How can I convert and monetize the user if I don’t have a strong relationship with him?

A reader asked this question. I think this question may be very important to him, so I should talk about it.

The problem is this:

I have a group of user fan resources, but I don’t know how to use them. The so-called fan resources may be fans of public accounts , or people who have been added to QQ groups, accumulated over the years, hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands. It may also be brought in from a physical store. Something like this. It's not a strong relationship. If I want to make some conversions and sell goods with such fan resources, what suggestions do you have? I am more interested in the logic of this operation chain, what links should it have, and what can the operation do in it?

The answer to this question is very simple if you say it is simple, and very complicated if you say it is complicated.

To put it simply, it is a lyric:

There are hundreds of beauties in this world, but I only love the one who loves you. (Tu Honggang, Farewell My Concubine)

To put it in a complicated way, let me put it in today's article. I hope it will be inspiring to you.

The Basics of Trading

The same piece of meat, same part, same quality, same weight, is priced at 30 yuan in the supermarket, and the new butcher Wang in the vegetable market also prices it at 30 yuan.

When you decide to buy this piece of meat, what will you do first in the supermarket and the vegetable market?

1. Don't say anything, just take out your wallet or pay with your phone.
2. What kind of meat is so expensive? Let me bargain first.
3. Check other cheaper meats for similar cuts, qualities and weights

For some people, it is foolish not to try to bargain at the vegetable market, and for these same people, bargaining at the supermarket is even more unreasonable.

But for some others, they never bargain, whether in the vegetable market or supermarket.

Of course, the opposite of this group of people are those who try to bargain no matter if they are at the vegetable market or the supermarket, otherwise they feel they have been at a disadvantage.

Things of the same quality and the same price may have different credibility in different scenarios.

Therefore, there are two very important conditions for a transaction to occur.

The first is supply and demand.

That is, I have a need that needs to be met, and someone else can provide me with a solution.

The second is trust.

That is, I have to believe that the price I pay is exchanged for a supply that effectively meets my needs.

When I’m hungry and want to eat, I usually open Ele.me because take-out is the most convenient. I don’t have to walk back and forth, pick vegetables, cook, or wash dishes.

Because my need is simple, I just want to fill my stomach. I don’t care whether it is cheap or expensive. I also don’t care whether the food is handled hygienically or whether it will make me sick.

However, if I were to treat my friends to a meal today, I would most likely not order takeout from Ele.me. At the very least, it would have to be KFC or McDonald’s own takeout.

Although the basic need is still to fill the stomach, the needs at this time are actually more complicated. When inviting friends to dinner, first, it cannot be too shabby, and second, it must be clean and hygienic. Therefore, if you don’t have time or it is inconvenient to go to a restaurant, it is best to order takeout from a big brand fast food restaurant.

If this friend is very important and cannot be solved by take-out, then I will invite him out for dinner. At this time, it depends on what kind of person this friend is, and what problem you want to solve by having dinner with him becomes important.

The reason is that in the process of establishing supply and demand relationships, multiple variables emerge to affect trust.

Just eat something to fill your stomach and you will trust the simplest thing: the platform can’t cheat us users like this, right?

When having lunch with friends, trust needs to go a step further: if the platform is unreliable, the brand won’t let you down, right?

When an important friend agrees to have dinner together, the trust turns into: I will book the meal at the restaurant that can bear my trust and help me make this thing look good.

Why do Alipay , Ant Financial and the like immediately give in and apologize when users question their right to know and personal privacy?

Because they are financial and credit products, the basis for their survival is user trust. Therefore, what they fear most is that users have no trust in the brand.

Therefore, if we want to promote the possibility of transactions, we need to find ways to make users trust you, so we need to introduce how to build trust.

Relationships and Trust

The original question actually contained some misunderstandings.

Strong relationships may not necessarily lead to transactions, but weak relationships may not necessarily be unable to be converted into cash.

How do you understand the above sentence?

Offline scenario.

I have three close friends, one of them started selling insurance two years ago. Logically, we grew up wearing open-crotch pants, so we should all support him if he sells insurance. But in fact, I have never bought insurance from him. Why?

Because he is in his hometown and I am in Shanghai. Subjectively, no matter how much I wanted to support his business, I could not be a contributor to his insurance work because of the physical boundaries.

Online scene.

There are never enough charging cables for my iPhone. I need one at home, one at the office, and one at my mother-in-law’s house. So in addition to the one that comes with the iPhone, I need two more charging cables. At this time, I have to buy two more.

