How to operate Pinduoduo paid membership!

There are endless ways to play with paid memberships, and it has become the mainstream way of playing on e-commerce platforms. The reason why it can replace the rights and interests of level memberships is that, on the one hand, the original membership that was mainly upgraded based on experience points requires users to spend a longer time on the platform to obtain high-level membership rights. As competition on e-commerce platforms intensifies and substitutability becomes increasingly stronger, high-value loyal members are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and the churn rate remains high. On the other hand, the paid membership system replaces time with money. As long as you are willing to pay, you can obtain the original high-level membership rights and interests. The increase in sunk costs for users makes it easier to retain users.

There are two mainstream payment methods on e-commerce platforms. One is the value-oriented annual card system, and the other is the money-saving oriented monthly card system. The annual card system is represented by JD PLUS membership and Taobao's 88VIP membership, and the monthly card system is represented by Pinduoduo's money-saving monthly card and Taobao's red envelope saving card.

The marketing logic of the annual card system is to provide high-net-worth users with super-value service rights and interests. The target user group is generally the user layer at the top of the platform pyramid. Services that exceed the overall user service level and have a sense of belonging are provided to this group of users, thereby maintaining a group of very sticky users who are not easy to migrate to competing platforms. For example, the logic of Taobao's 88VIP is to provide card opening services only to users with a Taobao value of more than 1,000. Ordinary users need to pay 888 yuan to open an account, which is typical price discrimination. Common articles interpret this practice as encouraging ordinary users to consume more and increase consumption frequency in order to obtain activation qualifications. However, on second thought, this understanding is untenable. Ordinary users refer to a group of users who are price-sensitive and have a low sense of belonging to the platform. Comparison shopping is the mainstream behavior pattern. Why would they spend more on Taobao just to open an 88VIP membership?

Taobao's typical logic is to use price discrimination to give top users a very strong sense of value belonging, and to obtain benefits that ordinary users cannot enjoy, such as the co-branded benefits of Taobao's whole family bucket, and the benefits of multiple memberships when opening a card. The shopping migration cost of this group of users is very high. Once they go to JD.com to consume, it means giving up the accumulation of Taobao points. In this way, Taobao has retained high-value and high-frequency consumption users, which also means digging a moat. As long as the city gate is not lost, the base camp will be worry-free, and it can also go all out to sink into the market and compete for users in other hot spots.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Let's break down Pinduoduo's monthly payment benefits:

This is a model I put together for Pinduoduo's money-saving monthly card. The model can be divided into two parts. The first is what goals the platform achieves through the rights and interests levels, and the second is to solve the problem of how to get users to open cards.

1. How does the equity hierarchy achieve platform goals?

The core logic of rights design is based on the core closed loop of retention-new users-activity. Retention is the primary core problem that the platform needs to solve. For platforms like Pinduoduo, which mainly use users outside the Fifth Ring Road, users are more price sensitive and their consumption is mainly based on price comparison. They will go to the cheaper store. How to lock in customers is the core problem to be solved. Secondly, new user acquisition and fission are Pinduoduo's most advantageous areas with the blessing of social attributes. The fission and new user acquisition of monthly card members are familiar. Thirdly, activity. Pinduoduo's model is similar to Taobao. The platform model must have a large number of mid- and tail merchants. What these merchants lack most is traffic. What Pinduoduo does is to enable traffic and can provide traffic support to tail merchants, which is of great significance to the platform ecology.

We use this logic to analyze Pinduoduo's equity design ideas

The first is the retention and activation logic. What should we do to keep users staying? One is to increase the user's consumption frequency, and the other is to work hard to increase the user's consumption order. The product of the frequency and the order is the user's ARPU value. Pinduoduo has designed two rights for retention, one is the daily coupon, and the other is the free order privilege.

Let’s take a look at the benefits of the daily coupons:

How magical is this advertised daily coupon? I studied it carefully. The coupons are distributed over four weeks, with one 5-yuan unrestricted coupon and one 26-yuan threshold coupon each week. The limit is one coupon per day, giving you the feeling that you will lose out if you don't use it. Therefore, the 104-yuan discount coupon and four 5-yuan no-threshold coupons are indeed genuine, but there are pitfalls here. The no-threshold coupons are not available for groups of 10,000 people and products with 10 billion subsidies. The sense of value is greatly reduced. When many products participate in the 10 billion subsidies, it is really possible that they cannot be spent. The discount coupons are real, and their purpose is to increase the frequency and customer orders. The magic coupons are limited and must be grabbed, just like grabbing Moutai, which is basically impossible to grab.

Let’s take a look at Pinduoduo’s free order benefit. This benefit has two purposes. One is to increase the frequency, and the other is to increase activity, that is, to accelerate the function of the special session. It is still very difficult to get the right to free orders. You need to complete 15 orders, with each order starting from 25 yuan, which means you need to spend at least 375 yuan a month to get a free order. In fact, completing 15 orders is also a smokescreen or a price anchor point. Which normal user can place an order in two days? This is designed to set off the accelerated welfare special event. The accelerated welfare special event counts multiple orders for one order. Users can easily be introduced to various special events on this page, which is to realize Pinduoduo's traffic distribution logic. Pinduoduo will introduce traffic to where there is a lack of traffic, and realize traffic support for mid- and low-end merchants. From this right, we can see that users can get a free order if they actually consume 3-5 times a month, and the average consumption frequency of users is often a little more than once. If they can achieve 3 times, the purpose of increasing the frequency is achieved.

