Why do companies need to develop mini programs?

WeChat Mini Programs have faced many doubts since their launch in 2017. Even now, many companies are still planning Mini Programs with a skeptical mentality, which is really "good". But objectively speaking, WeChat Mini Programs have their own strong advantages:

1. Inevitable Trend

Whether it is the 2020 coronavirus epidemic or e-commerce, stores have long been struggling to survive in the dilemma of low in-store traffic, low awareness, and sales growth that is lower than the rental growth rate. The WeChat Mini Program has an incomparable traffic advantage. As long as WeChat can continue to develop well, the traffic of the WeChat Mini Program will be guaranteed to a certain extent.

2. If we enter public service platforms such as Ele.me and Meituan Waimai, do we also need to develop mini programs?

According to the new retail's focus on "online traffic and offline consumption promotion", O2O platforms such as Meituan Waimai and Ele.me Waimai seem to be the focus of new retail. So if we want to enter public service platforms such as Ele.me and Meituan, do we also need to develop mini programs? The answer is without a doubt. The small program business logic will tell you the reasons from the following 4 aspects.

1. Service platform expenses:

Service platforms such as Ele.me and Meituan Waimai, in addition to the store's "entry fee", also charge a commission on each sales order, some of which can reach 15% or even 20%. The third-party software development platform of the mini program generally deducts the development fee. For example, our mini program team will not additionally deduct platform maintenance fees, commission fees and other miscellaneous fees. This will reduce a large amount of expenses for the merchant and alleviate the pressure on the merchant.

2. User ownership:

The user resources of public platforms such as Ele.me and Meituan do not belong to the merchants. Users are deposited on the public platforms. In other words, as long as you withdraw from the platform, you will lose the users on this platform. Moreover, these users will go to where their interests are maximized. However, mini programs are different. Mini programs are the merchants’ own platforms, and the user resources naturally belong to the merchants. The platform is like a fish pond. The fish in it belong to whoever owns the pond.

3. Promotion methods:

The promotion methods of public platforms such as Ele.me and Meituan are limited, mainly APP downloads and link sharing. In addition to QR code promotion, mini programs can also be promoted through nearby mini programs, public account associations, WeChat groups, searches, and other promotional methods. The more promotion channels there are, the wider the merchant's reach will be, and the higher the chance of monetization will be.

4. Traffic dividend:

Public domain platforms such as Ele.me and Meituan have also developed their own mini programs and taken advantage of the mini program’s direct traffic. The public domain platform directs traffic through WeChat and then distributes it to the platform merchants. So why don’t merchants directly build their own mini-programs to absorb traffic and create their own private domain platform?

3. Now that we have a public account, do we still need to create a mini program?

Official accounts and mini programs are complementary, but they have different focuses: official accounts focus on content promotion, while mini programs focus on traffic generation and monetization. Mini programs can be seamlessly connected with official accounts. Physical stores can use official accounts to conduct soft-text publicity to promote their own brands and new products. By inserting mini programs in articles, users can directly jump to the mini programs and be guided to consume, thus realizing the monetization of official account content. It can be said that if you have a public account, you need a mini program even more.

4. Now that we have WeChat stores, do we still need to develop mini programs?

It is recommended that merchants who have WeChat stores replace their WeChat stores with mini programs for the following reasons:

1. Whether online or offline, the most important thing is customer flow. The traffic entrances for Weidian are mainly the public account menu, Moments, and WeChat groups, and the merchants have to promote themselves to divert traffic. Mini programs have more than 60 traffic entrances, among which search, history, nearby mini programs and other entrances are natural traffic brought by WeChat. There is no need to do anything, the traffic will come naturally.

2. Sharing interface:

The mini program is pushed to the chat interface and comes with its own advertising window to attract customers to click and consume. However, the sharing of WeChat stores is similar to the forwarding effect of pictures and texts, which is easy to be ignored and cannot attract customers.

The development of mini programs has brought vitality to the real economy, and it is also an opportunity for physical stores to transform to a new retail model. If you didn’t catch the WeChat public account when it was popular in the market, would you miss today’s mini program?