Worth collecting: The most complete product operation knowledge framework

Why do operations

What is Operations?

If you can’t write code, design, make products, or do sales, what else can you do? Then, most likely you are an operator.

What is Operations? Many people have been in the industry for many years but still cannot explain what operations are. That’s right. There are many dimensions to define and explain operations.

To explain it in the style of management science: operations are the planning, organization, implementation and control of the operations process. It is the general term for all management tasks closely related to product production and service creation. It's very boring and hard to remember.

Let’s keep it simple, just remember this: in business operations, work that requires human intervention is collectively called operations . For example, if you open an online store to sell things, you have to operate it. What styles are selling well? How much goods to purchase? How much is the price? When are the discounts and promotions? How to offer discounts and promotions? Is it to maintain profits or expand scale? Let’s take another example, WeChat public account , you have to operate it, how do you acquire users? What products or services do you provide to users? How to sell products or services to users? These tasks that require human intervention and cannot be completed automatically are operations. The purpose of operations is to guide the results in a good direction, just like driving a horse-drawn carriage and eventually leading to the ideal destination.

Is there a future in operations?

Although operations cover a wide range of areas and the entry threshold is low, there are not many great operators. It is not easy to become a great operator. It is almost impossible without years of practical operation. Operations require a wide range of knowledge, and one must be smart, sharp, and have sense. A great operations manager will know a lot, including where the market opportunities are, how to design a business model , how to operate a business, what users need, how to make products, and how to promote marketing . If the product manager is the CEO, then the operations manager is the CXO.

Classification of operations

The reason why operations need to be classified is because operations are too complex and too broad, and one person cannot cover all operational work. Therefore, operations are divided into several categories according to the different focuses of operational work. Common operations are classified into: product operation , event operation, market operation, content operation , community operation, user operation , and category operation (industry operation). There is overlap among the categories, the only difference is the emphasis.

Product Operations :

Emphasis on products. Here, products refer to intangible products on the Internet, products that can be seen but not touched. For example, an APP can be called a product. The Dianping APP is a product, which is a big product. The channels inside are also products, such as group buying. A certain function is also called a product, such as payment. Why do we need product operations? Because products need users, users will not come to use your product on their own, and even if they come, they may not use it, and after using it, they may not stay. Therefore, product operation is to find users for the product (attract new users), encourage users to come frequently (activate users), and provide suggestions to make the product more useful ( retention users ) .

So what exactly does product operation do? To find users, you usually organize some marketing activities (event operation) and spend money on promotions such as brand advertising (market operation); to keep users coming frequently, you usually organize activities, send push notifications, and design some high-frequency functions; to make suggestions, you usually find product bugs or areas that are not easy to use, and explore new product directions based on user needs to make the product easy to use and effective.

Event Operations :

Focusing on activities means getting users involved by designing activities, prompting them to use products or purchase goods . The main tasks of event operations are: planning events and analyzing data. Planned activities include:

1. Clarify the goal of the activity, whether it is to attract new customers, promote activation, or increase sales. It is best to focus on one goal for one activity;
2. Design activity process plan ( copywriting , rules, activity gameplay, product technical support, promotion, cost, revenue, etc.);
3. Activity effect statistics, data monitoring during the activity, and summary and review after the activity.

Market Operations :

Focus on the market, that is, use market means (spending money or not) to promote, expose and increase the popularity of products and brands . For example, you can spend money to place an advertisement, or you can exchange resources and promote each other for free.

Content Operations :

Focusing on content means finding ways to produce a large amount of high-quality content . The difficulty lies in content production, which is mainly divided into UGC and PGC.

UGC (User Generated Content) refers to content generated by users, such as writing reviews, posting updates, posting, Weibo, blogs, and Moments, etc. However, users are very lazy. To encourage them to actively produce content, you need to pay attention to: product usage must be simple, design sharing mechanisms, design user interaction mechanisms, and design content feedback incentive mechanisms (likes are very good feedback, and are also the motivation for many people to post to Moments tirelessly).

PGC (Professional Generated Content) refers to professionally produced content, which is usually produced by experts, opinion leaders, teams, and businesses. These contents are highly professional, can attract a large number of users, and are very high-quality content. The production of PGC content either costs money or is mutually beneficial. For example, WeChat public accounts encourage originality and give original articles a high percentage of advertising revenue.

Community Operation :

Focusing on the community means keeping community users active and allowing users to create content and take actions here . A community is about atmosphere. People are reluctant to post content in Alipay ’s life circle because there is no such atmosphere. The key points to pay attention to when building a community are: seed users determine the product's temperament, content should be focused, there should be a good feedback incentive mechanism, and the relationships between users in the community should be established. With good content, timely feedback, and deep user relationships, users will not leave the community.

