What is the secret behind TikTok’s explosive user growth?

Think first:

• How do you measure user growth ?
• What supports user growth?

Bright Dairy, a large traditional enterprise, orders milk on a monthly basis, but later found that the renewal rate was not very high. Why is no one renewing?

He might have forgotten. It expired on the 3rd, but once the time passed, it was forgotten about, resulting in the loss of many users. But in today's Internet companies, when we purchase memberships from iQiyi or video websites, they will automatically renew your subscriptions.

This is a kind of Internet thinking, which is driven by data .

Today, user growth, retention and conversion often rely on data to be more efficient and accurate.

1. The era of exponential growth

A phenomenal product is one that grows its user base very quickly from the time it goes online. As you can see, many phenomenal products appeared in the early years, such as Faceu and TikTok . Why is there such explosive growth?

The core reasons behind this are as follows:

1. Convenience of connection

The connection between people and between people and information is becoming more and more convenient. When many offline relationships are mirrored online, there is a huge network effect. For example: When I post something on WeChat Moments , it will spread quickly. This is the advantage brought by the convenience of connection.

In addition, the connection between people and information is becoming more and more convenient. In the past, information was passively obtained from the media, television, and PC websites, but now it can be obtained through mobile phones, even AR , VR , or different means.

So that's the first fundamental factor behind the exponential growth, because of the abundance of connectivity, or the reality of everything being connected.

2. Data is measurable (strategy optimization in real time)

The data behind the connection information can be quantified and measured, so many strategies can be optimized.

If you put an advertisement on TV, it may take a long time to get some feedback based on traditional TV ratings surveys. But now, whether it is Internet advertising or operational strategies, its effects can be obtained in real time.

Based on the results, the strategy can be optimized directly. This is the current situation that can be measured and optimized.

3. Open empowerment (accelerated iteration)

Now a new trend is mini programs . In fact, mini programs are essentially open traffic platforms. What kind of impact will they have on different products and different industries?

We should have a building block innovation logic for what we want to do. What is building block innovation?

In fact, it is an innovation in business model , and its core foundation is to have more open and empowering things. WeChat ’s platform traffic is constantly opening up, including artificial intelligence , and all algorithms and technologies are also constantly opening up. You don't need to know the complex mathematical models behind the basic algorithms to use this thing.

Therefore, in the process of achieving this business goal, the first step is to quickly achieve some goals based on the existing resource combination. This is the current situation of exponential growth.

So, in an environment of exponential growth, which dimensions should we consider when making a product?

1. Determine who are our customers and who are not our customers, and attract potential customers to become our customers.
2. After coming into contact with users and products, it is necessary to study the user life cycle. This is a set of paths, from when users learn about your product, to when they are interested in purchasing your product, to when they build word of mouth, and then recommend it to more people.

Therefore, in the whole logic, we will divide the customers of a product or a company into several different stages and types:

(1) The first type of customer: technology enthusiasts

They are innovators and when you launch new products, they are very enthusiastic about the technology, so they will use it.

(2) The second type of customers: early adopters

They are people with innovative thinking and will explore anything new, so they will use such products. How to cover these two groups of people?

Find product-market fit (PMF).

Therefore, all current MVP (minimal visual analysis) products will continue to be experimented with during the popularization process among technology enthusiasts and early innovators, and will be promoted further after verification .

At this time, a huge group of people will come: early adopters and late adopters.

Early adopters are profit-driven. If they see something useful, they will use it. Later users are more likely to follow the herd mentality: if everyone else is using it, I will use it too. Finally, there are people who are skeptical. When something comes out, they think it is useless and are reluctant to use it.

When we promote any product, we must first let others know about our product, its functions, value and differences. Once users have some understanding, they will research, investigate, and compare, and finally choose your product and buy it.

Both technology enthusiasts and early adopters use this method to try out different products.

2. How to drive user growth?

How to achieve exponential growth in users?

I think we cannot avoid discussions in two dimensions: growth indicators and core paths.

1. Accurate indicators

Based on the stage the company is in and its core goals at this stage, we should break down what indicators we are concerned about now and how accurately the indicators quantify user behavior .

(1) Based on data measurement

Everything you do must have a logic that is quantifiable, traceable, and optimizable.

(2) Focus on the user life cycle

The data of the entire life cycle of users should be connected, that is, from marketing promotion , to product operation , sales, customer service, and finally word-of-mouth communication, the entire process should be fully connected. This is also related to data measurement. What we measure is not only the ROI (return on investment ) of the stage, but the overall ROI.

(3) Aiming for growth in defined indicators

When working on user growth, we must clearly understand what our core indicators are. Only with this indicator can we break it down and know what the core factors are. For example: is it to increase more traffic, improve the conversion rate of traffic, or increase repeat purchases?

