How to increase Internet users!

When it comes to user growth , most people will think of fans and the increase in numbers first. This is what it seems on the surface, but you only see the surface of user growth and not the essence of user growth. The essence of user growth must be the growth of the value transfer chain. It is meaningless to pursue the growth of the number of fans without considering the value. The author of this article shares with you the experience gained from practical work, hoping to help you walk more steadily on the road of user growth!

1. What is user growth?

1. Classification of Internet operations

Internet operation positions are classified according to operation core, operation object, operation platform and operation level:

1) From the core of operation: it can be divided into several common categories such as product operation, content operation, user operation, event operation, channel operation, and the recently popular growth operation;

2) Based on the object of operation: divided into APP operation, community operation, new media operation, short video operation, membership operation, e-commerce operation, game operation, course operation, delivery operation, category operation, merchant operation, etc.;

3) Based on the operating platform: divided into SEO/SEM search engine operation, ASO app store operation, Tmall operation, JD operation, Pinduoduo operation, Weibo operation, WeChat operation, etc.;

4) Based on the operation level: divided into operation specialist, senior operation, operation supervisor, operation manager, operation director, COO, etc. Job levels will also be subdivided based on operational core and objects, such as user growth, senior user growth, user growth manager, user growth director, etc.

2. User growth

Pay attention to the entire user life cycle, take user acquisition as the primary goal, continue to pay attention to the entire process of subsequent activation, retention, conversion, dissemination and acquisition of new users, and continuously reduce customer acquisition costs through operational strategies.

1) Job Description: Investigate user needs, explore user pain points, establish a stable and continuous customer acquisition model, and focus on activation, retention, conversion and fission after acquiring users; continuously empower fission communication through various communication tools.

2) Core skills: How does an interviewer measure whether a user growth manager has the ability and qualifications? The most intuitive way is to see how much the candidate's work experience on his/her resume increases during the work process.

ü Have growth mindset and be proficient in user pain point analysis

ü Proficient in fission tools and growth techniques: third-party growth tools (all paid tool companies are responsible for); marketing rules of corresponding platforms; various growth fission modes and gameplay

ü Have data analysis capabilities: focus on growth data and continuously adjust operational decisions through data analysis;

ü Rich channel resources, seed user resources, KOL/KOC resources

2. What are the models for user growth and how to do it?

1. AARRR Pirate Growth Model

“How to acquire users effectively” is indeed one of the core concerns of user growth, but it does not completely represent growth. User growth will focus on the entire user life cycle LTV (from user acquisition, to activation, to retention, to recommendation, and then to monetization) and continue to focus on the complete growth loop. The most basic is the AARRR Pirate Growth Model.

1) Acquisition: It is the foundation of user growth. Failure to acquire users means that subsequent activation and retention are all in vain.

Ø Who are the target users?

Ø Where are the target users?

Ø How to acquire users? What are the user needs?

Ø How to acquire users at a lower cost?

For example, taking the online education business for junior high and high schools, students are learning users and parents are paying users. In the early childhood/primary school stage, students do not have the right to make their own choices. Parents usually have the decision-making and payment rights for their children's classes. The focus of online education companies' business operations in the early childhood/primary school stage is also on students' parents, rather than the students themselves. However, as students reach junior high and high school, this phenomenon changes: parents of junior high and high school students will not interfere too much with their children's right to choose education. If junior high and high school students think the courses are good, parents' willingness to pay for the courses will reach more than 90%. In the junior and senior high school business, students will no longer be ignored because they are not a paying group, but the traffic of junior and senior high school students also has important operational significance.

At the same time, QQ, which focuses on social diversity, is popular among young users before graduating from college, while WeChat, which focuses on simple social interaction, is the main social tool for more young people after work. Among QQ’s 650 million daily active users, 80% are concentrated among young people born after 2000. Therefore, compared with WeChat, QQ's traffic is more accurate.

2) Activation: Only with good experience and sufficient value can users remain active.

To activate users, you need to think about two issues from the user's perspective:

Ø If I were a user, what would my actual experience be like?

What value can it give me?

3) Retention: To improve retention, we need to investigate the real needs of users, meet their needs as much as possible to increase the cost of user abandonment, and continuously improve product value to improve retention.

Ø Increase user abandonment cost

Ø Do everything we can to meet user needs

Ø Increase the value of products to users

For example, the QQ group operators of leading online education companies will update learning materials every day to let users see the value of the QQ group and thus ensure the group retention rate.

4) Revenue: It is necessary to obtain revenue. In the Internet age, almost all products are for the purpose of profit. The essence of how to make profit is to establish a product business model, that is, how to convert users and enhance the value of users to the product.

Ø The essence of a product is business

Ø Products without commercial interests are difficult to maintain balance

5) Referral (viral communication): Viral communication, also known as self-propagation, refers to the process of achieving explosive growth in users through word-of-mouth promotion such as sharing and interaction in online and offline social networks.

The key to achieving viral transmission is:

Ø Do you understand user psychology?

Ø Whether it solves user needs

Ø Whether the user experience exceeds expectations

This will arouse users' desire to share and lead to dissemination or fission, so that Internet products can achieve the maximum diffusion effect at the lowest cost.

