The construction of market operation system for start-ups: pay attention to these 7 points!

As long as a startup company is not incubated by a giant and its founder is not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, it will face the embarrassment and dilemma of having no money, no people, no resources, and no customers. Many people even say that startups do not need a market and operation system in the early stages. Those who say this can only say that you have not considered the feelings of the feet and only emphasize whether the shoes fit.

Every startup has its own genes, its own market segmentation, customer base, business structure, product prototype, and its own business model and profit point that it believes to be feasible. Therefore, we cannot use the market and operation concepts of mature enterprises to draw a simple conclusion.

For entrepreneurial companies, especially start-ups, how to establish their own market and operation system still needs to start from their own reality and consider it from the three dimensions of content, resources and funds. This involves an issue: start-up companies must have their own methodology and work system, rather than simply copying the model of mature or growing companies.

1. Methodology of startup company marketing and operations.

Other things such as technology research and development, product system, BD, etc. are no longer within the scope of my discussion. The so-called content, resources and funds mainly refer to the following.

1) The so-called content mainly refers to the promotion points that can be extracted from the company's business model, your own characteristics, content that can be extracted from your products to distinguish them from other products on the market, or content that can be extracted from the resources you have for in-depth cooperation and interpretation, or points in your technology that can be used for promotion and packaging.

2) The so-called resources mainly refer to the accumulation, experience, connections, achievements, channels in the industry by the founders or other people at the beginning of the business, or the resources that can be extended from these aspects and further incorporated into the cooperation channels.

3) The so-called capital mainly refers to the scale of funds that can be provided at the beginning of a business to acquire customers and conduct online and offline market activities. The size of the funds directly determines the size of the team, the form of marketing , the choice of channels, the form of content, and the form of cooperation. In short, good steel should be used on the blade, and how much surplus you have and where it should be used requires a clear plan and estimate.

Some people may ask, with the combined effects and considerations of the above three foundations, what remains are the specific actions at the tactical level such as promotion channels, forms, content, frequency, etc.?

The answer I gave was wrong!

Why?

This is because having so-called methodology or theoretical guidance without direction is useless.

2. What is the direction? It is the goal of the entire company in the first stage of entrepreneurship

Most startups adopt MVP (Minimum Viable Product) at the beginning, focusing on the minimum viable product. So from the perspective of marketing and operations, the understanding and support of such a goal should be to help the company acquire early users at the lowest cost and obtain feedback, thereby supporting the company to make progress faster, earlier and at a lower cost.

Specifically speaking, marketing and operations require choosing the channels and methods that are most likely to acquire users for the company among various channels and options.

I believe that many people have made many choices between developing a website, developing based on WeChat first, or directly developing an APP. What I want to say here is that there are actually no fixed rules, because each company’s choices are different due to factors such as the frequency of product use, market consumption habits, the number of users, user concentration, etc.

Because we have entered the tourism industry and overseas tourism, and at the same time we focus more on non-standard customized business. As a market with medium and low usage frequency, we still chose to develop from the WeChat end.

3. Some thoughts on the market and operation of WeChat for start-ups

WeChat official accounts are a great platform for startups. On the one hand, they can leverage WeChat’s self-media attributes to disseminate, promote, and share information to achieve a certain level of influence and exposure. On the other hand, WeChat is also an open development platform that can perform simple development using mobile web pages to achieve some functions.

Having said that, you need to choose the appropriate path and model based on the content, resources and funds you have.

1) First of all, let’s talk about content. The content produced by your team or the product features, while taking into account the purpose of your business model, directly determines the operating ideas of the official account.

2) Let’s look at resources. If your team’s resources are good at media, PR, brand, media relations, KOL resources, etc., and you can achieve brand diffusion and user accumulation simply by relying on content marketing , then you can tend to amplify the media attributes. But if your team, your technology, your accumulation and experience lie in technology and development, then it is best to focus on this aspect.

3) When it comes to funds, if you have decided which direction you want to invest in, then your limited funds must be invested in that direction. If you have determined the media attributes, then you need to consider more content cooperation, event marketing, and channel development. If you choose the technical route, then your limited funds are best invested in traffic generation and optimization, such as SEM and SEO , which can also be said to be purchasing a portion of the traffic.

Regardless of the direction, it needs to point to one goal, which is to be able to attract some new users with a small amount of funds before your early products are released, and the accuracy will be relatively high. Of course, this model will definitely give up some conversion rates and rapid growth in quantity, but considering the stage, this trade-off is necessary.

One thing needs to be clarified: the so-called two attributes are not either-or, nor are they mutually exclusive. However, there needs to be a focus. After all, you need to consider how to get the maximum benefit with the minimum investment, or you need to invest your most valuable resources - time and money - in the direction that will bring the greatest benefits.

