Users (fans) start to leave at an accelerated rate, what else can you do?

If you are extremely sensitive to user activity, you should have noticed that since April and May 2017, the user churn rate of knowledge self-media represented by Luoji Siwei and public accounts of various vertical fields has continued to rise...

Not to mention the large number of ordinary public accounts or entertainment celebrities, many of whom have almost disappeared from the public eye.

But on the other hand, even in this context, new products with homogeneous competition (such as shared bicycles , or a large number of new vertical content products) are still pouring in, further exacerbating the deterioration of the environment.

Everything has its "shelf life", from fruits, toys, games , work, to hobbies (even love), there will always be a time when people get tired of them. No matter the content or the product, it cannot escape this fate .

So, when conventional means such as giving away cash, events, and accelerating feature version iterations are unable to reduce the high user churn rate, what else can we do to significantly increase the life span of the product and thereby fundamentally reduce the user churn rate ?

Although this article is about serious business issues, let’s start with the “big things in life” (these two things are essentially the same):

In emotional life, what factors can enable two people to have a happy and lasting love (marriage)?

Maybe Romeo would think it is "breaking the taboo of feuds", while Xu Xian would think it is "caring for small animals", and Princess Huanzhu would think it is necessary to "cause more troubles when there is nothing to do"...

However, for most of us ordinary people, generally speaking: being well-matched, mutual tolerance, and having compatible personalities are the basis of a healthy marriage.

Judging from the statistics, this answer is indeed almost correct.

But we are talking about "happiness", not just "being together":

For example, if one party always tolerates the other party at the expense of the quality of life, or if there are no more choices, or if one party compromises out of consideration for the children, etc., these cannot be called "happiness."

The secret to maintaining a happy relationship is to fundamentally prevent the accelerated loss of users

American sociologists have conducted research from different dimensions, and the results consistently show that those couples who are most successful in love have one thing in common:

Both sides have a tacit sense of humor.

It's really surprising.

Not only that, in the United States today, when choosing a mate, women rank sense of humor second in importance to men (first is intelligence), higher than traditionally valued traits such as money, status, and appearance (if this were also the case in my country, I wonder if housing prices would still be so strong).

This shows the importance of humor to a happy marriage.

So why is humor so important to happiness, to maintaining the "long-term stability" of love and marriage?

This involves an essential interpretation of humor.

Fortunately, the essence of "extending product life" and "maintaining a healthy and happy relationship" is exactly the same .

In other words, once we can find the answer , we will also find a way to make our fickle and ungrateful users love our products for a longer period of time .

So, what is the essence of humor?

1. The essence of humor is surprise, and no one is immune to surprise

Neuroscience has discovered that when we laugh from the bottom of our hearts, our brain secretes the most typical self-reward: dopamine.

Then why can just "laughing" bring about a feeling of pleasure so easily?

Let’s take a short story as an example:

The lady walked into the hotel with a pet duck, and the bartender saw her and asked, "Why do you have a pig as a pet?"

The lady said, "I am holding a duck."

The bartender said:

“I was talking to the duck.”

Why do many people laugh when they see this?

Because according to common logic, the bartender must be talking to the lady, so readers will feel strange when he says "pig" (creating conflict), and then when the bartender says he is talking to the duck (resolving conflict), most people will suddenly realize the funny part - he is satirizing the lady for being fat (and may also imply that she is bossy).

In the end, our own internal interpretation of the joke (aka epiphany) is what makes us laugh:

We can get pride and joy from solving a problem (an epiphany) , which physicist Feynman called "the thrill of discovery."

You don’t need to solve “quantum physics” or “human genetic engineering” to achieve “enlightenment”:

In reality, even something as simple as a little joke, or lifting a dumbbell (disguised with foam and colour), or even walking onto an escalator that is out of service, and suddenly feeling the slight inertia of being out of control... can make us "laugh" (epiphany).

From the perspective of human evolution, laughter is a flexible response (explanation of conflict) to unexpected things (conflict), which is more suitable for most situations than the other two responses: fear and anger.

Otherwise, if we see someone stepping in dog poop and then get angry and start wielding an axe to hack them, how can we build a harmonious society?

In comparison, smiling is much more harmless, and it is said that girls who love to smile can bring good luck.

So happy couples always:

One party is good at creating humor, and the other party is able to catch the funny point (which is also a "reward" for the party who creates humor).

If we quantify the happiness this brings to the family in secular terms , it is like as long as two people are together, they can:

I won the lottery (a small prize), found 100 yuan, received a thank-you letter from a customer, the stock I just bought hit the daily limit, and when I was traveling abroad, I encountered a 10% off sale at a local supermarket that only happens once in a decade...

How can such a marriage not last?

After this interpretation, the answer to " extending the product life cycle " is clear:

Create random surprises for users through certain operational means.

