Difficult to reach users? Try these 3 tips

Operations personnel have their own limitations. When conducting user research, it is inevitable that some users are difficult to reach. The author of this article summarizes 3 small tips that he has explored at work, hoping to provide some reference for everyone.

Who are the hard-to-reach users?

At every stage of product development, product managers , designers, and user researchers all need to fully understand users (including but not limited to potential users, existing users, and churned users). There are norms and scientific processes for acquiring these target users as research objects. However, as the Internet develops rapidly and the demand for agility and iteration is high, how to strike a balance between efficiency and scientific acquisition of research objectives has become a direction worth exploring.

“Becoming a newbie in a second” makes many people mistakenly believe that they are the users, and they no longer need to spend time and energy looking for real users. Whether you are a product manager, designer, or even user researcher, you should first acknowledge and face your own limitations. Due to differences in positions, experiences, personal usage experiences, etc., it is impossible for us to truly and completely represent users.

Especially when there are huge differences between us and the user group in terms of living conditions, interests, knowledge background, income level, etc., or when we are outside a certain region or circle, the difficulty of reaching these users will increase significantly.

Let’s take a look at the following three examples:

• The company is located in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but the main target group lives in second- and third-tier cities.
• The founding team is composed of senior financial professionals. The main service targets are college students who are new to financial management.
• It was originally intended to be a high-quality video content platform, but due to its low threshold and fast dissemination, it became the " circle of friends " for rural users.

So how do we reach these users? Here are 3 tips that I figured out while working. I hope they can provide some reference for you.

1. Find users in the data

“My app is a grocery shopping app, but I don’t buy groceries. I want to know the user’s purchasing decision process.”

In the era of big data , we can obtain basic product data through various channels . Although it is not comprehensive enough, it can still uncover some user characteristics.

There are many dimensions for analyzing data , and extracting user characteristics can simplify things, such as order time, number of orders, order amount, product details, etc. Whether the order is placed on a weekday or weekend, during the day or at night, can reveal the user's basic attitude towards the product: is it a tool or entertainment? Do you need to choose carefully or just order casually?

1. Use basic data to outline the process of users using the product, draw a timeline of users using the product, and infer the user's attributes and category characteristics

From this timeline, we can roughly understand the user's browsing patterns and deduce the process from browsing to ordering. For example, a 45-year-old female user A opens a fresh food APP at around 9 am every day, browses the daily specials channel, and is online for about 5 minutes. Around 5 pm, the user opened the app again and checked the shopping cart.

2. Find users with the above characteristics and find ways to contact them, observe or interview them

After interviews, we found that this type of user is often responsible for purchasing fresh products for the home. The first time they use the app every day is usually after work, when they take a break to browse their phones and think about what dinner to prepare for their family. But I don’t have enough time and it’s not convenient to choose carefully while at work, so I mainly browse casually, such as the daily specials.

After returning home in the evening, I check the condition of the refrigerator and open the app again. This time I will choose more carefully because I have enough time to compare and make decisions, and I may even browse more categories.

2. Immersively understand what users care about

"I am a three-dimensional person, and they are two-dimensional people. I want them to use our app."

The data tells us that many users have similar browsing paths, purchasing behaviors and preferences, but their inner needs and ideas are very different. Even if you all work in the same place, there will be huge differences in what you care about, the courier downstairs, and the white-collar worker in the financial company upstairs.

At this time, it is worth trying to observe closely, go among the users and understand their lives, such as home visits , follow-up visits, and accompaniment.

• During the project cycle, take some time to stop using the information channels you originally paid attention to, and go deep into the interest communities, news, and public accounts that the target users are concerned about, use the social tools that users like, watch their favorite programs, and play their favorite games . For example, the 2D crowd, who are considered to be very reclusive and lazy in the eyes of the public, actually have a very rich cultural living environment.
• In addition to listening to what they say, we also need to watch what they do. Close interaction with target users can help us discover some details. For example, find a friend who is into the second dimension, and watch anime on Bilibili with him, play light novel games, follow second dimension gatherings, and join QQ groups. Within a week, you will find that the amount of information they obtain is far more than you imagined.

This process is more real than the feeling gained from reading 10 research reports on the two-dimensional population. If you continue to contact 2D users, you will no longer be laughed at as speculators who just want to take advantage of the popularity.

3. Comprehensive and in-depth understanding of user behavior and needs

"I am in a first-tier city, and my products are aimed at users in second- and third-tier cities. How can I understand their needs and pain points?"

The combination of qualitative and quantitative methods in traditional research methods can solve this problem very well. From the perspective of sampling survey, we can understand the overall profile of users in second- and third-tier cities, and at the same time, through qualitative interviews with target users, we can gain an in-depth understanding of the situation of these users. What we want to emphasize here is the necessity of having a comprehensive and three-dimensional understanding of users.

Users are three-dimensional. In addition to product-related behavioral data, in order to fully and three-dimensionally understand their needs and pain points, we also need some sociological, psychological, and even economics-related data to help us understand users.

Especially when the behavior data of some users is not significantly different from the overall data, how to mine their characteristics? For example, the cultural differences between users from second-tier cities and those in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are getting smaller and smaller, so where exactly are their differences?

Understanding users' sociological information, including the user group's social role positioning, mainstream values, education level, aesthetic environment, family atmosphere and other characteristics, can help understand the deeper motivations of user behavior .

We found that compared with first-tier users, second-tier users have closer ties with their families, which has a great impact on their consumption behavior. For example, in terms of tourism consumption, second-tier users will receive more family support and have more opportunities to travel with their families. At the same time, they also need to consider the opinions of their families and cannot choose travel destinations entirely according to their own wishes.

In the future, we will encounter more and more situations where it is difficult to reach users. Although this will increase the difficulty of research, it also means new opportunities. New user groups will have more personalized needs. Approaching them, understanding them, and solving their problems can bring new growth points to products and gain unexpected rewards!

The author of this article @静静 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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