The second is the logic of attracting new users, which is very familiar. You can renew for free by inviting friends to open an account. The most effective way to quickly acquire new users is fission. The core of fission is to make both the inviter and the invitee feel that the reward is irresistible. If they do not use it, it will be a loss. This can promote the continuation of fission. For example, Pinduoduo’s common tactic is to receive free red envelopes. A pop-up window will appear saying that the 300 yuan red envelope can be withdrawn. The first cut you make is 299.9 yuan, and you are still 0.1 yuan short of a successful withdrawal. Can you refuse?

This 0.1 yuan requires you to invite your friends to help. You are very excited and go to your friends for help. Similarly, after receiving the invitation, your friends will also get the money, which is only 0.1 yuan away from cashing out, and they will also have the same irresistible impulse. The monthly card membership also applies this logic. Friends can be given a special monthly card with free renewal for 6 months, which is attractive enough to the inviter. After receiving the invitation card, the invitee can click on the flip card to draw a privilege of 3 months for free.

The first trick is to invite friends after opening a monthly card and they can get 6 months of free monthly cards. This is the core interest point to stimulate sharing fission. At the same time, it helps friends save money and reduces the psychological burden of the inviter. You share not to disturb your friends, but to help them save money.

After the invited friends receive your sharing link, they will see the following process page:

Try your luck and click to draw a card for 0 yuan. It is a very reasonable strategy to take advantage of the old customers. Users who have never opened a monthly card often draw 0 yuan, and the activation fee for invited renewal users ranges from 0.9 to 29.9 yuan. It can be said that the card opening price is different for each person. At the same time, there is no need to worry about user complaints, because it can be reasonably explained that the price is drawn by lottery and everyone's luck is different.

This can also be a reference user strategy tool for platforms that have recently been troubled by the crackdown on "killing old customers". Don't just use labels such as "new customer price" and "brand new price" on the front desk. This type of price label copy is itself a form of discrimination against old customers. Giving new customers such a favorable price while old customers cannot enjoy it is like "killing old customers". This kind of lottery format can be used to let users try their luck and get the price they want.

The second trick is to attract new customers by combining it with trial privileges. Free trial is also one of the core benefits of the money-saving monthly card.

We see that there are many traffic-generating products in the free trial products provided by Pinduoduo. Products like Supor vacuum cleaners can easily arouse users' desire to get them for free. However, this benefit is not 100% available, and the success rate is not high. The core logic is the task system. One type of task is the golden process to promote conversion tasks, which starts with simple browsing and gradually guides you to collect, add to cart, pay, and share. In fact, the more frequent the orders, the greater the probability of being selected for a trial.

The other is the task of attracting new users. This type of task can directly stimulate users to invite new users who have never registered or opened a card, and it also has a very good fission efficiency.

2. How to stimulate users to open a card is the key to the success or failure of the paid membership system

The rights and interests tiered design of the paid membership system solves the core issues of retaining and increasing the frequency of platform users. Another issue that needs to be addressed is how to make users willing to open a card. The target group of monthly card members is often highly sensitive users, and their willingness to pay is far lower than that of annual fee card users. We have summarized three tricks in the model.

The first move is to be driven by core interests. The decision logic for users to open a card is very simple. When the value of the benefits is greater than the cost of opening a card, the user will open the card, otherwise they will not open the card. Therefore, the platform only needs to let users feel the value.

Monthly cards all focus on the concept of "saving money", making users feel that they can save more after opening the card; the second is to reduce the user's decision-making cost, and the concept of "recovery" is used. Pinduoduo directly gives users a 5-yuan no-threshold coupon for user return on investment. Initially, users can receive 4 coupons, and opening at the original price also means that the investment can be recovered. From the perspective of operating costs, the platform is bound to lose gross profit. Recently, monthly cards were opened, and users found that the 5-yuan no-threshold coupon was not available at will, but was linked to tasks. Of course, in the early stage of the rapid expansion process, Pinduoduo subsidized this aspect, and users can directly receive it for a better experience.

Secondly, we focus on the after-sales concept of "refund if you don't save enough", so that users have no worries.

The second trick is the dizziness of winning a prize. Pinduoduo is a master at stimulating users' impulsive decision-making. It usually uses a big prize to hit people on the head and catch them off guard. The idea behind the withdrawal of 300 yuan with a difference of only 0.1 yuan and the opening of a card for 0 yuan in a lottery is to fully grasp the user's desire to take advantage of small bargains and amplify the psychological effect of loss aversion.

The third trick is the demonstration effect of others. On the one hand, the QA on the card opening page solves all the users’ doubts about card opening, which undoubtedly maximizes the efficiency of card opening. On the other hand, the constantly scrolling interactive information about winning makes users feel the popularity of participating in the event, which undoubtedly accelerates the users’ decision-making process.

Finally, let's summarize the core logic of the paid membership system. The annual membership system is a corporate moat that ensures that core high-value users can be retained. Annual members are often very loyal and are not likely to switch to competing platforms. Monthly membership based on the concept of saving money is often more like a user frequency-increasing tool, which enhances the value of low- and medium-value users in the middle of the platform. The coordinated operation of these two membership systems is currently more common. Companies can design rights and interests based on the core needs of target users when becoming members, which is believed to greatly enhance the user value of the platform.

Author: User Operation Observation

Source: User Operation Observation