Product "Freshness" Strategy 1: Create Random Surprises

So, what are random surprises?

For example, is the “incentive money” recently launched by WeChat Pay and Alipay a surprise?

When users receive incentive money for the first time, it is a pleasant surprise;

It was also a pleasant surprise when the second time I received more random incentive money than the first time;

Apart from that, it is not a surprise (users already know in advance that there will be a bonus next time) and may even have a counterproductive effect.

For example, if I won 0.99 last time, but only 0.22 this time, I would instantly think, “Kao, I’ll just use Alipay next time.”

This is why Li Shaojia emphasized many times in previous tweets:

Operators should try to think more creatively about operation and promotion strategies other than cash incentives - cash incentives have major flaws . (Don’t think that just because WeChat and Alipay do this, it means this is a good strategy)

In fact, as long as we deeply understand the connotation of humor: creating conflicts and allowing users to gain enlightenment on their own , we can come up with many methods that are far more effective than such vulgar and uncreative strategies as cash incentives.

To reiterate, the key principles of creating random surprises are:

• First, it should be beyond the user’s expectations (avoid regularity);
• Secondly, let the user "spontaneously" come to an epiphany (don’t give the user an explanation, let him explain it himself).

Following this principle, we can try to “create random surprises”.

Let’s take “ Gudong Sports” as an example, and the demonstration thinking of “creating surprises” is as follows:

1. When a user uses Gudong Sports, he expects: to be reminded of time, mileage, and speed while running, and to check the running route and record mileage after running.
2. So, how can we insert “unexpected” events?

For example, when you are running, the announcement suddenly goes: "A large group of zombies are chasing you from behind... 10 meters, 8 meters, get rid of them quickly."

This is an unexpected solution.

Or, when the user finishes running, try to unlock more "medals" (currently only record-breaking medals are available, which is too low-frequency. How many people can constantly break through themselves at a high frequency?), and for the "mysterious medal" type, you can be more creative:

• For example, the award for running to the beat of "Ode to Joy";
• Award for elegance of turn;
• Even the lowest record in history (what’s wrong with making a joke)…

If you have experience in playing games, you will realize that the treasure chests that drop randomly after killing monsters are typical "random surprises".

In addition, jokes themselves are random surprises with the highest "cost-effectiveness" . For content-centric products , appropriate use of the element of humor (except for entertainment products, after all, humor is not unexpected at this time) can gain good user perception and extend the product life cycle .

Similarly, no matter what product we operate, as long as we can follow the core value of the product and insert some "positive events" that are "beyond the user's expectations" without destroying the core value process of the user experience , we can produce a surprising effect .

Another example is Maimai. When an article you posted reaches a certain number of likes, it will remind you that you have gained new influence. These are all unexpected little surprises.

So, in addition to giving users surprises during the product experience , what other strategies can keep users interested in the product?

Product "Freshness" Strategy 2: Let users get what they are not entitled to

Humans have a cognitive preference to constantly seek recognition from the outside world .

This gradually evolves into what psychologists call a "flattery bias."

That’s why when we try on clothes, the sales assistants almost always compliment us. Even if a dark-skinned person wears bright pink clothes, they will be told that it “suits your skin tone very well”…

Even if you know that their compliments are "ulterior motives", you will still feel good about yourself.

Of course, this level of naked flattery is not actually very high, but it is an upgraded version of this psychological preference:

Give users something they don’t think they’re entitled to . This can greatly increase users' love for the product and greatly extend the product's life cycle .

For example, if you are the reader operator of a library, for this highly random reader group, what strategies can you think of that can significantly improve readers' satisfaction with the library?

People usually think that these lifeless business units are the farthest away from creativity.

Actually, it is not.

One library took advantage of what Li Shaojia talked about: allowing users to obtain services that they (believed) were not entitled to, greatly increasing reader card usage and reducing card return rates.

The library offers the following services:

All readers (users) of the library can directly choose any new book in the book purchasing center (bookstore) in their city, and take it away for free by going through a process on the APP. After you finish reading a new book, you can return it directly to the library. (This is equivalent to the reader taking on the library's purchasing responsibilities)

This is a very successful service, a typical example of allowing users to obtain a service that they think they have no right to: just imagine the feeling of walking around a bookstore and taking away your favorite new book at will.

Libraries lose nothing by launching this service (and save a lot of work), as they need to purchase the books anyway.

Similarly, diamond customers of banks and credit cards enjoy certain privileges, such as green channels for business processing, airline VIP lounges, business class, etc. The principle is similar.

So when we operate our products, have we ever thought about what "privileges" can be delegated to users?