The rise of many brands is due to word-of-mouth promotion. For example, Haidilao has raised the standards of its hotpot service, providing customers with an experience beyond their expectations. Customers also voluntarily share this wonderful experience on social platforms, further building online reputation and thus achieving explosive growth in users.

2. Fission Growth Model

1) Channel terms:

① Reach: How many users saw your message (linked to initial exposure).

②Exposure: The total number of people in the channels covered by your message (linked to initial exposure).

③C0 value (seed user/initial exposure): It can be understood as "target user" or user channel. The number of seed users determines the success or failure of the fission effect. If you want to achieve good results, you need to obtain as many seed users as possible.

Seed user supplement: Seed users must be users who have direct or indirect demand for your product.

For example, if the product being promoted is a high school Chinese tutoring course, the corresponding user groups are high school students and their parents. However, if you promote high school courses to college students, users who do not meet the product requirements do not satisfy the conditions of being seed users, and fission will not be effective.

2) User action nouns

① Clicks: How many users clicked on your message (hook participation rate).

② Participation: How many users participated in your fission activity (hook participation rate).

③ Participation rate: actual number of participants/total number of clicks.

④ Sharing and bringing in people: How many users enter through sharing or invitation (linked to the bringing in rate and K value).

⑤Carrying rate (K value: fission coefficient): K=I*Conv

I: Invitation represents the number of invitations sent by each user (sharing rate)

Conv: Conversion rate refers to the success probability of each invitation (conversion rate)

K value: K value is often used to express the viral coefficient. K value generally represents how many new users each existing user can bring.

Suppose in an event, you sent invitations to 10 people, I=10, and 2 of these 10 people accepted your invitation, then Conv=20%, K=10*20%=2 people, which means that each initial user can bring 2 new people.

When K=1, it is equivalent to one user bringing one new user, which means there is still growth, but the growth is relatively slow. When the K value is less than 1, fission has limited propagation. In this case, after a period of time, the number of new users gradually decreases until it becomes 0, and fission will completely stop growing.

K-value community fission version: the number of people joining the group through invitation/channel (seed users).

It can be seen that in different scenarios, the calculation method of K value corresponds to different indicators. Although when K value <1, the fission propagation is limited. However, in the community fission model, when the fission K value is greater than 0.8, it is quite excellent. 0.5/0.6 is the normal level. Going lower requires continuous polishing and optimization.

⑥CT value: It means the propagation cycle, which refers to the time period after a seed user loses the ability to invite new users after a round of propagation. The shorter the CT value, the better the fission effect.

3. Build a closed loop of private domain traffic

When we shop on Taobao, JD.com, Meituan, etc., these all belong to the public domain traffic pool, and all customers who visit can be called public domain traffic. After these traffic enters the platform, they can visit different stores and buy different products; while private domain traffic refers to personal independent traffic, which is private or enterprise-specific and cannot be shared with others. It can directly reach the user's channel at any time and frequency.

The advantage of private domain traffic is that it can have an impact on users without any usage cost, or it can have a stronger impact on users at a lower cost than other methods. Currently, the more common ones, such as WeChat public accounts, WeChat communities, personal accounts of WeChat merchants, QQ groups used by students for practical operations, QQ personal IP numbers, etc., all belong to private domain traffic.

The private traffic closed loop refers to stringing together multiple private traffic pools and connecting users together. For example, users can access information in your QQ group and see your push notifications on your QQ personal IP number.

For example, the public domain is like the ocean, which is full of fish; while the private domain is the pond and stream in your home. To raise fish, you must first catch the fish from the sea and bring them to your pond; to raise more fish, you must expand the pond; to form a closed-loop ecosystem, you must use streams to connect different ponds so that fish can swim between different ponds.

4. HOOK model: Activating and retaining users

Only when we guide new users to complete our designated actions and realize the core value of our products, so that users use the products for a long time, can we finally achieve the purpose of retention. Otherwise, if users fail to meet their expectations after using the products, it will cause user loss. So how can we effectively activate and retain users?

In his book "Addicted", Nir Eyal proposed the HOOK model: it is divided into four steps, corresponding to Trigger, Action, Reward, and Investment.

1) Trigger:

It can also be said to be bait. The trigger mechanism is generally divided into external trigger and internal trigger. External trigger can be understood as the user passively receiving information. Common external triggers include: PUSH reminders in the notification bar of mobile phone APP, email or some well-known celebrity recommendations.

For example, live streaming sales are very popular now. Sometimes if we don’t watch the live streaming, we may not even think of buying those things. In other words, if the user was not originally aware that he or she had this need, but discovered this need under external influence, then this is an external trigger mechanism.

The internal mechanism is driven by the users themselves. For example, we don’t want to go out to buy groceries on weekdays, but it’s lunch time and we need to buy groceries. If a certain product can meet the user’s need for door-to-door delivery, the user will autonomously enter the internal trigger mechanism.

2) Action:

Triggering users to use our products or enter our private traffic pool through internal and external motivations does not mean that users will definitely use our products. It is possible that users enter out of impulse or curiosity. At this time, we need to guide users to take some actions in the second stage of the HOOK model, which is Action.

