APP promotion: the details of Xiaomi promotion that you don’t know!

After Xiaomi became famous, the term "Weibo marketing " was coined, and later Weibo and WeChat marketing became very popular. Through Xiaomi’s marketing, many people inside and outside the industry have come to realize the tremendous power of online marketing. But Xiaomi’s marketing has never been a point or a line. Instead, it has developed from the community forum site at the beginning to QQ, QQ groups, Weibo, WeChat, QQ space, and finally to the current full media including offline stores. Judging from the development path of Xiaomi's past online marketing, it has been to launch multiple points simultaneously, from points to lines, from lines to surfaces, and to cover the entire line. However, Xiaomi has greatly emphasized Weibo marketing. So online marketing is also a big project, but in comparison, team operations are more efficient.

For a newborn APP, the initial accumulation of seed users and the feedback on real user experience and user behavior are very important. Under the two important factors of promotion budget and user demand, using free online traffic resources for promotion has become the first choice for each team. But online promotion is a matter of a fine line and a world of difference. What standard can be considered as a successful online promotion?

This is a question that requires breaking down into every detail of the promotion. Do you know the stories behind these details?

There are some stupid ways to promote apps online, which are often overlooked, but they are indeed low-cost and effective methods. Today we will talk about these stupid ways to promote apps online. For example, posting on forums is a relatively primitive method that doesn’t cost money, but it’s a relatively stupid method. Another way is QQ group chat, introducing in the QQ group, chatting one-on-one on QQ, and attracting registrations. It is more laborious. You attract a user to register on our website and use our APP. This is a slower method. There is also social sharing, such as sharing on Weibo, Renren, and WeChat. There are also Weibo activities. Now many companies promoting APPs will do such an activity, that is, they can organize some activities on Weibo.

We have done conversion lotteries before, which is the most common method. Another thing is to build as many channels as possible. I have met some people who promote APP before. Many people think that building as many channels as possible will not have much effect, and they are unwilling to do it, or they say it is too tiring. Because there are so many channels, everyone feels that it is quite hard and also seems meaningless.

There is also Baidu Knows. I am a level 7 user of Baidu Knows. Before, when I was promoting products, I would often answer questions on Baidu Knows. Basically, I looked at the background at that time, and most of my answers would be adopted. Before, many things could be requested for replies, but now it is not possible. The review is more stringent. Later, Zhihu became more popular, and I started to answer questions on Zhihu. This is an online activity within the APP. My online activities are some of the APP’s own online activities, including communities and the like.

There are also some quick methods, such as placing TV ads, such as Day Day Up, ads on satellite TV, cars , buses, subways, celebrity endorsements, and event marketing . Another way is to spend money like crazy, like Didi Taxi.

Of course, there are many faster ways, but the budgets are generally larger, for example, several million or tens of millions. I can do whatever I want because I have money. That's the quick way.

Advantages that cannot be replaced by stupid methods

The stupid method is slow, time-consuming, and labor-intensive, and its effects are slow to take effect. There are still many details to consider. The stupid method will encounter various problems in the process, which requires us to spend a lot of energy to solve, but at the same time it has more irreplaceable advantages.

High-quality users and a stable source

Of course, when the amount of results achieved by all stupid methods reaches a certain level, it will trigger a qualitative change and bring a lot of quantity. Once you have established a certain degree of popularity, it will bring you continuous volume, and the source is particularly stable and the quality of users is particularly high.

For example, the questions I answer on Baidu are very professional. When users search by keywords, all of my answers appear. This channel will bring in a steady stream of traffic. I don’t have to pay attention to it every day. Its coverage is already very high, so the amount of traffic it brings every day will be very large. This is one idea.

Through these stupid methods, the quality of users from these channels is very high. If a user has this need, he will search, or read a post because of a certain issue, and will pay attention to the following APP. The needs of this type of user are very clear. He will pay attention to you because of this need, so the quality is very high. This is a user with rigid needs.

