The first stage of product growth: user acquisition

The user growth framework originates from the concept of growth hacking. Growth hackers define product user growth as five stages: acquiring users, stimulating activity, improving retention, increasing revenue, and word-of-mouth communication.

Acquiring users is the first stage for a product to achieve growth. There are two main ways to acquire users: traffic diversion and cold start. Traffic diversion is suitable for teams with multiple product lines. It can divert users accumulated from the original product lines to new products. A typical example is diverting traffic from the Jianshu web terminal to the mobile terminal, which diverts the original user group to new products. This approach is suitable for platform products or teams. Cold start is more suitable for entrepreneurial products or small products. There is no accumulated user base before the product is released, and it is necessary to accumulate the user base step by step from 0 to 1.

The diversion method of acquiring customers is relatively easier but not widely applicable, so this article mainly discusses the cold start method of acquiring users.

The user journey in the customer acquisition phase:

Through the behavioral path of a user from a new user to a registered user, it can be found that the user's journey in the customer acquisition stage is long, and user loss may occur at multiple links. The following article will break down each link in the user journey and analyze the key to growth, that is, the growth method, in each link.

channel

Channel Classification

SEM (SEO) : SEM stands for search engine marketing, and SEO stands for search engine optimization. There is an inclusive relationship between these two terms. SEM includes SEO. SEO refers to using technical means to improve the ranking of a product's keywords in user search results, so as to rank itself at the top as much as possible to attract users' attention. SEM refers to improving marketing effectiveness through technical means and payment models to attract user attention. SEM pays more attention to marketing and is more in line with the goal of user growth.

DSP : DSP is a demand-side platform for advertising during the product commercialization process. During the cold start phase, the product may place advertisements on media platforms with large traffic to attract users to download and use the product.

Social media : With the advent of the mobile Internet era, the user base of social media such as WeChat and Weibo is in the tens of millions or even hundreds of millions. The dissemination of products through social media can produce effects and improve the efficiency of product cold start.

Direct access : Direct access is more inclined towards web-based products. Users access the website by directly entering the URL in the browser. Of course, in the early stages, links are mostly jumped through search engines or other websites.

Application store : Application stores tend to favor APP products. Except for AppStore, domestic Android application stores are mainly divided into two categories: terminal manufacturers and third parties. After an application is listed on the application store, it is easier for users to download and try it.

Channel capability assessment

Channel size

Channel size refers to how many users can browse through the channel.

Ability to attract new customers

The ability to attract new users refers to how many users click and download through this channel.

Channel Quality

Channel quality refers to the length of time users spend accessing, downloading or using the product, the number of pages viewed, bounce rate, registration conversion rate, order completion conversion rate, payment success conversion rate, etc. The indicators for evaluating channel quality will vary depending on the product type.

Growth Methodology

(1) Select 2-3 appropriate important channels for placement based on product type and target user group

(2) Evaluating channel capabilities through data indicators

• Number of new users brought by the channel
• Download conversion rate brought by channels
• Channel brings registration conversion rate
• Number of users brought by the channel
• Channel brings user retention rate

(3) Focus on high-quality channels based on data analysis results

try out

Landing page optimization

The landing page is the first close contact between the product and the customer. For Web products, the landing page is the first page that users see after jumping through search engines or other website links. For APP products, the landing page may be an H5 promotional page for an operation activity, or it may be an APP introduction page in the app store.

No matter which one, the landing page is the first impression given to users. The quality of the landing page design directly determines the user's next decision whether to leave or stay. The effectiveness of a landing page depends on two key factors: the quality of the landing page and its match with the user.

The quality of the landing page refers to the degree of relevance between the landing page and the content of the previous page visited by the user. For example, as an e-commerce platform, the promotional page introduces beverages worth 100-50, but when the user jumps to the landing page through a link, he finds that all the products are grain and oil products. In this case, the user will decisively leave instead of looking for beverage products through the website.

User matching refers to whether the content of the landing page is consistent with user needs. For example, if a user expects to buy digital products, but the landing page is full of beauty products, then it is obvious that the content of the landing page cannot meet the user's needs.

