Fission = user growth? Three thousand words to help you understand growth again

Many people think that fission is user growth, right? What's so difficult about this? In fact, user growth is far from as simple as imagined. Fission is just one of the methods. In addition, there are many other methods and techniques that everyone doesn't know about.

1. Fission and growth?

Many people who are new to operations have the illusion that fission means growth. But in fact, this is the easiest mistake a newcomer makes. User growth is not that simple. Fission is just a way to increase the number of users.

The issues involved in user growth are far broader than you think. To summarize it in one simple sentence, user growth is not only about caring about the number of users, but also the value of each user, and also where the users come from. Why are you here? What is the value growth path for an individual user? And how to reduce user churn, etc.

As the demographic dividend disappears and user acquisition becomes increasingly difficult, refined user operations have become particularly important in the entire business. How to acquire users efficiently and how to improve user conversion rates are all issues that JD needs to consider when it comes to user growth.

1. What is user growth?

Currently, the definition of growth hacker in the market basically includes the following three parts:

1. Be familiar with various common user growth methods, tools and means on the market and be able to quote them;
2. Discover new growth opportunities through data analysis, technology, and other means combined with product features or platform attributes;
3. Be able to build a long-term, stable and effective growth engine for a company or a product.

How about it? Are you confused after reading this definition? !

For a novice in operations, it is indeed a bit difficult to understand the core content of user growth through this. So today, I will use a relatively simple way to teach you about user growth (the following content is very important, if you really want to learn, please be patient and read it carefully).

2. Understanding User Growth from the Perspective of Work Content

I believe many of you have heard of the AARRR model! This model theory will be used in many operational links. The user growth we are talking about today is based on this model to facilitate your understanding.

The AARRR model is:

• -Acquisition
• A–Activation User Activation
• R-Retention
• R-Reveneu Monetization
• R – Referral

Its entire path is as follows:

Therefore, the overall picture of user growth is to try every possible means to complete all the work on the entire path, starting from user acquisition to user activation, retention, monetization and finally secondary dissemination.

Let's take a closer look and make a simple distinction between the two links:

External user growth means acquiring users through various external channels, traffic and gameplay to direct traffic to the product.

The fission gameplay mentioned in the previous article is actually mainly reflected in this link. It also includes: advertising, subsidies, event marketing, brand activities, SEO, offline activities, etc.

The internal growth of users is product design and optimization of user growth/conversion paths, and maximizing user value through data, strategies and certain gameplay.

Intrinsic user growth mainly focuses on many internal single-point growth issues such as user activation, retention, activity, and old users bringing in new users. It also involves issues such as the construction, maintenance, and operation of user incentive systems, user growth systems, point level mechanisms, user stratification operations, and user recall and anti-churn systems.

So combined with the above, we can see the full picture of user growth:

3. Personal growth path to becoming an excellent hacker

After understanding the overall picture of user growth, I believe many friends will have a relatively clear understanding of the overall concept of user growth.

But returning to the operators themselves, many newcomers may still not know how to take the first step, or how to learn if they want to engage in growth hacking. Now let us understand the level of growth talents from the perspective of personal growth.

From the perspective of personal growth, we divide it into three stages: ordinary, intermediate and advanced.

(Note: This article is mainly written for new operators and operators with 0-3 years of operation experience, so the focus will be on the general and medium levels. As for the advanced level, there are too many things involved, not only tactical things, but more importantly, strategic things, so this article will not talk too much. If you are interested, you can leave a message. I will write a separate article when I have time.)

1. General level: responsible for the execution of specific growth tasks or optimization of a certain link

For example: the editor of a public account is usually responsible for the tweet opening rate or menu click rate, so his job is mainly to adjust the tweet time, select the article type, choose a title that can increase the opening rate, etc.

For example: Going back to the AARRR model above, in the part of out-of-user growth, ordinary-level operators need to design soft articles for advertising to increase the ad opening rate, or divert traffic to the product through fission, etc.

In the user growth phase, a promotional campaign may be conducted for users within the community to increase user activity or conversion rate, etc.

Operators at this level are mainly responsible for a specific indicator.

As an aside, operators are often considered to be gofers. In fact, the fundamental reason is that they do not look at things from a macro perspective. Solving a certain business indicator may not only be for improving data, but more often it is to provide a prerequisite for the entire link.

For example, the design of soft text during advertising is to increase the opening rate of advertisements, but the purpose behind it is to increase user acquisition. It is the first step in the entire user growth chain. Only when this step goes smoothly can the subsequent activation, retention, monetization, dissemination and other work be carried out.

Therefore, for newcomers, every job you do cannot be simply regarded as solving a target. You need to have a big picture view.

2. Medium level: responsible for the smooth operation and efficiency amplification of an entire core growth chain

This may sound a bit confusing at first. Let me give you an example. Suppose you need to sell a product and use the AARRR model to build the entire system:

• The first is to place advertisements through official accounts to acquire users;
• Then direct users to the community. Activate and retain users by sharing product knowledge and providing free services.
• Next, sell your products by planning a simple promotion.

Do you understand? This is the entire growth chain. As a mid-level operator, you need to be responsible for all links and indicators in the entire chain and make the entire chain smooth. At the same time, it is important to note that this link must be able to stand the test of time and is not a one-time thing.

The specific duties of a mid-level operator include:

In this process, we can see that the biggest challenge to running a link is "variables"! For example: When it comes to advertising, is it better to place ads on public accounts or on information flow? What kind of language should be used when facing different user groups? etc.

The biggest challenge in “running a link” is the endless variables. This is also the biggest difference between the intermediate level and the ordinary level. In user growth, overcoming "variables" is the biggest core criterion for measuring a mid-level operator.

3. Advanced level: Independently build the entire system and growth model for a product.

A high-level operator no longer has to deal with problems related to a certain link, but needs to find ways to drive the improvement of business value from the business model of the entire business.

At the same time, the overall business logic needs to be sorted out. Different companies may have completely different business models, so the organization of business logic is an essential part.

It also includes determining growth strategies, key drivers, etc. based on underlying logic such as the business environment, North Star indicators, and growth models, and finally formulating user value growth/conversion paths in specific scenarios to achieve high-frequency growth.

Therefore, this article will not elaborate on the advanced level part. If you are interested, I will write a separate article later when I have time.

IV. Conclusion

User growth has been a very hot topic in the Internet circle in the past two years, and will continue to be so for some time to come.

Users are the foundation for every company's survival, but with the disappearance of traffic dividends, the continuous increase in customer acquisition costs, and the shift of public domain traffic to private domain traffic, it is very important for any company to do a good job in user growth at this time.

This article does not talk too much about the specific practical content of user growth, such as the decomposition techniques of the North Star indicator, the analysis of user behavior-based embedding points and AB testing, etc.

Because Pi Ye believes that these specific business practice skills are not difficult to learn, and you can find a lot of them by just searching on the Internet.

But the key lies in how to apply them. The premise for making rational use of these techniques is that you need to have a holistic understanding of user growth. From a personal perspective, you also need to understand how you should go on this road and what the focus of each stage is.

Only when you understand these clearly, can you learn specific business skills to make your work more effective and improve your own abilities more effectively. Otherwise, no matter how many skills you have, if you don’t know how to use them, everything will be in vain.

Author: Pi Ye Operation

Source: Pai Ye Operation (pyyunying)