How to quickly acquire users in a short period of time at zero cost?

This time I want to share how product operations can acquire the first batch of seed users in a short time and at low cost. The reason I want to share this is mainly because I have seen too many companies, especially start-ups, often face the problem that either the initial customer acquisition cost is high or the customer acquisition period is extremely long.

01

No matter which one it is, it is an increased cost for startups. Although it is inevitable to take detours in entrepreneurship, there seem to be some ways to make the company run faster. This time, I would like to share a real case and discuss together how to acquire customers quickly and at low cost.

Actual combat case:

Background: This is a mobile phone rental company. Companies that do mobile phone rentals are generally on Alipay's Sesame Credit, and Sesame Credit's requirement for companies to join the platform is that they need to complete actual rental orders from 100 users within 1 month.

Key words of the question: 100 actual rental users within 1 month.

Difficulty of the problem:

• The new platform has no reputation or resources;
• Review pass rate: Because this industry also involves risk control review, if the user's qualifications are not good, the review will also be rejected, which will affect the order pass rate;

How to solve: Conventional solutions: advertising, cross-industry cooperation, price reduction, door-to-door sales, etc.

Note: There is nothing wrong with these solutions, but for a startup company, doing so will incur huge costs and be time-consuming.

Efficient problem-solving ideas:

Four questions of the soul:

• What kind of users are easiest to rent (reducing trust costs) and have high approval rates for high-quality users?
• What methods are used to attract users?
• How to maximize publicity?
• How can you make a profit (reduce losses) while renting out the property?

1. What kind of users are easiest to rent (lower trust costs) and have high quality?

• Internal employees of the company: Internal employees generally know everything about the company, have the lowest risk and the highest approval rate;
• Users who have purchased or leased products in installments: These users have generally been screened by other platform institutions for risk control to ensure that their qualifications are OK; in addition, these users have had similar transactions and are more receptive to leasing mobile phones (reducing learning costs);

2. How to attract users?

1) Millions of subsidies for new users, renting a phone is more cost-effective than buying: a number of popular promotional models are launched, allowing users to rent a phone at a lower total price than buying the same model on JD.com at one time; but users do not need to pay so much money at one time, but pay monthly, which doubles the financial pressure on users.

2) Recommended gifts: You can get a cash bonus of 100 yuan for successfully recommending a rental.

3. How to maximize publicity?

Strategy: Help users compare prices through all marketing channels that can reach users, so that users can feel that the product is truly cost-effective and reduce the cost of making choices for users.

Keywords: All channels that can reach users + clear and intuitive benefits that users can feel.

Marketing channels include:

• Core: SMS marketing - targeting users who purchase or lease goods in installments.
• Secondary focus: Internal publicity (company announcements, emails, morning meeting presentations) - maximize the conversion of internal employees and conduct marketing to relatives and friends, which will increase the level of trust.
• Other channels: self-media accounts.

How to make users feel cost-effective:

1) Help users do comparative analysis

2) Present the discounts of each model to users in the most intuitive way

4. How to make a profit (reduce losses) while renting out the property

Strategy:

• Ensure that the product price is higher than the purchase price but lower than the JD.com price, so that the product can fully gain an advantage in market competition.
• Add value-added paid charges, such as the mandatory mobile phone screen damage insurance of 199 yuan;

Based on this, no matter how the activity is conducted, the company will ensure that it will not lose money in the end, and users will enjoy super discounts, achieving a win-win situation for both the company and users.

In the above scheme, I believe everyone has already seen that there is one most important point:

Where does the SMS marketing list come from?

You can change the keywords on Taobao to find a bunch of resource selling companies. If you really can’t find any, you can also contact the author for more information.

Final result: It took 1 week to complete the leasing of 121 users, with a total profit of 19,400 yuan from this activity, and the company successfully entered the Sesame Credit platform that month.

02

In subsequent operations recruitment, the author will also give this question to the interviewees to examine their problem-solving ideas; however, after interviewing nearly a hundred candidates, I saw that most of the interviewees’ general answers were: advertising, product discounts and promotions, door-to-door sales, and other conventional methods. Few of them broke the routine and proposed some more down-to-earth ways and methods that could quickly solve the problem.

The author does not think that conventional methods are useless, but the time period is often very long and the cost of trial and error is relatively high. And then I am also thinking:

• What is your understanding of a good operation (what kind of person is considered a good operation candidate)?
• How can you train yourself to quickly find effective ways to solve problems?
• How should companies help employees open up to create value for the business and the company?

1. Understanding of a good operator (what kind of people are considered good operators)

• Ability to break the routine;
• Can be more down-to-earth;
• The ability to integrate knowledge;
• The ability to consider issues comprehensively and not generalize;

As people age, work experience can often make them familiar with the overall operation process and how to do things. However, how to do things effectively and efficiently to achieve goals often requires a person's thinking system from the inside out.

