4 tips for user growth!

To achieve sustained growth, people must be the focus. They are as important as the foundation of a house. If you ignore any one of them, you will encounter more difficulties than others on the road to growth.

The big guys at the top of the industry are well aware of the "people-oriented" approach, so they are always at the forefront of growth.

Some of our peers who value “people-oriented” can quickly find ways to grow even if they do not have strong capabilities after taking some detours.

It’s no big deal to realize the importance of “people-oriented” later on. Although there have been many twists and turns, at least we are getting on the right track.

The worst thing is that those who have never realized the importance of "people-oriented" are getting further and further away from the right track...

1. Why should we be people-oriented?

When writing copy, many operators can always use some gorgeous idioms to embellish their texts. Their writing is so eloquent and brilliant that it is extremely enviable. Most of the copy they write is like this.

• "XXX is one in a hundred, outstanding and meticulously crafted"
• If a copywriter B comes at this time and writes "Simple and easy to use XX"

When evaluating who has better copywriting skills from a technical perspective, everyone would think: Copywriter A uses fancy words and is more professional than Copywriter B.

In fact, when this type of copy is used for promotion on publicity and special pages, copy B is more popular with users than A. Why?

Because what users want is something that can solve their needs, or something that has highlights or advantages that can attract them.

Users won’t feel proud that a company has a professional copywriter who can write beautiful texts.

In their eyes, the easy-to-understand phrases such as “simple, easy to use and easy to get started” are more touching than the beautifully worded phrases such as “outstanding, meticulously crafted”.

Therefore, before starting work, we must look at the problem from the user's perspective, always bear in mind the importance of "user-oriented", and not indulge in technical expertise.

How to think from the user's perspective? First we need to understand what information can impress them.

Take the example of a user wanting to buy a financial system.

• Demand: Want to move financial work online
• Pain points: Improve work efficiency and reduce costs
• Itch point: Digital transformation is the only way for enterprise development
• Cool point: easy and convenient to use, making you feel happy physically and mentally

When we can solve user needs or stimulate their pain points, itch points, and pleasure points well, users will naturally choose us.

Remember: users only think about themselves and will not pay for your expertise.

2. Focus on Us

Let’s take Xiao A as an example. I think this operator neither understands the users nor the company’s business. Why do I say that?

An operator who understands the company's products must know what problems the product functions can solve for users and what solutions they can provide.

Even if he doesn't understand the users, he can easily write copy that attracts users based on the product's advantages instead of using vague words to describe the product.

How important is it to understand the company’s business?

If you don’t know what needs a function is created for, the advantages of this function will never be known to users unless you intend to let users discover them themselves.

If it is not clear what problems the product can solve, then the user will have no idea whether the product can solve his problems.

If you don’t know what industry solutions you can provide, how can you focus on finding users with higher intent?

3. “Peers First”

After criticizing Xiao A, let’s look back at Xiao B’s copy. Xiao B’s “simple, easy to use and easy to get started” combines the company’s product advantages and clearly describes the product’s selling points. From the perspective of attracting users, it dispels users’ concerns about cumbersome use.

He not only "puts us first" but also thinks about issues from the user's perspective. Xiao B's copywriting is really good.

But if we directly use “simple, easy to use and easy to get started” to promote it, I think there will still be problems. Why?

Because he did not conduct research to understand the situation of his “peers”, and did not understand what problems would arise if he conducted research on his peers?

For example, if you write “simple, easy to use and easy to get started”, your competitors may write “efficient and intelligent, simple, easy to use and easy to get started”.

Once your competitors have more advantages than you, you will still be ruthlessly abandoned by users.

You should know that users are choosing the best among you and many peers, so you should not only think that you are good, but also stand out among your peers.

Therefore, we should not only focus on users and ourselves, but also analyze our peers.

• Only when you know what users need, what they want to know, or are clear about the advantages of your own products, can you write selling point copy that attracts users based on their pain points, rather than writing self-congratulatory copy in isolation.
• Only when you have a thorough understanding of your company's products and are familiar with its business, can you truly promote your products.
• When you understand your peers, you will not be immersed in a world of self-satisfaction. When you work, you will be able to clearly recognize your own shortcomings, constantly improve, and thus surpass your peers and do better.

4. How to implement “people-oriented” in work?

The concept of "people-oriented" is simple, but it is not easy to integrate it into work and do it well. If we blindly analyze the three dimensions, firstly, it will be difficult to organize the information, and secondly, it will be difficult to analyze the information.

Here are a few commonly used analysis methods. The SWOT analysis method can clearly analyze the company's strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats through its external and internal environment. The disadvantage is that this analysis method cannot be analyzed at the user level.

The 5W2H analysis method, by asking yourself 7 questions, can make your thoughts clear instantly, but I still feel it is not grounded.

• WHAT——What is it? What is the purpose? What job do you do?
• WHY——Why do it? Can we not do it? Is there an alternative?
• WHO——Who? Who will do it?
• WHEN——When? When to do it? When is the best time?
• WHERE——Where? Where to do it?
• HOW ——How to do it? How to improve efficiency? How to implement? What is the method?
• HOW MUCH—How much? To what extent? What is the quantity? What is the quality level? What is the cost output?

Adhering to the "people-oriented" spirit, I combined the SWOT and 5w2h analysis methods from the following five dimensions: user needs, our solutions, our advantages, disadvantages and growth methods compared with our peers, and re-made a "people-oriented" growth analysis method. (Fortunately it was not created abroad, otherwise it would be too confusing to call it upwg: user, peer, we, growth).

Above the horizontal axis is external analysis of users and peers, below is internal self-examination, to the left of the vertical axis is targeted organization of solutions and selling points based on user information, to the right we can research peers, analyze our strengths and weaknesses, understand what operational methods they have used, and find our next growth direction.

This table is much clearer in perception, but there are still some problems when applying it to work. In order to make it easier to implement, I optimized and improved it into canvas mode.

1. Canvas analysis

The "People-oriented" analysis column on the left can clearly compare the advantages and disadvantages of our products and those of our peers in the market by collecting and organizing information.

When organizing solutions, you can quickly think about what needs certain functions correspond to and what problems they solve based on user information and the product feature list.

We can also find promotion channels that match the characteristics of user portraits based on user portraits. For example, if the product’s audience is mostly highly educated people, it can be promoted on the Zhihu platform; if the audience is mostly students, it can be promoted on the Tencent system.

Each of the above important analysis dimensions is presented in a table and is linked together. Organizing such a canvas can quickly sort out and analyze important information, which will help us not to lose direction in later work.

V. Conclusion

If we don’t put people first, we will fall into a vicious circle where the more we want growth, the harder it will be. The more wrong things you do, the higher the cost.

Finally, let’s look back and ask ourselves a few questions.

• Have I really analyzed my market peers and understood what users think based on the concept of “peers, users, and us”?
• Do you really understand the advantages and disadvantages of the company's products and can you develop solutions based on user needs?
• If I were a user and saw the results of my work, would I really be willing to pay for it? Compared with our peers, would users choose us? Why not choose us? This is the direction you want to optimize

If you feel confused, you might as well combine the canvas analysis method, carefully review the current project, and reorganize your thoughts. At least don't work in a daze anymore.

Author: Xiaoyao's Growth Notes

Source: Xiaoyao's Growth Notes