How to create a high-quality customer acquisition plan?

There is a formula for product acquisition plan :

Product acquisition plan = user + channel + landing point

• User: Who is the user? User portrait analysis
• Channel: Where are the users? Source channels for analysis
• Landing point: How? Analyze user pain points and channel attributes

Who is the user

Identifying users is the first step in a product acquisition plan. Knowing who the users are will lead to future growth.

First, we need to understand what the user looks like. A tool used here is user portrait, which is used to understand the target users. There are several scenarios for sorting out user portraits:

Product launch period

The products that need to acquire customers are still in the startup phase and do not have many users. At this time, we have very little user information. How should we understand the target users?

In this scenario, the commonly used methods are user interviews and questionnaire surveys.

These two methods are mainly based on the fact that we currently do not have clear target users. We can conduct some 1V1 or 1VN question-and-answer surveys on some of our hypothetical target users, and then get the information we want through their answers, and then draw a user portrait.

This method can also be used in similar scenarios, such as mature products looking for a second growth curve and expanding new user groups.

Product growth stage

For products in the growth stage, the product has basically been determined, and the main business logic and target customer groups will hardly change significantly. At this time, we can directly obtain some user data from our own products to complete the drawing of user portraits.

Estimated number of users

Next, after we know what the users look like, we also need to estimate the target user size.
Estimating user size has two purposes:

First: Evaluate whether this can be done

• If the user base is too small, this thing will have little value.
• If the user base is too large, you need to analyze whether your needs are too broad and unfocused.

Second: Set customer acquisition goals and evaluate customer acquisition costs

How big is the entire market? How much has been divided up? Is the market in the incremental or stock stage?

• If the goal is to increase the number of users, the customer acquisition index can be larger and the cost is relatively smaller.
• If the target is existing users, the customer acquisition indicators can be more conservative and the cost will be relatively higher.

Where are the users

Now that we know who the user is and what he looks like, the next step is to see where he is. Theoretically, we should acquire users from whichever channel is better.

In recent years, there are more and more channels for attracting new users, from search engines to WeChat and Weibo, to short videos and live broadcasts, but it has become increasingly difficult to attract new users. . .

A common problem that many students encounter in the process of attracting new customers is that they do not consider the actual situation of their products and blindly carry out omni-channel delivery.

Some students are eager to use the "technique" of attracting new customers, but do not consider the cost-effectiveness of the channel, and ultimately the ROI is quite low.

So how to solve this problem? Here I imitate the demand pool to establish a channel pool. I build the pool first, and then conduct two steps of experimental screening to find the optimal channel for attracting new customers.

The first step is to build a channel pool

Focusing on our goal, we list all possible channels that can help in attracting new customers.

For this, we have a relatively simple method, which is to list all the common channels in our daily life, and then filter them one by one.

Let’s first explain what are the common channels for attracting new customers?

Common user acquisition channels (public domain traffic):

Tencent: WeChat friends, Moments, Video accounts, Guangdiantong, Official accounts

Toutiao: Douyin, Xigua, Toutiao, advertising, live broadcast

Baidu system: natural search, paid search, Tieba

Others: Zhihu, Douban, Xiaohongshu

Special user acquisition channels, such as online precise traffic (vertical field traffic):

Professional communities: Dingxiang Doctor, Autohome

Regional platform: Local treasure

Vertical user communities: Maternal and Child Care, Meipian

Word of mouth: recommended by friends

Ground promotion channels (offline traffic):

School promotion: CET-4 and CET-6, postgraduate entrance examination, study abroad, job hunting

Mall promotion: swimming, fitness, eating, drinking and having fun

Promotion at stations and airports: car-related, Didi drivers

Office promotion: white-collar applications, Ele.me red envelopes

We need to list as many new customer acquisition channels as possible and identify which of these channels can bring in new customers.

The second step is to select high-quality channels

What happens after we list these channels that can bring in new customers? Do we need to place ads on all channels?

For example, if a product’s main channel for attracting new customers previously came from search engine optimization, should the currently popular short video platform be taken into consideration?

