[Case] ​​How does an e-commerce app develop an operation and promotion strategy from scratch?

Through this article, you can learn how to formulate operation and promotion strategies in a rhythmic manner, how to operate B-side users (core users) well and use their influence to promote, and how to combine resources from various channels to maximize promotion benefits.

Product Positioning

"Dongjia" is the most beautiful product among domestic e-commerce apps and the most internet-based product among art apps. Dongjia’s official positioning is a social e-commerce platform for original handicrafts based on oriental aesthetics. It starts with social networking and ends with e-commerce.

Stable and orderly product iteration——

From the more detailed version records of APPSTORE (Android version was launched in mid-April 2015):

According to the above schedule, we can see that the iteration speed is stable and the business planning is clear. Starting from the display and promotion of the craftsmen and social interaction, on this basis, different types of transaction functions are added to form a closed loop.

During the year, no major business functions were cut. Instead, the business depth was increased vertically, and the display (such as videos, themes and interviews) and transaction (such as pricing, auctions, live broadcasts and limited-time purchases) forms were enriched horizontally.

For e-commerce businesses, especially immature industries, it is very rare to achieve such product planning and results. This shows that the company has a very deep understanding of the industry and its business decisions are very sound. This will not cause waste of time and cost.

Operation strategy analysis

1. APP on the front line: create a beautiful public account to accumulate fans

In March 2015, before the APP was launched, the owner carried out preliminary operations through WeChat public accounts. For such a distinct product positioning, the positioning of content and audience is relatively clear.

Through checking, the number of readers of the first article exceeded 10,000, which must have made many people envious. Through Sogou's WeChat article with the same name, we can see that one of the founders, Zhu Jianshan, used the resources of the previous project "Kaipao" to conduct comprehensive diversion, maintained synchronous updates and guidance for half a year, and also used his own industry resources for collaborative diversion. According to estimates, the WeChat public account of the previous owner had about 5,000-10,000 followers.

The content of Dongjia’s official account has always been relatively stable and beautiful. At the same time, it uses the APP to promote online and offline activities, and the number of fans has grown steadily (estimated to be between 20,000 and 30,000). Here, we did not see the common promotion methods such as mutual promotion and advertising, but rather cooperation cases involving external resource integration, which will be introduced separately below.

2. APP cold start: Bringing in core users through investment promotion in the dimensionality reduction approach

Dongjia’s target users fall into several categories: art practitioners who like to collect, pay attention to and communicate; people with high net worth who have spending power and focus on spiritual consumption; and art enthusiasts who may be influenced by the environment or have a hobby for art.

The early version of the Dongjia APP did not have a transaction function, but instead focused on helping craftsmen showcase themselves and interact with each other through the methods of craftsmen’s settlement, work display and social interaction. This is naturally a good thing for craftsmen scattered across the country to have a beautiful and centralized display platform.

This involves the issue of cold start. Through product planning, the common bilateral cold start problem in e-commerce can be reduced to unilateral start, greatly reducing the cost of user acquisition. At the same time, the product value is clearer and simpler for acquiring seed users .

In such a situation, the way to acquire users is very clear: attract investment. The BD team discovers and communicates with craftsmen through online channels, such as QQ groups, WeChat groups , forums, similar apps, etc., as well as offline markets (offline markets can be attended in public to increase brand exposure, or craftsmen can be discovered one by one on site), and helps craftsmen upload and manage their works. Judging from the results, in about half a year, less than 1,000 craftsmen moved in.

In addition, channel operation of the application market , resource application, and coverage by entrepreneurial media are also very important for early-stage apps.

3. Seeking Standardization in Regular Operations

During the cold start-up phase, due to factors such as lack of brand influence, lack of resources, immature products, and lack of operational data, a lot of stupid manual expansion work had to be done. During the normalized operation stage, we need to consider more efficient promotion methods and more effective operation methods.

1. Merchant operations.

Also called merchant growth. Craftsmen are a very traditional group of people, and many of them are even unfamiliar with the Internet. However, since craftsmen can survive freely, they must have their own circles and channels. For this type of APP, the early traffic is bound to be insufficient, and more delicate added value and operational services need to be provided to craftsmen.