Our definition of action here is actually to allow users to use the core functions of our product and perform expected operations. Only in this way can new users truly feel the value of the product to them and be converted from new users into active users.

We have a model for user behavior called the Fogg model, as shown in the figure below. The horizontal axis represents ability requirements and the vertical axis represents motivation.

The Fogg model has a formula: B (behavior) = M (motivation) * A (ability) * T trigger factor.

In other words, the higher the motivation, the lower the required ability, the stronger the inducing mechanism, and the more likely the user will take action. To get users to take action, it is necessary to increase their motivation while reducing the ability requirements.

For example, when a new user downloads the Tik Tok app, after the user opens the app, the first thing that pops up is not the common website or app that requires you to log in and register, but the short video page that is presented directly. And after watching a video, it will automatically slide to the next video in an infinite loop. When a user wants to make comments or forward messages, the user has basically become an active user. Only then will the Douyin APP prompt you to register and log in.

The advantage of doing this is that it minimizes the user's ability to meet their needs. Users often dislike a lot of cumbersome registration steps. If users are asked to register before experiencing the core functions of the product, it will cause user loss.

3) Reward:

In addition to the product itself being able to provide a good user experience and value, if it can also provide users with more potential rewards in various forms to maintain user interest, then the user's desire to use the product will be stronger.

For example, after completing certain actions, users can immediately receive some kind of reward. At this time, users can get a sense of satisfaction as quickly as possible, thereby increasing the stickiness of the product and achieving the purpose of self-propagation.

4) Investment:

It refers to all behaviors that make users use the product again, including time, energy, social relationships, honors, money, etc.

The purpose of getting users invested is to make them unknowingly enter the cycle of our HOOK model again. When users pay their time, energy, and even money for this product, this investment will make users dependent on our products.

For example, playing Honor of Kings takes a lot of time, and we may even spend money to recharge some skins. If a similar game appears at this time, we will not easily choose other games because of the sunk costs we have invested in Honor of Kings. This is one of the reasons why Honor of Kings makes users addicted.

HOOK model summary:

The first step is triggering: getting users interested.

The second step is action: reduce the requirements on user capabilities.

The third step is Reward: users get feedback through their actions.

The fourth step is Investment: Keep users invested and unwilling to leave.

Finally, a simple example is used to illustrate the four links: a store in a shopping mall puts a very beautiful bag at the door to attract users (trigger). The user enters the store and finds that the bag is not expensive, then takes a photo and posts it to WeChat Moments (action). Friends all say it looks good (reward). At this time, the user buys a lot of clothes and shoes to match the bag, and ultimately the user is reluctant to throw away the bag (investment).

5. SOP (Standard Operating Procedure)

Describe the standard operating procedures and requirements for an event in a unified format to guide and standardize daily work. As the basic thinking model for Internet operations, SOP has appeared in the job responsibilities of Internet operations in major companies.

Large-scale e-commerce festivals such as Double 11 and 618 each year also involve standardized processes:

Campaign period (10.20-10.30)

Warm-up period (11.1-11.10)

Outbreak period (11.11)

Return period (11.11-11.15)

As shown in the figure, what activities to hold, what advertisements to place, and what to do in each period are all SOP processes that large companies have fixed long ago.

In layman's terms, SOP is a product manual that records in detail key information such as what to do and when, how to do it, how long to do it, etc., so as to refine and quantify key control points. After getting the SOP, we can quickly sort out the work flow according to its guidance, grasp the key points of the work, and quickly get into work.

SOP ensures the continuity of daily work. Carrying out work in accordance with the relevant provisions of SOP can avoid major mistakes. Even if mistakes occur, they can be quickly checked through SOP to identify the problems and make improvements. At the same time, SOP itself is an accumulation of knowledge and experience. Through repeated optimization of SOP, past experience can be accumulated and passed on.

In daily work, in order to correctly disassemble the SOP, the standard SOP generally contains six elements (5W1H):

• What are you doing?
• Detailed steps to perform this task (HOW)
• Sequence of steps Specific time and specific conditions (WHEN)
• The manifestation of each action during the execution of the task (WHO)
• Where are the resources needed to perform the task?
• Explain the reason for doing this step and task (WHY)

6. 5 growth strategies based on the user life cycle

In addition to knowing how to acquire, retain, and activate customers, etc., user growth also requires us to return to the users themselves and adopt different methods for each cycle of the user's life cycle in order to increase the effective user growth rate, improve retention rate, and reduce the company's customer acquisition costs throughout the entire activity process.

For a growth and new user acquisition activity, we can divide the users in the activity cycle into five stages: introduction stage, growth stage, maturity stage, dormancy stage and churn stage, which are also the five life cycles of users.

1) Introduction period

First of all, during the introduction period, what needs to be done is to improve ROI (return on investment). When a company is initially attracting new customers, the first strategy is to use the right channels and the right creativity.

The above mentioned the accumulation of private domain traffic. Only the accumulation of early users can drive the execution of later fission. Quantitative change drives qualitative change. With more user traffic and sufficient channels, you will not feel difficult to promote and publicize. You will eventually see amazing changes in data, laying a solid foundation for the execution of fission activities.