• For example, for fans of a public account, can we provide a tweet allowing users to choose their favorite topics?
• For example, what about giving some enthusiastic users the right to “pin a message” or “ask a question once”?
• Alternatively, for products, some additional features can be opened to certain users, such as some customized product skin themes;
• Or open up some harmless internal data query permissions, or even obtain the right to talk directly with the product manager (within a given time), etc.

By the way, when giving users additional privileges, it is important to also give them a reason to enjoy the privileges , otherwise the effect of the "privilege" will be like the "garbage sorting" on the street, which has been ignored by people for years.

The methods discussed so far are all operational strategies during product use. Some people may also make "almost difficult" requests:

Li Shaojia, do you have a way to “extend the product life cycle” when users are just experiencing the product ?

Well, I give you a clear answer, yes.

Product "Freshness" Strategy 3: Let users invest the right amount of effort

In the love philosophy of crazy men and resentful women, there is such a sentence:

“The easier it is to get something, the less people value it.”

For people with low mental maturity (commonly known as giant babies), this statement is almost correct. Therefore, the reason why many girls reject some tall, rich and handsome men is just two words: childish.

This is not a show. Finding a mature partner is a wise decision.

Interestingly, this mentality is more common outside of the "love field".

In recent years, psychologists have discovered a mentality called the "IKEA effect."

To be fair, in the home furnishing field, IKEA's products are neither of good quality nor cost-effective, but why can IKEA capture such a large number of users and have such a high repurchase rate (you will understand if you go to IKEA on the weekend)?

A big reason for this is that most of the furniture purchased from IKEA needs to be assembled by the user themselves (it has been designed for easy assembly, just follow the instructions).

And the more effort we put into something, the higher its perceived value in our minds . (The dual effects of “endowment effect” and “loss aversion effect”)

The most typical example is that for kindergarten children, when asked to choose between a “red flower” (a reward for good performance) and a gift given to them by others, most children will choose the red flower which has no real value and give up the gift.

Or, for UGC products such as Zhihu and Douban , the churn rate of "content producers" who have input content is much lower than that of pure "content consumers".

We can fully apply a similar "IKEA effect" to our operations with new users.

Some experienced Internet veterans may think that this strategy goes against common sense: Isn’t it normal for product experience to make users get started as smoothly as possible?

yes.

But this statement is only half correct (only when the product is caught in a red ocean of competition).

When users are "most interested" in the product's highlights, why not let them make a little effort?

Especially when you make the effort required by the user interesting.

This is like when a boy is madly pursuing a girl. The girl asks him to put on a Kumamon fur jacket and run 10 laps around the playground while singing "I Love You for Ten Thousand Years", and he is happy to do it.

Cool reminder: This strategy is particularly suitable for emerging products that are more attractive to users, or emerging features of old products. Furthermore, it is recommended that “user effort” be put in place before the user can permanently acquire the product (or new feature) after they have experienced the emerging feature at least once. Of course, this "effort" must be closely related to the characteristics of your product.

For example, for shared bicycle products (when they first became popular), users could be asked to take a small test on environmental knowledge.

Or, for WeChat reading products, why not randomly generate some interesting small questions from the books users have read to test their reading attentiveness (with rewards for reading time for correct answers)?

As for the concerns of some people (especially teams lacking creativity, or so-called "experienced" experts) about causing user disgust, I would like to say that as long as:

• Emerging Products
• Users are very interested
• “Effort” is positively correlated with product

On the premise of meeting these requirements, users will only appreciate you more.

Li Shaojia has done verification before:

The retention rate of some users who "make users work hard" is 2.5 times that of users in the same period (control group), which is quite amazing.

Human nature is very subtle. Sometimes, if you take users too seriously, they may end up not caring about you.

Summarize

According to the current business development trend, one thing that can be clearly foreseen is:

Regardless of the type of product, its product life cycle will become shorter and shorter, and the time it takes for users to abandon it will become faster and faster .

Even the giant WeChat is no exception to this (people who are interested can observe the activity rate of WeChat Moments and infer that WeChat is in danger)

Therefore, for us operators (or product people), how to double the product life cycle through various scientifically proven operational strategies can form a huge competitive barrier .

When typical, uncreative, and trend-following monetary and material incentives gradually become ineffective, we can also get three breakthrough insights from "working less overtime":

1. Combine product features to create random surprises in the product experience process beyond user expectations

2. Give users certain privileges that do not belong to them , and tell them that they get these privileges "because of some good qualities they have"

3. Make users make interesting efforts for the product (related to the product features) when the product is most attractive to users

Having written this far, this article should have ended perfectly and received applause and flowers (or slippers and eggs).

However, based on the analysis and conclusions of this article, we have every reason to believe that operators who can make users fall in love with their products also have the ability to maintain romantic happiness .

Therefore, Li Shaojia has the obligation to make a collective petition for all the outstanding single readers of "Shaojiadianban":

Girls (and boys), if you have a good operator around you, just marry him (her).

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

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