How to motivate users to participate in activities?

I believe that many friends will be troubled by these problems when doing event operations :

• Why is there still no one participating in the event even though the prizes are given away for free?
• Why are users still not motivated even though a leaderboard is set up?
• Why has the activity level not increased despite the points, levels and medals?

When it comes to user incentives, people may immediately think of points and level systems. More specifically, they may also think of sign-ins, medals, check-ins, rankings, etc. Although everyone knows about these incentive measures, not everyone knows how to use them. The reason is that many people do not understand the principles behind such settings and just imitate them blindly, which has led to the points and levels of some platforms becoming mere decorations.

In psychology, we distinguish between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. This means that users are driven to complete a behavior by external factors, such as the expectation of receiving a reward (bonus, reputation, etc.); they are also driven to complete a behavior by internal factors, such as the pleasure obtained from completing a behavior (playing games ).

These factors are called internal drive and external drive in "Drive", which are the external drive's pursuit of profit and avoidance of harm, and the internal drive's interest, emotional resonance and self-identity. Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and the seven deadly sins of human nature (sexual desire, laziness, arrogance, jealousy, anger, greed, and appetite) that many people talk about today were all born on this basis.

Today we will analyze how to use user psychology to set up an effective incentive system from the perspective of external driving forces.

(Internal motivation is a very interesting part. Due to space considerations, I will focus on it in the next article.)

Let’s first look at profit-seeking

The benefit here includes both profit and fame. It is very common to use benefits to drive users, such as bundling user behavior with points, which in turn correspond to different rewards. A more direct way is to give away resources for completing a certain task: for example, cloud storage products give away storage space for users to register, and there are also some activities that give away souvenirs for participation.

From a macro perspective, all resources can be called benefits.

Points, goods corresponding to points, online disk space, souvenirs, these are all resources. But not all resources can motivate users. Only when they can perceive the value of resources and this value is greater than the perceived cost of participation, will they be likely to be driven and feel that they are getting a good deal.

Perceived value > perceived cost of participation

We must pay attention to the word "perceptible", which refers to what users can feel. Even if the actual value of the reward is not high, if it can make users feel valuable, it is possible to drive users. What we operations staff need to do to drive users is to try to create this feeling of "making a lot of money".

So we should think about it from two perspectives. First, how to make users feel that the cost of participation is very low? Second, how to make users feel valuable?

1. Reduce Perceived Costs

Reducing the user's perceived participation cost has been applied to many aspects. For example, when registering for an APP now, when asking users to complete their user information, they will never ask you to fill it out all at once when the user registers for the first time. Instead, you will be asked to complete the information gradually in several times. If the cost of participating in the activity is high, it can be split appropriately, with different levels of participation costs set and corresponding different rewards.

For example, we previously did a charity event to donate books to left-behind children. Users donated their steps through WeChat Sports, and we sponsored books. Different steps corresponded to different donated books. The final result of this activity is that almost every participant has tried all levels of steps. The following is a partial screenshot of the activity page:

2. Increase Perceived Value

Different resources have different appeal to different users, and it is difficult to quantify the value of many resources. As a result, when we use resources to attract users, no one pays attention. In fact, if you want to drive users, in addition to telling them what they can get by doing this, you should also tell them the value of what they get . This sentence sounds simple, but it is often overlooked in practice because:

1. We often look at the value of resources from the perspective of the enterprise (the perspective of existing cognition), but it is difficult to look at it from the perspective of the user (the perspective of lack of cognition).
2. There are too many promotional points and the focus is unclear, which leads to users ignoring the relevant information of the value description and thus failing to perceive it. (Information that allows users to perceive value should be the focus of publicity)

1. Perceived value requires an anchor

Without a reference, people cannot perceive the absolute value of things. Not only can they not accurately estimate the "fair price", they will also be strongly influenced by many unconscious and irrational factors.

For example: When you hold a dumbbell with your eyes closed, and someone drops a drop of water on your dumbbell, you cannot feel the weight of the water drop. But if you take a dime and drop a drop of water on the coin, you can feel the weight of the water drop. The same drop of water has the same weight, but you cannot accurately perceive its weight because the weight of a drop of water is negligible compared to the weight of the dumbbell.

"Priceless" points out this law of human cognition with a sentence: When we want to measure the value of a new thing, we judge it through constant reference and comparison. We will look for reference objects to compare values. This reference object can be something nearby, something similar in our memory, or even just a number we heard or saw by accident. This reference object is called an anchor point.

Because of the effect of anchor points, merchants can place more expensive goods next to expensive goods, and place cheaper but lower quality goods next to cheap goods, so as to increase the sales of the former. Although the sales of the latter are almost 0, by using this principle, merchants can manipulate consumers' shopping choices at will.

1. Provide reference

Anyone who has participated in an event knows that if the prizes offered in the event are something that users have never come across before, or have not understood, even if the prizes themselves are very useful and valuable to users, as long as users cannot measure the value of the prizes in a short period of time, they will basically not participate. So usually we use things that we are all familiar with as references to value, such as money, or valuable products or services. Sometimes adding a sentence saying how much the prize is worth in the description can be cliché but effective.

We once gave fans free needle-free hydrating treatments at an event, but considering that some people had not experienced it, we added a sentence in the copy : Did you know? Applying facial masks 1,000 times is not as good as one needle-free hydrating treatment...Since everyone has an idea of ​​the value of facial masks but not much about the value of needle-free hydrating treatments, using facial masks as an analogy can help everyone perceive the value.

The same is true for the application of points. If you want to use points to drive users, while binding the user's login, sign-in, comment and other behaviors with points, you must also make them aware of the value of the points. Many platforms will set up points malls and provide points redemption functions, but the main purpose of points redemption is not to consume points. The ultimate goal is to make users feel the value of points, thereby creating incentives for all subsequent user behaviors .

2. Contrast

If you don't have a physical reference, compare yourself to other people. When you start up your computer, 360 Security Guard will remind you how many users you have defeated across the country. Maimai's influence will tell you how many of your peers your influence has surpassed. WeChat Reading will count every week how many people you top the list of. With comparison, users can perceive the value that their behavior brings to themselves. This method is actually most commonly used in games.

2. Effect display makes value easier to perceive

There are two types of effect displays: one is displayed to the user himself, and the other is displayed to others. Showing to yourself is internally driven, while showing to others is externally driven.

1. Show it directly to users - let users feel that their operations are valuable and gain a sense of accomplishment.

If you want users to be more aware of the comparison mentioned above, it is not enough to set rankings and progress bars. You must also remind them and let them see the effect. 360's startup reminder , WeChat Reading's display of your reading time ranking on the homepage , and the "+1" prompt when you like a post are all based on the same considerations, so that users can directly perceive the value of their behavior. Who would do something that has no value? No one would want the monsters to show no reaction when they fight in the game, right? The picture below shows the effect of long pressing the like button in Toutiao :

2. Show it to other users - let users gain a sense of honor from it

In Baidu Tieba , users' behavior is linked to experience points, which in turn are bundled with many privileges and virtual props. These virtual props and privileges can be displayed in front of other users. Others don’t have them, but I do. This is not only perceptible to users, but also brings a sense of honor. Badges, titles, labels and the like.

3. Perceiving value requires the right time

For example, as mentioned above, users are given additional network disk space when they register for a network disk. It is difficult to feel the value of resources such as online disk space. Users can only feel it when their online disk space is insufficient.

I recently came across a personal translation software. In order to promote new user registration, they advertised that new registrations would be given 40 minutes of personal call time. So can new users perceive the value of these 40 minutes? I'm afraid it's difficult.

Didi Taxi has also held activities to promote new user registrations, but they used coupons because it was clearly written on the coupons: how much the discount was. Even if new users have not experienced the product, they can perceive the value of the free service. However, it is different for personal translation products. There are too many factors that determine the quality of platform services. It may be related to the translation level of the translator as well as the communication with the user. There are too many uncertainties, making it more difficult for users to measure its value. Using this condition directly to attract users to register is not attractive enough.

Only when the user has used and experienced the value of the service, will he understand the preciousness of these 40 minutes. Especially when his talk time is insufficient, although he is no longer a new user, you can encourage him to share the product with his friends. You just need to tell him that he can get more free talk time by inviting new users to register. At this time, call duration is the strongest driving force for users.

