Bringing in 10,000 community users at 0 cost, but ultimately failing due to 12 pitfalls

WeChat officially launched mini programs at 0:00 on January 9, and took advantage of this trend to plan a mini program community promotion campaign to attract new members. Although it achieved the result of covering the entire community of nearly 10,000 people in a zero-cost way, the 12 pitfalls encountered in this activity prevented it from becoming an activity with millions of members.

We have seen many reviews of successful events, but it is still difficult to create an event with a certain level of dissemination. In fact, the lessons learned from failure are more valuable than the methodology of success, and are more worthy of reflection, absorption and improvement. This article will completely restore the entire process of the event and analyze the 12 factors that limit the life cycle of this event from the perspective of the AARRR model . I hope that this sharing will be of some reference value for everyone to avoid detours in future events.

Keywords: mini program, activity, community, A AR RR model.

1. Preparation for the activity

1. Activity Background

On January 11, 2016, Zhang Xiaolong, the father of WeChat, publicly proposed a new application form, and it was officially released on January 9, 2017. The mini program that has been anticipated by the market for a year will finally come out after continuous fermentation. Everyone is looking forward to the second wave of popularity on the WeChat platform after the official account .

2. User and demand analysis and determination of goals and selling points

It is not just about making products that requires understanding user needs and knowing what kind of features and products users want. When organizing events, you also need to know user needs in order to determine the content and form of the event to satisfy users and create events that users will accept, recognize, and be willing to spread. There are two main ways to grasp user needs: analysis, feedback, research, and interviews of one's own products; and services and user feedback provided by external products.

User & Demand Analysis: The mini program project was initiated in January, invitations for internal testing were issued in September, the public testing was opened in November, and it was officially launched in January of the following year. The mini program has been stimulating the market in waves, and the market has also sensed the arrival of the trend and is ready to enjoy this wave of dividends. Companies that engage in mini program media, app stores , development, and training have also begun to get excited. If you put the keyword "mini program" into the public account search, you will find that many people are rushing to register public accounts related to this keyword. Taking into account the services provided by various public accounts, the content of some mini program websites, and the topics of various Internet groups, it is found that users are very concerned about mini programs, need scenarios for communicating topics, and need some technical development tutorials and real-time update reports to understand the latest developments.

Positioning the selling points and goals of the event: Taking into account the needs of users and the services that can be provided, the main selling points of this promotion were determined: online disk resources (videos, example codes, plug-in tools ) and WeChat group communication platform. The goal of the event is to attract new users.

3. Material preparation and rule setting

I captured this demand at noon on January 8th. In the afternoon, I went to major websites, public accounts, and network disks to collect relevant information, organize it, and determine the copy and design style. At 8 o'clock in the evening, I made invitation card pictures for my design classmates.

Promotional form : We chose a picture or invitation card instead of a public account tweet. The picture takes up a larger space in the Moments or group chat, and is more eye-catching and noticed. Compressing all information into one picture requires the copy to be more concise and attractive, to capture users in a short period of time, and to be more expressive. The information in the picture is easy for users to reach, and short information does not put pressure on users to read like long pictures and texts in official accounts, causing them to jump out midway.

Promotional content: This small card combines the strengths of some invitation cards accumulated over time and uses many marketing techniques, which are also commonly used techniques for this type of invitation cards. The design style, including colors and fonts, are all in accordance with the requirements of WeChat Mini Programs , so the overall effect gives people a very official feeling, is more credible, and has a stronger visual association with the hot word "Mini Program". When listing selling points, sort them by attractiveness and use more numbers to specify the value of the service. You should not only dig deep and list them exhaustively, but also focus on explaining the value you can provide to users. Directly write out the users that the product is aimed at: development, product, and operation , so that the target users who see this promotion will identify with and associate their needs with it, thereby increasing the conversion rate of participation in the activity. For a service that is originally free, they deliberately write a price of 99 yuan per person and then cross it out, so that users can feel the value of the service is reflected in the price. Now they can get a good deal by participating for free. Limited time and limited number of people speed up users' decision-making. Participate as soon as you see it to avoid missing the opportunity. The layout of each part of the entire page was also posted in the group and asked to be modified by group members. At first glance, the visual center falls on the 5 points in the middle.

