use them, we have to use the Internet 's methods, purely online methods."

For example, in the business of filling out college entrance examination applications, parents of senior high school students originally could only access the information on filling out applications at schools and local training institutions. For many years, the industry has been acquiring customers through offline sales meetings.

Now new products require them to obtain information through online channels , which requires cultivating user usage habits. The cultivation of habits requires long-term education of users and requires cost investment, which is unaffordable for start-up products, and it is also difficult to control how many users to acquire.

If the traditional offline sales method is adopted, the conversion rate and the number of people that can be converted by the amount of sales will be clear at a glance, and the control over operations will be stronger.

The second type is products that are already in the maturity stage and late growth stage.

To revolutionize the way you operate your business, you must have the capital. Products that have already grown up already have a large number of users, and the possibility of the product dying at any minute is very low, so there is no need to worry about spending money and the product dying. The team has become industry veterans and has a deep understanding of users and industry rules, so they should innovate and explore new ways of playing. For example, the Double 11 created by Alibaba has become a festival for the whole nation to celebrate, and it has brought enormous impact to Tmall .

To find the mature operating methods in the industry, you can get a rough idea by looking at the practices of benchmark companies in the industry.

After obtaining the first batch of users, gather the users together and collect the data. Then use product innovation and model innovation to influence users and change their habits and usage scenarios for obtaining relevant information.

3. Operational gameplay is more suitable for micro-innovation

Operational innovation will encounter many uncertainties, and the conversion process is not particularly efficient, which ultimately leads to increased customer acquisition costs. If you take a wrong step, all your investment will be wasted.

This is very risky, so the innovation approach of taking a completely new path is not the best option in terms of operations. It is better to choose micro-innovation. For example, the copywriting is innovative, but the conversion process remains unchanged; the customer acquisition channel is changed, but the customer acquisition method remains unchanged, etc. Make changes little by little, innovate in only one or two aspects, keep other aspects unchanged, and then adjust the effects based on data feedback. This will allow you to more accurately judge whether the new gameplay is really effective.

This is quite similar to the controlled variable method in physical experiments. I only leave one uncertain factor, and the others are known and controllable, so I naturally have a lot of control over it. Being in control is the only way to avoid wasting money.

Finally, high-sounding methods are not necessarily good methods. Platform advertisements covering subway cars and bus stops are not necessarily more effective than posting small advertisements in corridors. The key lies in the combination of industry and product.

Author: Albumin, authorized to be published by Qinggua Media .

Source: Albumin