How do e-commerce operations build a closed marketing ecosystem?

With the continuous development of society, many companies now have a place in the e-commerce industry, and e-commerce is also a major sales channel now; in the e-commerce industry, "people, goods, and venues" are the most basic points. This model also needs to be operated to build a complete ecosystem;

E-commerce operations are always inseparable from people, goods and places, where people are users, goods are commodities, and place is the sales platform.

With the development of society, the scene of the market is constantly changing, from traditional supermarkets and convenience stores to today's traditional e-commerce platforms, mobile apps, WeChat applets, WeChat groups and other scenes.

No matter how the market changes, the user-centric business sales model has never changed; as an e-commerce platform, how to do a good job in user operations, build a user growth system, and construct and maintain the user life cycle value is the top priority for all e-commerce platforms.

For example, from the most commonly used AARRR model (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, and Refer) to the hacker growth theory, all of them illustrate the importance of operating users well.

1. User Operation

Users are the lifeline of e-commerce. Any e-commerce platform needs a steady stream of new user resources to achieve continuous positive growth in users. This is the basis for the platform's continued development and sustained growth in performance.

The first step in user operation is to attract new users and achieve user growth. To do a good job of attracting new users, you first need to clarify who the users are, where the users are, and find the precise user group, so that you can be targeted and communicate accurately; that is, what we often call whether the user portrait is clear. For example, the main consumers of my product are men and women, how old are they, what is their consumption level, are they in first- and second-tier cities or fourth- and fifth-tier towns, what are their hobbies, what is their shopping psychology, what is their behavioral path, what colors they like, what content, and what product types they like. The more detailed and clear the portrait is, the more accurate the target population will be.

Accurate user positioning can help us choose marketing and promotion channels more accurately, save promotion costs, and improve user traffic efficiency and conversion rate.

2. Channels

Make good use of free and paid channels, and use data testing to screen high-quality channels.

We know that in traditional times, materials were scarce, and the economy was production-oriented. Whatever was produced was sold. First, products were produced, and then advertising was done crazily to build brands and channels. Once the channels were well built, all products would sell well.

Nowadays, there is overproduction and serious product homogeneity. It is an era of demand-oriented and personalized customization. Media is fragmented, it is more difficult to attract traffic, and traditional advertising has lost its effect. At this time, we must be more clear about what kind of users we want and the market size of the user group.

At the same time, only with a clear user portrait can we infinitely meet user needs and tone in terms of publicity and promotion, channel selection, product packaging, content copy matching, etc., create a tone that users like, integrate into users' lives, form a psychological resonance with users, and save a lot of advertising costs wasted due to blindness.

3. Drainage

The key to attracting users is to find high-quality channels to move from public domain to private domain, cultivate loyalty and enhance lifetime value.

Channels can be divided into free channels and paid channels. Free channels include the company’s Douyin, Toutiao, Kuaishou and other self-media accounts, WeChat public accounts, WeChat groups and other corporate self-media channels.

We know that the most popular short videos now, Tik Tok and Kuaishou, can sell goods, WeChat has mini-programs, and WeChat groups have always been the battlefield for community group buying; these channels can not only attract traffic, but also integrate traffic into sales. Companies can selectively operate related self-media accounts based on their own characteristics.

There are many paid ones. It is recommended to choose those relatively accurate advertising channels such as CPS/CPC. As long as the ROI is guaranteed to be positive, it is worth investing in. Yes, paid advertising is an investment behavior, which can obtain user resources and sales results faster than free media. In addition, it should be noted that testing must be done when doing channel delivery. Don't blindly do large-scale advertising. First, conduct small-scale channel delivery tests, analyze the data to find effective promotion channels, and eliminate invalid channels. This is the only way to ensure good publicity and drainage effects.

By creating an internal loop of platform marketing through event content and page layout, users can browse efficiently and trade happily.

We can think of the homepage as a hub that continuously diverts incoming users to the portals of various marketing sections, and enables users to find the portal they like through reasonable layout and activities. Companies continuously cultivate users' behavioral habits and consumption habits through marketing activities and behavioral guidance, and increase the depth and breadth of users' browsing, so that user activity is enhanced, the number of repeat purchases increases, and they eventually become loyal users.

In terms of user behavior, marketing tools can be used to guide them, such as common coupons, small games, lotteries, discounts, etc., to embed points in the user's movement lines and continuously guide users to browse and trade.

What needs to be emphasized here is that the operations of some platforms have an unsystematic marketing system and have not established an internal marketing cycle. They simply hold activities for the sake of activities, offering discounts and lucky draws, so the effectiveness cannot be guaranteed.

Therefore, in order to make the user experience more comfortable, it is necessary to guide user behavior. That is, from the time the user comes in to register, browses, shops, and comments and shares, there should be marketing behaviors as encouragement and guidance at every step; constantly motivating users to click the next step to achieve a closed loop. This requires the platform marketing systems to be interconnected and cooperate with each other.

4. User Retention

User retention is the key for e-commerce platforms to obtain user lifetime value.

At the same time, in order to retain users, gain their recognition, and form their overall understanding of the platform, it is necessary to establish a complete user membership system to increase user stickiness; this involves the benefits of new users, a shopping points system, and user membership growth rights, including an honor system and actual benefits, such as titles, badges, multiple points, coupons, etc.

Benefits for old users, such as the commonly used plus membership, monthly card membership, etc., can give old users more care; at the same time, in order to allow users to live happily on the platform, the platform can add content sections to facilitate users to share products, read reviews, communicate and share, and a corresponding incentive system can be set up.

5. The user himself

An excellent e-commerce platform is no longer just about selling products for the sake of selling products, but about selling products for the sake of managing users. The core of the focus is on the users themselves.

If an e-commerce platform wants to continue to gain user recognition, it must build three complete operating systems:

One is the transaction system, which is how e-commerce guides user consumption, how to operate activities, how to layout and build marketing sections, etc., to achieve barrier-free shopping for users, that is, to enable users to buy the products they want conveniently with guaranteed service.

The second is the entertainment system, which can not only increase user stickiness but also enable users to have fun shopping. This is the case with many tree planting, breeding and other games. By embedding mobile games on the e-commerce platform, users’ spiritual world can be enriched and they can have fun.

The third is the social system. The most notable feature of Internet 3.0 is the socialization of e-commerce. Transactions are inseparable from social interaction. Building a complete social system on the platform is more conducive to user retention, activity and sharing fission. A good social system and incentive policies can make users become your salesmen and be happy to promote the platform.

6. Maintenance of old users

Old users are more important. In addition to attracting new users, we must also do a good job in maintaining old users.

The growth of new users into old users generally goes through the development stages from product consumption to product recognition and then to value and cultural recognition.

Products are the medium for e-commerce platforms to establish relationships with users. If users are satisfied with the products they purchased or they exceed their expectations, the products will be recognized by users. After multiple contacts and participation, users’ understanding of the platform increases, and they are more in favor of the platform’s values, thus establishing an emotional connection and strengthening the relationship between users and the platform. Users are more willing to consume platform products, and at this time they become loyal users. This is also the importance of extreme products and user participation that Internet products have always emphasized.

Loyal users not only bring higher contribution value, but also bring free marketing communication effects and exponential growth of the user base.

It is often said in marketing that the value of developing 10 new users is not as good as maintaining 1 old customer, and the cost of maintaining an old user is much lower than developing 10 new users; at the same time, loyal old customers can bring multiple new users for free, and an dissatisfied old user can also reduce dozens of new users.

Relying on old user resources to establish a user fission growth system and achieve incremental growth from existing users is the goal pursued by many companies; because the cost of attracting new users is very low, this is also the fundamental reason why social e-commerce became popular in the past two years. It is because the cost of attracting new users is low. E-commerce platforms are all chasing traffic, and where there is a traffic depression, there is a big market.

Providing users with support for sharing tools, supporting users in editing and producing content materials, and even providing a variety of material formats can enhance user experience, and providing interest incentives for attracting new users in policies can better establish a fission system. Ultimately, the simpler the operation, the better.

At the same time, companies can establish their own WeChat and self-media fission channels for operation, which is more conducive to the acquisition and growth of traffic; and all of this is based on users' recognition of the platform's products and values, so paying attention to user needs and establishing user-centric operations is the right way to go.

Finally, a complete user operation conversion ecology diagram is attached:

Author: forwarding

Source: Forwarding