The cost of promotion is relatively low, and the growth rate is fast in the later stage

Xiaomi has 500,000 valued users. With this as its foundation, its subsequent growth will be very large, and its 500,000 will spread to 5 million and 50 million. Another thing is that word-of-mouth communication is effective. Once you have 100,000 loyal users, the brand communication effect of your product will be very good in the later stage.

• The stupid way starts late, but if you reach a certain level, the volume will continue
• The starting point of the stupid method is relatively low, and it may be harder, more tiring, and more time-consuming at the beginning.

The quick way is that I invest money today and there will be volume immediately. Tomorrow when I have no money, there will be no volume. The day after tomorrow when I get money, I can do it again and the volume will go up again. But this thing is related to money. If you have no money, you will have no users. The stupid method starts relatively late, but when it reaches a certain level, the volume will continue to grow.

How to use Weibo for communication

Based on this distinction, I will talk about my own previous cases. The first one is Weibo. I used to be the maintainer of the company’s official Weibo and would maintain Weibo in my spare time.

At that time, I was working on the keyword "QR code". I would regularly screen relevant keywords through Weibo and answer their questions. After screening, I found that most of the users who sent these keywords were big Vs, company founders, and middle and high-end people. Later, I was able to form a better relationship with these users. Everyone would know that when they mentioned QR codes, they would think of our company.

For example, they would ask some questions, especially questions about QR codes, and I would be the one answering them. I used to work in product development, so I’m an expert in this area.

It took me two or three months to do research before, so I am very professional when it comes to responding. This work is done every day, and I spend two hours every day answering various questions.

I have been doing this for more than a year, and later our company's brand became known to all middle and high-end people. No one knew us before, but after doing this for a year, our results became good and everyone gradually knew about it. I see this effect every time I go to a conference. So this is the effect of the stupid method, and I can feel it myself. Weibo is a media that can have the effect of brand communication.

How to use forums to attract traffic

Now let’s talk about the second one, forum screening. My first batch of seed users came through the forum. At that time, the APP had just been launched. As for promotion, our team was relatively small, with only three or four people: me as the product manager, two as technicians, and one as the business manager. I didn’t know much about the business model either. So in the early stage, part of the work I did in terms of promotion was posting. At that time, there were Android forums, Jifeng.com and the like.

At that time, we targeted QR codes and studied some users to see what kind of users would use our product. We thought about and summarized some user characteristics, such as those aged 18 to 35, and those who might be proficient in mobile phones. So we chose the Android forum, and we searched on Baidu and found many Android forums. Look at this ranking. According to the Baidu search ranking, put some websites with large traffic and high weight on the first page. This is one part, which is to find some forums with large traffic.

The second is through some navigation websites, such as Hao123. How do we judge whether its quality is higher? Since Hao123 puts it in the top few software, it means that its traffic is very large, or it means that he has spent money, and the money spent will also form a large amount.

So we screen these on the forum. In addition to Android, we have many other forums. We will screen out the ones that come to us and post in corresponding sections based on the nature of these software. When the effect was the best, one post brought in 20,000 to 30,000 activations, which was a huge amount. Later I went to talk to the moderator again, because I understand his rules. Every forum has its own rules for posting, and different groups have different rules for posting.

We study its format, rules, and moderators. If a moderator is particularly interested in this thing, we will contact the moderator and have our post pinned to the top. When I asked my colleagues to do it before, they deleted all our posts because they did not meet the requirements of the section or were poorly written.

Later, I wrote a very standardized post myself and asked them to post it. Then it was marked in red and pinned to the top of many forums, which brought us a lot of downloads and users for nearly a month.

Later on, we also created many channels when promoting channels, so basically we had the user base. So these are some promotion cases, where users are acquired through some stupid methods.

WeChat public account operation

Next, I will tell you about my own experience of running a public account. Because there are many ways to promote, such as the stupid methods, such as posting and organizing activities, there are too many.

The previous method of promoting public accounts was to organize activities and invite others to send red envelopes, but the quality and loyalty of users were not very high. If there was no money, users would not come.

I think the purpose of promoting users is to obtain high-quality users. This is the purpose of my promotion. So I use a method, which is to write soft articles, which I think are useful . I keep writing articles and keep revealing my public account in the articles. At the beginning, there were very few fans, maybe only one or two people a day, then there were ten people, and then twenty, fifty, and after a year, there were 150 people coming every day. This is the accumulation of quantity.

If you want to hold an event, there will be hundreds of them every day. If you don’t, there will be none. But mine is different. When I started, I did very little. After a year, I did 150, and it became very stable. Even if I don't update it, there are still so many users coming. So this is a stupid way, and there will be quantitative changes to a certain extent.

These users are of high quality. They find the title of the article through search, read it to the end, and finally follow you. How motivated is he to pay attention to you? For example, if most people search, and there are 100,000 people searching, only 50,000 of them may actually click in to view it, and only 10,000 of them may click in to view it, and even fewer will follow you. They will only pay attention to you if there is a strong need. Therefore, after settling down in this way, such users will definitely be high-quality users. If one day you don’t update, he will still follow you, which means he has a need for this thing.

These are some of the purposes of promotion. These are some of my feelings about promotion.

There are great articles in the friendly links

Let me tell you another case. I am a webmaster, and the trick I just mentioned is writing soft articles. Previously, we promoted WAP sites through friendly links. Many people may not use this method because it is too simple and does not require any technical skills. But I used this method to grow my website to hundreds of thousands of users.

Because when others have friendly links, they usually put their website in the top ten, and then they can get traffic. For example, when I have friendly links with People's Daily, my website is placed in the first place. So I will study various websites, first study the navigation websites, filter out some websites with large traffic, and then discuss friendly links with these websites with large traffic.

The People's Daily Online, Sohu and iAsk that I talked about before achieved a volume of 500,000 to 600,000 through this method. I only used one method. First of all, I studied this website for a long time, and also studied this rule for a long time, so basically I kept doing it, focusing on it, and watching it every day.

We look at fifty or sixty websites a day, and we look at every one of them. Because you can tell what the website will be like in the future and whether it can grow big just by looking at the interface. Some websites may perform well at the beginning but have little traffic, but they will definitely grow bigger in the future. The overall structure and design of some websites are very professional, which means they must be made by professionals with a deep capital background. Their requirements may be even greater. By establishing friendly links with such websites, they can bring in a lot of traffic.

First of all, you are a new site and the other site is an old site. When you exchange friendly links with others, it is not an equal relationship. But some are unwilling to change, while others are willing to change. It depends on how well you talk.

I used to chat on QQ. I used to do promotion on the Internet by using QQ. I also used QQ when asking others for recommendations. I told him about some problems with the website based on his thinking, for example, many things were inconvenient for website users to download, but it was very convenient using QR codes, and he agreed. For example, if I search for an APP to download, there will be some inaccurate positioning. For example, if I search for a bird, I will search for a large group of things, but the user does not know which one is the genuine one. He can scan the QR code and it is this thing. Tell him and he will be willing to let you play it.

In addition, when I was doing friendly links before, I don’t know how many posts I made. Although this work was not accomplished, by leaving more links and generating traffic behind them, customers will be brought in. This is a reverse effect.

Even though you haven’t succeeded, over time you will slowly have traffic, and users may come through the links you sent.

Some big sites will still do it, but you may encounter unprofessional people on the other side. For example, I once encountered People's Daily, and the people who did the friendly links were unprofessional. I said I wanted to be in the top three, and they put me in the top three.

We are a private enterprise and we need sales. He is a state-owned enterprise and he doesn’t know. If I enjoy talking to you, I will put you in a good position. Sina iWeibo was also placed first, in the gaming category. At that time, the traffic of iWeibo was extremely large, with tens of thousands of views a day after it was put there. So don’t underestimate the small thing called friendship links. You will encounter various problems when doing it, and there are always opportunities. For example, if you meet an opponent who is very strong but not professional, there are cases where he is willing to trade with you. This depends on your limit.

It’s the same with promoting apps. I’ve previously listed 37 ways to promote apps. There are various ways, but you have to do it to the extreme.

