"How to do operations?" How do the awesome COOs and operations directors think about this question?

Special reminder: This article is a long technical article, especially suitable for operators and entrepreneurs with 3-5 years of experience . The entire reading takes about 8 minutes.

What is the value of operations?

In the eyes of many people, operations means doing odd jobs, running errands, dealing with trivial matters, and selling physical strength.

This is actually true, as at least more than 80% of operations work in this way.

However, in the eyes of many experienced people, as well as many CEOs and founders, the real value of operations is by no means as simple as "being able to manage various trivial matters and having strong execution capabilities."

I have mentioned in the article "Why I think the next era of the Internet will be operations-driven" that operations are something that is far more complex than outsiders imagine.

Specifically, this complexity is reflected in the following aspects:

• A product has different core concerns during operation due to its business type (for example, high-frequency and low-frequency products, consumer products and non-consumer products are completely different);
• A product, due to its different product forms , has completely different operating systems and channels (e.g., tool products and social products, content products and platform products);
• The operational focus of a product varies greatly depending on the stage of its development (for example, the operational issues to be addressed for a mature product and an early product that has just been launched are basically completely different);
• Even if the goals and operational focus are exactly the same, in order to achieve the same purpose, there are many specific operational means that can be used (for example, in order to get 100,000 new users, I can plan an event, do performance advertising , or publish a bunch of soft articles...).

The above points basically determine that operation is likely to be something that has no standard answer. On the contrary, how to formulate the operational strategy of each product at each time point and how to plan the work content require consideration in combination with many specific issues.

Under the premise that there is no standard answer, it is also necessary to be able to come up with effective strategies and make them effective through a series of actions and specific means . This is precisely the biggest challenge that operations need to face .

Of course, that’s often the fun of “operating” this job. Precisely because of these ubiquitous variables, operations are something that “seemingly trivial and lacks technical content, but is actually unfathomable.”

Basically, the most common dividing line between an entry-level operator and an advanced operator is that the former can only focus on execution, while the latter has the ability to complete strategy formulation, longer-term operational plan planning, and operational management. This is basically the difference between a so-called "operations manager" and an "operations director".

So, if you want to have similar strategy formulation and operation capabilities, what prerequisites do you need to meet? I think there may be the following points -

1. Very familiar with various operating methods . From writing copy to communication, from event planning and execution to advertising, from operating a group to managing a community, from offline marketing to online user retention, you need to be able to understand the logic behind most of them and have the ability to implement them.
2. Have experience in operating some relatively complex operational projects . For example, we once achieved the goal of adding hundreds of thousands of new users by relying on a medium-to-large-scale operation that invested more than a dozen people and involved development, product design, channel promotion , overall communication and other aspects.
3. Be able to understand how a product’s operational focus may differ at different stages of its development .
4. Be able to understand, from the perspective of business model and business logic, what the biggest breakthroughs and key points in the operations of products of different business types and business models may be.
5. Able to complete and build an operating system that can support the smooth operation of the business by combining the product form and the core business logic of the product.

Among the above 5 points, the first and second points require you to slowly practice, accumulate, and settle over time and create opportunities for yourself.

The third point we wrote in the previous article: "Are there any rules to follow in operations at different stages of product development? 》has been mentioned in.

Today, let’s focus on the fourth point, which is to find the core breakthroughs and key points in operations based on the different business types and business models of the products.

We will discuss point 5 in the next article.

Looking at the entire Internet world, I think that how the operational work of most products is planned can be evaluated from three dimensions separately, and finally the conclusions drawn from the three dimensions can be summarized together to come up with a guiding direction.

These three dimensions are business logic , typical user behavior frequency , and whether a certain relationship will be formed between users and other users through your product .

Let me talk about them one by one.

Generally speaking, various Internet products generally have the following three business logics, and each business logic has different requirements on the operation side.

The business logic of such products is the most direct. Their purpose is to sell certain goods or services directly to users and make a profit from them.

Typical examples include brand e-commerce websites, various O2O door-to-door services, etc.

