Case analysis: Promotion of the "Charge and Get Benefits" activity at Station B

As a post-90s who is about to enter his 30s, I started to come into contact with PUGC content in college, and my video platform also switched from Tudou to Station A and Station B. Today, when Acfun has almost disappeared from the mainstream vision, Bilibili has become the winner in successfully integrating two-dimensional culture with pan-entertainment.

In the entire video platform field, Bilibili has a user retention rate and activity that other competitors cannot match. For reference, the author was personally active for 337 days in the whole year of 20 years, and basically logged in to watch videos every day.

However, according to the user annual report, the first tag in the author's video viewing in 20 years was actually Trump, and the UP host with the most followers was @观察者网. It can be seen that Bilibili is no longer that "homebody APP".

The continuous breakthrough of popular products, the all-encompassing content modules, and the entry of many official Vs and knowledge giants have become effective tools for Bilibili to attract users.

Once users log in, they can quickly find the content they are interested in. At the same time, the content that different age groups are concerned about on this platform also penetrates each other. Working people watch the latest popular memes with relish after get off work, and children of Generation Z are listening to Mr. Luo Xiang talk about criminal law.

The user base is large and sticky, the platform's UP hosts have their own fan-attracting attributes and the content is high-quality. It feels like this video platform can make tens of thousands of dollars "without doing anything" in minutes.

However, the fact is that the small broken station, which adheres to the promise of "never having interstitial ads", can be regarded as voluntarily giving up the main source of revenue for the video platform.

In order to stick to its promises, in other words, to maintain its reputation, Bilibili needs to take the initiative to break the homogeneity of the industry and increase its competitiveness. Therefore, we see that Bilibili has integrated many functional modules of current long and short video social platforms and actively explored more profit models. Live streaming, e-commerce, gaming competitions, paid content, premium memberships, etc. are all good profit paths, provided that the user base continues to grow and is very active. So where can you get customers?

As generations grow older, especially in the past two years, the popularity and success of niche Z-generation apps such as BiXin, Zuiyou, Soul, and TT Voice have undoubtedly proved that the young community market still has huge potential and broad room for development.

However, in a user system with extremely high stratification barriers, where only 97 million of the 197 million monthly active users are formal members, how to formulate strategies and mechanisms to attract new users and grasp the profit life cycle of users at each level may be something that needs to be agreed upon before carrying out a certain activity.

As the pressure to make profits increases day by day, Bilibili, which previously focused on user retention, has also begun to try new user attraction activities. In addition to the usual "invite friends to earn red envelopes" activity for old users to bring in new ones, the App "low-key" carried out a "recharge to get benefits" activity from August 6 to September 6, 2020, and reopened the activity on September 29 until March 31, 2021.

This article analyzes the case of this charging activity and takes a deeper look at the steps Bilibili has taken in attracting new users.

1. Hello, we are 2233 Niang——Introduction to Station B

Bilibili was founded in June 2009 and is about to enter its 12th year.

From a website that was initially established to provide a stable place for domestic 2D fans to go, to now being positioned as the website that best understands young people, from only being able to choose names starting with the letter B to being listed on the Nasdaq in 2018, the successful expansion has forced this Internet company to urgently speed up its commercialization.

Traffic is the top priority for Internet companies, and the core profit model is traffic monetization.

In recent years, Bilibili has been expanding its target user circle. From the surge in the number of UGC in the life area, it can be seen that Bilibili has been making changes to cater to popular culture. After all, the two-dimensional community that watches animation and listens to ghost videos is a minority, and pan-entertainment is the secret to attracting mass traffic.

Registration at Bilibili is free, but the right to post core cultural comments and interact is only available to users who have answered 100 questions and become a full member.

The consistency of values ​​among formal members is the core factor in the high cohesion of the community, and the influx of traffic will definitely impact the previous operational thinking of the protection mechanism.

The VIP membership service is an attempt by Bilibili to strike a balance and compromise between protecting the core interests of old users and its own business expansion, while the charging support event is a major breakthrough in the battle for traffic.