I often buy coffee powder at a Taobao store, and have done business with the owner many times, so we have a pretty strong relationship. However, it is unlikely that I can go to the owner and ask him if he sells iPhone charging cables, so I can only search everywhere. In the end, I decided to buy Amazon 's own Amazon Basic brand charging cable, which has a more guaranteed quality.

There is no need to bargain on Amazon, so there is no strong relationship between me and Amazon, but that does not prevent me from buying charging cables on Amazon.

Therefore, whether the relationship between the user and the platform is strong or weak is not a necessary condition to determine whether the user will conduct transactions with the platform.

Moreover, sometimes, it is not the users who make transactions directly with the platform, but because there are users, the platform can realize the monetization logic of letting the pigs pay for the wool.

However, although the transaction itself does not need the strength of the relationship to support it, there is still another set of logic in it, which is called:

trust.

Whether I don’t buy insurance from my childhood friend or I choose the Amazon Basic brand charging cable, there is a trust logic behind it.

I trust my childhood friend that he won't cheat me, so subjectively I think that if his insurance can be purchased regardless of region, then I will definitely buy it from him, because I trust this person, and therefore I will trust the insurance products he has. However, I don’t necessarily trust insurance companies.

I trust Amazon Basic because I have bought charging cables from various brands, but Amazon Basic has some advantages that other brands don't have. For example, I don't have to worry about whether Amazon Basic is MFI certified, because Amazon will definitely do it. I also don't have to worry about what to do if Amazon Basic breaks within a few days after I buy it, because if I don't like it, I can just return it within 30 days.

Luo Zhenyu mentioned the example of Xiaomi in his New Year’s Eve speech. The sales per square meter of Xiaomi’s offline stores reached RMB 270,000. What does sales per square meter mean? How much income can one square meter generate? The sales per square meter is 270,000 yuan, which is equivalent to 4.5 Uniqlo stores , 6 Haidilao stores , or 6.7 Starbucks stores, second only to Apple.

The reason is that the brand Xiaomi has built over the years has made consumers believe that:

Xiaomi's products may not be world-class, but they are definitely very cost-effective. Once you enter a Xiaomi store, you can choose things with your eyes closed because you will definitely not buy the wrong thing or pay too much.

Luo Pang calls this a "cognitive war":

Cognitive warfare is all about building ultimate trust.

So, how strong the connection between you and your users is is irrelevant and is not the point. The point is whether your users cognitively trust you?

The book "Positioning" actually emphasizes cognition all the time.

When consumers are thirsty, are you the first brand they think of?

When consumers want to relax, are you the first brand they think of?

When consumers want to watch a movie , are you the first brand they think of?

Only when a consumer wants to do something and the first brand he thinks of is yours, can you easily realize monetization. And there is no need to worry about whether the so-called user relationship is strong or weak.

So next, I will say two things:

• 1. How to build trust?
• 2. How to manage users?

How to Build Trust

In fact, the method of building trust is very simple, just like making friends in daily life.

1. Considering users
2. Commitment to do
3. Keep doing the right thing

In this matter, I actually highly recommend the two brands Xiaomi and men's socks.

I think most people are familiar with the Xiaomi case, so let me advertise this brand that makes socks for men.

About 5 or 6 years ago, a startup company in Wuhan decided to make socks for men.

This is a very vertical and segmented category.

The operating story of men's socks is actually very simple, but there are some highlights worth pondering.

1. The user group is men, and men are afraid of trouble, so there is no registration process for men's socks, only a purchase process.
2. The user group is men, and men secretly have some resonance, so every time men's socks are delivered, in addition to socks, there must be a paper ruler about 15 cm long + 2 marbles (now marbles are gone, replaced by stickers)
3. The user group is men, and men sometimes have some little interests. This interest made Men's Socks decide to go with the flow and let their official account call itself "Men's Girl"
4. They said they wanted to serve men, so they had a lot of ideas for socks. In addition to basic styles, there are also thicker styles for northern regions, bulletproof socks to solve wear and tear problems, deodorant socks that won't get smelly even after wearing them for several days, and disposable socks that don't need to be washed and can be thrown away after wearing... In addition to socks, there are also underwear... blankets and so on...

The interesting thing about this brand is that once you try it and use it, you will basically stay and renew your annual subscription.

They think very seriously that socks are accessories and consumables, and they will not disturb consumers frequently because consumers will definitely come to them when they need them. They cherish every opportunity to contact users. Only at this time will you know what interesting things they are tinkering with. The previous crowdfunding of ice silk blankets was also used to reach out to them in this way.

Of course, you will follow their social media accounts because of their unique little interests, and then it’s not them who bother you, but you who take the initiative to know what they are doing recently.

Trust takes time, so don’t think that you can gain users’ trust after one or two contacts. It’s impossible.

Besides, my transformation process from a JD user to an Amazon Prime user is actually worth thinking about. Where is this turning point?

1. Returns and Exchanges
2. Product quality
3. Decision Cost

JD.com’s returns and exchanges are already very convenient, but there is one thing that completely made me turn to Amazon.

Still about the charging cable, one time there was a problem with one of the charging cables. At that time, this cable had been used for 2 weeks, so I tried to click on the order to exchange it, but Amazon showed that it could be returned directly.

So I tried it, and even though the packaging and everything was gone, the Amazon courier took the item away. I tried to explain to him that I wanted to exchange it, but the courier was cool and told me directly:

It doesn't matter, no need to explain anything, just return it.

Similar situations happened several times later, and there was never any need for explanation. Within 30 days, if you wanted to withdraw, you could do so.

This happened at the end of 2014. When Amazon's Prime was opened to China, I directly joined the Prime membership - free shipping within China for any amount and free shipping for overseas purchases over 200 yuan, which is very cost-effective.

As for Prmie’s story, we will talk about it in the next topic.

Regarding building trust, we can actually summarize it like this:

Insist on being better than your competitors in certain key details and let users continue to experience these details. You can build users' trust in you during the cognitive phase.

How to manage users

Let’s first review the story of Amazon Prime.

Prime membership was launched in the United States in 2005. The United States is a place with extremely high logistics costs and extremely slow logistics speeds, and the biggest feature of Prime is free shipping + 2-day delivery.

Everyone thought that selling Prime at $99 a year would inevitably make Amazon lose money, but the results were shocking.

Amazon's total revenue in 2016 was $136 billion, and revenue from subscription services reached $6.4 billion (90% of subscription services came from Prime membership fees).

Morgan Stanley's research report predicts that about 40% of Prime members will spend more than $1,000 on Amazon each year (only 8% of non-members will spend that much). The report also found that Prime members make 4.6 times more purchases than non-members.

A report released by U.S. market research firm CIR in 2015 showed that Amazon Prime members spent an average of $1,500 per year on Amazon, while non-Prime members spent an average of only $625 per year, a gap of more than two times.

At this point, do you think I’m going to start talking about affiliate marketing again?

No, what I want to tell you is how to manage users.

As long as you have users, no matter how they are related to you or how far away they are, you should find a way to manage them.

Managing users has two meanings:

• 1. Divide user layers
• 2. Manage behavior based on different user tiers

There are many ways to divide user layers, such as RFM model based on consumption level, pyramid model, normal distribution model...

What is important is not which model to use, but to understand:

1. What is the user lifecycle for your product?
2. In terms of the life cycle, at which stage can value be converted into cash?

If we look at a product that involves transactions, we usually think that the user life cycle in the product should be like this:

Establishing awareness - selecting products - first transaction - delivery - re-transaction - sinking loss

Transactions are about monetization, and what we need to focus on is how to stimulate users to complete the first transaction from a cognitive strategy perspective, and after the first transaction is completed, strengthen the user's desire to trade during delivery and promote further transactions.

This whole process is an alternating process of cognition - experience - behavior - experience - reinforced cognition - behavior .

Then, among the total number of user groups, there are roughly:

• Users who have not traded yet
• Users who have traded
• Users who have traded multiple times
• Users who have not traded for a long time
• Users who no longer trade

To go from never having a transaction to having a transaction, you need to pay attention to other users who have already completed the transaction, and find out what good things they felt during the transaction and delivery experience. Then pick them out, standardize them, and provide them to other users who have not yet completed the transaction.

Continue to iterate until this standardized process can successfully guide users from never trading to trading.

Similarly, from multiple transactions to no transactions, there must be some links that lead to user loss . Find these points, optimize them, and review whether there have been any positive changes in consumer retention .

There are actually many ways to manage user behavior . If you are interested, please leave a message and I will explain it to you using a checklist.

And today, let’s just talk about this, I think it’s enough to answer that question.

To sum up

Today we actually talked about a question:

How can I monetize my users when they don’t have a strong relationship with me?

Liang Ge's point of view is:

When considering user-oriented value realization, there is actually no need to consider user relationships.

Things to consider:

1. Do users have a full understanding of me?
2. Are these perceptions sufficient to support their trust in me?
3. Do I understand user behavior well enough?
4. Do I have the ability to manage user behavior?

If these questions can be answered, the monetization problem can actually be easily solved.

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

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