PS: There is a problem in the process, which is about WeChat service account and WeChat subscription account . Some companies do both, which results in user diversion and loss of focus. My suggestion is that if you focus on content and media attributes, it is best to use subscription accounts as the main force. If you focus on development and technology, it is best to use a service account. However, there are several prerequisites for using a service account: one is that you have already accumulated a certain number of users in the early stage, and the second is that you transition from WeChat to the APP or website very quickly. At this time, the subscription account becomes an auxiliary channel. Thirdly, since service accounts have advantages in payment, red envelopes, etc., if you really need transactions and interactions, you need to consider service accounts.

4. Do channels like Weibo or Toutiao need to be promoted?

Many people say that Weibo has become a thing of the past and has no significance in acquiring new users. Its role is just to display its image.

This is half true, especially for startups, which find it difficult to acquire new users and attention on the Weibo platform without brand influence. However, how to use the Weibo platform still needs to be combined with one's own stage, resources, and goals.

1) Weibo is very helpful for search crawling. Sina Weibo still has a very large weight in Baidu search, so continuing to publish and expose Weibo is beneficial in this regard.

2) Weibo’s current focus is on KOLs and internet celebrities. From this perspective, if your company has resources in this area, you can consider using them. At the same time, it should be noted that the so-called KOL is relative, that is, the number of people he can influence in your professional field or within your potential customer base is the key, not the absolute number of fans.

Regarding news clients such as Toutiao, NetEase News, Phoenix News, etc., our experience and suggestion is to focus on one of these platforms. We chose Toutiao, and the others are used as auxiliary to move the content of Toutiao.

Regarding this type of platform, you will find some interesting things after operating it with the WeChat platform for a period of time.

1. There are still certain differences in the reading habits and content preferences of the two platforms. Good content read and forwarded on WeChat may not necessarily be popular on Toutiao, and vice versa.
2. Since the Toutiao platform relies on a recommendation mechanism, it is necessary to understand the platform's recommendation rules. The recommendation volumes of different content can vary greatly.
3. The content preparation of the two platforms is also different. One tends to be quick reading, the other tends to be in-depth reading; one tends to be fragmented, the other tends to be story-telling; all require attention.

No matter which channel you choose, or based on your content acquisition and production capabilities, resource characteristics, and financial strength, the most important thing is not to forget your stage goals.

5. About SEO and SEM

Many people do not recommend that early-stage companies use methods such as SEO and SEM to gain traffic and user growth. This makes sense, but it is still necessary to consider the intensity of competition in the product's market; the biggest advantage of using these methods is efficiency and time, which can improve user acquisition efficiency and reduce costs in a shorter period of time.

Some people also say that as your investment in this approach increases, the boundary effect will become apparent. I totally agree with this, it is something that is bound to happen. Therefore, the trial of this method still needs to be combined with one's own content resources, financial scale, and more importantly, one's own goals.

In the early stage (before Round A), it is not the stage of development, nor is it a mainstream channel, but it can bring in some users. Our products allow users to participate in product trial and error and improvement, which can improve efficiency and reduce overall costs.

For example, when a product that focuses on chartered travel initially conducted overseas market research, it placed keyword ads on Google and judged the business based on user clicks. This is also a method and channel for market research.

Our suggestion is that it is best to start building your SEM and SEO team in the mid-term. Note that it is a team rather than simply finding someone to do the job.

6. When does ASO start?

There is no need for us to discuss how important ASO is. How important it is to acquire users in the app market is as important as eating and sleeping. Many startups are struggling with when to start introducing ASO. Experience tells us that if your APP development goes smoothly and the schedule is fixed, it is best to start building an ASO team about two months before the launch. Why?

We need this team to participate in the entire development process, rather than simply throwing the APP to them and telling them to promote the application. This is not only irresponsible but also very costly.

There is another issue that needs to be explained here, which is whether DSP advertising is necessary, especially for APP and web pages. The result of our communication with many entrepreneurial teams is that it is best not to invest rashly in the early stages, because the CPC cost of small companies is very high at present. The customer acquisition cost in some industries has even reached nearly 100 yuan, which consumes a lot of funds.

Our initial goal was very clear, which was to maintain a stable user growth. It didn’t need to be too high, but about 60-100 users per day would be acceptable. After all, our work goal at this stage was to quickly verify the MVP product.

7. Open up all channels of communication

All the channels mentioned above, including WeChat, Weibo, Toutiao, SEM, SEO, ASO, etc., must be connected to allow users to enter from various channels and ultimately point to where you want them to go and do what you want them to do.

Finally, what I want to say is that at this stage please don’t care too much about the conversion rate. You still have to distinguish between watermelons and sesame seeds.

The above are some of my own feelings and experiences, which do not mean they are absolutely correct. I just want to share my own experiences with you. If you have different opinions, you can discuss them. If you don’t like it, you can criticize it, but please avoid the unscrupulous criticism.

Starting a business is not easy. I wish all my friends on the road to entrepreneurship smooth sailing and success!

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