Secondly, finding the right channel will also help us promote it very well, and creativity requires us to have suitable fission ideas, such as posters that can hit the user's pain points to fission a certain number of groups at 0 cost, suitable promotional language, and a smooth group entry process that we have designed.

But one thing is that when the company's products are not very perfect, it is not suitable to promote them blindly on a large scale. The most important thing is to dig out the core functions of our products, promote them to specific users who have strong demand for the products, continuously provide feedback from these seed users, and help continuously improve the products. If you forcefully promote an imperfect product on a large scale, it will not provide users with a good product experience, but will instead erode the target users' trust in the product, which will be counterproductive.

2) Growth stage

By attracting new users and multiple iterations of the product, the product now has a certain user base and can be promoted on a large scale, thus entering the stage of user growth.

At this stage, the product’s main core goal is to get more users to use the product, madly increase exposure, and increase the number of users.

At the same time, this stage is also one of the stages where users are prone to rapid loss. If you cannot master the evolution of the product during the period of increasing fan base, then attracting more new users will be useless. The strategy at this time is to quickly highlight the core value of the product and improve user retention rate through various means.

For example, after downloading Luckin Coffee, new users will receive many coupons, exclusive for new users, free drinks for new users, etc. After downloading, users will not only know that this is an APP that makes coffee, but will also receive welfare benefits at different stages as they use the APP. Luckin has achieved the goal of retaining new users while attracting new users and has gained a good reputation.

The methods and means of growth can be considered from the following seven aspects:

• WeChat system (H5 communication, red envelope sharing, distribution, etc.)
• Content and information traffic generation (share products to get related information for free)
• Social media communication (seize hot events for marketing promotion)
• Share product value (WeChat book sharing can get weekly cards, Pinduoduo group buying, etc.)
• Advertising (offline and online)
• SEO/ASO (improve the search ranking of the website and App Store)
• Create events to allow users to spread the word offline

3) Maturity

After reaching the mature stage, our main goal is user retention. After two stages of growth and iteration of product functions, optimization and user research are our main goals during this period.

On the surface, operators see retention figures and user activity, but the core is actually to improve user satisfaction and loyalty.

There are five strategic methods to improve retention during this period:

• New user tutorial (to help users get started with the product faster and better)
• Lower the threshold for using the service (allowing more potential users to use the product)
• User incentives (stimulating users to use the product more and promote the product)
• User stratification and screening (fine-grained operations for different users)
• Triggering of services (recalling inactive users)

User retention is the lifeline for most products. It is a matter of life and death. Therefore, we need to improve user retention from a multi-dimensional perspective. The essence of retention is to exceed user expectations. Many products have experienced the death line, that is, after rapid growth, the retention rate is very low or even the product ends its life cycle.

The longer the user retention time, the more valuable it is to the business. When the retention rate is high, the revenue will also be high. Therefore, some large companies now spend a lot of time perfecting the user experience and user retention strategies.

To a large extent, a good retention rate can greatly reduce the cost of acquiring customers. In this era of crazy traffic, the cost of acquiring customers is getting higher and higher, soaring from a few yuan to dozens of yuan. So even if you invest huge marketing dollars to acquire customers, it will all be in vain if you can’t keep them. Therefore, user retention is the key to the success of a product.

4) Dormant period:

When a product reaches its dormant period after its peak, a considerable number of apps seem to have good daily active users, but in fact they have a large number of silent users, and the lack of effective awakening has led to increasingly serious user loss.

There are many factors that influence silent users, and it is difficult to determine why users become silent. What we need to do is to guide silent users to the growth stage as much as possible and avoid loss.

Let me give you an example here, such as Pinduoduo's silent user retention. Many people may rarely use Pinduoduo or open the APP seldom after downloading it. Pinduoduo also has many new user retention activities, which are widely displayed in WeChat Moments and social networks. While attracting new users, it will definitely stimulate silent users to awaken lost users.

For example, Didi or Luckin Coffee’s old users can get coupons when they invite new users, and the discounts are also very large. In fact, for these silent users, they can also be encouraged as new users, and every user should be treated seriously.

Although it is difficult to awaken all silent users, we can find high-value groups that are easy to awaken through event analysis, funnel analysis, path analysis, etc., and reach them through designed copywriting and incentives, and through push and SMS.

For some apps, the value of a single user is relatively high. We can also use user portraits to analyze which media silent users appear in, and attract their activity by placing corresponding advertisements, such as Gap’s SMS distribution promotion. These are all effective means for us to recall users.

5) Churn period

The last stage is the user churn period. Users in this period can also be profiled and recalled. However, for users in the churn period, the cost of recalling them is actually huge.

The lost user portrait is the action guide in the lost user recall system. Only when the lost user portrait is portrayed in detail and is more representative, the recall success rate will be higher. The following mind map is the basis for how to portray user portraits:

The strategy formulated during this period is to give users a reason to use the product again from the user's perspective. It must be clear that churned users are different from new users. They are a group of people who have used the product but later no longer use it for some reason, that is, a group of people who have a poor experience with the product or lack demand.

They are not completely ignorant about the product and may even have experienced many of the product's drawbacks. How to make users recognize the product's value again is the focus of the recall work.