Let’s look at avoiding harm.

There is a phenomenon in psychology called loss aversion, which means that when people face the same amount of gains and losses, they find the losses more unbearable. The negative utility of the same amount of loss is 2.5 times the positive utility of the same amount of gain. This kind of psychology is about avoiding harm. Compared to gaining, people are more afraid of losing. It includes two situations:

1. You will lose...
2. If you don’t do this you will lose…

The former is commonly seen in public service advertisements, which are used to warn people of the dangers of doing so and awaken people's fear, such as the dangers of smoking. The latter often appears in e-commerce promotional activities: limited-time sales (discounts), and the event title "You have a *** that has not been claimed yet" that was popular for a while ago takes advantage of this mentality.

Signing in and clocking in also take advantage of people's loss aversion. Once you are attracted by a certain benefit and start clocking in, every time you clock in, you increase your investment in this matter. Once you give up, this loss aversion psychology will come out to interfere with you and make you reluctant to give up. Because once you give up, all the previous investment becomes a loss, which is also the sunk cost in economics (for details of sunk cost, please see Lao Fu’s explanation in "Three User Psychology and Industry Application Cases You Must Know in Product Operation "). The user is not reluctant to give up the reward after signing in for seven consecutive days, but is reluctant to give up the time he has spent for many consecutive days before.

In order to deepen everyone's understanding and application of this psychology, I will also talk about several applications of loss aversion in life. This psychology is very common in life, such as:

Developing a positive image can help prevent infidelity.

Cheating has a cost, not just material ones, but also the various risks you have to take after cheating: your image in front of friends and family, the public, your self-identity, your moral level, etc. If you always claim to be a good man or have a happy marriage in front of others, then the cost of your cheating will be higher than those who don't claim to be, because they don't have this psychological burden and don't have to worry about the collapse of the character they have worked hard to build over the years. Moral bondage also takes advantage of this mentality of people. People who are easily bound by morality are usually unwilling to lose the image of good people that they have worked hard to maintain in the past.

Those who speak pessimistically of a project's prospects are more likely to harm the interests of the team.

If a person tells many people that a project has no prospects, or that he is not optimistic about the project, then regardless of whether the project goes smoothly or not, he is likely to take a negative attitude in his future work.

If the project is improving and it is not in line with his judgment, he may even hinder the smooth progress of the project. The reason for this is that once the project development is inconsistent with his judgment, it will directly damage the image of "foresight" that he originally established in front of others. Therefore, it is not surprising that he took certain measures to hinder the normal development of the project, such as spreading negative energy. The conclusions and flags he made in public in the past have subtly influenced his behavior. The more people he shows it to, the greater the influence will be.

Asking customers for help can increase your chances of closing deals.

Luo Zhenyu once told a story in a video about a sales champion of an American company. He told about his sales secrets. In the United States, salesmen make door-to-door sales. Ordinary salesmen knock on the door first and then ask the homeowner: "Hello, ma'am, do you need a massage?" Most people will say no. But this sales champion was different from others. After knocking on the door, he asked: "Madam, I'm passing by here for sales. I'm very thirsty. Can you give me a glass of water?" There are two benefits of asking this question:

1. While drinking water, you can have a small talk with the owner to build a closer relationship with him;
2. When the homeowner gives you water to drink, he has done a good thing and established an image of a good person in front of you. When you try to sell him products next time, he will be more inclined to maintain this good person image and buy the products. The reason for doing this is also to take advantage of the homeowner's loss aversion.

Conclusion

It is human instinct to seek benefits and avoid harm. Learning to use human instincts can drive users to do many things, but the prerequisite is that you must first understand the nature and scope of benefits and harms, so that you know in what situations these rules can be used.

The motivations for human behavior are complex. The seven deadly sins of human nature mostly involve external driving forces, but there is no interest in internal driving forces. In real life, we can indeed see that some people do things purely out of interest. The most typical case is the Xiaomi mobile phone. So in the next article, we will focus on intrinsic motivation and participation, as well as the reasons why products make users addicted. Attached is a mind map:

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

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