Teach you how to quickly find shortcuts for APP operation and promotion

The eight golden rules introduced in this article are only applicable to growing apps that have been in operation for more than 3 months, with more than 100,000 installed users and no cold start problems. Some of the data analysis indicators in the eight rules are not applicable to all types of apps. They are only used as a trend illustration and for reference. Many of the data come from the analysis results of real app operation data. Let’s take a look at the eight rules of mobile APP operation.

After an App has been online for a certain period of time (basically with more than 100,000 users), the speed at which App promotion (customer acquisition, red envelopes, advertising) acquires new customers and increases transactions will gradually slow down, and the marginal benefits of App promotion investments will drop significantly. For each unit of investment (for example, every hundred yuan), the number of new customers and the amount of new transactions acquired will drop significantly (from empirical analysis, the decline is more than 30%). From this stage onwards, mobile app operations based on data analysis are more important than simply spending money on promotion.

For example: channel selection can save about 40% of promotion costs, event and advertising push services can increase customer activity rate by 60%, and the excellent App experience can increase customer retention rate by about 20%. Compared with external channel advertising investment, the return of internal App promotion activities will be more than 3 times with the same investment. Under the condition of the same return, the investment is only one-fourth.

The Pareto effect still exists. 20% of customers generate 80% of the revenue for a company. The company needs to find 20% of customers and their characteristics, and carry out activities based on the characteristics of 20% of customers to obtain higher business returns. It is also necessary to use data analysis and event activation to convert more of the 80% of customers into the 20% of main consumer customers.

App digital operations bring more than just an increase in customers, customer activity, and an increase in product conversion rates . What is more important is to understand customers through operations and win their trust. All future transactions of the App will be based on customer trust.

This trust represents not only the product experience and customer experience, but also respect for customer needs. The goal of the operation is to make customers develop a habit of frequently using the App to complete product and service transactions.

The internal activities of the App are more important than external advertising. The revenue brought by activities based on activating customer transactions will far exceed the revenue brought by advertising. For example, the common red envelope incentive activities will generate more than ten times the revenue of advertising, which means that a red envelope activity with an investment of 10,000 yuan will generate huge income.

App social sharing and promotional activities can bring in new customers and new transactions, which can also save advertising investment. It can basically be considered that the cost of social sharing and promotional activities is extremely low.

The success of an App's operating activities depends on the understanding of customers' mobile Internet behavior habits, the segmentation of customer groups, the operating experience of mobile Apps, and the analysis of business transaction data.

Incentive red envelopes have become the theme of all mobile app operation activities. Many companies use red envelopes to activate customer transactions and increase customer activity and profitability.

There are two forms of sending red envelopes. One is a cash red envelope, which customers can withdraw directly, and is mainly used to acquire new customers. One is a product purchase red envelope. Customers can only use the product red envelope after purchasing products of a certain amount, thereby indirectly increasing product profits. Cash red envelopes can be considered as universal red envelopes, and product red envelopes can be considered as gaming red envelopes.

Referring to the experience of mobile apps, inclusive red envelopes can easily attract a large number of freeloaders. According to statistics, the proportion of freeloaders in many newly registered investment apps exceeds 20%. Some professional freeloaders can use technical means and utilize more than 200 mobile phone numbers.

Grabbing cash red packets worth 2,000 yuan every day, the "freeloaders" have become a black hole for the promotion costs of many financial apps. Especially in the field of Internet finance , the "freeloaders" have become a special group that all app operators have to defend against together.

In mobile app operations, in the initial development stage, companies can use universal red envelopes to acquire new registered customers. After development reaches a certain stage, the use of product red envelopes (gambling red envelopes) will become the main means to activate customer trading behavior. Generally speaking, under the condition of the same returns, the investment of gaming red envelopes will be 50% lower than that of general red envelopes. Based on people’s inherent gambling nature, more than 90% of people will give up a 20 yuan cash red envelope to try to win a 1,000 yuan red envelope with only a 1% chance of winning. Gaming red envelopes can generally increase annualized returns by 1%-2%, activate customer transactions in a short period of time, and acquire new trading customers. The monthly retention rate of funds and customer retention rate are generally around 20%. Gaming red envelopes have a significant effect on promoting transactions, are more effective than general red envelopes, and are more important in App operations.

How to design gaming red envelopes and how to carry out activities? It is necessary to rely on the analysis of App activity operation data and transaction data.

In App operation, the marketing cost of new customers is four times that of old customers. For an App with more than 1 million registered users and less than 10% monthly active users, managing old customers is more important than acquiring new customers. Retaining customers and increasing the activity of old customers is more important than investing money to acquire new customers.

The cost of acquiring new customers is high, and it is a huge waste if they do not participate in transactions. According to statistics, if the activity rate of old customers increases by 5% (monthly), the App transaction volume will increase by 30%. Old customers are more loyal to the company and products. With the same investment in App activities, the effect of old customers is three times that of new registered users.

Generally, the retention rate of an app is around 10% in about a month. If the retention rate is increased by 5%, it is equivalent to saving about 50% of the event promotion costs. One way to improve retention rate is to use gaming red envelope activities. Under the premise of the same transaction amount, the cost of retention is less than 50% of the cost of acquiring new customers.

Cross-border marketing is also a major way to improve retention rate and activate customer transactions. A credit card app, using cross-border marketing of mobile games , activated about 40% of dormant customers in three months, which is equivalent to increasing user activity by 20% and potential transactions by more than 30%.

To increase user activity, it is necessary to analyze customers, start from their needs on the mobile Internet , and use content operations and event operations to activate users. Statistical analysis tools and external mobile Internet data will help companies find ways to activate customers. Mobile App operation experience and product analysis are also an important aspect.

