How to use "psychological accounts" to increase user payment and retention?

Since the death of Steve Jobs in 2011 and the leak of Zhang Xiaolong 's 8-hour internal presentation PPT in 2015, more and more product managers have begun to shift their thinking from product functions and logic to the humanity and psychology of target users . This time we will also try to think about a psychological phenomenon and try to summarize how to apply it to products.

Strange things will happen during festivals.

Many friends who work hard in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou go home for the New Year and find a very strange phenomenon:

They are very stingy when grabbing red envelopes, but spend lavishly on shopping and entertainment.

Looking back, there are actually many such friends around us. They may save money on meals and daily travel, or never take the initiative to pay at friends' gatherings, but during the Chinese New Year, they cannot stop spending on shopping, travel, and entertainment, and may lose hundreds of dollars in a game of mahjong. However, they are very stingy when it comes to sending and grabbing red envelopes, and even a few dollars can make them feel annoyed or excited. So, what causes this phenomenon?

The answer to this question is: mental accounting .

What is mental accounting?

Mental accounting is a concept proposed by Richard Thaler, professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago in 1980. Mental accounting is an important concept in behavioral economics. Due to the existence of consumer mental accounts, individuals often violate some simple economic calculation rules when making decisions, resulting in many irrational consumption behaviors.

What is mental accounting? What does he have to do with the product?

Everyone has many kinds of mental accounts: eating, getting married, going to work, and even falling in love all have mental accounts. Moreover, the effects of mental accounts on objects of the same value are different, such as the following two examples:

Case 1:

You want to go see a movie and the ticket price is 100 yuan.

If you lost an online game recharge card worth 100 yuan on the same day and were asked whether you would still go to the movies, most people would answer: they would still buy a ticket to watch the movie.

But if you lost the movie ticket you bought that day and were asked if you would still go to the movies, most people would answer: No.

Case 2:

On Valentine's Day , you go shopping with your girlfriend. You saw an item that you really liked, and the price of this item was 8,000 yuan. But at this time you only have 1,500 yuan.

When you are asked if you want to buy this item, the most likely answer is: I'll continue shopping.

But if I tell you that you only need to pay 1,000 yuan now and the rest can be repaid in one year, and there will be a 50 yuan fee for handling, and you are asked whether you want to buy the item, the most likely answer will be: pack it up and take it away!

When a user chooses whether to perform a certain action, what is really disturbed is his cost estimate for the current action, and the cost estimate for other actions will not have a huge impact on the cost estimate for the current action (except for special cases, such as losing hundreds of thousands...).

This actually states a very valuable fact:

Through reasonable design, products can increase users' purchasing desire and behavior.

How do current products utilize mental accounts?

Although there is no product that has come out and said, "Brothers, we have made a lot of money through mental accounting, and it has been launched on the market, so why not take a look at it?" However, many products on the market have already integrated mental accounting into your daily life, making it unnoticeable. Let's briefly list some examples:

Register and you will receive 5,000 yuan in trial money, which will generate benefits. Experience money is also offered for top-up, card binding and other actions, reducing the investment in trying financial management to a few dozen or even zero fees.

Financial management APP : Purse

Paying 10 yuan will allow you to watch Fights Break Sphere first. However, becoming a VIP member not only allows you to watch Fights Break Sphere in advance, but also many other paid videos.

Community APP: bilibili

Tmall 's Ant Huabei, JD.com 's JD Baitiao, Baidu's Baidu Youqian and Fenqi Le can all convert your one-time high-value consumption into multiple paid small-value consumption.

E-commerce app: Tmall

The above products are all designed in a way that is very consistent with the phenomenon of psychological accounting: reducing the amount of a single consumption and increasing the value of a single consumption.

There is also another design that is very consistent with psychological accounts: WeChat Pay , Alipay , credit cards and other third-party mobile payments, through cooperation with banks, turn the cash in your hands into data flow rather than cash flow.

If you have a choice between paying 7,000 yuan out of your pocket to buy an iPhone 7 and paying 7,000 yuan through Alipay to buy an iPhone 7, which one would you choose? The probability is that you will choose the second method, because your mental accounts for the digital 100 yuan and the cash 100 yuan are completely different.

Seeing this, many friends who are engaged in product, operation or commercial monetization began to carry out a series of plans: installment payments, red envelopes and other demands began to appear in the annual plan. But this time let’s change our perspective and think about how mental accounts empower products only from the user’s perspective!

1. Reduce your spending

The original cost of a single consumption was 1,000 yuan, but now it only costs 800 or 0 yuan to complete.

This is the most widely used angle with the highest conversion rate . Its shadow can be seen in almost any commercial product on the market, and it has some very obvious characteristics:

• Virtual currency : By bundling virtual payments (points, levels, coins, likes, level discounts, etc.) with actual expenses, such as NetEase Cloud, Baidu Wenku, Xiaomi Forum, etc., more and more community products are increasing payment while increasing community activity and retention by converting part or all of actual expenses into virtual consumption.
• Discounts : By directly reducing actual spending (various coupons, promotions, discount levels, user discounts, etc.), such as e-commerce promotions, JD level discounts, installment payments, etc., more and more e-commerce products are increasing purchase conversions through their own appeal or cash reserve priority or credit advances.
• Psychological added value : Psychological value is increased through "partial free" (various posts from great people, top institutions, official media, etc.), such as Jianshu, Zhihu, etc. More and more content products allow you to continuously improve your valuation of content and reduce your price considerations by first viewing some viewpoints that you approve of or seek for free.
• Psychological assignment : Through the "showing off" psychology in human nature (various levels, identity labels, etc.), such as QQ rainbow membership, JD membership, B station membership, Weibo membership, etc., and once you have a showing off experience on social or media products, the experience of showing off will be improved rather than satisfied!
• Reject skills : Tool and skill-based products should never take the direct reduction method. It is best to reduce the consumption limit through user activity and virtual payment. Otherwise, once the user has used a direct discount, he will no longer want to reduce the consumption limit by accumulating virtual payment through hard work. It's difficult!

