When products become homogenized, how can operations find opportunities?

In this article, let’s talk about how operators can find opportunities when products become homogenized.

Positioning is for more precise strikes

Product homogeneity means that there is a high degree of consensus among product managers .

Everyone thinks that a certain product should be designed in this way.

For example, when group buying was taking place, there were no new product designs except for large pictures and price temptations.

For example, when making takeout products, the process is basically the same.

And so on.

But you will find that different perspectives on operations will lead to different operational strategies based on the same original user positioning, and these operational strategies will affect the direction of homogeneous products.

The most classic one is Wang Xing’s decisive move when the group buying war was in full swing.

Meituan proposed "overdue refunds" on the eve of 315 in 2011, and then major group buying sites were forced to follow suit. In July 2011, Meituan's monthly sales exceeded 100 million, in December 2011, it exceeded 200 million, and in July 2012, it exceeded 500 million...

Of course, expired refunds are obviously not a killer decision in the absolute sense, but this decision has become a watershed in the group buying war.

The reason is actually simple.

According to what was said at the time, Wang Huiwen was chatting with friends about expired orders during a meal. His friends joked with him that the expired orders that had not been consumed could not be found, and asked if they were trying to scam people out of money, so why couldn't they refund the money?

Therefore, on March 4, 2011, Meituan directly launched the expired refund service. After the launch of this service, the impact on Meituan was that the deposited funds were reduced by 10 million, but the impact on the industry was that a number of group buying sites that originally relied on the turnover of expired orders died.

The leading services launched have brought about continuous improvement in word of mouth.

Are you saying this is a product that solves the problem of homogeneity? In fact, this is a question of operational strategy.

This problem is solved by:

After all, to what extent are you different from others?

When you think about this problem, you will find that sometimes operations are much more complicated than the original work.

Take Meituan’s initial practice of not having to pay for expired group-buying coupons, because when viewed rationally from a cash flow perspective, these expired consumer coupons are “high-quality assets” that are beneficial to the company.

However, if you also agree that user experience is a means for operations to keep users active and even loyal, then you will begin to realize that you should think about the so-called expiration and refund behaviors from the user's perspective. In fact, you should not waste those seemingly high-quality expired deposits, but pursue the optimization of user experience.

The basis of all this lies in how deeply you understand the business you are running.

For example, in the education industry, is there a difference between weekdays and holidays? For the Internet of Vehicles, does the quality of road conditions affect operational results? For catering, can the busy and idle status of a restaurant be allocated?

And so on.

The depth of your understanding of the business usually comes from the depth of your understanding of product positioning, and the two complement each other.

Therefore, no matter how long we talk about the topic of "positioning", it will still be valuable because most people still cannot understand it.

There is no one-hit-kill routine

Many times, some people will pursue "ultimate skills", as if the world's top masters, as long as they have a killer move, can kill anyone who stands in their way.

In the chapter "Swordsman" of Jin Yong's "Swordsman", there is the following dialogue:

Feng Qingyang said: "Learning and applying flexibly is only the first step. To be able to attack without any moves is to truly enter the realm of a master. What you said, 'If each move is seamless and connected, the enemy will have no way to break it', this statement is only half right. It's not about being "perfect", but about having no moves at all. No matter how perfect your sword moves are, as long as there are traces to be found, the enemy will have an opportunity to take advantage. But if you don’t have any moves at all, how can the enemy break your moves? "

Linghu Chong's heart was pounding, his palms were hot, and he murmured, "There is no move at all, how can it be broken? There is no move at all, how can it be broken?" Suddenly, a new world appeared before his eyes, which he had never seen in his life and could not even imagine in his dreams.

Feng Qingyang said: "If you want to cut meat, you must have meat to cut; if you want to chop wood, you must have wood to chop; if the enemy wants to break your sword moves, you must have sword moves for him to break. An ordinary person who has never learned martial arts, holding a sword and waving it around, no matter how knowledgeable you are, you can't guess where he will stab or chop next. Even if you are a master of swordsmanship, you can't break his moves, because there are no moves, so the word "breaking" is out of the question. However, people who have never learned martial arts, even though they have no special moves, can be easily defeated. The real superior swordsmanship is to be able to control others but never be controlled by others. "

Everyone can compare themselves.

• Your boss recently said that the data is not very good, and your first reaction is to organize activities;
• When it comes to events, the most important thing is the packaging, rather than the design and management of the entire process from promotion to conclusion.

If you meet any of the above descriptions, congratulations, you need to improve your operational thinking ability.

In the PC era, Tencent could complete the cold start of a product or even capture traffic by just making a pop-up window.

What you see is a pop-up action, but what is in the part you can’t see? Just sayin':

Schedule management, content review, user grouping and selection, material A/B-test implementation, and effect recovery.

No matter how many times you have to do these things every day, you will never see them. What you will see in the end is actually a pop-up window.

So I have been facing many people and institutions who want to teach tricks and they always say:

Behind every successful story that others are willing to tell you about, there are a bunch of failed stories that tried the same thing but didn't work out. There is nothing wrong with learning the practices of successful cases, but it is a mistake to think that you can become awesome by just copying them.

You can compare it with the pop-up example of Tencent just now. Does your company have the foundation to follow suit?

If not, do you really trust the so-called rules that others tell you?