If you want to make something perfect now, you need to understand all the channels, what your responsibilities are to each person, and who has what authority. For example, I have come across this before. If it is pre-installed, the permissions at the provincial and prefecture levels are different. Some things are on the first screen, some are on the second screen, and some are different. The prefecture-level cities may be pre-installed on the second screen.

In addition, we need to understand the needs. My previous pre-installation was free. Some operators had this demand before, traffic demand. They wanted users to consume more traffic, so they wanted users’ mobile phones to have this thing installed.

So when we were talking before, including Sichuan Telecom, they gave us a lot of links to our products, which brought us a particularly large volume. So it’s very simple to make friendly links, but you can make connections, expand resources and channels, and learn a lot of things through making friendly links.

The same goes for writing articles. For example, when I post through channels, I used to post on Toutiao, but later I found that the volume of Yidian Zixun was getting bigger and bigger. Because their founder came from Baidu, the volume came from that. We should take advantage of such opportunities to establish cooperation, which will also bring in a particularly large volume.

How to get WeChat Moments to forward messages for you?

When I was doing friendly links, I did it for several months, doing the same repetitive work every day, but the volume really increased. So this is the effect of doing something to the extreme. Now, how should I put it? There are so many channels for promotion, but as long as you use one method to the extreme, it will bring results. For example, if I promote my WeChat through Moments, what is the ultimate?

The number of friends in WeChat Moments is 5,000. Tencent previously released a report that the average number of friends per person is 500. If 5,000 people help you forward your message, you can do the math, that’s 2.5 million. If his circle of friends forwards it a second time, it will be even more powerful, and the effect will be greater than if you sponsor a conference once.

But how do we get these people to forward it?

The first is the target group. Everyone is promoting the APP and is particularly interested in this thing. For example, these 5,000 people are the first extreme condition.

For example, if you meet this condition, the second is content. The content is people who promote the APP, and these people are also people who promote the APP. The content you release will definitely cause explosive dissemination.

I did an experiment before, and one article brought me four to five thousand followers, it was that easy. Of course, this is not so easy to come by, because there are too few good articles. The best articles are still better, but if you find them and make use of them, it is still very good.

Keyword Operations in Content Production

Let me talk about my writing experience. Writing articles may sound simple or difficult, but there are methods to it. For example, when we write an article, we need to do research on what kind of article we should write, which users we should write it for, and which users may be interested in this article. We can analyze some hot topics on the Internet and some search terms.

For example, for my article on APP promotion, I will search for APP promotion. When searching for APP promotion, Baidu will generally give some relevant keywords. For example, I will look at the most searched keywords below. Through these keywords you can see that others may be interested in channel laying, so I will write articles targeting channel laying, and if I send them out, many people will read them.

This was written after some analysis and research, not just whatever I want to write today, so I had to do some analysis and research to write this article. If you send it out like this, there will be some traffic if it is written successfully.

1. Content production must be substantial and high-quality; advertisements are worthless

The preparatory work before writing, such as research and data analysis, is not that big. Just take a look and you will know who will read your work. The second is the content of the writing, which must be substantial. Now many journalists and media are also writing articles. What they write are relatively big, such as Baidu’s acquisition of 91 and what impact it has produced.

I am an industry self-media person. Bigger things are of little use to people in the industry and do not help me in my work. So as an industry person, I want to see things that can help me with my work, such as how to negotiate and which manufacturers to talk to, so I will write about these issues, and everyone may find it helpful.

2. Content production should focus on positioning and specialization, and should not be empty and pretentious.

In addition, there are some practical tips on how to write. Now, writing an article may be similar to an advertisement. Now that many companies have raised funds, I will write an announcement. For example, many people fall into a misunderstanding when writing articles. I always write about how great my own products are. For example, when I write about KuChuan, I will write about how good KuChuan is and how many users it has brought. I think users don’t like to read such articles nowadays. As a user, you don't like to read such articles. They are meaningless and just self-praising.