User operation :

Focusing on users refers to doing things that are user-centric, such as improving user experience, increasing user activity, contribution, loyalty, and increasing the number of users . User operations should focus on users’ experience of using the product, understand user needs, and study users; plan or provide activities, products, and services that meet user needs, promote user activity on the platform, and try to attract more users; measure the effectiveness of user operations and improve operational measures.

Category Operation :

Some companies focus on categories, which are called industry operations, which means almost the same, that is, they are responsible for the operation of a category or industry and complete the business goals of the category , such as the mother and baby category (industry), clothing category (industry), parent-child category (industry). Some companies do it more detailed, and the categories will be further subdivided. The clothing category can be divided into men's clothing and women's clothing. Women's clothing can be divided into tops, bottoms, skirts, underwear, etc. Each major category and subcategory can arrange one or several category operations. What category operations do is to understand the industry, including the upstream and downstream of the industry and the users of the industry, provide users with high-quality products or services, and achieve the company's business goals. This goal is usually sales, which is also the ultimate goal of category operations.

Basic skills that operators should master

Basic operation routines

1. Know how to exploit human weaknesses

The five major weaknesses of human nature that are often exploited by operators: lust, vanity, greed, laziness, and voyeurism.

1. Examples of exploiting lust: adult websites, Momo, beauty live broadcasts , etc. If you pay close attention, you will also find that there are always all kinds of gossip in computer news pop-ups, because these contents have a high click-through rate and can attract a large number of users.
2. Examples of vanity that are exploited: showing off in Moments, comparing in games , VIP membership, etc.
3. Taking advantage of greedy chestnuts: various discount promotions, rebate websites, what’s worth buying , etc. (Secretly, what users need may not be really cheap, but a bargain)
4. An example of taking advantage of laziness: users are lazy when it comes to ordering takeout or hiring a temporary cleaning service; product operation should be simple. Don't let them think. If you ask them to think, they will just run away.
5. Examples of using snooping: anonymous design such as no secrets, people nearby.

If you search “Seven Deadly Sins of Operations” on Baidu, you will find a detailed article.

2. Learn to break down your goals

Any complex thing can be broken down into simple things. No matter how complex a computer is, it is represented by 0s and 1s.

When a problem arises, the first thing we should do is to break down the problem, breaking down complex problems into small problems that we can understand. We must remember this idea. Li Ru’s goal for next month is to achieve sales of 1 million. How to achieve it? This is a question. How to break it down? Analyze the current data (the purpose of analysis is to predict). If you do nothing, what will it be next month? This is called natural growth. If the natural growth can reach 800,000 next month, there will be a difference of 200,000. This is the value of operations. List the 3 (or 5) most important things. You can complete the 200,000 by doing these 3 things. Then, do you need other resources and help to do these 3 things? Well, it is enough to meet these two conditions (basically it can be achieved). Ok, a complex big thing - to achieve 1 million next month, has been broken down into 3 small things and 2 conditions.

3. Be familiar with the SM AR T principles

The SMART principle of user goal management is very effective. When setting KPIs, you must use the SMART principle to measure them. From the level of KPI set by a leader, you can tell whether this leader is just a ragtag group of people.

1. Performance indicators must be specific
2. Performance indicators must be measurable
3. Performance indicators must be achievable
4. How performance goals relate to other goals (Revelant)
5. Performance indicators must have a clear deadline (Time-bound)

4. Familiar with 5W2H analysis method

When designing a plan, using this model to think can ensure that nothing is missed.

1. WHAT——What is it? What is the purpose? What job do you do?
2. HOW ——How to do it? How to improve efficiency? How to implement? What is the method?
3. WHY——Why? Why do this? What's the reason? What is the reason? Why does this result occur?
4. WHEN——When? When will it be completed? When is the best time?
5. WHERE——Where? Where to do it? Where to start?
6. WHO——Who? Who will bear the responsibility? Who will complete it? Who is responsible?
7. HOW MUCH—How much? To what extent? What is the quantity? What is the quality level? What is the cost output?

5. Understand the 4P marketing mix

That is, the act of placing appropriate products and services into a specific market with appropriate products (Product), appropriate prices (Price), appropriate channels (Place) and appropriate promotions (Promotion). Just understand the basic theoretical foundations of marketing.

6. Understand SWOT analysis

That is, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This is usually used when calling for new products and analyzing competition, so just understand it.