(Note: The original assistant WeChat account has been changed to a personal public account)

Rule setting: Like other similar activities, screenshots will be sent after forwarding. The rules of participation in the activity are the behavioral costs paid by users. After all, there is no real free lunch, and users are required to send the forwarded screenshots to the assistant. When designing, it is also important to note that the cost paid by the user should be less than the benefit point that drives the behavior. Don’t write about forwarding screenshots in the picture. Let users scan the QR code and add friends first, and then tell them to forward. This will lower the first threshold for user participation and prevent users from being too lazy to continue playing as soon as they see they have to forward. Instead, add friends first and then tell them the rules. This will increase the sunk cost of users participating in the activity. Now that users have come to this step, they will naturally forward the screenshots.

4. Testing, preheating, and launching

Before the finished cards were officially promoted to the public, we solicited opinions from group members and revised the layout and copy several times to ensure that group members found the images attractive and were willing to participate in the event. It was officially finalized at around 21:30. The pit was also created at this time. The plan was to advertise to other Internet groups that might be interested. When group members saw that the pictures were ready, they posted them on their Moments. The chain effect spread rapidly, and soon a large number of users came to add the assistant. In order to ensure that users could quickly participate in the forwarding, they operated the assistant. It is expected that there will be a larger wave of outbreaks at the golden ten o'clock. The activity spread spontaneously without any publicity or promotion.

2. Complete restoration of the activity development process

1. Events

2. Main data performance

Many things were mainly handled by myself, so the cycle of the entire activity was too long, the progress was slow, and I encountered a lot of problems, which were basically solved quickly. There were far more things that happened during the activity than what is described in the above table. Only the key steps in the whole process were selected and not expanded in detail.

(1) Social data

A total of 43 WeChat groups have been established, with group members basically ranging from 100 to 200 people. The cumulative number of people covered is more than 5,400, and more than 20 administrators jointly manage the services.

The figure below is a group statistics table that is updated before going to bed every day to distinguish the levels of each group and grasp the changes in the number of people.

(2) Public account follower growth data

Because it is really difficult to add too many WeChat friends, and there are restrictions on adding friends, the user participation platform will be changed to official accounts starting from 14:30 on January 9. The popularity of mini programs reached its peak on January 9. The explosive event caught everyone's attention and users had a strong sense of participation. However, the popularity began to drop sharply from the 12th. The unfollow rate during the event was also slightly high, so some resources were added to the automatic reply when a user first followed, so that users could get a taste of the benefits first and have the desire to continue participating.

3. 12 pitfalls that ruined this event

The much-anticipated mini program itself is an object that brings a large amount of traffic, and all event elements related to the mini program will receive attention. Therefore, the promotion and benefit guidance of this event led to a spontaneous explosive growth in the beginning, which actually indicated that this would be a screen-sweeping event, but the final result was that this green card was restricted by numerous difficulties and failed to become a million-level event. The following article will explain in detail how this good idea was drowned in 12 pits from the entire process of the AARRR model (acquiring users, increasing activity, increasing retention rate , obtaining revenue, and self-propagation) .

Get User

1. The activity promotion was not delivered to workplace users

The activity was initially tested in the 17th operations group of more than 300 people that I created myself. Everyone was a student who had not yet graduated, and everyone in the circle was also a student. The sudden popularity resulted in the failure to promote the event to other internet graduate communication circles. We also did not realize at the time that the user groups that followed would be so different after the event became popular among different groups of people. As a result, a large proportion of the users attracted to the event were newbies, who were not as knowledgeable and thoughtful about new things on the Internet as people with more work experience. The overall quality of users did not meet expectations, and their ability to pay was poor, which affected the overall low activity of the group after it was established. Few users expressed their opinions, making it difficult to form a good communication atmosphere.

2. WeChat limits the frequency of adding friends, resulting in missing out on the golden ten points of outbreak

Those who work in operations know that many popular activities will see a sharp increase in participation around 10 p.m., and the peak time when users pick up their phones to open WeChat is the best time for the activity to spread, so you need to do enough work and warm up before this time. The original plan was to promote this event at 9:30 and wait for the peak participation after 10 o'clock. However, due to too many friends adding before 10 o'clock, small accounts could not be added. I was not aware of this at the time and thought that the event had suddenly become unpopular. I did not take this into consideration.

