Activity fission growth formula

Different companies have different growth indicators, which may be the number of APP downloads/active users/new followers/new paying users. The industry I work in is the online education industry, and the North Star indicator of growth is [number of new paying users], or more specifically, the number of new users who pay more than 0 yuan. Therefore, the growth targets mentioned in this article are all the number of new paying users.

Growth is a process of competing with numbers. Different growth methods have different characteristics. For example, investment focuses on conversion rate, while this article mainly studies the fission growth method, or more narrowly speaking, old customers bringing in new ones or new customers bringing in new ones. This article will expand on this through the following growth fission formula.

1. A commonly used primary fission formula

Number of new paying users = number of people exposed to the activity * participation rate * sharing rate * new user fission rate (* attention rate) * payment rate

This formula is the most basic formula and can be applied to most fission activities. You can start with this formula. More complex multi-stage fission is actually extended on this basis, which will not be discussed in this article.

Each link of growth will have an impact on the final number of new users. Let’s take a look at the influencing factors of each link.

2. What determines the participation rate of an event?

The core of activity participation rate: comprehensive consideration of target group + hook + cost

When designing an event, the size of the target population determines the exposure level of your resource positions and the scale of the event, while the development of attractive hooks based on the target population and the cost of obtaining the hooks determines the participation rate of the event.

1) If your hook is of interest to only a few people, then target them for exposure

2) Don’t expect to gain big contributions from users with small benefits, as users will simply give up at the beginning.

3) The hook should not only consider the appeal to the initial participants, but also the appeal to the new target groups.

A classmate once discussed a way of playing with me: A is an old user of our platform. In order to obtain platform coins for purchasing courses, A invites multiple friends B to help save coins, and B can also obtain coins for purchasing courses.

I asked, what next? ——Then B also went to buy the course.

The question is, when B has no idea about our platform, how can he understand the concept of obtaining course purchase coins? What are course purchase coins? Why should you buy our courses? A just asked TA to help save some coins, he didn't ask him to buy a course together.

From the above, we can know that if we want to bring in new users when launching a new activity, we must not only design hooks for old users, but also design hooks for new users in order to create a complete closed loop.

4) Loss aversion is more likely to stimulate user engagement than gain

Proper use of loss aversion in activities, such as countdowns and reminders that discounts are about to expire, can better stimulate users' willingness to participate. The author once did a coupon activity, and an ordinary coupon expiration reminder message actually brought in 1/3 of new additions!

5) At the operational level, keep the rules as simple as possible. Don’t expect users to understand more than two lines of rules.

Design the main path well, put the first step you want users to take on the first screen, and make the path clear and easy to understand (what is the hook and how to get it).

Maybe this is a pitfall that many novices will fall into. I have experienced it before - I entered the activity page, and in the end only 30% of people saw my main path to participation, and 70% of users were lost before that... A tearful reminder, don't fall into this novices' pit again.

3. Increase sharing rate: operate as fiercely as a tiger, and increase by 0.1 at a glance

The hook is the best strategy, the copywriting is the middle strategy, and the operation is the worst strategy

First of all, in some cases the participation rate and the sharing rate can be the same, but in some cases, people will mistake the participation rate for the sharing rate. When I experienced that the estimated target was far from the actual one, I deeply realized that the sharing rate ≠ the participation rate.

Let’s restore such an activity: users can choose to start a group for free, and invite X new users to form a group and get the course. However, the author equated participation rate with group creation rate, and then jumped directly to fission rate, which is equivalent to the default sharing rate of 100%. However, the actual situation is not the case, which leads to a large deviation in the estimate.

Sharing is the key action of fission. How to increase the sharing rate?

The author has been trapped in the vortex of manipulation for a long time, trying to increase the sharing rate by shortening the sharing path, strengthening the sharing operation, and prioritizing the content to be shared. However, it has been shown many times that such operations are difficult to increase the sharing rate.

The following are the effective methods I have found to increase sharing rate:

1) Optimize the hook first. If the hook of the activity is a prize, then change the prize to test and increase the sharing rate.

2) Optimizing copywriting is secondary, and the priority is to highlight the benefits/attractive features of users, rather than actions.

For example, the author once tried to change the copy from the sharing action copy of "Share now" to the benefit-oriented copy of "I want to get it for free", and the sharing rate increased to a certain extent. Similarly, by optimizing the copy to attract users' features, improving the attractiveness of the hook is also an effective way to increase the sharing rate.

3) Let users pay a certain cost, and they may be more willing to share

The author has conducted some activities and found that activities that require users to pay a small amount of money often have a higher sharing rate than free activities. Of course, this will appropriately reduce the participation rate, but making users pay a cost, whether it is a silent cost or a cash cost, can really achieve better results.

4) On the operational level, countdown and other techniques to increase loss aversion are also a useful way to increase sharing rate.

4. New User Fission Rate: A Psychological Game

The new user fission rate refers to the average number of new users attracted by a participating user who shares. This is related to the user's sharing scenario and the hook that motivates the user.

1) The attractiveness of the hook and the cost paid by users must match in order to achieve the ideal fission rate

For example, I have done two activities, both of which were to invite new groups of three people. Activity A was to buy a 3D puzzle for 1 yuan, and activity B was to buy 100 courses for 3.9 yuan. The new user fission rate of activity B was twice that of activity A. The hook gave users the motivation to attract new users, and it is obvious that the value of B seems higher.

2) Achieve the expected setting + sharing scenario, understand user psychology and improve fission rate

On the one hand, you give users the hook, and then where do you ask users to share with you? /Where do you share the sharing tools you provide?

• Is it a group?——Then wouldn’t it be better to use a mini program?
• Is it the circle of friends? ——Does that mean we need to provide a fission poster? And it must give users psychological satisfaction?
• Or one-on-one?