Basic tools for operations

You have to be able to use the three Office suites (Word, Excel, and PPT). Among them, Excel is the most important and is used more frequently in data analysis . You must be able to use three main points: vlookup, pivot tables, and charts. If you learn these three, you can kill 80% of people in seconds.

You have to know how to use mind mapping . It's ok if you know how to use the basics. You can learn it in an hour. Commonly used software include: Xmind, MindManager. Mind mapping is very useful when thinking about problems, organizing ideas, and designing solutions.

You have to know how to draw flowcharts and use the basic ones. It takes about 2 hours to learn. Commonly used software: Visio. When designing a solution, using flowcharts will make the solution clear at a glance. By drawing flowcharts, you can also avoid some inadequate considerations and loopholes in the design, because the process of drawing is a process of thinking and reasoning.

You have to know how to draw wireframes . Axure is often used to draw them. It takes about 10 hours to learn the basic operations. It is often used to draw wireframes for activity pages and respond to requirements from operations. A good wireframe will get twice the result with half the effort.

You need to know how to use Gantt chart , which can be drawn using Excel. It is often used in project management. It clearly shows what to do and when, ensuring that the project is carried out and completed as scheduled.

Basic knowledge points of operation

This article only touches on these basic knowledge points. Friends who are interested can study them in depth on their own.

1. Basic product knowledge

• Know the importance of user experience. Good user experience determines the success or failure of a product.
• Understand the relationship between products and operations. Products give birth to children, and operations raise children. Even if the product is a pile of shit, you must have the determination and ability to operate it.
• Know the process of product realization: demand collection, demand assessment, prototype interaction, PRD, development and launch, data effect evaluation, and iterative optimization.

2. Business Model

Understand business models and be able to analyze business models.

The so-called business model is a complete set of closed-loop gameplay that enables a company to make sustainable profits. For example: What is Dianping’s business model? Simply put, it relies on UGC to produce review data to attract users and merchants. Users look for food, drinks, and entertainment to leave reviews, and merchants do word-of-mouth marketing and find users to leave reviews. With users and merchants, you can make money by selling traffic (users) to merchants. This is a typical platform business model.

The platform business model lies in how to connect the two sides of the platform (users and merchants are the two sides of the platform, and a complex platform will introduce more sides) and guide the two sides into a positive cycle. The more users there are, the more attractive it is to merchants. The more merchants there are, the more choices users have, and the more attractive it is to users. In this way, the platform's business model will develop.

Of course, this is just a simple example, the actual situation is much more complicated than this. Students who are interested can buy a book and read "Platform Strategy" (a sincere recommendation, not an advertisement, as I don't know the author at all).

3. Internet thinking

Internet thinking has made Xiaomi famous, but it has also caused a lot of controversy, but it does not prevent us from understanding it. Internet thinking refers to: user thinking, simple thinking, extreme thinking, iterative thinking, traffic thinking, social thinking, big data thinking, platform thinking, and cross-border thinking. Students who are interested can buy a book and read "Nine Swords of Internet Thinking" (a sincere recommendation, not an advertisement, as I don't know the author at all).

4. Industry knowledge

To do operations, you must understand the industry. To operate clothing categories, you need to understand the clothing industry; to operate food categories, you need to understand the food industry; to operate parent-child operations, you need to understand the parent-child industry; to operate taxi operations, you need to understand the transportation industry. That is to say, to be an operator, you will inevitably be involved in the industry, so you must become an expert in this industry. This is what a great operator should have.

5. Data Analysis

When doing operations, you must be sensitive to data. The key points of data analysis are: statistics, analysis, and prediction.

• Data statistics, why do we need to understand this? Because sometimes statistical data can lie. Therefore, when collecting statistics, do not be deceived by the data. Treat data sources and statistical methods scientifically and cautiously. For example, when doing a sampling survey, sample selection is very important; to determine whether an activity is effective, correlation tests are very important.
• When analyzing data, please note that it is meaningless to just present cold data. Data must be compared and proportioned to show the pros and cons and trends.
• Data forecasting, through comparative analysis and external environment judgment, can roughly predict future data trends.

6. Common terms

• Marketing related: CPC, CPM, CPS, SEO , SEM , precision marketing
• Content related: UGC, PGC, KOL
• Model related: O2O , C2C, B2C, B2B , C2B
• Operation related: PV, UV, click volume , CTR, conversion rate , RIO, ARPU, single user acquisition cost, daily activity, monthly activity, retention rate
• Transaction related: Traffic * Conversion rate * Average order value = GMV

Well, these are the knowledge frameworks commonly used in Internet operations. If you master them, you will be a CXO.

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

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