The strategies will be different under different core indicator definitions.

2. Core path of user growth

(1) Definition of Customer Profile

Before increasing user growth, we must first clarify who the customers of this wave of growth are? Are they new customers or existing customers?

If there are new customers, you need to think about which channels these customers will appear in and what the quality of different channels is like? If it is an existing customer, we will look at how these existing customers performed in the past on our platform or on our products.

(2) Set goals

What are the core indicators we want to motivate him?

Whether it is to improve retention rate , conversion rate, recommendation rate, length of stay or the number of content created, define such indicators based on the business.

When defining such an indicator based on the customer portrait, one thing that needs to be noted is that this indicator will change at different stages.

(3) Design of target completion path

When our product was in its early stages, we were focused on acquiring new customers. During this process, we have enough traffic to verify our concept. If we are lucky, we can find the fit with the market the first time. Next, we can explore some points where users recognize the value of our products.

At this time, it is necessary to revise the product, upgrade its functions, and make some optimizations within the product. If you have a certain amount of traffic, retention and duration of stay, then study how to convert it into revenue.

(4) Data collection and governance framework design

With a complete data collection and governance framework, we can see the impact of any strategy we implement in real time, and adjust our strategy in a timely manner to optimize the ultimate goal.

(5) Insights and analysis

How to improve user retention?

Social products have found that after friends follow each other to a certain extent over a period of time, the retention rate will increase significantly. This is to analyze the correlation between some special dimensions and core indicators.

(6) Action and feedback

After insight and analysis, it is more important to take some actions and provide feedback.

This logic is very similar to that of AB testing (AB testing means dividing a small number of users into two equal groups, where one group experiences version A of the website revision, and the other group experiences version B of the website revision, and the results are recorded and analyzed separately), that is, there are assumptions.

It is necessary to look at all test results, that is, what the feedback is, under the data collection governance framework and on the basis of clear goals.

We first test it on a small number of users, and then promote it to the majority of people.

(7) Deriving the core factors of user growth

In the process of analysis, we will find some particularly good or particularly bad trends. This is the process of discovering problems. We find correlations by discovering problems, and finally we may find the logic of attribution analysis, which is to find that A and B grow at the same time, which is correlation.

How do we find out the attribution?

Analyze how much impact the growth of A has on the growth of B. This is the most difficult and core part of user growth.

So think from two dimensions when growing your users:

• On the one hand, we need to select the target group based on the current stage of the product.
• On the other hand, based on the selected target population, we need to study the information, demand feedback, and touchpoints of these target populations throughout the entire user life cycle and product interaction, and how to conduct quantitative analysis.

The purpose of user growth or growth hacking is not just to target some virtual indicators, such as how many users to achieve. User growth requires business growth.

3. User Growth Framework: 2A3R

The 2A3R model is a very classic hacker growth framework that takes user life cycle management as its perspective.

Part 1: Acquisition

For example: A new product is launched, and in the traditional market we promote it through various means such as TV advertising and building advertising. But now there are various channels, such as Weibo, WeChat public accounts , live broadcasts , Douyin, and offline activities , putting up some QR codes and sending out some coupons, which are all channels for obtaining traffic.

These increasing number of touch points between users and products are actually the most critical points in all hacker growth: where does the traffic come from and what is the quality of the traffic? This basically determines whether there is a possibility of subsequent improvement.

Part 2: Activation

At the most basic level of operation, we will talk about the UV (Unique Visitor), PV (page view), and download volume. Going one step further is how to define activation.

Indicators such as UV, PV, and downloads can only make you feel good, but in fact they cannot directly bring you income or profit.

What does Activation mean?

For example: A luxury brand is doing traffic diversion , and users who receive coupons are Acivation, which means that the user is interested in the product, otherwise he would not receive the coupon.

Activation is about companies defining some user-triggered events based on their core business. Activation can measure the quality of early traffic acquisition.

Part 3: Retention

Retention is a concept based on mobile Internet , which was when mobile apps were first developed. It refers to whether a user comes today and will come again tomorrow. It is possible that I hold an event and 100 users come today, but they never come again after tomorrow. Then the value of this traffic to me is limited.

Or they come today, but not next week, or not next month. This is daily retention, weekly retention, or monthly retention.

Based on retention, it is the same as opening a store offline: if you open a store offline and someone comes today, he will come again tomorrow, and your potential probability of closing a deal will be greater, so this is a popular understanding of retention rate.

Part 4: Revenue

Monetization is about how to turn this traffic into revenue. This process is closely related to the design of our products or sales logic.