The following 8 solutions are currently commonly used user recall methods:

• Short message
• mail
• push
• WeChat Notification
• Telephone follow-up
• Gift recall
• Welfare recall
• Activity recall

Summarize

Throughout the user lifecycle, what can operations personnel do:

1) Introduction phase: Improve ROI, collect user feedback and give it to product managers to iterate products

2) Growth stage: Rapidly expand publicity, increase users through various means, and let users quickly experience the core functions of the product

3) Mature stage: Improving user retention and activity

4) Dormant period: Accurately awaken silent users through user segmentation

5) Churn period: Through the analysis of lost user portraits, targeted user recall is carried out, and from the product perspective, whether product solutions need to be improved is considered.

In summary, these are measures that can be taken precisely at each stage of operations. Only by conducting in-depth research on users and understanding user behavior can we truly understand and formulate different growth strategies based on the five stages of the user life cycle. Only by maximizing efficiency at each stage can we not only rely on attracting new users to increase the number of users of our company's products when the cost of acquiring customers is so high today, but also fundamentally improve the user stickiness of our products through methods such as user retention and old customers bringing in new ones, and ultimately achieve product success.

3. Commonly used Internet terms

The following are terms that are often encountered in Internet companies from the five aspects of products, operations, channels, content, and marketing:

1. Private domain traffic

Other terms: independent traffic, self-media.

Definition: Users who can be freely reused without paying and can be reached at any time, and are deposited in public accounts, WeChat groups, personal WeChat accounts, Toutiao accounts, Douyin and other self-media channels. Compared with public traffic platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, and Baidu, it belongs to the merchants' "private assets."

Ps: In layman's terms, private domain traffic means that companies think the cost of acquiring public domain traffic is too expensive, so they direct their own traffic to WeChat, QQ and other ecosystems that can be reached at any time for storage, in order to seek more benefits.

2. Growth Hacking

Other theories: fission growth, viral acquisition

Definition: Growth Hacking is about achieving explosive growth at low cost. Entrepreneurial teams use products or technical means to obtain spontaneous and rapid growth based on data analysis. Achieve massive user growth and ultimately increase revenue in the fastest, lowest-cost and most efficient way.

Ps: In layman's terms, it is to acquire customers at low cost through a series of means

3. SOP

Another way to say it: process-based.

Definition: Standard operating procedure is to describe the standard operating steps and requirements of an event in a unified format to guide and regulate daily work. The essence of SOP is to quantify the details.

Ps: In layman's terms, SOP is to refine and quantify the key nodes of a process, and is widely used in industries with clear indicators such as online education.

4. Middle Office

Other terms: data center, business center

Definition: The middle platform is a system that can realize data exchange and enhancement. This system can support various forms of business at the same time. Such a system can not only avoid the waste caused by repeated development, but also greatly improve management efficiency.

Ps: In layman's terms, it is a set of Sop processes applied to enterprises, which reduces repetitive processes and effectively improves the efficiency of enterprise business and data processing.

5. Social e-commerce

Other terms: group buying e-commerce.

Definition: Social commerce is a new derivative model of e-commerce. It uses the communication channels of social networking sites, SNS, Weibo, social media, and online media to assist the purchase and sale of goods through social interaction, user-generated content, and other means.

Ps: To put it in plain words, the company has carried out an industrial upgrade of traditional WeChat businesses. The WeChat account of each seller developed is a "shop owner", who makes profits by posting to Moments and developing downlines in the WeChat ecosystem!

6. Closed loop

Other terms: closed-loop marketing

Definition: A closed loop is a cyclical model that provides corresponding links to meet a series of related consumption needs of users one by one. Each link relies on and influences each other, and can serve as an individual support point or collaborate.

Ps: To put it simply, it is about how to ensure that the project process can be self-consistent. For example, the commercial closed loop of a product is inseparable from traffic-conversion-retention-word of mouth, and the closed loop of growth is also inseparable from attracting new customers-activation-retention-conversion-dissemination. The closed loop should not be fixed, but should be adjusted flexibly according to different businesses.

7. Sinking users

Other opinions: Third- and fourth-tier users

Definition: The network that was originally sold only in cities has spread and penetrated into the grassroots level of rural areas. It is a new marketing strategy and is targeted at rural areas with more developed economies.

Ps: In plain words, businesses have lost the traffic dividend of users in first- and second-tier cities. More Internet companies are looking to third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities to carry out activities and attract those users who are sensitive to interests and have obvious characteristics, so as to seek another way.

8. New Retail

Other sayings: Internet + Retail

Definition: New retail refers to individuals and enterprises relying on the Internet and using advanced technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence to deliver the goods consumers need in the exact quantity and in the shortest possible time, thereby minimizing the cost of the entire system while meeting service levels. Upgrade and transform the production, circulation and sales processes of goods, thereby reshaping the business structure and ecosystem, and creating a new retail model that deeply integrates online services, offline experiences and modern logistics.

Ps: To put it simply, through big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies, users are no longer limited to online shopping. The platform concentrates data on all surrounding goods to give users a better shopping experience!

9. S2B2C model

Other terms: social e-commerce model, membership-based e-commerce, distribution system.

Definition: S2B2C is a new e-commerce marketing model that brings together suppliers to empower channel merchants and jointly serve customers. In S2B2C, S stands for the big supplier, B refers to the channel dealer, and C stands for the customer.

Ps: To put it simply, the distribution platform (S) lowers the threshold for small B shop owners (B) to open stores at zero cost, and sells goods to their social circles through the small B shop owners (C).

The following are terms that operations personnel often come into contact with. Other job positions in brackets indicate that the term is also widely used in that position:

10. KOL (operation)

Other terms: Internet celebrities, big names, top users

Definition: A Key Opinion Leader (KOL) is a person who has more and more accurate product information, is accepted or trusted by relevant groups, and has a greater influence on the purchasing behavior of the group.

Ps: To put it in plain words, it means having a large number of fans and having a great influence on the purchasing behavior of the user group! Although the advertising cost is more expensive than KOC, the fan base is larger.

11. KOC (operation)

Other terms: Xiao V, group owner, WeChat businessman

Definition: Key Opinion Consumer. KOC is different from KOL in that it creates content in a certain vertical field for a long time to gain vertical marketing power. KOC cannot even be called an opinion leader, but it has a greater influence on decision-making among vertical user groups and can drive purchasing behavior of other potential consumers.

Ps: In plain words, KOC is a consumer who can influence his or her friends and fans to make consumption behaviors. Although it has fewer fans and less influence than KOL, it is more vertical and cheaper to advertise.

12. AARRR Model (Operation, Product)

Other ways to say it: User growth model

Definition: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, and Refer are the abbreviations of the five words, which correspond to the five important links in the life cycle of a mobile application. They are: acquiring users, increasing activity, improving retention rate, generating revenue, and self-propagation.

Ps: The initial “template” of the user growth model

13. ARPU/ARPPU/LTV (operation, product, channel)

Other terms: Revenue per order

Definition: ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), which is the average revenue per user. This indicator calculates the average revenue generated for the app by each active user over a certain period of time. ARPU = app revenue/app active users.

ARPPU (Average Revenue Per Paying User) is the average revenue per paying user. This indicator assesses the average revenue generated for the app by each paying user within a certain period of time. ARPPU = app benefit/app paying user.

LTV (Life Time Value) - User Lifetime Value: The lifetime value of a user, which refers to the average estimated value of the total gross profit contributed by the user during his or her life cycle.

Ps: Several key indicators to measure user value within the product.

14. Funnel Model (Operation, Product)

Other terms: User Path Analysis

Definition: There are multiple links from the starting point to the end point. Each link will cause user loss, which decreases successively. Each step will have a conversion rate.

Ps: To put it in plain words, from display, click, visit, consultation, to order generation, there is loss in each step of conversion. Monitor each step to reduce the loss, so as to increase the order rate.

15. User life cycle (operation, product)

Other ways to say it: The total time users stay in the product

Definition: It refers to the entire period of time from when a user uses a product to when he or she completely leaves the product. It is generally divided into the introduction period, growth period, maturity period, dormancy period and churn period.

Ps: To put it simply, your experience of a product goes from downloading to activeness to paid conversion to not playing much and finally uninstalling. It is the life cycle of a user. The life cycle of each user is different. An average value captured through big data represents the average user life cycle of the product.

16. IP operation (operation, content, marketing)

Other theories: personal IP, copyright operation, fan economy

Definition: IP (Intellectual Property) operation refers to the continuous attempts at more operational methods based on the type, characteristics and user attributes of the work, so that the IP has a large number of loyal fans during the creation stage. When the IP matures to a certain stage, it can begin commercial explorations such as licensing. Through animation, games, stage plays, online dramas, peripherals and other forms, it can develop more and wider paying users, verify the value of the IP, and further attract fans from more fields.

Ps: To put it simply, it means to purposefully and rhythmically incubate your own unique IP on the Internet (TikTok, Weibo, video bloggers, new media, etc.), have a large number of fans, and then commercialize and monetize it to make a profit.

17. A&B testing (operation, product)

Other terms: version testing

Definition: AB testing is to create two (A/B) or more (A/B/n) versions for a web or app interface or process, and let visitor groups (target groups) with the same (similar) composition randomly access these versions in the same time dimension, collect user experience data and business data from each group, and finally analyze and evaluate the best version and officially adopt it.

Ps: In plain words, an activity tests data through multiple schemes, and finally adopts the scheme that works best. Put aside subjective prejudices and be data-oriented.

The following are the key terms related to channels:

18. ASO (channel, operation)

Other sayings: inflating the volume and inflating the app store rankings

Definition: ASO (App store Optimization) is the process of improving your app’s ranking in various app stores/market rankings and search results. ASO optimization is to use the search and ranking rules of the App Store to make the APP easier for users to search or see.

Ps: To put it simply, through various means such as ranking optimization and recommendation windows, users can more easily see our products in the application market and download them for use.

19. SEO&SEM (channels, operations)

Other terms: paid promotion, ranking optimization, bidding ranking

Definition: SEO (Search Engine Optimization): translated into Chinese as search engine optimization. Improve the natural ranking of the website in the relevant search engines by utilizing the search engine rules

SEM includes SEO, paid ranking, targeted advertising, and paid inclusion to improve product display positions in search channels.