Therefore, the core of it lies in whether you can find good enough and sufficient products, sell them smoothly and at a low enough cost, and ensure the smoothness of the overall sales process.

So according to this logic, in order to maximize profits, the core capabilities that this type of product needs to have on the operating side are:

• The ability to select and expand products and sources of goods (i.e., the ability to find better and more salable products);
• Product packaging and marketing capabilities (i.e., whether the product can be sold at the lowest possible cost);
• Supply chain service capabilities throughout the entire process (i.e., the ability to provide services from the time a user places an order to the final completion of consumption, which may include warehousing, distribution, service personnel management, etc.).

The business logic of this type of product is: I provide some products or services to users for free, and on this basis make profits through some paid value-added services.

Such products are quite common in the Internet world, especially various tool products (such as Evernote, which I am using now). They often win a large number of users by providing a certain service for free, and then make profits by providing paid value-added services.

Therefore, the core lies in: whether it is possible to acquire enough users, whether it is possible to make users dependent on the product, and whether it is possible to more smoothly persuade users to pay for value-added services.

Similarly, in reverse, the core capabilities that this type of product requires the operator to have are:

• The ability to acquire free trial users ;
• Cultivate users’ usage habits and dependence;
• Build a path from users’ daily usage behavior to paid services ;
• The final sale of value-added services or third-party paid services .

There are too many aspects involved in acquiring users and traffic, so I won’t focus on them here. I will mainly talk about the following things.

There are two common methods to cultivate user usage habits and dependence. The first is to slowly guide users to gradually accumulate more social relationships, personal records, data, etc. into the product; the second is to educate users in a step-by-step manner through various means such as concept output and benchmark setting.

When it comes to building a path from users’ daily usage behavior to paid services, the emphasis is on clever design and contextual relevance.

Regarding sales, this is just a variety of promotional operations, there is nothing much to say.

Logic 3 is slightly similar to Logic 2 and is also very common in the Internet world.

The business logic of this type of product is: by providing products or services to users, slowly accumulating massive access traffic or data, and then based on the existing traffic and data, realizing monetization by introducing third parties who are willing to pay (i.e. selling traffic, selling data, etc.).

Compared with Logic 2, the main difference of Logic 3 may be that the final payer is not the user, but a third party. A typical example of this type of product is the community.

The core of this logic often lies in: whether it is possible to acquire enough users, whether user loyalty is sufficient, whether it is possible to accumulate data or content that can continuously bring in new traffic, and whether it is possible to accumulate content, data or a specific atmosphere that payers are willing to pay for.

Continuing the reverse process, the core capabilities that this type of product needs to have on the operational side are:

• The ability to guide users to engage in specific behaviors and create a specific atmosphere;
• The ability to continuously maintain user activity;
• The ability to integrate content, data and existing key user resources.

The above is about the first dimension - business logic.

Let’s talk about the second dimension.

The so-called typical user behavior frequency refers to the frequency with which users use your core product features or services if they accept and recognize you. Basically there are several possibilities here -

1. Users generally use your product features or core services once;
2. Users use your product features or core services in low to medium frequency, such as once every few months or even once every 1-2 years;
3. Users use your product features or core services frequently, such as at least once a week.

This difference in frequency will especially lead to some changes in our focus on user acquisition. Let’s briefly analyze them one by one.

Typical products of this type include certain training courses (such as TOEFL and IELTS), or wedding services, funeral services, etc. And there is no doubt that this kind of product is definitely a paid product (users can use it once, and it is free, so what's the point of doing it)...

Because users only have one chance to accept and use the service, this type of product basically does not need to consider spending too much energy on user retention. On the contrary, the things that this type of product should pay more attention to must be:

• Laying out customer acquisition channels and placing advertisements;
• The effectiveness of sales conversion;
• Average order value (it’s just one chance to make money, so of course you have to make enough…).

In short, you should be willing to spend money on promotion. As long as the final ROI is break-even, no matter how much you spend, it’s fine.

Typical products of this type include car maintenance products, job search products, etc.

The characteristics of this type of product are: no matter how much the user likes you and recognizes you, he will basically leave after using you every time, and it will take a long time before he uses you again.

