It’s time to learn the strategies for attracting new customers in the data age!

There are two kinds of problems in this world. One kind has standard answers, such as 1+1=2, the probability of it raining tomorrow is 30%, I am Chinese, etc.; the other kind has no standard answers, such as how many stars are there in the Milky Way, will the stock rise or fall tomorrow, can I still buy Bitcoin now, etc.

There is no standard answer to acquiring new customers: there are fixed patterns but no fixed methods. Due to differences in industries, products, and company resources, no two companies in the world use exactly the same new customer acquisition strategies. The same new customer acquisition strategy will have different effects on the same product at different stages.

If you look at the financial statements of Internet companies, more than half of the expenses may be promotion expenses. Traffic is both a money tree and a lifeline. It can be said that "Success and failure are both due to Xiao He."

Since there is no standard answer to acquiring new customers, and since it plays such an important role, how do we acquire new customers? Based on my limited experience, I have summarized a set of data-driven methodologies to share with friends in the industry.

1. Comprehensive understanding of new customer acquisition methods

Since you are doing new customer acquisition, in order to become an expert, you must first have a comprehensive understanding of the methods of attracting new customers. There are many different ways to attract new customers, and in summary there may be thousands of them. In order not to get lost in the marketing forms, we must unravel them and gain insight into the essence.

According to the author's experience, the following three methods are extracted:

1) Circle marketing: When a product is first launched, it is not easy to acquire the first batch of seed users . The target user group of each product is different. Circle marketing is to lock in the target user group, spread it quickly within a small circle, form a good reputation, and attract the first batch of users through word-of-mouth. The core of circle marketing is to accurately locate users and find opinion leaders. In the early days, Weibo and Zhihu introduced influencers and celebrities and used the influence of “key contacts” to quickly increase product awareness. This method has low cost and good marketing effect, and many products will adopt it in the early stages of their launch.

2) Media advertising: Circle marketing is mainly spread among acquaintances, while spread among strangers mainly relies on media advertising. Circle marketing can help a product acquire its first batch of seed users, but to increase product awareness on a large scale, it is necessary to build brand influence through media advertising. This type of media advertising can be offline advertising such as television, buses, subways, outdoor advertising, etc., or online advertising such as portal websites, online videos, search engines , etc. With the rise of mobile Internet , information flow advertising on super apps such as WeChat and Toutiao has also become popular. Wherever there is traffic, there are advertisements.

3) Building own communication channels : After brand awareness is formed, most companies will build their own channels, which may be offline physical stores, channel agents, or online websites, apps, and social media such as WeChat and Weibo. The perfection of proprietary channels indicates that the product has entered a period of rapid growth or even maturity.

Specific forms of attracting new customers may include the following:

2. Develop new customer acquisition strategies

After fully understanding the methods of attracting new customers, companies need to formulate their own strategies for attracting new customers based on the characteristics of their own products. The specific method is as follows:

1) User group positioning

Enterprises must first understand their own products and identify their target user groups. Currently, there are fewer and fewer products that can be launched for all users. The reason is that user demands are becoming more and more diversified, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet the needs of all users with one product. Even for popular platforms like Didi and Ele.me , their target user groups are not all users. In the early stages of the products, Didi mainly served those users who had difficulty hailing a taxi, and Ele.me mainly provided food delivery services to campus users.

2) Channel Adaptation

After identifying the target user group, you need to find the right channel. The key to determining channels is to understand the attributes of the channels and the mainstream user groups of the channels.

Currently, marketing channels have expanded from offline to online and mobile. In addition to television, radio, publishing and other media, buses, subways, airports, targeted media and outdoor advertising have also been popular channels. There are countless online portals, video sites, navigation sites, and social networking sites such as forums, bulletin boards , blogs, etc. The emergence of popular mobile apps such as Live , Jimeng, and Yuedongquan has also rapidly expanded the number of marketing channels.

There are too many channels to try and error out on all of them, so it is necessary to understand the characteristics of the channel’s own user base. For example, the main user group of Airport is high-end business travelers, mostly business people; the main user group of Jimeng is young girls who like taking selfies. The characteristics of the channel user group mostly need to be explored, verified or initially understood through second-hand information, and then ways are found to verify their authenticity. Channel exploration needs to be carried out step by step, with gradual exploration and accumulation to form knowledge sedimentation, which will be conducive to future channel adaptation.

3) Benchmarking analysis

Before determining the strategy for attracting new customers, there is another important step: benchmarking research. Pay attention to the dynamics within the industry, benchmark and study competitors' new customer acquisition methods, and understand the key actions and results they take during different stages of the product life cycle, such as the launch, growth, and maturity stages. At the same time, collect and understand the views, opinions and strategic layout of industry experts and big names on attracting new customers.

After the benchmark analysis, we need to analyze the reasons for the formulation of the competitor’s new customer acquisition strategy in light of its user base and channels, and gain insight into the business logic behind it.

4) Develop new customer acquisition strategies

After completing the above work, you can formulate new customer acquisition strategies based on user group positioning and channel attributes, namely, delivery channels, delivery strategies, delivery timing, etc. If the above work is well prepared, the new customer acquisition strategy will kill 60% of competitors in seconds.

3. Data analysis , focusing on key channels

If you want to advance your new customer acquisition strategy, you need to rely on data.

Even if a strategy for attracting new customers is formulated, there is no guarantee that the strategy will be useful and effective. A small-scale pilot is necessary: ​​a small-scale launch in each channel, while setting up a control group to compare the effects of each channel.

According to the channel delivery orientation, the channel promotion effect includes two parts: user conversion and order conversion, which can be measured by user conversion rate and order conversion rate respectively. At the same time, the return on investment (ROI) of each channel can be analyzed in combination with the promotion cost (ROI = (investment during the activity - natural investment during the non-activity period) / investment cost. The data comes from its own channels, partners and third-party data platforms.

The promotion effect of each channel can be clearly seen through the user conversion rate, order conversion rate and channel return on investment ROI. In subsequent large-scale launches, the focus will be on high-conversion and high-return channels.

4. Focus on attracting new customers at different stages of the product life cycle

When placing orders in channels, the focus of channel placement varies according to the different product life cycles, as shown below:

The above is the strategy for attracting new customers through data: fully understand the methods of attracting new customers, formulate strategies for attracting new customers, focus on key channels through data analysis, and focus on different aspects of attracting new customers during different product life cycles. Of course, this kind of analysis is not a one-time thing. It is necessary to iterate the analysis conclusions based on industry changes, changes in customer demand, and changes in technology, and update the new customer acquisition strategy in a timely manner.

Acquiring new customers is not a game of passing levels where you can pass the levels by simply learning a set of skills. Instead, it is a showdown, a battle with people, competitors, the past and the future. What you have to defeat is not an unchanging standard, but an opponent who is growing at the same time as you. Now you know why Honor of Kings is so popular.

Ultimately, acquiring new customers is not a science, it’s an art.