What do WeChat Mini Programs mean to users and businesses?

In the process of establishing a new ecosystem, the first participants to "take the plunge" often have the opportunity to develop rapidly along with the new ecosystem. Faced with the emerging concept of mini programs, let’s talk about the impact of mini programs on them from the two perspectives of users and enterprises, and how they should deal with it?

1. What is a Mini Program? Zhang Xiaolong, the "Father of WeChat", described the Mini Program as follows: A Mini Program is an application that can be used without downloading and installing. It realizes the dream of having applications at your fingertips. Users can open the application by scanning or searching. It also embodies the idea of ​​use it and go, and users don’t have to worry about installing too many apps. Applications will be everywhere and available at any time, but there is no need to install or uninstall them.

2. What do mini programs mean to users?
"Some apps that are cumbersome but indispensable on the desktop finally have a home," this is the main argument for the value that WeChat mini-programs bring to users. For example: tools such as checking traffic, weather forecast, 12306, calculators (mortgage calculator, labor law calculator, etc.), etc. These applications are mostly low-frequency used apps.

From the user's perspective, the emergence of WeChat mini-programs not only makes it more convenient for users to use, but also greatly reduces the burden on users' mobile phones. This is undoubtedly a blessing, especially for mobile phones with only 16G of memory. Many applications can be handled by mini-programs with a size not exceeding 1M.

For users, they have more choices than ever before. The way users choose to save applications is more based on their phone configuration, cognitive habits, usage preferences, etc. If you want users to choose APP, it means you need to provide more valuable content to offset the unpleasantness of taking up their phone memory; if you want them to choose mini-programs, it means your mini-programs can meet users' needs in the simplest way.

3. How do traditional enterprises respond to mini programs?

1) Find the right positioning for your mini program. Before developing a WeChat mini program, companies must first think clearly about their own needs, including the company's own development needs and users' needs for their products, and then position their mini program based on the industry and products. For example, rich media can use mini programs to build communities, the catering industry can use mini programs to create online menus, the service industry can create online convenient tools, and brand merchants can create online stores... As long as it truly conforms to the WeChat mini program's product concept of "good products are useable and disposable", it is a good mini program.

2) Make full use of the company’s WeChat matrix (service account, subscription account, mini program)
The basic idea of ​​using mini programs to drive marketing: use mini programs to acquire users, use subscription accounts to operate users, and conduct secondary conversions. Today, the number of active WeChat users has reached 806 million. WeChat has become our most important traffic portal in daily life. The emergence of WeChat mini-programs provides us with more possibilities for cross-platform communication. If you want to use mini programs to market your brand, the key is to provide good mini program services and accurately identify the industry direction. This will ensure a steady stream of traffic and obtain accurate users.

3) Which companies are suitable for developing mini programs?

Lightweight, low-frequency, non-rigid-need, and single-function applications are more suitable for mini programs

Zhang Xiaolong proposed that WeChat mini-programs are a kind of "small application" for users that is "ubiquitous, within reach, available at any time, and can be used and discarded", with the emphasis on the word "small". Then, low-frequency, non-essential, lightweight, single-function applications that do not require the mobilization of too many system-level capabilities seem to be more suitable for mini programs.

As shown in the figure, many paid O2O, life services, desktop tools, chat enhancement tools and group management services are not used frequently. The fields with single functions and low usage frequency may become a good entry point. The demand for these long-tail services is low and they do not have the ability to become independent apps, so they can only enjoy better shade by relying on the big tree of WeChat.

Services in high-frequency scenarios are still suitable for independent apps. Just like WeChat has opened up the most obvious "shopping" secondary entrance for JD.com, it is only an incremental move. Its own app is still the main battlefield. Even the WeChat mini-programs that have greatly enhanced the experience are difficult to change this fact.

We are a formal entity technology development company with professional mini program solutions that are affordable, professional and reliable. We customize commercial WeChat mini programs based on customer needs. The following is our technical manager’s WeChat, you can add it for consultation: