What are the methods of product promotion?

Now that the product has reached maturity and has a group of seed users, shouldn't we make a big effort to consolidate product details, improve product form, and use more professional strategies to increase volume and operate with a focus on the user life cycle?

That’s true. That’s why I put the section on core value groups in front and the matrix in the back at the beginning of the fourth section. User operation and product operation are particularly important at this stage. If you are interested in these contents, you can ask me.

Of course, I have my reasons for giving priority to these two parts in this article. As I wrote at the beginning, this article is about the maturity or final stage. The fourth stage of the product life cycle is the decline stage, but the concept of the decline stage of mobile Internet products is actually very vague. You can't even predict when you will enter this stage. It is closely related to people, policies, market trends, etc. With so many multi-dimensional variables intertwined, it is difficult to use a model to predict when we will be at a disadvantage in the industry. You can refer to Zoom, DingTalk at the beginning of the year and the current Tik Tok to understand.

Strictly speaking, the product matrix could have been put aside for the recession period and planned by the team, but the current situation in the mobile Internet product industry at that time did not allow us to prepare for the next stage of the plan too late. Of course, this is just my personal opinion and is for reference only. Furthermore, the decline period is not just about doing the matrix. As above, the space is limited, so please look forward to subsequent articles for more processes.

Today we are going to talk about the topic of product promotion , which is also called product operation. Logically speaking, this stage is no longer within the scope of coordination of product managers, but isn’t there such a rumor in the market? That is, products and operations are inseparable, and products and operations are actually a package of services...

Of course, these words should not be so crude to summarize the two. Regarding products and operations, what we hear and see the most is: products are responsible for 0~1, and operations are 1~100 or 1~+. I also write this in my resume, responsible for product 0~1, but what exactly are 0 to 1 and 1~+ doing? Can it be defined well? Can you explain the meaning of both in one sentence?

However, few people think about these things. Regarding this point, my own opinion is: if the product is about habits, then operations are responsible for behaviors! Although these two concepts seem to be different, they actually echo each other, complement each other, penetrate each other, and have their own emphasis. We often say that mentality determines behavior, behavior determines habits, habits determine attitude, and attitude determines life! We can also try to compare these points:

After comparing them one by one, do you feel a bit of the inside story? Of course, the above is just my simple description of products and operations. As professionals, we still have to give a professional terminology analysis for this. Products are responsible for defining and providing long-term user value, and operations are responsible for creating short-term user value + assisting products in improving long-term value - "Light of Operations 2.0"

Back to the topic, what I want to share with you today are several common ways to promote products. When the product is "created" and everything is ready, colleagues in charge of marketing or operations need to start looking for the promotion method that suits them. Regarding Dongfeng, oh no, regarding promotion, there are two forms of promotion: free promotion and paid promotion. As for free promotion, I believe that people with a little product experience will have heard about it more or less, such as major forums, Tieba, Zhihu, app store first releases and special topics, WeChat Weibo, major self-media platforms, Douyin, etc. As long as there is traffic, we can choose channels for promotion. Of course, there is also the traffic exchange we are familiar with. These platform promotions all have one thing in common, that is, the media uses the platform as a carrier to gain exposure for the product and then launch our product into the market. What is the media?

When we promote on these platforms, we use soft/hard articles, pictures, videos, H5 and other forms as our way of conveying information and reaching our target users. Some people may think that these are just materials, advertising materials, which is indeed the case, but in my opinion, this is not the case. I prefer to call these "materials" "media". If you have been following my previous articles, you can see that I have always believed in one idea, that is, our products must be strong enough to continue to bring value (user/commercial value) and the traffic brought by operations will not be lost too quickly.

However, the role of the materials used in promotion is just a medium information, and the position at this time needs to be greater than the product itself! The focus should also be on this medium. If you still don’t get my point, please refer to the trailer of the movie or game, and the final feature film effect.

The products I have been exposed to over the past year or so are all gaming products, and what I am familiar with and understand are all related levels of operation and promotion. Therefore, the following section will focus on game promotion and introduce several currently popular promotion methods.

By the way, the free promotion form mentioned above, which wants to gain big exposure and bring in millions of traffic in a short period of time, is probably difficult to achieve in today's market. It is time-consuming and labor-intensive and is a thankless task. It may have been applicable in the past, but now even the free traffic obtained as a result will not have ideal retention. So what are the more obvious and effective promotional methods?

1. KOL experts and internet celebrities

Needless to say, this type of people have been very popular on the Internet in recent years. After being rebaptized by the live broadcast platform, there will inevitably be a large number of anchors with their own traffic. Their fans may range from tens to millions, but their monetization forms are pitifully few. In this case, we have the opportunity to provide them with monetization, and it will be much easier to negotiate cooperation with them. This method is more suitable for start-up companies with a smaller initial budget. Of course, if you have money, you can also go directly to famous anchors or UP hosts, such as Director Ao, Wang Laoju, etc.

So how do we contact these talented anchors who have their own "brilliance"?

If the first type is a small anchor or up-host, you can just go to his live broadcast room and chat with him. Generally, these anchors will post their cooperation methods on their personal homepages on the platform. Those with dozens to thousands of people are considered small anchors. Most of them may be robots he uses. There are only dozens of people actually online. He may not even need a share of the profits. He will be very happy if you give him some gifts.

The second type of traffic is more formal. You need to contact the live broadcast manager. Some platforms distinguish by vests, and some distinguish by titles. When you enter the platform and see the administrator of the live broadcast room, you can directly chat with him privately.

The third type is the agency, which is usually a media company or entertainment company. They have many anchors, and the agency can contact them through the anchors or live broadcast platforms.

Finally, you can contact the business personnel of some small live broadcast platforms, because small live broadcast platforms cannot support themselves by relying on giving gifts, and they are also considering cooperating with other industries. Some large live broadcast platforms, such as YY, have their own game platforms, and live broadcast and games have a very close relationship. If some small platforms do not have their own game platforms, you can talk to them, but this requires more attention to the strength of the platform and negotiation skills.

2. Promotion and franchising

We often see many promotional advertisements on the Internet, which guide promoters to register as franchisees and promote players. After the players recharge, the platform pays the promoters a share of the profits. This form of promotional advertisements is called franchising.

How to develop franchisees? Please note that this franchise is free, and it uses rhetoric and attractive online promotion: you can make money with a mobile phone, make money while playing games, easily earn over ten thousand yuan a month, etc. These are all recruiting promoters. When cooperating with franchisees, you need to pay attention to the following points. First, the profit sharing point should be attractive and should be a tiered profit sharing. The second mode should be simple and easy to understand. Generally, for dedicated servers or mixed servers, you can just take a link and do it. As long as the other party sends the link, others can click on his link to enter the game.

Game promotion and franchising nowadays is not like in the old days. If you are not careful, you will fall into shell companies or Ponzi schemes. Therefore, when developing franchise channels, you must carefully identify the other party's background, whether they have registration and qualifications with relevant departments, whether they can issue invoices, whether they have their own game platform, whether they have independent distribution capabilities, whether the location is stable, etc.

3. Guild Studio

Low-cost promotion mainly uses the CPS model, which is a payment model based on the results. In this model, you don’t need to pay any fees at the beginning. The channel guides the players to the platform, and the profits are shared with the channel after recharge. Guild family studios are the preferred choice for this method, and 90% of the current platforms are using this model. There are usually the following ways to find a guild. The first is the guild communication group, QQ group or WeChat group. Search for the guild communication group, or the game guild. There will be guild administrators in the group. Generally, people in professional guilds will use G vests, and those who use C vests are generally platforms. The second is the live broadcast platform. There are also many guilds on the live broadcast platform. After entering, you can directly talk to them about cooperation.

It is particularly important to note that for these guilds, interests are the first priority, and they are all about making money, so when negotiating with them, you can give them enough share, or even give them tiered share, jump point commission, etc. If you jump points, you can generally give small and new guilds a lower point. After they have achieved a certain turnover, you can give them a higher point, so that the guild will be more motivated. ( Brother Rancha of Station B has a special explanation of game guilds. Friends who are interested can go there to learn more)

There is another thing you need to pay attention to about the guild, and that is efficiency. The guild emphasizes quick settlement, quick processing, safety and integrity. The most important thing is not to take orders from the blacklisted guild. You may feel that you can make a profit by not settling the order once, but over time your reputation will deteriorate, and fewer and fewer guilds will be willing to cooperate with you.

4. Game Trial

There is a saying: It’s fun to try it for a while, and it’s fun to try it all the time! Some people also say that trial play is vulgar, clichéd, and unbearable, etc., but no matter what, trial play is still a major way to increase sales. Some people are doing trial play for lightweight products, and some are also doing trial play for heavyweight products. I think most people have heard of the trial play cooperation model. You only need to pay fees to the trial play platform and then exchange it for trial play traffic to enhance popularity. To put it bluntly, it means spending money to hire people to increase popularity, but trial play also has a not-so-friendly disadvantage. We know that the most significant effect of trial play is in the early stage, with considerable daily active users, because these players or traffic are generated with a purpose. They don't come in because they like your game or your product, but to make money, and they may leave after getting the corresponding benefits.

To be honest, trial play does have its advantages. For example, when players who come into the game (real users) see that there are many people in the game, they will recharge their accounts and level up, which makes the game more interesting. The cooperation skills for trial play are different from the above ones. As long as you can contact the trial play platform, you don’t need to negotiate. Before, we had to negotiate with them about the joining of guild anchors, but for trial play, they will take the initiative to talk to you and chase you and say: Brother, come to my house for a trial play, the effect is very good, etc.

By the way, I remember that my old employer also had a trial play platform called: Yigou Trial Play . Friends who have such needs are welcome to contact us!

Conclusion

The only cost of a low-cost promotion method is the labor cost. The CPS model requires you to find ways to talk to people every day, to build good relationships, and to get them to cooperate with you. (By the way, if any of you want to do game CPS, I have a few good partners to recommend.)

Finally, no matter it is application product promotion or game promotion, the most important thing is always to achieve the greatest efficiency improvement with the least cost. This is an eternal concept in any job or industry. Abandoning it does not mean it is necessarily wrong. Free things are not necessarily all outdated, and paid things are not necessarily the most effective. There is a saying that "free things are the most expensive!", because free things are often carefully designed and carefully considered. Therefore, for high-traffic and high-quality media sites, we should create some high-quality content and prepare some high-quality soft articles, that is, prepare high-quality media content. The efficiency of communication and the improvement in benefits brought about may not be worse than real money, although there is a certain probability. The key is to make more choices and verifications, look more at the detours taken by predecessors, and operate selectively instead of blindly following the trend.

This article is finished, spread the flowers~~???

Author: Product Xiaoqi

Source: Product Xiaoqi