It was not until 22:40 that we discovered that it was WeChat that had imposed restrictions, and the text message started to prompt users to add another account. At that time, a large number of users who wanted to add friends could not add them successfully within 24 hours. It was impossible to tell users the rules of the activity and better guide them to forward and spread the information. It would also make users doubt the authenticity of the activity, and thus missed the best time for the activity to explode.

3. Insufficient application of tools for repetitive operations

The labor cost of the entire process of the activity is high, and it is necessary to constantly operate the WeChat account, and all the operations are repetitive and mindless. Although I have tried several software tools, they are all prone to malfunctions, so I basically do it manually: through friends, changing notes, and creating groups. Other WeChat lecture platforms should have used better tools to free up manpower when conducting such activities, but at that time no one knew which ones they were, and some of them were too expensive. If manpower can be freed up, more time can be spent on group operations and promotion. Moreover, it involves judging whether the user has forwarded the screenshot before being added to the group. In practice, considering that there are too many people, there is no strict distinction between users forwarding the screenshots. This also leads to laxity in the activity rules and affects the activity dissemination process. The effect of the event will be better if each user generates a unique QR code and specifies the number of invitations.

4. Users need idiotic guidance

Treat users with the same mentality as you would newbies or even idiots. The most suitable copy for users should be short and easy to understand, requiring no time to understand, with clear and specific directions and highlighted key points. If the guiding copy is ambiguous, users will still ask you a second time, and the cost of your explanation will be higher, which will delay the entire work efficiency; if the copy is very long, it is equivalent to no copy, and most users will not even read a few words and will still come to ask you what to do. The best way is to adjust as you go along, and adjust your copy based on user feedback so that users know clearly what to do and how to do it. The strong guidance of users is also reflected in the moment they join the group, where they change their notes and feel a sense of ritual to welcome new members. In actual use, this is very helpful for the overall activity of the group.

Increase activity

1. The number of people in the group is too scattered, resulting in a weak communication atmosphere within the group

At that time, I was mainly lazy. It would be very troublesome to add people in batches. There were too many people and too many groups. It was easy to add duplicates, and it would be very difficult to operate manually. So I chose to let everyone scan the code to join the group by themselves. So I frantically created more than 40 groups at that time, which reduced a lot of pressure to add people into the group. The final result is that the number of people in each group is very small, and the absolute number of people willing to participate in the discussion in each group is also small. In addition, since the overall quality of users is not high, the communication atmosphere within the group is not strong. Even with the painstaking guidance of group administrators, participation in most group discussions is not good.

2. Failing to make good use of network disk, information and other benefits to guide the group when promoting activities

The mini program was released at 0:00 at that time, and many groups discussed it very lively for an hour afterwards. Everyone shared the mini program they had seen and expressed their opinions. However, because of the need to process a large number of friend requests, the group had not yet been established, and the opportunity to create the first wave of activity in the group was missed. After the group was established, the mini-programs, materials, articles, etc. collected from other mini-program groups were rather mixed, and there was no time to organize them. Many of them were just copied and forwarded, and users received this information in a rather chaotic manner, with no focused point for discussion. Now I think a better way is to organize the resources that can stimulate the user's excitement into topics, and send them out in waves in an orderly manner. This will continuously stimulate the user's excitement and facilitate topic discussion. Users will not feel messy when accepting them, and the experience will be much better.

3. Lack of user services in the later stage and lack of people who understand mini programs and technology

There are many technical and development issues involved in the design of mini programs. My fellow administrators and I are both in the operations and product directions. We did not prepare our homework beforehand and did not have time to absorb the latest viewpoints and opinions. Therefore, it is difficult to generate good output and guide the atmosphere when initiating topics in the group, and it is difficult to continue with more difficult topics. The less people participate, the quieter the group becomes, and it is difficult to give satisfactory answers to some questions raised by users. The communication and discussion part, which is very important in community building, was not done well. Since there was no professional KOL to guide the discussion output, the overall service quality was greatly reduced. Serving users well is the most fundamental thing. This step led to overall difficulties in operation later.

