Starting operations from scratch: Keep’s 100-day advancement

There is a reason why Keep is so popular. The operational driving force behind it cannot be underestimated. This article interprets its operational strategy. I hope it will inspire you.

1. Product Description and Current Status

「Keep」—your mobile fitness coach, get a perfect body anytime, anywhere.

Keep is a mobile fitness tool with social attributes. It had over one million users within 105 days of its launch[1]. Since then, the number of users has continued to rise, and two years after its launch, it had 80 million users, becoming one of the phenomenal products that has become popular in recent years. In response to users' fitness needs, Keep has gradually transformed from a tool-based "mobile fitness coach" to a comprehensive sports platform that integrates community and e-commerce .

1.1 Market Environment Analysis

With the improvement of living standards, people have higher requirements for their own external expression, and they want to be beautiful, and want to look thin when dressed and have muscles when undressed. Fitness has gradually entered the public eye, and going to the gym and hiring a personal trainer have become a trend. Through the Baidu Index, a trend analysis of the word "fitness" was conducted, and it was found that since 2014, the frequency of users searching for "fitness" on mobile terminals has greatly increased. On the other hand, the system fitness cost is high, which keeps out many users who also have fitness needs. It was also during this period that fitness apps such as Keep and Hot Fitness were launched, and some step counting apps also added fitness guidance and other functions.

Figure 1: Baidu Index Mobile Trends for "Fitness" (2011.01-2017.07)

Improving physical fitness and pursuing health are common pursuits of people. On this basis, people who participate in fitness exercises have different user portraits . According to a joint survey by Nielsen and the General Administration of Sport of China, those born in the 1970s and 1980s attach importance to scientific and systematic exercise and fitness, which can effectively prevent sports injuries while relieving stress; those born after 1985 attach importance to achieving body shaping effects through efficient sports content design; those born after 1990 regard fitness as an important part of social interaction and like to shape their own healthy image on social networks by posting sports photos and sports achievements.

The cost of fitness mainly comes in two aspects: money and time. First, spending power has a differentiated impact on users’ fitness needs. For economic users, fitness is part of a healthy lifestyle and is more for fat loss and physical fitness. Fitness enthusiasts have higher requirements for their appearance and their fitness goals are more for body shaping, so the cost is correspondingly higher. In addition, there are high-net-worth users who want to relieve stress through socializing, and they often choose leisure sports such as golf [2]. Furthermore, the average daily leisure time of Chinese citizens is 2.55 hours, far below the average level of developed countries. This means that users generally have less time to spare on their own, leaving them with less time for exercise and fitness. Therefore, facing this group of users with less leisure time and average spending power, similar concepts such as "mobile fitness" and "fitness without equipment" still have great market development prospects.

1.2 Keep Chronicle

• In October 2014, Keep’s official WeChat account was established.
• In November 2014, it received a 3 million yuan angel round investment from Zehou Capital.
• On February 4, 2015, Keep 1.0 iOS was launched.
• On April 20, 2015, the Keep Android version was launched.
• In May 2015, the number of users exceeded 1 million, and the company completed a US$5 million Series A financing round from Bertelsmann and Intime Capital.
• In July 2015, GGV led the B round of investment with US$10 million.
• In December 2015, the number of users exceeded 10 million and it was selected as the APP Store's 2015 Annual Selection.
• In May 2016, the number of users exceeded 30 million, and Morningside Venture Capital and GGV led the C round of financing with US$32 million.
• In August 2016, the number of users exceeded 50 million, and it received a strategic investment in the C+ round from Tencent.
• In March 2017, the number of users exceeded 80 million, and Apple CEO Tim Cook visited Keep.

1.3 Core business logic

Figure 2: Keep core business logic

Keep focuses on fitness as a core need and provides users with a series of fitness-related services.

Figure 3: Keep function structure (V4.5.1)

One cannot help but sigh that after two and a half years on the line, the functions provided by Keep have rapidly expanded from simple indoor training to outdoor running and cycling, meeting the different needs of fitness enthusiasts. What is more noteworthy is that Keep has rapidly expanded its tool attributes, integrating elements such as social networking and e-commerce into its products, and has built a sustainable commercial model by taking advantage of its success.

1.4 Product Status

At present, Keep has long been ranked first on the APP Store's free fitness and bodybuilding APP list , and its user reputation is also quite good.

Figure 4: "Keep" APP Store historical ranking (Source: APP Annie)

Figure 5: “Keep” APP Store rating (Source: APP Annie)

In March 2016, Keep received a C+ round of investment from Tencent. The social relationships that Tencent controls brought a new round of user explosion to Keep.