The author thinks that this may be the biggest difference between ordinary people and advanced people. These may be some clichés, but they are indeed the most useful sentences I have seen over the years.

2. How can you train yourself to quickly find effective ways to solve problems?

1) Make yourself a sensitive person. Sometimes, being sensitive is not a bad thing.

In the workplace, there will always be times when others offend you. If you give your feedback in a timely manner, at this time, others may say to you: Oops, you are too sensitive; it seems that sensitivity is a kind of perception that is not appropriate in the workplace.

Then, please believe me. I also spent a lot of time and took many detours. I felt that being sensitive was not a good thing at the beginning, but later I found that sensitivity is your most valuable ability. You can always see problems before others. The work of operations is essentially about being able to understand user needs and find effective marketing conversion channels between products and users.

It is better to be a sensitive person than an insensitive person; especially at work, this is the beginning of your discovery of opportunities.

2) Review, review frequently, and review regularly to accumulate your own knowledge base of methods

I remember watching martial arts movies when I was a kid. Whenever a master wanted to pass on a magic weapon to his apprentice, he would always take the apprentice to the armory to choose one.

In reality, it is unlikely that most people can find solutions to problems out of thin air without any accumulation. All innovations come from summarizing and reviewing past experiences. The biography of Lenovo's Liu Chuanzhi focuses on the impact of reviewing past experiences on Lenovo.

Students who are interested can go and have a look, try to review more and check regularly to accumulate their own knowledge arsenal. When you need to give a gift, you can just take out one of them to show off. Just think about it, how cool is that?

3) When you encounter a problem, try to think of multiple ways to solve it. Over time, it will become a habit.

I still remember that a boss who was worth hundreds of millions of dollars once told me that whenever he thought about a problem, he would force himself to come up with at least nine solutions; nine solutions might be too difficult for most ordinary people, at least I can't do it.

However, always prepare three more plans when you encounter problems. This should be achievable for you and me if we work hard. It is a habit and a difficult habit to stick to. I hope we can all develop this good habit.

4) Communicate more with people from different departments/industries. They can always give you inspiration.

Everyone knows that we should communicate more, but it is often easier said than done. Most people gain experience from watching videos and reading articles online. However, there is a lot of information filtering cost. The most effective way is to communicate directly with relevant people. You have to believe that it is the accumulation of other people's years of experience. Just by chatting, you can gain other people's years of experience. Isn't it great?

3. How should companies help employees open up and create value for the business and the company?

1) Don’t be afraid of trial and error and be unwilling to give it a try

I often hear some bosses say that we are a startup and we cannot afford to make any mistakes, so we must try to take every step correctly. The starting point of this sentence is good, but if you follow this kind of thinking, employees will not be able to let go and work, and will only dare to do things according to regulations because that is absolutely safe.

Then, the process of starting a business is full of uncertainties, and there is never absolute security. If you do things for absolute safety from the beginning, wouldn’t it be safer to work in a state-owned enterprise instead of starting a business?

The so-called entrepreneurship is to cross the river by feeling the stones and try hard to find ways to open up a path. Without trial and error, there is no way to find the most suitable and correct one.

The boss should ensure that there are no problems with the general direction while allowing employees to make mistakes and try new things, which may create greater value for the company.

2) Be able to fully trust your employees. Trust is the key to solving problems.

In my opinion, trust in the workplace is really rare, and it is difficult for anyone to fully trust others. However, it is just like when we usually go to the company's expansion training: you stand high in the air with your back to your partner, and jump, and the only one who can catch you is your partner. However, many people can only do it in training, simply because it is a game.

In the workplace, without this kind of hypothetical game, as a leader or a boss, can you really do it and fully trust your employees?

It is inevitable to encounter various problems at work. Only if you truly trust your employees and treat them as your partners can you choose the most selfless and altruistic options when encountering problems. On the contrary, bosses often make selfish options. As a boss, doing so in the early stages may eventually lose the hearts of the people.

3) Don’t favor obedient employees over others, and try not to be the only one who has the final say. Try to let go and learn to listen to both sides.

I don’t know if it’s because everyone in the workplace has worked so hard for so long and finally made it to the leadership level. Wow, the vision here is so broad; wow, it feels so good to have the final say; wow, everyone is so obedient, which makes it easy for the author to manage…

What is said above is not a phenomenon limited to one person. In the past, it was believed that bureaucracy only appeared in state-owned enterprises. However, now, in the Internet industry, most managers are the type who have the final say and make decisions by themselves while their subordinates execute them.

Maybe the starting point is different. For example: My subordinates’ perspective is different from mine, and my vision is higher.

As a manager, try to let your employees try more and don’t always try to point out the direction yourself. Perhaps, that is not necessarily the best direction.

An obedient employee is not necessarily a good employee. Sometimes a disobedient employee may be more creative. Try to listen more, especially as a manager. The manager himself must be broad-minded enough to listen to both sides and achieve a win-win situation in the end.

Author: Weasel Secretary

Source: Weasel Secretary