Therefore, if this type of product relies on spending money on advertising and promotion to acquire users, it will definitely lose a lot of money...

Relatively speaking, what they need more is to enable users to find them as quickly and effectively as possible every time they have relevant needs.

So, when it comes to things like job hunting, how do users decide what product to use every time they have a related need?

Basically, it is very likely to depend on the following points:

• Which brand in this field comes to my mind first?
• Have I heard someone around me mention or recommend a related product recently?
• I searched for relevant keywords such as " recruiting operations director" through search engines, app stores and other channels to see what results would come out?

So, it seems clear what this type of product should focus on when it comes to user acquisition, right?

Basically, nothing more than -

• Channels are laid and entrances are occupied . In places such as search engines and app stores, the positions that should be occupied must be occupied, and the higher the ranking, the better;
• Brand communication, occupying cognition . Continue to spread your brand to the industry and users through various means such as activities, events, media reports , PR soft articles, etc., to enhance everyone's awareness of your brand.

There are many products of this type, such as reading products, social products, etc.

The characteristics of this type of product are often: it may take a while for users to get to know you, accept you, and then recognize you, but once they really accept you, it will become difficult for them to leave you.

In addition, since this type of product is used more frequently by users, in theory it is most likely to generate word-of-mouth effects and viral marketing .

Therefore, there is no doubt that the focus of this type of product is often the following two:

• Cultivate user usage habits through subsidies, activities, operating mechanisms, user guidance, and other means (such as the Evernote case mentioned above, and Didi and various food delivery apps constantly giving users red envelopes in the early days, all in order to cultivate usage habits);
• In terms of user acquisition, we should think more about how to leverage the power of existing users through operational mechanisms or means, open up several "sharing" scenarios, and achieve viral transmission and growth (such as the "red envelopes" of Didi and food delivery apps, and the "makeup" H5 mini -games and beauty competitions of various beauty apps).

The above is our analysis on the second dimension.

Finally, let’s talk about the third dimension.

In the Internet world, some products are one-way service products, that is, users receive the service of the product in a one-way manner, typical examples of which are various calendars, notes, flight inquiry tools, etc.

But there is another type of product that plays the role of a "connector", and its ultimate state is that many different types of users eventually establish a certain relationship through it.

Such products include e-commerce platforms like Taobao, communities like Zhihu, and social software like Tantan.

However, once your product is a product that "allows users to build relationships", it means that you may not be able to fully control the relevant user experience in the product, because it depends largely on what kind of people the users will meet and what kind of experiences they will have on it.

Therefore, if you are this type of product, your operational work plan needs to include two essential parts:

First, such products tend to pay special attention to the creation of atmosphere and their development will be relatively slow. And early users are extremely important. You need to maintain an extremely close relationship with them and make them extremely supportive of your ideas. In this regard, Zhihu is a typical example, so I won’t go into details.

Secondly, for a product like this, you will need to spend a lot of time to gradually establish and improve some rules, boundaries and constraints . Ultimately, you use rules like these to maximize the user experience and provide direction for user behavior on the site.

Typical examples of these rules include deleting the account if pornographic images are posted, being kicked out if three complaints are received, and not being allowed to insult or slander others.

Moreover, the establishment of each relevant rule should preferably be based on real events and cases, and it is best to seek extensive user opinions before publication, which will make the process smoother.

That’s all for this article.

I feel like this may be the most technically advanced series I've written so far. Of course, it takes some basic knowledge to digest this article. If you are a newcomer and feel that there are some parts you don’t understand, I think this is normal.

At the same time, I can also announce that my series is slowly coming to an end. According to the plan, I will complete the entire manuscript before the end of June and early July, and the book "The Light of Operation" should be officially available to you in September.

By the time I finished writing this article, I had lost more than half of my blood... Let me take a good rest for a few days. See you in the next article.

If you want your APP to get more real users, please click on the link: Introduction to ASO Optimization Service

The author of this article @三节课 Huang Youcan is compiled and published by (APP Top Promotion). Reprinting this article must be approved by Top Promotion , and please attach the link to this article!