There are many more examples like the above, but no matter what method they use, the goal is to reduce the user's single consumption amount .

In short, any product that hopes to improve its monetization capabilities must take these points into consideration. Many times it’s not about how much we can sell to users, but how much “profit” users can make from our products !

2. Enhance consumer value

The original idea of ​​a single consumption was to watch a movie for 5 yuan, but now you can watch all paid movies for 10 yuan.

This user perspective is more common in content, services, and tool products, and is relatively rare in e-commerce and social products, because it requires an angle that can actually be improved, and the psychology of "showing off" cannot actually improve. He also has some very distinct characteristics:

• The original price is extremely low : The original price of this single consumption is mostly extremely low, preferably within 10 yuan, otherwise it will have a reverse effect. For example, Youku is 5 yuan, Bilibili is 10 yuan, Zhihu books are 3 yuan, and Duoduo subscriptions are 1 yuan. Through low prices, users' considerations on price are reduced and their sensitivity to value is increased, making you more willing to pay.
• The price difference is huge : 5 yuan to watch a movie and 10 yuan to watch 10,000 movies, which one would you choose? Even if a user doesn't watch any paid movies within a month, he will still feel that his money is well spent. Like iQiyi, Youku, etc., more and more content products, especially videos and downloads, adopt this approach to increase your focus on value rather than price.
• Refuse bundling : The value must also be in the same direction, otherwise it will have a reverse effect. For example, e-commerce’s recommended packages, annual memberships, value-added services, etc., will only make users pay attention to price changes, because users only have one psychological account for a single consumption.
• Rapid recycling : Users who pay this month will most likely not pay next month because their psychological and mental accounts have been satisfied. Unless the product continues to launch content that stimulates this psychological account. Such as Youku, YouTube, Douban, etc., more and more products are keen to give certain discounts to users who have paid before when they pay again, and obtain user images through multiple channels and continuously push content in the same direction to stimulate activation.

In short, this perspective no longer focuses on the users themselves, but on how much content, services or skills in the same direction exist in the product . This angle comes fast and dies fast.

3. Expand consumption breadth

The original idea of ​​​​a single consumption is to learn to be a product manager, but in the end the skills needed to learn the product are also taught.

This user perspective focuses more on education and content products, especially educational products. He belongs to the category of increasing consumption value, but he is not limited to traits. He has only two core traits:

• Strong phased nature : It has more impact on phased consumption rather than long-term consumption. Before joining the company, users hope to acquire product-related knowledge, and they also hope to acquire a lot of technology-related knowledge. This is a recommendation that consumption will most likely be successful. But after joining the company, the consumption recommendation will most likely fail because what he wants at this time is actual practice.
• Weakly psychological : focuses more on the acquisition of practical skills rather than the improvement of mental abilities.

In short, this perspective focuses on a horizontal understanding of consumption with significant short-term effects, rather than long-term potential changes .

4. Lengthen the consumption chain

The original idea of ​​a one-time purchase was to save on postage, but now there is also a discount on payment.

This user perspective focuses on surprise. Exceeding expectations is the key to success, and this can be found in any product, even free products. It also improves the consumption value, but it is far more important than the characteristics. He also has some very obvious core traits, but I will only list the most important ones:

Irresistible : Generally, such chain-type consumption will give surprises at key nodes, and will satisfy users' multiple needs such as "showing off" and "psychological value-added" at the same time. User satisfaction is usually high. For example, QQ members' red names and level acceleration, JD members' PLUS membership logo, rebates, free shipping, live broadcast level logo, entrance slogans, NetEase Cloud Music 's labels, song downloads, priority promotions, activities, etc. Such consumption is no longer a simple one-time consumption with a single deadline, but a cyclical single psychological account: Take myself as an example, I opened a QQ membership once and never stopped, and the same is true for NetEase Cloud Music.

In short, this perspective no longer focuses on the point of single consumption, but the core chain behind this point (for example, NetEase Cloud Music has two music chains: upload and download, and members focus on the download chain).

Conclusion

One of the ways to significantly increase product paid conversions is to change the user’s psychological account. What I will discuss this time are the psychological accounts that I have the most experience with: personal psychological accounts and simple group psychological accounts.

To summarize, the core of changing mental accounts is to change the point, horizontal and vertical mental accounts that affect the consumption. Four user perspectives to improve mental accounts:

• Reduce spending
• Improve consumption value
• Expanding consumption breadth
• Lengthen the consumption chain

Note: This article represents personal opinions, please do not interpret it arbitrarily.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

This article was compiled and published by the author @刘铁头 (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!