Many companies emphasize fan economy and community economy, mainly referring to the experience of Xiaomi mobile phone development. But the essence of Xiaomi's success is the success of Xiaomi products. Therefore, it can be said that product success is more important than community success, and product experience is more important than fan management.

The most successful product in the world is the iPhone. Apple has never managed its fans and has never shown concern for users who queue up in the middle of the night to buy iPhones. All fans gather around the product. The strength of a product is more important than advertising and fan management. Typical examples of successful mobile apps are Yu'ebao with RMB 500 billion and Zhaocaibao with RMB 300 billion (8 million customers), which completely rely on the success of the products themselves.

The essence of all apps, including financial apps, is to provide financial services to customers. Their product benefits, purchasing experience, and transaction flexibility all represent the products themselves. Although fan communities are important, their influence is limited compared to the products themselves.

If customers think that the product has good benefits and a good experience, they will take the initiative to help the company promote the product. Using their own investment experience and service experience to make recommendations, the promotion cost is zero, the customer conversion rate is higher than 30%, and the K factor of customers actively spreading the word is much greater than 1. This is typical viral marketing .

There are many factors that need to be considered when evaluating the quality of a product. Customer analysis (mainly those born in the 1980s and 1990s), marketing activities, purchasing convenience, purchasing path analysis, correlation analysis, etc. will all help product managers optimize product design. Competitive product analysis of similar products is also very important, and the timing of launch and event design also need to be considered. These analyses and decisions require data and experience support.

20% of customers bring 80% of revenue to a company, and the Pareto effect also applies to apps. In many App business analyses, it was found that 80% of the revenue comes from a small number of users, and we define these users as sponsors. Companies need to find these sponsors through analysis, understand the characteristics of these customers, and conduct internal promotion activities around these sponsors. Lower investment will produce better results.

By using the transaction data of the App, companies can find these financiers, understand the characteristics of these customers, and summarize the characteristics of these financiers with the help of external data and tools. Companies can consider establishing a sponsor model, using the model to score potential customers, and conducting targeted marketing to customers who reach a certain score, with the goal of converting these customers into the company's main revenue-generating customers.

When companies increase the proportion of financial customers, they indirectly increase the revenue of the App. Through transaction and channel data analysis, we can understand the main channels from which these customers come, use high-quality channels for marketing, and increase the proportion of high-quality customers.

According to statistics, effective transaction customers will bring more than 60% of the revenue to the company, and their operating costs will not exceed 20%. If companies manage these financiers well and expand the proportion of these customers, it will help companies increase their business operating income. Finding App transaction sponsors, understanding their characteristics, and establishing a typical sponsor model requires the use of business transaction data, statistical analysis platforms, advertising monitoring and other tools.

When promoting a new App, sending red envelopes to encourage registration becomes a common method. Choosing high-quality channels is more important than investing in red envelopes. The essence of financial products is operating risk, and customer trust in financial products is a prerequisite for customers to purchase financial products. The channels for promoting financial products have a significant impact on App registration, customer conversion rate, and customer quality.

We once analyzed an Internet financial management app and found that the financial app registration rate , product purchase rate, and customer quality of customers coming from the Reference News channel were higher than those from other channels, and the red envelope effect was even better than that from other channels.

In this example, the channel quality of Reference News is much higher than other App promotion channels . This shows that customers have more trust in Reference News, which is an official media. Similarly, some Internet financial products are willing to invest huge amounts of money in advertising on CCTV, also because they consider that when customers purchase their products, they recognize that their products come with CCTV’s credit endorsement. For some financial products, using good channels to promote them is more effective than relying solely on spending a lot of money on advertising and sending red envelopes.

When promoting and marketing financial apps, it is important to choose the right channel. The right channel is more important than sending red envelopes. It will reduce promotion costs and increase product conversion rates. In the channel selection process, advertising monitoring and statistical analysis platforms play a key role.

Mobile statistical analysis tools are standard tools that are used by many mobile Internet companies and traditional enterprises. However, some people use them well and have achieved great results in App management, with monthly net profits exceeding 200 million yuan. However, some companies do not know how to use these tools, and their mobile apps do not operate well.

The success of mobile app operations is related to the tool itself on the one hand, and to data analysis capabilities and operational experience on the other. Mobile Internet operation itself is a new thing, and the market lacks teams that understand data and operations.

Especially for traditional enterprises, it takes some time and experience to transition their businesses to mobile Internet. At this stage, data analysis and operational experience are more important than the tools themselves. For the same sports car, a good driver can drive it at 200-300 kilometers per hour, while someone who doesn't know how to drive it may not even be able to drive 100 kilometers per hour.

Data analysis is more important than tools. For the same set of data, people who understand data can use models and analysis tools to find business opportunities, find characteristic data, find target customers, and activate customer activity. The same set of data, when combined with external data, will produce a chemical reaction, helping us understand customers, gain insight into customer needs, and find good channels and cross-marketing opportunities.

For example, by using transaction records, we can find the correlation between products (shopping basket analysis) and implement product promotions within the App, which can increase product conversion rate by about 8%. By using data analysis, we can understand the source channels of the top 5% of users, increase channel expansion efforts, acquire more high-quality customers, and increase high-quality customers by about 20%. By using data analysis, we can understand customer consumption needs and activate 20% of dormant customers through cross-border marketing.

In short, mobile operation is the key to an enterprise managing its customers well. Professional tools, data, analysis, models, experience, cross-border, channels, etc. are all the keys to managing mobile apps well. The eight golden rules of mobile app operation are just a glimpse of the whole picture. We need to accumulate more experience and cases through practice and data analysis.