On the other hand, did you give the requirement of ambiguity/certainty?

• For example, you can invite one person to get 5-20 random coins, until you get 100 coins to get the hook.
• Or should we tell users clearly that they can get the hook by inviting one person?

If the sharing path you design is too narrow, for example, you provide a link that is more suitable for one-to-one sharing, and tell users that they can get the hook by inviting one person, then it is likely that you will get far fewer new users.

3) Shared benefits and taking it for granted - a more advanced sharing push

I wonder if you have ever encountered a scenario like this:

I gave users so much money to motivate them, why are the user participation rate and fission rate still very low?

Not everyone can be "bribed". For example, in the education industry, many activities such as inviting new members and giving gifts and distribution activities basically benefit the sharers more than the shared. This naked inducement is only effective for some people, but for the general public, it may bring a certain psychological burden - guilt.

The difference between this sense of guilt can be clearly seen by comparing two fission modes: winning by assisting and winning by forming a team.

• Help to win prizes: I have started a group and need to invite friends to help me. If I reach a specified value, I can get a prize. The helpers will not get this prize.
• Team up to win prizes: I have started a team and can invite friends to join the team. If the team is successfully formed, everyone will receive a prize.

If the users of your product have relatively high requirements and principles for sharing, then the model of team-based prize-winning will have a higher participation rate and a better fission rate than the model of helping others win prizes - because this takes advantage of the user's psychology of reciprocity and lowers the psychological threshold for sharing. For example, people who pay for knowledge.

4) Rankings are a good tool that can effectively motivate top users in new customer acquisition activities

For people who have a strong desire to attract new customers, high thresholds and high incentives are an effective head incentive strategy. We are not afraid of giving too much, but we are afraid of giving too little!

The author has conducted many ranking incentives and found that the top people in the rankings basically brought in more than 60% of new users; this part of the top people has a strong ability to attract new users and a high willingness to attract new users. If the upper limit of the prize you give is too low, it will only satisfy the general population with low ability to attract new users, which will undoubtedly limit the ability of the top people!

Therefore, if an activity is aimed at the general public, remember to leave a ranking list/top crowd incentive hook to stimulate the potential of the top crowd to attract new users. They will bring you surprises.

5. Follow-up rate/payment rate: Go straight to the goal, less funnel

As I mentioned earlier, the number of new paying users is my new indicator, so the number of followers needs to be equal to the payment rate to get the new paying users I want. But I often encounter this problem: should I do a follow-up activity or a direct payment activity? The attention threshold is relatively low and the number of participants is large. The problem lies in the payment rate. The threshold for direct payment is high and the number of participants is low, but it reduces the attention funnel.

The author summarizes the following points:

1) Follow first and then convert, or convert first and then follow, depending on different scenarios

If the scenario cannot be converted/requires a long time to make a decision/needs timing to convert, guide attention first . If it is a scenario that can be paid for immediately, guide conversion.

For example, in the taxi-hailing scenario, I have seen the case of Hua Xiaozhu: sharer A invited B to receive a coupon for the Hua Xiaozhu taxi-hailing software. After B received it, he was directly guided to jump to the taxi-hailing entrance. This is an example of direct conversion, but the problem is: taxi-hailing is a product that requires a time to take a taxi. Immediate conversion here obviously does not meet the scenario requirements - users will only use it when they need to take a taxi, but here I am just participating in an event and may not have this need yet. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to let the user retain first.

So what are the scenarios for direct payment?

For example, Luckin Coffee’s shared red envelopes. Drinking Luckin Coffee does not require a high timing and has a low decision-making cost. Therefore, after users receive the coupons, they are guided to buy coffee. The conversion rate will be higher than guiding attention, and the retention and repurchase of paying users will also be higher.

If you still don’t know whether to focus or convert first, then in actual application scenarios, you can use AB testing to see which one is the best.

2) Focus first and then convert. To achieve the goal, you need several times the fission ability, which requires a very high level of planning/to ensure a positive ROI

If the goal of the activity is to increase paid users, then attention comes first and then conversion, which will inevitably lead to a large funnel.

Assuming the same number of participants, if a direct paid conversion activity can bring 1 to 1 (1 participant brings 1 new paying customer), and first follow and then convert, if the conversion rate is 20%, then this activity will have to bring 5 followers to achieve the same number of new paying customers. As the number of people increases, it is not an easy task for the participants even if the movements become lighter.

If it is a profit-induced attention activity, it means that the hook must be attractive, the payment threshold must be relatively low, and the ROI must be guaranteed to be positive, in order to achieve a sufficient "base amount of attention" for conversion.

Here is an example: Youdao Children's official account has many fission poster activities for redeeming physical books. The fact that such activities can be launched continuously on its official account shows that at least the ROI is positive and can continue to bring in new activities - 20 new followers from mothers * conversion rate * average order value > cost of books; if the conversion rate is low, the average order value must be higher. If both the conversion rate and the average order value are low, it is very likely to be a loss-making business that cannot be expanded.

Another type of activity is one that relies on content to win, such as viral marketing content activities, which often require a high level of planning.

The above is the result. If you still don’t know how to plan growth activities or how to evaluate the quality of growth activities, then just look at your own data according to this formula. After looking at it more, you will have a certain sensitivity to growth.

But I always remember what a big guy said to me, and I would like to share it with you for encouragement -

"Behind every piece of data there is a specific background. Don't be deceived by the data, and don't deceive yourself."

The author still has many shortcomings. I will continue to write growth articles in the future. I hope that in this process I can not only summarize my experience, but also reflect on it. Welcome everyone to put forward relevant suggestions and discussions~~~

Author: iceStar

Source: iceStar