Users' tastes have changed. If I write something bad, some people will scold me and say that my work is bad or that it's a piece of shit. I think this is a normal way of venting. Nowadays, users don’t like to watch advertisements. They like to see how you do things, how Kuchuan does it, how your APP is made, and see your entrepreneurial experience and experience in making products. This is actually an advertisement on the surface, but it is actually useful information. People will read your article and recognize your product.

For example, if a product manager of Kuchuan writes an article, many people may read it tomorrow. Gradually, everyone will recognize what the product manager has done and will recognize your product. So when I write articles, I don’t write those watery articles. It’s meaningless to write about how many users the website has. Just like I wrote a humorous article before, it is difficult to write about strategies, connections, concepts and other things. I think they are too abstract.

Because when I wrote an article before, our company said that the boss said you wrote it like this again. After I wrote it, he felt that it was not suitable and asked me to change it and write it according to my way. After I sent it out, no one read it. Because I have done statistics before, a very weak article was sent to dozens of media outlets, but the number of views was less than a thousand. Mine have been watched by more than 500,000 people, so that's the difference.

So writing articles also requires some skills. For example, if you want to promote your product, I suggest you don’t focus on it. You can write about how to make this product, the logical problems encountered in product design, how to judge users, activate users, and write about your own ideas.

How to find out the real needs of partners

In the initial stage, we used the method of online free traffic promotion. We only used one method to promote the APP before, which was to lay the channels. We also used other methods later. Later, many other methods were no longer useful.

1. The exchange channels are not accurate enough, making it difficult to accumulate valuable resources

Why doesn’t the exchange work? I tend to avoid exchanging volume. I think it's meaningless to exchange volume if the software doesn't reach a certain level. Because when I was promoting the APP, I relied on laying out channels. I laid out more than 200 channels and studied each channel.

It’s not just a simple upload. I will observe the user feedback from each channel. After you upload it to some channels, you will find some problems when you download it through its client or page, such as errors and jump errors. This is a product problem.

2. There is a lot of value to be mined in the application market , which can accumulate business resources

I have encountered this problem before. When I uploaded our APP to Wandoujia , the updated APP could not be displayed and the oldest version was always displayed. Then I found this problem to the people from Wandoujia and they found an engineer for me. It was their loophole. I asked if we could improve a bit, and he said yes, and then every time we searched for keywords we were number one.

If you were asked to do public relations, you would not be able to find such a person. You help him find loopholes, and he is willing to thank you and help you. So this is the benefit you get from small things, and I often encounter such problems. When we were building channels before, we also encountered some jump problems, including backend problems. We will help them solve them. When you raise a problem, they are happy to recommend it to us and put it at the top. It is all very easy. I feel that when you do something with your heart, you will be rewarded. This is how I feel.

3. Only after understanding your user base and platform characteristics can you achieve efficient promotion

As for the cost, it depends on whether you spend money or not. If it is free, the cost will definitely be lower, but if it is charged, there will be costs. For example, pre-installation, I sent a quotation before going online. The app store is relatively expensive now. The recommended position is about 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a day. The cost of an activated user is about four to five yuan now. Last time, a friend from Baidu called me and asked me to help him introduce users. I asked how much the cost of one customer was, and he said ten to twenty. He thinks it is too expensive. In the early stage, you can use some free methods to analyze the characteristics of your users and accumulate some user information.

Try it again later based on the volume of your channels and spend a little money. Because I had a friend who was also a novice in promotion, he tried many of the methods I told him on every channel. After trying them, he found that some were free and could bring some volume, while some were charged. But he spends less money, for example, through Sogou and Guangdiantong , he thinks Sogou's advertising is more effective. He spends some small amount of money to test out the effects of these channels, and then he can invest a large amount of money based on this to produce one million units. In the early stage, I suggest that he still provide them for free.

Because I have met some people who don’t know much about promotion, when they see others trying to manipulate the rankings , they also try to do so, spending fifty or sixty thousand yuan, but in the end there is no effect, all because they don’t know the users well enough. He may have seen others say that this method is effective, so he tried it and spent money, but there was no effect. So I think promotion should be planned first, and then try the effects of various channels in a free form. Because each product is different, you can summarize a set of methods that suit you.