4. It is difficult to form a self-operated state within the group

When we realized that the hot topic was gradually cooling down and the net growth of group members began to naturally decrease, we began to prepare to establish groups divided by positions. This way, everyone would have more topics to discuss, and it would also be a transition following the hot topics of the mini program, extending the life cycle of the entire community. The first version of the group had a small number of members and the quality was unsatisfactory, so it didn't take off. In the second version of the group after the job segmentation, the group had a base of numbers, the quality of group members also improved, and it was slightly more active than the previous group. However, due to the unsatisfactory service quality, users' recognition is questionable. In the guidance of the topic of segmented positions, no KOLs emerged in the group. The operation of the entire group is still mainly based on the topic of the initiator. It is difficult to find suitable volunteers from the participating users to guide the activities within the group.

5. Execution progress and efficiency need to be improved

The activity was initiated by myself on the spur of the moment, and many things were done manually. There was no ready-made experience to refer to, and I had to learn as I went along, especially for repetitive operations. I needed to try and improve many times to find the optimal operating strategy. The entire user base is very large for the community, and providing comprehensive services to so many users is a huge challenge. Therefore, the overall pace of community development is relatively slow, and the life cycle of mini-program activities themselves is very short. There was a delay in responding to the rapidly declining user enthusiasm. It took several days from disbanding the old group to establishing a new group, so the overall operational service was not good. But fortunately, there is a group of caring and responsible administrator friends who have been helping me operate the system and acting as a support in the group. I sincerely thank them.

Improve retention

The popularity of mini programs disappears too quickly, and the activity life cycle is too short

The market had high expectations for the mini program product due to its long-term development. It was once considered to be the second wave of popularity after the official account. On January 9, the energy that had been accumulated for a long time finally exploded in an instant, but the higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment. There weren’t many surprises after users experienced the mini program, and the topic’s popularity cooled down. The communication groups set up for the mini program died or became advertising groups after two days, and everything returned to calm. Everyone lost their initial enthusiasm and was just waiting to see what would happen. Users no longer have the energy to pay attention to this matter, and the life cycle of activities related to the hot topic quickly enters a state of decline.

Get income

Paid attempt fails

I originally wanted to see if I could cash in, but it turns out I’m too young. After the official account pushed an upgraded version of the paid community article, it had more than 200 readers but only converted two paying users. Considering that the overall user base covered was very small, the tweet was deleted immediately. Fortunately, a simple test was done. The main reasons for the low conversion rate are the low overall quality of users, weak paying ability, the decline in popularity of mini-programs, poor user experience in free groups, and users' insensitivity to the differences between free and paid services. Other paid communities similar to mini-program communication have started charging from the beginning, which has also improved the quality of users and the level of communication. The enthusiasm of users is enough to cover the entry fee, and the timing of choice is also very important.

Autonomous communication

The fission effect has not been achieved within the group

The reason why we set up a large number of groups of 100 people in the beginning was to try to carry out activities within the group, to create a secondary fission effect through the original base of 100 people, and to increase the number of group members. We conducted some simple attempts within the group, such as setting collective goals: giving rewards when 150 people are reached, and giving more rewards for more invitations. Some people were willing to participate, but the overall effect was still not good. After all, the recognition and loyalty of these 100 users to the product were far from the 100 seed users of the app that we often talk about.

The five links of the AARRR operating model are closely linked. If one link is not done well, it will affect the following links layer by layer. During the entire activity, we encountered too many pitfalls in acquiring users and increasing activity, which resulted in the failure to obtain a large number of active users, which greatly affected the subsequent retention, revenue, and dissemination links. Therefore, each link must be done as well as possible to improve the conversion rate of the next step, especially the previous acquisition of users and increase in activity, which are crucial parts in laying a solid foundation.

4. Activities without review are useless

Whenever a hot spot appears, it means the generation of huge traffic in a short period of time. The highlight of this event is that it predicted this wave of traffic and successfully took advantage of it to spread it, attracting a certain amount of popularity and also attracting several platforms to copy it intact, which can be regarded as recognition from the market.

So many problems have caused fatal damage to this activity. Fortunately, it is the setbacks we encounter in practice that can help us grow the most. The lessons of failure are more valuable than the experience of success. The review of this article is also hoped to give everyone some inspiration and reflection. We look forward to communicating with each other and getting better and better.

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

This article was compiled and published by @運動主义 (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!