Regarding this issue, for this product, the short video platform channel does have large traffic and great potential, but it also has risks. From the perspective of cost budget, time and energy, a better approach would be to use an experimental model, take small steps and quickly verify the effect, rather than investing fully in it immediately when you see a large amount of traffic.

So, the second step after we find a series of viable channels is to conduct experiments and focus on high-quality channels.

How to judge the quality of a channel?

Here, a question arises: how to judge the quality of a channel? I think a high-quality channel can at least meet two points:

• This channel can make you excited
• This channel seems to have great potential

In other words, this channel has high value and feasibility.

Here we use value and feasibility as the horizontal and vertical axes to build a two-dimensional quadrant.

As shown in the figure, taking educational products as an example, the more valuable channels are mass media, content marketing, and vertical forums.

Verify the quality of the channel through experiments

The position of a channel in the coordinate axis needs to be verified. How to verify? We conduct multiple low-cost and fast tests at the same time (somewhat similar to A/B testing)

In the test, we only need to consider these three issues: number of customers, customer acquisition cost, and user quality

The test results can be visualized in a table (as shown in the figure) for comprehensive evaluation

Finally, based on the experimental results, we will give priority to one of the best channels (the one with the largest quantity, lower cost, and the highest overall cost performance)

Choose just one channel?

Some students may have questions. Although they did find a relatively high-quality channel in the experiment, they are reluctant to give up other channels for attracting new customers.

At this time, we actually have a principle, which is to focus on one channel and then use other channels as an aid. Then we can do some A/B testing regularly to continuously optimize various channels.

However, there is a key point here: make timely adjustments after the channel’s bonus period ends. Remember two major laws: don't rely on just one tree.

• Law of Time: For the same channel, the earlier you enter, the lower your CAC
• The Law of Precision: Different channels, the more precise, the lower the CAC

In what way

Know who the users are and find the best customer acquisition channel. The next thing we need to focus on is how to reach users.

In other words, what methods or materials do we use to connect with users?

Here we need to analyze user pain points and channel attributes, and then use the most suitable methods and materials

There are two common ways to reach users: off-site reach and on-site reach

Off-site reach

This generally refers to materials that are independent of the product. It is the product promotion that users are exposed to first and can reach users at the first time. Common ones include physical posters, picture posters, text, links, etc.

• Common physical materials include leaflets, posters, roll-ups, etc.
• The electronic version includes text, graphics, pictures, and videos.
• Common ones include search materials, information flow materials, circle of friends materials, and group materials

How to judge the quality of materials?

There are four criteria for judging the quality of materials:

• Attractiveness: attractive to users, clarifying the value and highlights of the product
• Matching degree: Matching with channels, different materials for different channels
• Results: Try to reach the landing page (applet, download, H5)
• Have a bottom line: don’t make excessive promises or false promotions

In-site reach

It is the product page that users come into contact with after entering the material, which we generally call the landing page.

The landing page is usually the first point of perception for users when entering a product. Whether the content and materials on the landing page match is likely to affect the user's next action.

Landing pages in a broad sense include:

• App download: usually suitable for slightly mature products, screenshots, descriptions, and icon optimization
• H5, Mini Program: Product interaction, process, and benefits for new customers
• Add friends to the group: Based on the operation of Civic traffic, keep in touch with users

How to judge the quality of landing pages?

There is only one criterion for this: the conversion rate of the landing page

The work of many product managers working on growth is to optimize landing pages, analyze the conversion effects of each link of the landing page, and perform targeted optimization. This topic involves a lot of content, and we can talk about it separately another day.

Summarize

Finally, to sum up, around the product acquisition plan, we only need to clarify three questions:

Who is the user?

Here we need to use some user research methods to clarify the user portrait and know what our target users look like. This method has been shared before in "Product Manager Essential Skills: User Research"

Where are the users?

We will acquire users wherever they are. First, we need to sort out all the places where our target users may be, and then conduct a large number of low-cost tests similar to A/B testing to evaluate the quality of each channel, and finally find high-quality customer acquisition channels.

In what method?

Common ways to reach users are on-site and off-site, and different methods correspond to different materials. This requires us to determine the specific methods and materials for reaching users based on user portraits and screened channels.

Author: Hutong No. 6

Source: Hutong No. 6