More than 1,000 craftsmen are not a large number, so the first thing is to have in-depth communication, explore the stories behind the craftsmen and the brand value, and use them as content output. For example, interviews, videos, etc., help craftsmen promote themselves in various forms. The second is channel value, which guides craftsmen to promote within their own circles and resources, such as offline studios, WeChat Moments and groups, etc.

It is also necessary to assist craftsmen in how to take good photos, how to edit the core selling points of the works, and provide standardized templates. This is not being done very well at the moment. The descriptions of many works are very simple, and many buyers do not understand the difficulty of the craftsmanship behind them, nor do they understand what the grade of the material represents. A more humane presentation is needed.

For example, the work below is recommended on the homepage. There is only one picture in the work, no high-definition detail pictures, no wearing effect pictures, no texture, and the background is taken randomly. The introduction contained very little information, including the coral's origin, weight, and price of 26,000.

Sellers are classified, top sellers are created, and traffic resources are concentrated to create transaction cases and even category cases.

2. Recruit craftsmen.

It is mainly aimed at craftsmen. During the cold start phase, investment promotion requires more one-on-one visits and exploration. During the normal operation stage, more efficient methods can be adopted.

In addition to more brand exposure and other methods, the company launched the "Craftsman Agent" activity in January this year, and will subsequently launch the "Craftsman Scout" activity in a similar format. Recruit users with resources and interests to act as "agents", then discover craftsmen around them to join the team and help promote the brand story. The employer will provide rewards. The essence of the form is to utilize the platform's resources and brand endorsement to allow active users to develop "downlines" and provide rewards.

3. Content operation.

The collection, compilation, publication and recommendation of artisan story content, including text, photography, video and other forms, as well as the use of hot topics for collection and editing and activities.

Some products have the function of user operation , which prompts user activity through activities, point systems, new media and product optimization, but these functions are distributed above.

4. Category operation.

It can be simply summarized into two key functions: category operation and marketing .

First of all, it is necessary to make a reasonable classification and display of the huge number of handicrafts, including the sorting of categories in the front and back ends, which is a tedious and meticulous task.

Although most of the works have stories and are beautiful, beauty does not mean a deal is done. If a work is viewed just because it looks good but no transactions are made, then just increase the number of visits and feel a sense of accomplishment.

Therefore, it is necessary to sort out the key points and categories that are in line with the market and usage scenarios, and the idea of ​​hot-selling products is applicable. With such a high average order value, the psychological threshold for purchase is very high for non-practitioners and deep enthusiasts. If key categories achieve breakthroughs in transactions and break through users’ psychological threshold for the platform, related categories can be driven accordingly.

The core KPI of the marketing function is transaction. Daily duties include daily recommended product selection, auction product selection, etc.; special topic planning, such as the "Family Heirloom Festival" event on December 19, 2015. Marketing activities can leverage hot spots and festivals to increase conversion rates while investing in traffic resources.

In marketing, it is necessary to distinguish between existing users and incremental users, and the strategies are different. The existing users are mostly professional practitioners or craftsmen themselves, and there are few of them, who focus on products in the fields they are interested in or familiar with. The number of incremental users is huge, and we need to pay attention to cost-effectiveness and scenario-based operations.

4. Combination effect of resource integration: multi-channel resource exchange

Resources are always the scarcest, especially for startups. They have no brand endorsement and no traffic, and they need to strive for resource cooperation with peers and different industries. Some people say that our company’s products are ugly (imperfect in the early days) and poor, and no one wants to be a son-in-law!

Resources can be money, traffic, the role of your platform, your user resources, and the resources your users have. You need to clearly identify your resources and how to achieve a win-win result.

Here, the owner makes it clear that his most unique resources for the partners are the craftsmen, their skills, their works and their content. Let’s take a look at the owner’s resource cooperation cases below.

1. Offline activities

<1> Exhibition.

There are various art and cultural exhibitions in the country. The general form is that the organizer initiates a theme exhibition, recruits exhibitors, and sells tickets to ordinary citizens. Exhibitors pay to participate (usually ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand), and can display their brands and works on site, sell them, and obtain cooperation. Note: In 2015, 11 Dongjia led a team to participate in the Guangzhou Tea Expo.

For individual craftsmen, personal exhibition fees and preparation work are unaffordable. The host, as a platform, can join the craftsmen to participate in the exhibition. The host will bear the exhibition fees or the craftsmen will share the costs. The on-site promotion can not only help the craftsmen promote themselves, but also facilitate the promotion of the host platform. The craftsmen on site and the citizens participating in the exhibition are all precise target users, which is really cost-effective.

<2> Community and club activities.

In order to attract and maintain their high-end customers, high-end residential communities, clubs and bank VIP services will hold events and invite luxury goods, jewelry and cultural artists to share their experiences. Dongjia has a large number of craftsmen and craftsmanship, as well as a good brand story, and the customers of these high-end clubs are precisely Dongjia’s target buyers.

In March 2016, Zhejiang Audi and Dongjia craftsmen jointly carried out an Audi Q7 test drive event in Longjing, Hangzhou.

In March 2016, Dongjia held a food tasting activity for employees in Sina Leju Company.

2. Public Welfare Cooperation

Almost most art platforms have cooperation involved in charity auctions. Charity cooperation mainly involves joint charity organizations, such as "One Foundation" and "Free Lunch", etc., starting from collecting charity auction items to auctioning and donating charity funds. A series of links in the middle jointly promote and build momentum, and even attract influential media to join. It is a thankless task and can greatly enhance the brand image.

In December 2015, while Dongjia's annual event "Dongjia Family Heritage Festival" was underway, it joined forces with the "Major Illness Medical Insurance" project initiated by Deng Fei to launch a charity auction on the Dongjia Auction Channel. The works were all provided by Dongjia craftsmen, and it also joined forces with Ji Lianhai of the Hundred Schools Forum and Ma Yili to repost on Weibo.

All publicity and traffic are brought to the Dongjia APP. In fact, at the charity auction held at the third anniversary conference of the "Major Illness Medical Insurance" in July 2015, the owner wrote that the craftsmen would provide multiple works for participation, which laid the foundation for the gradual in-depth cooperation.

On May 21, 2016, Dongjia once again joined hands with the "Free Lunch" charity fund initiated by Deng Fei, and at the same time used the newly launched " live video + auction" function of the APP to conduct simultaneous online and offline charity auctions.

What I want to say here is that there are many examples of combining art and culture with charity in the industry, and the key lies in the choice of partners. This is similar to NBA teams. Everyone wants to form a Big Three, but you must first find a suitable giant that you can handle. Then the other giant can be easily attracted.

3. Content Cooperation

Dongjia has been compiling "Craftsmen's Chronicles" since its earliest operations to explore the stories behind the craftsmen. There are continuous displays on the APP and WeChat public accounts, and currently the display of "Craftsmen's Records" is also enriched through videos. Starting from the earliest positioning of craftsmen, every craftsman who settled in has his or her own unique culture and craft heritage, which naturally lays a good foundation for content.

Currently, all the new media with the most content are distributing their content through more channels to obtain more traffic. With the same idea, if the host has unique content materials and content production capabilities, they can look for content distribution. Ordinary self-media platforms are not confirmed here, and there is no difficulty in operation. One case mentioned here is the cooperation with WeChat public accounts.

WeChat public account "Bu Ji" is an account for original short videos of 3 minutes. Currently, the first content of the daily pushed video has more than 100,000 views. The owner provides craftsmen with materials and production cooperation from time to time. The logo is revealed in the video, and the craftsman's owner's store information is displayed below the article. "Bu Ji" has developed a "Craftsman's Selection" column in the official account menu, which includes content related to the cooperation.

In addition to this kind of content cooperation, you can also find a lot of promotions from other accounts through Sogou’s WeChat search. As for how the cooperation was achieved, those who are interested can go and investigate further.

Operational data and thoughts

The number of craftsmen who settled in the market was 1,000 in October 2015, 1,500 at the end of 2015, and 2,000 in May 2016, a steady growth rate. It can be seen that manual investment promotion and continuous brand exposure did not bring about explosive growth in the number of craftsmen.

Offline activities have limited impact, and currently carried out "scout" and other activities do not have a good profit-driven mechanism and have limited effects. We can further explore online channels, especially WeChat, to create comprehensive H5 communication cases, and also carry out online viral calls and invitation activities by category and region.

A good platform should not only have rules that adapt to user habits, but also create gameplay that allows users to be self-driven and update their concepts.

All the operational links listed above cannot be achieved overnight, but require continuity, meticulousness and innovation. In such a special industry, we need to be more knowledgeable about exploring scenarios and integrating resources.