Ps: In plain words, SEO improves search rankings through free means, while SEM improves search rankings through paid means.

20. ROI (product, operation, channel, content, marketing)

Other terms: investment-to-production ratio

Definition: (Return on Investment) Input-output ratio refers to the value that should be returned by the amount of resources invested.

Ps: To put it in plain words, you get as much return as you invest. In Internet companies, ROI is estimated in advance to measure how much resources you have invested in an activity or something you are about to do, and how much value it will produce for the company as a measurement indicator. Measure your personal performance through actual data afterwards. A high ROI means sustainability, while a low ROI means it is inappropriate.

The following are key Internet terms related to marketing:

21. Brand-effect integration (marketing)

Other ways of saying it: Product promotion conversion

Definition: A concept proposed by traffic pool thinking in recent years, which states that advertising and marketing not only requires brand exposure but also conversion effects.

Ps: In addition to brand exposure, conversion effect is also important.

22. Scenario Marketing (Marketing, Operation)

Other terms: situational marketing

Definition: Based on the behavioral paths and online scenarios of netizens inputting, searching and obtaining information, a new online marketing model with "interest guidance + massive exposure + portal marketing" as the clues has been constructed.

Ps: Through a lot of exposure, coupled with corresponding scenarios to occupy your mind during marketing, you can eventually achieve your transaction goals!

23. CTA behavior awakening (marketing, operation)

Other terms: behavioral triggers

Definition: A call to action for consumers. Give consumers compelling reasons to buy quickly, rather than delaying the decision.

Ps: To put it in plain words, when the user is hesitating whether to buy or not, you give the user a discount, and then use bait pricing for comparison, making him feel that he has made a profit!

The following are the key Internet terms related to the product:

24. PRD (Product)

Other terms: Product design and development guidelines

Definition: A product requirement document is a specific implementation plan for a single functional unit. Developers can learn the logic of the entire product based on PRD; testers can build use cases based on PRD; project managers can split work packages based on PRD and assign developers; interaction designers can design interaction details based on PRD.

Ps: To put it in plain words, it is necessary to ensure the readability of the document and there should be no ambiguity. From concept to drawing, from design to development, it all depends on it.

25. BRD (Product)

Other terms: Project Description

Definition: Business Requirements Document is a document (report) that describes product requirements based on business goals or values. Its core purpose is to be used as an important basis for decision-making and evaluation by senior management of the company before the product is put into research and development. Its contents involve market analysis, sales strategies, profit forecasts, etc. It is usually a presentation document for discussion among decision-makers. It is generally short and concise and does not contain product details.

Ps: It is generally used to present projects to bosses or investors, without specific details.

26. MVP (Product)

Other terms: Beta

Definition: Minimum Viable Product, which means a product that demonstrates the core concept as much as possible at the lowest cost. The product team can collect as much user feedback and data as possible through it to evaluate the benefits of the product.

Ps: There are express versions derived from various products, such as Weibo Express Version and Weibo International Version.

27. Agile Development (Product)

Other ways of saying it: small steps + continuous iteration

Definition: An iterative, step-by-step approach to software development that focuses on evolving user needs. In agile development, software projects are divided into multiple sub-projects at the initial stage of construction. The results of each sub-project are tested and have the characteristics of being visible, integrable, and operational. In other words, it is to divide a large project into multiple small projects that are interrelated but can also run independently, and complete them separately. During this process, the software is always in a usable state.

Ps: Products and development are in the same small area to prevent developers from being lazy and not working.

28. PLC (Product)

Other terms: Product life cycle

Definition: Product Life Cycle (PLC) is the market life of a product, that is, the entire process from the beginning of a new product entering the market to being eliminated by the market. This process actually goes through a stage from "start-up, growth, maturity to decline".

Ps: To put it in plain words, a product has four stages: start-up, growth, maturity, and decline. The strategies in each stage are different. Rapid verification and development are required to try to extend the maturity period.

29. User portrait (product, operation)

Other terms: user tags, user data, user roles

Definition: User portraits are data about the attributes of your fan base, such as gender, education, occupation, income level, phone model, interests and hobbies, etc. It is based on the various data left by users on the Internet, which are collected actively or passively and finally processed into a series of tags.

Ps: In plain words, your daily online behavior will be recorded historically, and merchants will label you based on your user behavior data to refine their operations.

30. UCD (Product)

Other terms: Human-centered design

Definition: (User Centered Design) is a design thinking mode that emphasizes user-centered design. It is a design mode that takes user experience as the center of design decision-making during the design process and emphasizes user priority.

Ps: During the design process, user experience should be prioritized. Everything else comes second

31. User Research (Product, Operation)

Other terms: user survey, data analysis, data application

Definition: User research refers to the study of users' task operation characteristics, perceptual characteristics, and cognitive psychological characteristics, so that users' actual needs become the guide for product design, making your product more in line with users' habits, experience, and expectations. It is based on deeper behavioral mining under user portraits.

In the field of Internet, user research is mainly used in two aspects:

For new products, user research is generally used to identify user needs and help designers select the design direction of the product.

For products that have already been released, user research is generally used to discover product problems and help designers optimize the product experience.

