The inconspicuous invitation gift activity: Why are so many APPs using it?

Nowadays, when it is so difficult to acquire customers, APP operators always want to do things by organizing activities. However, activities such as roulette and slot machines are often disliked by operators because of their poor effects. Hidden in regular activities is a customer acquisition model with a long history that cannot be underestimated - old users invite new users. This model is more often used as an activity in the later stage.

The customer acquisition model of acquiring new users through old users is derived from the user's sharing behavior. Some APPs will use reward mechanisms to stimulate users to complete sharing behaviors. In fact, even without the stimulation of a reward mechanism, users will spontaneously complete the sharing behavior, because human beings are inherently happy to share.

1. Why users are happy to share

1. Social relationship chains promote sharing

With the rapid development of the Internet, the customer acquisition model of sharing from old users to new users has also been widely used in APPs. Apart from the attraction of some existing rewards, sharing behavior is actually an instinctive behavior of human beings.

Insurance practitioners regard their relatives as their first clients when they enter the industry, small games are frequently launched in the circle of friends , knowledge sharing brings strangers together in WeChat groups , and sharing behavior happens all the time. Among the 15 types of instinctive behaviors of human beings, both family and social relationships determine that human beings will share information with people who share the same values ​​within their own relationship chain. Whether the information recipient will easily accept the information is determined by the strength of the social relationship.

2. Valuable things encourage sharing

In 2015, the animated feature film "The Monkey King: Hero is Back" was released. Although the film company had promoted the film before its release, the film's publicity and attendance were not as expected. However, the film's exquisite graphics and innovative plot impressed the audience. The audiences who watched the movie shared the information that "The Monkey King: Hero is Back" is a good domestic film, which attracted people who were not originally interested to watch it, and then agree with it and share it. Thanks to the spontaneous sharing of the audience, the film's final box office exceeded 1 billion, becoming a legend in domestic animated films.

Audiences would spontaneously recommend this movie, not only because of their feelings for the character of Sun Wukong, but also because, at the time, this movie reached the highest standards of Chinese animated feature films in terms of plot and production, and was worthy of everyone's support in the cinema. Most of the audience were recommended to watch the film by their friends, but after watching the film, they all expressed their approval of the film.

2. Which apps use sharing?

Through the above analysis, we know that sharing behavior is a spontaneous behavior of human beings. In some existing APPs, we can see different sharing mechanisms. How do they exist and what are their functions?

1. Interesting APP content sharing

When users encounter interesting things while using the APP, they will share them. When Mobike was first launched on the market, everyone rushed to try it out, either riding it alone or with three or two friends. At that time, Hezijun often saw friends sharing their itineraries on WeChat Moments . Out of curiosity, Hezijun also tried it. After the ride, he also shared his itinerary. Since there were no Mobike in some cities at that time, some friends asked Hezijun what this thing was. I was also very enthusiastic to explain to them. Ultimately, users' spontaneous sharing behavior brought a large number of users to Mobike in a short period of time.

2. Share APP directly

There are a dizzying number of apps in the same category, but each app has its own loyal users. These loyal users will share their favorite apps with their friends. The target users of the app also exist in the circle of friends of loyal users, so the sharing of these loyal users can often bring more accurate new users to the app.

Some APPs directly add sharing functions to their products. Users can use this function to share the APP, which not only facilitates users but also brings more users to their APP.

The knowledge-based paid product Get APP has an APP sharing function. In the Get APP, users can click "Recommend [Get] to Friends" to share the APP with others. Moreover, the Get APP has also carefully designed a poster for the sharing function. Users can choose to generate a poster and share it with friends, or directly share it with their friends with one click.

3. Share with friends for help

When you see something interesting, you want to share it with your friends. If you encounter difficulties while using the APP, you can also ask your friends for help. This function is common in games. When a user runs out of life points while playing the game, he can ask friends for help to get more life points, but only users of the APP can give life points. The friend successfully registered and became a user of the APP. The friend was given life points and the registration of a new user was completed at the same time.

Asking friends for help is essentially a form of sharing. On the one hand, users gain life points through sharing, and on the other hand, it actually has a potential promotional effect, "I'm playing this game recently and I'm having difficulties. The game is so interesting and I want to continue playing. Can you help me?"

When the Candy Crush game was very popular, Hezijun often received messages for help from his friends. Eventually, he became a user of the Candy Crush APP. Until now, he is still addicted to the game.

4. Offer rewards/benefits to encourage users to share

(1) Social e-commerce group buying

Social e-commerce, as the name suggests, is to complete the sale of goods through the user's social chain. When a user sees a product he likes in the app, he can buy it for 50 yuan each. He can then invite friends to join the group purchase and buy it for only 25 yuan. He can then share it to WeChat groups and Moments and invite friends to join the group purchase. Originally, only two people were needed to complete a group order, but because the price of the goods was very low, users who obtained this information flocked to group order, and eventually, it became a group order of 10, 50, or even hundreds of people.

Pinduoduo APP is a social e-commerce product. Users can share and invite friends to buy goods together. The social sharing attribute of Pinduoduo APP has helped Pinduoduo APP to quickly achieve user growth . Pinduoduo, an e-commerce APP that was only launched in 2015, has surpassed Vipshop and Tmall in 2017 and firmly sat on the third place in the e-commerce APP category.

A single user shares product information, multiple users come together to buy in a group, and multiple users purchase products at their desired prices. The sales volume of the social e-commerce platform is greatly increased. This is probably one of the reasons why social e-commerce can explode.

(2) Distribute taxi red envelope coupons

When users use the Didi Chuxing APP to hail a taxi, they will receive a taxi red envelope after the trip. Users can share the taxi red envelope to their Moments, WeChat groups, QQ groups, etc. Others can click on the link and enter their mobile phone number to get a considerable amount of taxi coupons. Didi Chuxing’s taxi red envelopes are essentially a way to acquire users.

The shared bicycle ofo that became extremely popular this year also adopted this sharing method. At that time, Hezijun received a cycling coupon in the WeChat group, and then became an ofo user, and has been using it ever since.

According to the functions of the product, coupons are provided to users. Users only need to enter their mobile phone numbers to get coupons. This method has actually obtained some information about potential users. Through subsequent activities, these potential users can be converted into their own users.

(3) Direct cash back

The cash/commission reward method is the simplest and crudest method. Himalaya FM uses commission rewards to encourage users to share. The user first selects any course and shares it with friends. After the friend purchases the course, the sharing process is completed and the sharing user can get a commission.

User invitations under this reward mechanism are very efficient, but one thing to note is that only when the new user completes the actions specified by the system will the invitation be considered complete and the inviter can receive the reward. The specific rules are determined by the functions of the APP. When Uber acquired a large number of users, it also launched invitation rewards. If a user invites a new user to register and completes the taxi payment behavior, the inviter can get a 30 yuan taxi voucher. For some apps, the invitation is considered completed as long as the user is invited to complete the registration.

Using cash rewards to stimulate old users to invite new users is very effective, and many APPs use this method to acquire customers.

Summarize

Different apps use different sharing and customer acquisition models, but in essence they are all people’s sharing behavior. Marx said, "The essence of man in his reality is the sum of all his social relations." As long as there are people, his social relations will exist. As long as social relations exist, sharing behavior will not stop, and sharing and acquiring customers can achieve viral growth.