At the same time, I believe that as long as I create enough content, users will not abandon me.

The bilibili sisters 22 and 33, who were chosen by the second dimension, now feel more like "mascots" to new users, and the small TV held high by the sisters has become a slogan for attracting new users.

2. New customer acquisition and activation campaign - Recharge to receive benefits

2.1 Activity Background

According to data from Analysys Qianfan, during the epidemic when netizens across the country could only play with their phones at home, the number of active users on Bilibili increased rapidly, increasing by 15.6% month-on-month in January.

This proves that although Bilibili has high user barriers, its market potential is still huge, and it can create more peaks through event operations.

In the post-epidemic era, the number of active users has tended to stabilize, and the growth rate has been even worse on a month-on-month basis. At this time, activities to boost user growth and receive benefits have come into being.

2.2 Activity time

From August 6, 2020 to September 6, 2020. It happens to be the last week before school starts, which is the best time to achieve a breakthrough in user growth.

2.3 Activity Benefits

Cash: 10 yuan, 50 yuan, 100 yuan;

Virtual category: B station membership quarterly card, valued at 68 yuan;

Physical items: figures of popular anime characters.

2.4 How to play the activity (active invitation party)

Select your favorite activity reward;

Invite friends to log in to the Bilibili App and manually complete the charging process by sharing posters or links.

When the battery is charged to 100%, the result will be automatically submitted to the review team. After the review is passed, the prize will be deposited into the personal account.

Cash can be withdrawn to Alipay or WeChat, the VIP quarterly card is directly linked to the account, and the physical figures require filling in the address for delivery.

2.5 Activity Path Analysis

2.6 Channel Promotion

The only entrance: Inside the platform, log in to the App - "My" in the navigation bar - "Recharge to receive benefits"

2.7 Activity Effect

2.7.1 The ranking of App downloads has slightly increased

The mechanism of App ranking changes, download volume and search frequency are the most important weights.

According to Qimai data, in the first few days of the event on August 6, there was almost no change in the ranking. On the 10th, it reached an upward turning point and the overall ranking increased by 10 places, a relatively large increase.

On September 4th, when the activity was about to end, the ranking also rose significantly.

2.7.2 User Engagement is Average

The number of UGCs discussing this event on the entire platform did not exceed 100, which is a very small number.

The content of UGC is mainly about mutual assistance. A few people show off the physical figures they received, and some give negative reviews and are indifferent to the gameplay similar to Pinxixi.

On other platforms, there are a small number of discussion groups on Douban, Zhihu, Tieba, and QQ groups, which are basically established for the purpose of mutual assistance.

2.8 Activity Analysis

2.8.1 Activity Highlights

As a test to attract new customers, it is smart to use a ready-made gameplay idea that has been proven to have good effects and effectiveness in the industry.

Users are both familiar with and addicted to this way of playing. They can just change a set of "skins" according to their own characteristics and start playing.

Find the goal and core focus of each activity, whether it is to spend money in exchange for traffic in a big way or to test it cautiously, no matter which way, being goal-oriented is the right approach.

Cash red envelopes are the most tempting reward, but they are sometimes regarded as taking advantage.

The amount setting for this event is very graded, 10, 50, 100, and the corresponding energy values ​​are very different. In the 10 yuan range, basically 4 newcomers can help to successfully demonstrate it, and the cost of the first success is not high.

Users who successfully withdraw money will spread word of mouth and participate more actively, proactively creating groups, leaving messages, posting content, and being active in the community, thereby attracting and encouraging users who were originally hesitant to participate.

The setting of figures is to maintain the "self-esteem" of two-dimensional users. Unlike cash, figures are given more humane meanings. If old users of Bilibili see this event and click in with a sarcastic attitude, they will probably have fewer complaints after seeing the figures and will be very likely to participate in the event.

The benefits of a quarterly premium membership are also intended to allow users, especially those old members who still remember the promise of "never being a member", to feel the advantages of premium membership after trying out the membership benefits, thereby expanding the pool of paying users. This is similar to the previous idea of ​​B station exchanging points for membership.