Ps: By studying some detailed behaviors of users, we can improve the product better.

32. Push (product, operation)

Other terms: personalized push, big data recommendation

Definition: Push is the abbreviation of App notification push, which is divided into in-site Push, local Push and full Push. Through big data, the user's "personality" and "product, service, content" attributes are accurately matched, and then through precise Push, the path for information to reach users is shortened, reducing user churn, and increasing product activity and user recall through Push.

Ps: In plain words, we are labeled based on our daily online behaviors and specific push content is sent to us.

The following are key Internet terms related to content:

33. We-media matrix (content)

Other sayings: Multi-platform operation

Definition: Taking the brand or product of an enterprise or individual as the core, registering and operating on multiple self-media platforms, opening up publicity channels on multiple platforms, and achieving the purpose of collective exposure.

Ps: To put it in plain words, all major platforms are registered and operated, and then collectively exposed and promoted.

34. MCN (Content)

Other definitions: Internet celebrity incubator, agency

Definition: Internet celebrity incubation (abbreviation of Multi-Channel Network) is an abbreviation of multi-channel network. Now it refers to an organization that has the ability and resources to help content producers complete promotion and monetization.

Ps: Internet celebrities focus on creation, and leave promotion and monetization to the agencies

35. Build character (content, operations)

Other terms: virtual persona

Definition: Creating a persona is to humanize the account, brand, and product, thereby narrowing the distance with users.

Ps: To put it in plain words, it means to create a persona for yourself and simulate the real user of the persona.

36. Content e-commerce (content, operation)

Other definitions: content-driven sales, soft advertising

Definition: refers to inducing readers' purchasing interest through high-quality content. Redefine advertising with content and shape a new e-commerce ecosystem.

Ps: It’s not so direct advertising, but it uses various contents to induce readers to buy.

Growth is not limited to acquiring users through low-cost means. Reasonable use of advertising is also one of the main means within the controllable range of ROI. The following are several common advertising billing models in Internet companies:

37. CPA—Cost Per Action

This pricing method is based on the actual effect of advertising, that is, charging according to pre-set conversion goals, without limiting the amount of advertising.

38. CPS—Cost Per Sales

Cost per sale, which calculates advertising fees based on the actual number of products sold. This type of advertising is more suitable for shopping, shopping guide, and URL navigation websites, which require accurate traffic to bring about conversions.

39. CPC—Cost Per Click

Cost per click, the fee charged for each click on an online ad, is the most common form of pricing in the online advertising world.

40. CPT—Cost Per Time

Based on time cost, this method is characterized by charging according to the user's usage time or usage cycle. It can fundamentally eliminate traffic brushing and activation cheating, and is one of the most authentic and effective marketing methods.

41. CPM—Cost Per Mille

Cost Per Thousand Impressions is the cost per thousand impressions; the advertiser pays for its ad to be displayed 1,000 times.

In Internet companies, everything is data-oriented, and the data indicators of many products are also the focus of attention. The following are some Internet terms related to data.

42. DAU—Daily Active User

The number of daily active users is the number of users who have logged in or used a product within one day (the statistical day) (excluding users who have logged in repeatedly).

43. WAU—–Weekly Active Users

The number of users who have logged into the product within seven days. Count the number of users who have logged in or used a product within a week (statistical day) (excluding users who have logged in repeatedly).

44. MAU—Monthly Active User

Monthly active users count the number of users who have logged in or used a product within one month (statistical date) (excluding users who have logged in repeatedly).

45. DOU—–Day Old User

Daily old players refer to old players who logged into the game on the same day, and refer to users who were not newly added on the same day.

46. ​​DNU—–Day New User

New users per day, indicating the number of new users on that day

47. ACU—Average concurrent users

Average number of people online at the same time

48. PCU—Peak concurrent users

Maximum number of people online at the same time

49. UV—Unique Visitor

Unique visits can be understood as how many people have viewed the page

50. PV—Page View

Page views can be understood as the total number of times a page has been viewed. Each time a user visits a web page on the website, it is recorded once. The number of visits to the same page by the user is accumulated.

The following are two common terms for evaluating employee performance in Internet companies:

51. KPI—Key Performance Indicator

Key performance indicators are one of the methods of corporate performance appraisal. It simplifies the evaluation of performance into the assessment of several key indicators, takes the key indicators as the evaluation criteria, and compares the performance of employees with the key indicators.

52. OKR (Objectives and Key Results)

That is, the objectives and key results method, which is a set of management tools and methods for clarifying and tracking goals and their completion status. The main goal of OKR is to clarify the "goals" of the company and the team and to identify the measurable "key results" for achieving each goal. Employees work together and focus on making measurable contributions.

The difference between KPI assessment and OKR assessment for employees:

OKR Assessment: “What I want to do”

KPI Assessment: “What I am required to do”

Although the understandings are different, both emphasize having goals and the need for execution. The idea of ​​OKR is to set goals first, then clarify the results of the goals, then quantify the results, and finally assess the completion status.

The idea of ​​KPI is to first determine the organizational goals, then break down the organizational goals into personal goals, and then quantify the personal goals.

Author: Henry

Source: Henry