Figure 6: "Keep" 201608-201708 Android market download trend chart ( data source : Kuchuan)

Note: The vertical rise from January 9 to 10, 2017 should be caused by the fluctuation of Android data background.

Although we can only obtain the download trend of Keep in the past year, we can still judge from the trend that Keep is currently in its growth stage and the number of users is still in a stage of continuous growth. According to official disclosure, the number of users has reached 80 million, and it is preparing to launch an international version in the second half of this year.

In terms of version iteration, it has been updated to V4.5.1 and maintains a rapid iteration rate of 1-4 times per month. Combined with the download trend chart, analysis shows that the key functions updated in the past year are all centered around optimizing the training experience and motivating users to regularize training. Specific measures include sports data analysis , sharing of training results, interaction during the training process, etc., bringing users a full range of experiences including warm-up learning before exercise, immersive training during exercise, and sharing and display after exercise.

2. Keep Cold Start Strategy

It is known that Keep gained one million users within 100 days of its launch (Note: some data say the number is 2 million, but no matter which data it is, such a rapid growth can prove that Keep has passed the cold start phase of the product within three months), so the following will review Keep's operations before May 2015.

2.1 Target Group

Although Keep has added many community features since its launch, its core function is still "mobile fitness coach". The product has tool attributes and aims to solve the problem that it is difficult for users to find fitness information and even more difficult to exercise in real time. Under this premise, launching practical and professional content will inevitably become the top priority of Keep's early development.

We can segment users' fitness needs in terms of time, money, information, etc.:

• I am too busy at work to go to the gym, and I don’t have any equipment at home.
• Want to exercise but can't afford to buy a gym membership or hire a private trainer
• There are too many guides online, I don’t know which one is reliable
• Personal fitness is boring, I don’t see results, and I can’t stick to it

During the cold start period, the target population must, on the one hand, have the condition of having an independent willingness to exercise, and on the other hand, they should also have the spirit of an "innovator", that is, they should be willing to continue to try new products, provide feedback for new products, and do word-of-mouth promotion for good new products. Users who possess both of these characteristics will become Keep's seed users , and Keep will maintain friendly contact with them in a series of operational activities.

2.2 Entry Point and Operation Methods

Keep's cold start entry point: Based on the core functions of the product, create a new media matrix of Weibo, WeChat and fitness communities, and implement the "mine-laying plan".

2.2.1 New media matrix promotion represented by WeChat official accounts

The operation of Keep’s Weibo and WeChat accounts preceded the launch of the APP. The WeChat official account published its first article on October 30, 2014 (three months earlier than the launch of the APP), and in the early stages of operation, it basically maintained a pace of pushing articles every two days.

1. Content Source

• Keep original article
• Other self-media reprinted articles
• Articles authorized by fitness experts

2. Content Quality

Before the launch of the APP, the content of WeChat public accounts’ tweets included not only fitness science tutorials and fitness stories, but also a considerable amount of life gossip that had nothing to do with fitness, such as “Beijing LiveHouse Play Guide” and “This Information Will Enhance Your Interstellar Movie-Watching Experience 100 Times”. In addition, there are several articles related to sports brands such as Nike and New Balance. It seems that the idea of ​​founder Wang Ning to create a brand was not just a whim [3].

We selected the first 80 articles published on the Keep WeChat official account for analysis (October 30, 2014 - March 2, 2015), and found that the four articles pushed on October 30 were read over 100 times. Among them, Keep's original article "What You Need to Know About KEEP" and a popular science article on running reprinted from "Hardcore Fitness" (the APP was launched in June 2015) were read over 500 times, indicating that Keep may have made corresponding distribution in the fitness vertical community at that time.

Before 2015, the number of tweets read mostly remained between 100 and 200, and most of the articles with relatively high number of reads were reposted articles. Since 2015, the operation of WeChat public accounts has shown two major characteristics: (1) the originality and professionalism of fitness science tutorials have increased; (2) the content of the articles is closely centered around fitness, and the WeChat account brand image has gradually taken shape through the form of popular science articles + celebrity stories + interactive Q&A.

Keep has pushed 11 articles about people during this period, and most of the articles pushed before were about sports stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo. The goddess literacy post reposted from Douban marked the starting point for Keep to pay attention to the fitness career of ordinary people. Celebrities are far away, but slightly plump people are close. The experiences of ordinary people such as Douban goddesses and Zhihu hot moms will make users empathize and give rise to the idea that "I can do it, too."

summary:

After a period of exploration and understanding of user feedback, the Keep WeChat account has gained a steady increase in users and continued to operate with the professionalism of its fitness science articles, the relevance of its fitness stories, and the interactivity of answering questions. By leveraging the social attributes of new media, Keep penetrated into the user base in its early stages and more accurately positioned its product as a fitness companion.