The timing of the event was chosen very cleverly. For a video platform that is mainly for young people and most of whom are students, it is a very happy thing to participate in activities during the free days before school starts, take advantage of the opportunities, and buy yourself a figurine to accompany you while doing homework.

After this event ended, the second event was launched on September 29th. In two days, it will be the National Day. It turns out that there is nothing happier than staying at home to get free stuff during the holidays~

At the same time, during the activity cycle, participation can be rolled out, and through constant feedback and constant temptation, users will become addicted to the activity and externally drive the people around them, thus achieving the goal of attracting new users.

2.8.2 Promotional copy

Vivid copywriting and lively graphic interface, it is indeed an activity of Bilibili, and the patterns are so cute.

2.8.3 Rules

Roll over to participate, once this prize is fully charged, you can start supporting the next prize.

The number of individual prizes is limited and will be redeemed on a first-come, first-served basis.

One user can only help charge 3 users during the activity period.

After the charging is completed, it needs to be manually reviewed and approved before the reward will be issued.

3. Summary and Personal Reflection

3.1 Starting from user needs, find a way for the platform and users to get along harmoniously

The extremely high user level barriers and the absence of interstitial ads, these advantages that Bilibili was proud of in the early days have become shackles that restrict its development and pursuit of profits on the road to commercialization.

In fact, old users are not too opposed to the commercialization of Bilibili. It's good for everyone. After all, those young people who watched the anime back then have now become excellent workers.

The simplest example is that if your favorite UP host finally gets a commercial collaboration and releases a "fan-making" video, as a video viewer you will sincerely congratulate him and have a real feeling of "the child has grown up and finally made it", which is actually the same as the protective mentality of fan culture.

But after all, Bilibili had previously been taking the route of "inner white moonlight".

How to protect the inner peace of every user and maintain the original pure happiness that users get on Bilibili is the way to maintain the user stickiness that other video platforms are eager to achieve.

The influx of traffic users is welcomed by old users as much as Bilibili, and old users are actually more willing to recommend this platform.

Let more people experience the benefits of this place, just like my classmates frantically guiding me in answering questions at the beginning. It is better to share happiness with others than to enjoy it alone.

As long as the core interests of different circles are not violated and are not accused of inexplicable black and white by the other party, and they can "respect each other when they meet and live their own lives when they leave", this may be the maintenance point and breakthrough point that Xiaopo needs to balance on the road to future commercialization.

3.2 Activity planning that is in line with current operational ideas

We need more new users, but we don’t dare to offend old users.

Any company needs to be very careful in every step in an environment where everyone is participating in politics online.

So this charging activity was basically like a piece of paper falling into a pond, without any sound.

From channel promotion to event participation, compared with any regular site-wide activity of Bilibili, this one gives the impression of being timid and cautious, and the ending is probably not going to be good.

However, it is also possible that this event is just a small demo attempt, and public opinion is more important than the results.

In fact, judging from the event rewards and rules, the entire event has a refined operational foundation. It basically predicts who the majority of users participating in the event will be, hooks their pain points and itchy points, and uses popular gameplay and attractive rewards to make them happy and actively serve as volunteers for the event.

It can be seen that the re-engagement rate of active users during the event period is very high. Except for some sarcastic comments at the beginning, the rest is basically the law of "it's really good". Unfortunately, there are only a few people participating, and it is basically old users helping each other, and attracting new users ended at the beginning of the event.

During the entire operation, if there are too many things that need to be carefully considered in the early stage, then when seeing these feedbacks, can we adjust the strategy appropriately, instead of letting it grow naturally just because this activity cannot be very successful, and then just serve as a control group in the future.

If the event exposure is increased in the mid-term, for example, by increasing the weight of video recommendations of UGC of users participating in the event and slowly raising the popularity, or by increasing publicity during the second event on September 29, the final result of the event may be better than expected.

Author: Hebe sister-in-law

Source: Hebe's sister-in-law