For example, taking a taxi coupon as an example:

The first time you take a taxi, he will give you a coupon. Based on this coupon, you will spend very little money on the taxi the first time, so your contribution to its income is limited the first time. The second time, he gives you a smaller red envelope so that you can continue to use the taxi for the second time. This is the process of generating income. This process varies slightly in different companies.

Part 5: Referral

When a user has a certain understanding of your product through traffic, he will continue to visit your product when he has needs and make some revenue contribution to your product. Next, we hope to share product feedback with more people through word of mouth.

R (Referral recommendation) forms a closed loop. If the taxi ride is very good, I will share it on WeChat Moments, and new traffic will come in.

This logic sounds more like mobile Internet . Now all operating methods are constantly being digitized and informationized, and data are constantly being collected. Whether it is online or offline, or new retail, the 2A3R logic can basically be matched in all new scenarios.

The logic behind 2A3R is more like doing market and marketing through technology or through the thinking of programmers , so every step needs to be quantified, measured and optimized.

Based on the 2A3R framework, let’s discuss a few more detailed issues:

(1) How to set up a user map?

This user map, whether it is a TO C enterprise or a TO B enterprise, when any customer uses your product, there must be a user portrait :

1. Who is this user, what kind of person is he, what kind of company is he, why does he use such a product, and what value do he hope to achieve?
2. In this process, what are the user's target expectations and what kind of touchpoints do we use to serve customers?
3. How do customers' emotions change during this process, and how can we improve customer conversion rates from an experience perspective?

Liang Ning made the user map very vivid in her product manager course:

The premise of quantification is that we have a good plan, that is, we have sufficient strategies. This strategy can be connected in terms of products and operations, and the data generated by these strategies can be evaluated and fed back.

Based on this logic, we can achieve growth. This is the perspective of interaction. Now in the domestic market, C-end users and B-end users have very high requirements for user experience, even much higher than foreign users.

(2) In terms of user experience, how to optimize it from the perspective of interaction?

We will draw a curve for the entire life cycle of the user - what kind of means, channels, content should be used at different stages to convey what kind of information to the user.

1. When a group of users have no knowledge of your product and brand, you need to convey the value of your product and brand.
2. After having a certain understanding, you should tell users how your product features are different from others, or how my user engagement and the embodiment of user value in the product are different from others.

At the same time, when users make purchases, we will distinguish which users are price-sensitive and which are eco-sensitive.

For such users, you will set up different content: at different stages, what kind of channels, what kind of content, and what kind of means to reach customers.

Traditional advertising as commonly understood is more of an independent, scattered point, but I think it is a complete strategy.

Take the example of KFC advertising:

When KFC placed pre-roll ads on Youku and Tudou, it gave a core indicator: if a single audience sees an ad less than three times, it is not an effective reach. If it is viewed more than five times, we will not give money for more than five times, because this is not effective reach.

That’s the complete strategy.

Therefore, the person who does the interaction is similar to a mini CEO. He not only sees the product and operation, but also sees the value that the product operation brings to the company.

(3) Some new tools brought by hacker growth logic

①Provide data and technical support

You have great ideas, but don’t understand technology? Are you good at user experience of your product, but don’t understand data?

It doesn’t matter. There are many marketing planning or marketing technology companies on the market that can provide tools. Helps with data acquisition and tracking (techniques and implementation processes for capturing, processing, and sending specific user behaviors or events).

② Provide ABC...test based on different strategies

For example: we can identify a certain group of people and help you test. Or if you don’t know how to analyze relevant factors and have done a lot of experiments, but still don’t know which dimension is most relevant to the final performance, there are also some data models and data tools to help you achieve this.

The core of using tools is to complete your basic technical knowledge in a certain aspect, while gradually improving your operational efficiency.

Let me tell you a case of online education :

There is an online education company. As we all know, the customer acquisition cost of online education is relatively high now. The cost of acquiring customers is high. After acquiring customers, 20% or 30% of users may switch to the registration process, and the remaining 80% of the traffic will be lost.

With traditional methods, there is no way to operate lost users. You may send an EDM ( email marketing ) every month, but in China, EDM is very rare. So does this 80% of lost traffic have no place to be used?

For example: Can these users be classified? Which channel did he come from? What courses did his friends who came from this channel buy before? Is it possible to use tools to automatically guide him to these courses? For example: in the form of coupons or trial listening.

Perhaps this 80% of traffic can be converted into 10% to 20% to the next stage.

Whether you are developing products or doing operations, you only need to understand user needs and scenarios, and design some points that you think can be improved and grown.

Afterwards, there will be a large number of tools and products that can help us realize the entire growth logic.

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Author: Zhao Qiankun, authorized to publish by Qinggua Media.

Source: Noteman