2.2.2 The "Mine-laying Plan" + "Chief Experience Officer" Recruitment that Captures People's Hearts

1. "Mine Laying Plan"

The "Mine-laying Plan" is a plan by the Keep operation team one month before the product launch. They targeted nearly 100 vertical communities and social groups , and cultivated readers by serializing high-quality fitness experience posts over a long period of time in various QQ groups, WeChat groups , BBS, Tieba , and Douban groups. After Keep was officially launched, the operators used their accumulated KOL voice to tell users that these are what an APP called Keep can bring to you. Then, the product download link is released to recommend everyone to try it, thus converting APP users[4].

The "Mine-Laying Plan" cultivated Keep's first batch of hardcore fans and formed an internal testing team of about 4,000 people. With their help, the online version of Keep was improved and gained a high exposure resource position in SEO .

2. Recruitment of Chief Experience Officer

On January 22, 2015, two weeks before the product went online, Keep launched a "Chief Experience Officer" recruitment on Weibo and WeChat. By following Keep's Weibo and reposting it, one could successfully sign up to become an experience officer. 50 (later increased to 100) people who reposted it were randomly selected to receive small gifts (towels). In this way, Keep gained more than 400 experience officers on Weibo, and used Weibo's traffic advantage to promote its own products again. Similarly, Keep's user operations are also quite complete. Interactions on Weibo and sending new messages are all timely and appropriate, and the product has established a good reputation before it was even launched. During the subsequent launch of the Android version, Keep also adopted this experience-feedback model, striving to maximize the product experience.

3. Weibo promotion activities

On the day of the APP Store launch, Keep launched a campaign on Weibo to give gifts by following and forwarding the app, which received over 2,000 reposts. Subsequently, on February 10, 2015, it was promoted through the Weibo account "app菌", and was forwarded in conjunction with a number of big accounts such as "忆忆專小马甲"; on March 17, 2015, it was promoted in conjunction with the Weibo account "app菇仔". Overall, Keep’s paid promotion activities are not frequent.

summary:

Keep's "Mine-laying Plan" and "Chief Experience Officer" not only attracted a group of die-hard fans, but more importantly, this group of early users themselves have a great interest in and demand for fitness. Their use can test whether a tool-heavy product like Keep can meet the basic needs of users, thereby providing feedback and evaluation on the effectiveness of Keep's training courses.

2.2.3 Product Function Iteration: Polishing Tools + Community Brand

Keep is first and foremost a fitness tool product, which is the core value it can provide to users, and secondly, it provides value to users. Keep uses the PGC course production method to fill content, and provides users with a number of reliable fitness courses in the early stage of its launch. As fitness is an activity that requires effort to achieve, its social nature is an important factor in encouraging users to participate in the long term. To this end, Keep’s approach is to allow users to post updates only after each training is completed. On the one hand, this motivates users to maintain and record their exercise, and on the other hand, it filters out meaningless community information and reduces operational pressure.

Judging from the functions of the initial version updates, Keep, while ensuring the user's fitness experience when using the APP, seizes the user's psychology of "checking in" and "showing off", continuously optimizes the dynamic sharing function after training, stimulates user activity and retention , and attracts new users to join.

Figure 7: Keep’s early important feature updates (iOS version)

3. Conclusion

Because fitness is a continuous and visible change, it is more of an external cultivation and is expressive. This is also an objective reason for Keep to achieve the path of tool + community development. More importantly, Keep fully mobilized "human" resources in the early stage of operation. The rigid demand + good product experience + user reputation made the user growth of this product continue to grow. In terms of operations, whether it is the new media matrix operation of Weibo, WeChat, Douban and Zhihu (if you are interested, you can study Keep’s Weibo operation) or the snowball-like self-propagation of users (I downloaded Keep because of a friend’s recommendation), they all have outstanding performances.

Looking back at the first three months after the launch of the Keep iOS version, the course content was provided by PGC, users only generated training dynamics and gradually formed a community atmosphere, and popular science tutorials were jointly created by the official and KOLs to form a rich content resource. The birth and development of Keep coincided with the good time of national fitness, and it was also inseparable from the accurate product positioning and the healthy spread of word-of-mouth operations. During the growth stage of the product, Keep chose a variety of promotion methods such as media cooperation, brand cooperation, and topic creation to further enhance the brand potential and move forward towards the sports platform.