The same applies to the APP introduction page in the app store. If users click through the app store to enter the APP introduction page and cannot find the highlights or core competitiveness of the APP, then they will probably not have the urge to download it. In the design of the APP introduction page, the product screenshots and product introductions should be as concise and refined as possible so that users can see the highlights of the product at a glance. At the same time, it should be adapted to their own needs so that users can make decisions quickly instead of being confused about the use of the product.

AB Test

AB testing is the best practice for landing page optimization. It designs AB solutions for a key factor in the landing page (registration button, purchase button, or any other factor that you think has a key impact on user behavior) and delivers them to different user groups. The pros and cons of the two solutions can be judged based on user feedback.

Practical steps

(1) Determine the key factors of the landing page and complete the design of two solutions, A and B.

(2) Determine the user group for the campaign. You can test all users or select a sample of users for testing. However, it should be noted that the characteristics of the users for the two programs A and B should be basically consistent. Do not test program A on male users and program B on female users. The results obtained in this way are often inconsistent with the actual feedback.

(3) Collect user feedback, analyze the data, judge the pros and cons of Plan A and Plan B, and select the better plan as the final implementation strategy.

User growth is a data-driven job. Data can reflect real situations but may also produce false phenomena. Therefore, you must be rational during data monitoring and data indicator analysis. Do not blindly believe in the results presented by the data. You must also consider whether the underlying business logic of the data is correct.

register

Registration process optimization

The simplicity of the registration process directly affects whether users have the patience to complete the registration and then use the product, so it is crucial to optimize the registration process.

With the continuous development of product simplification, the personal user information required to fill in during registration has been simplified to only a mobile phone number. Here are several mainstream registration processes:

(1) Introducing third-party access to achieve quick login through WeChat, Weibo, QQ, etc., reducing the registration process. However, as the product requires the accumulation of user data, most third-party login methods currently require binding the user's mobile phone number. This process essentially makes the registration process more lengthy. Such a design is not as convenient as direct registration.

(2) Register by mobile phone number. Enter your mobile phone number, set a password, and obtain a verification code to complete the user registration process. The entire process is completed on one page with three fields.

(3) Based on process (2), an evolution scheme has emerged, that is, users are not prompted to register. If the user has no previous registration record when logging in, the first login is considered registered by default, and a verification code is sent each time instead of a password. Currently, many O2O products use this scheme as the user registration/login process.

Key factors for optimizing registration process

Minimize the amount of information that users are required to input during the registration phase. Necessary information can be completed through personal data after registration, or automatically obtained through technical means, such as automatically obtaining certain user information. However, the technical means should be moderate and should not make users feel negative emotions such as their privacy has been violated.

use

After users complete registration, they enter the product usage stage. Whether the product is easy to use and whether it can solve user problems are also key factors that determine whether users will ultimately continue to use the product.

Beginner's Guide

For most products, especially niche products, a beginner’s guide tutorial will be provided when users use the product for the first time, helping users to complete simple tasks to familiarize themselves with the product’s functions and operations.

• The novice guidance task process must be the core business process of the product
• Keep the process as simple as possible and don’t make users feel too lengthy
• In interface design, core functions and main functions are visually prominent or placed in key positions.

Customer acquisition cost

The customer acquisition cost refers to how much money the product spends to add each new user. For example, if the product spends 10,000 yuan through advertising channels and brings in 10,000 new user registrations, then the customer acquisition cost per user is 1 yuan. (Here we only consider the relationship between investment and feedback in customer acquisition behavior, without considering the company's own personnel and development costs)

As the traffic dividend gradually disappears, the customer acquisition cost of new products is gradually increasing, and the difficulty of achieving user growth through free models is also gradually increasing.

There are two main aspects of customer acquisition costs:

Overall customer acquisition cost

That is, the relationship between the number of users acquired through all channels and the cost spent.

Customer acquisition cost based on channel

That is, it breaks down the relationship between the cost of each channel and the number of users acquired. By analyzing the cost of acquiring customers through different channels, it is conducive to refined operations and targeted key operations on high-yield channels.

The analysis of customer acquisition costs is essentially about acquiring the most users with the least money, finding the channels or methods with the lowest customer acquisition costs, and continuously increasing investment in this direction to improve output results.

Acquiring users is the beginning of achieving user growth. By optimizing every step of the user journey and driving product iterations through data, positive product growth can be achieved.

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

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games