How to formulate an operating strategy for a product?

When it comes to the work content of operations, you will easily think of: attracting new customers, promoting activation, retention... However, this is not all of the work content of operations. When a product is in the exploration stage, operational work may be disordered. The only way is to verify product requirements with MVP as soon as possible and accumulate early seed users.

However, once the product has passed the exploration period, the operational work needs to become orderly and organized, and a stable user growth path and controllable user retention strategy must be established through some fixed means and mechanisms. The work content of operations can be summarized in one sentence: attracting new users, promoting activation, and retaining existing users. Building an operation system for a product is to systematize and regularize these matters, so that every user who comes can complete a complete life cycle as much as possible.

AARRR Model

The landlord will take the Fan Deng Reading APP as an example, and by sorting out some examples of Fan Deng Reading, see what the operating strategy of a mature product looks like, and then summarize and analyze how to formulate an operating strategy for a product.

1. Overview of Fan Deng’s reading products

Founded: 2013

Scale overview: Nearly 2 million paid members + 600 offline communities + 300 city chapters

Product features: reading (video + audio) + knowledge supermarket (course)

Product slogan: Keep learning, read 50 books together every year

Profit model: 365 yuan annual membership + Fan Deng Bookstore (franchise system) + Fan Deng Mall (e-commerce business, selling books and daily necessities) + Knowledge Supermarket (paid courses)

2. New customer acquisition strategy 1. Build external promotion channels

Build channels wherever users are, both online and offline.

The volume brought by some channels is visible, such as Baidu SEM. At the same time, the volume brought by many channels cannot be seen directly, but they are equally important.

For example, soft article placement or user endorsement on Zhihu and Jianshu can bring a lot of natural growth to the application market due to product exposure and brand effect.

As written in the book "Traffic Pool", brand is the most stable traffic pool, and soft articles and user endorsements are the most effective ways to build a brand.

2.1.1 SEM bidding advertising and SEO optimization on search engines

2.1.2 Distribute audio and video content on Himalaya FM to attract fans

2.1.3 Soft article placement on Jianshu and Zhihu platforms

2.1.4 Offline city chapters and authorized points

2.1.5 Offline reading salons and book sharing sessions

2.1.6 Offline Fan Deng Bookstore

2.2 Old users bring in new users within the APP

2.2.1 Invitation strategy based on interests

Old users share promotional pictures with their own exclusive QR codes with friends. For every person they invite to scan their exclusive QR code and become a trial member, they will receive a 7-day session or 20 points as a reward. Inviting 2 people will extend the session by 14 days or get 40 points.

This is an incentive recommendation based on rational logic and interest. Users will weigh their recommendation behavior against the rewards they receive to decide whether to make a recommendation.

2.2.2 Built-in Sharing Factor

Almost all articles and audio and video in the Fan Deng Reading APP can be shared on social media such as WeChat and Weibo, and all sharing behaviors are accompanied by point rewards. This is a common growth path for content products, and content is traffic.

Moreover, sharing books is also helpful for users to build their personal image in their circle of friends and meet their emotional needs for sharing.

3. New User Retention Strategy

The most important point in determining whether a product’s retention rate is ideal is whether the product can meet the core needs of users.

The key to retaining new users is to meet their core needs as early as possible, making them feel that this is the product they want and reaching the Aha moment.

1. Use the onboarding guide to help users understand the core functions of the product as quickly as possible and guide them to complete some key behaviors

2. New registered users can enjoy 7 days of free membership benefits and listen to all books in the APP for free.

Listening to a 15-minute trial lecture of a book is a key behavior for new users, and the 7-day free membership allows users to experience the product value more deeply and become increasingly addicted.

3. Non-paying users can enjoy a 15-minute trial listening benefit for each book in the product. At the same time, the complete audio of several books are also available as a limited-time free benefit for new and old users to experience for free.

4. In addition, push and text messages are used to guide users to understand the core value of the product and improve the retention of new users.

4. Activation Strategy

1. Organize a monthly book reading program to cultivate users' usage habits

Fan Deng Reading recommends a book to users every morning. If the user leaves a comment after listening to the book and shares the link of the book with friends, he or she can participate in a lottery to win a physical copy of the book. Read books and check in with other users.

2. Push high-quality content every day, and high-frequency content drives low-frequency listening

Fan Deng Reading only releases a new book every Saturday at 8:30 p.m., so it has become a low-frequency activity for users to open the app to listen to books.

In order to give users something to do after opening the app every day, Fan Deng created multiple content columns to complement audiobooks and push them to users every day.

Content such as Jutou, Poetry Sharer, Miscellaneous Talk, Fan Deng Q&A, Information, Book Excerpts, Fan Deng Dictionary, Knowledge Capsules, etc. are used to encourage users to open the app.

3. Check in every day and reward users with points

Many apps have a sign-in function, but learning products, information products, and tool products with high frequency of user scenarios are most suitable for sign-in.

Whether it is a calendar sign-in, a contract sign-in, or a development sign-in, it is all to promote activity and keep users opening the app continuously.

4. Activities

Promote activities by organizing activities that interest users, such as topics with prizes, collections with prizes, and "I am a Storyteller" competitions.

5. Old User Retention Strategy

As mentioned earlier, the key to whether a product’s retention is ideal is the needs that the product can meet.

Improving the retention strategy for old users means better meeting users' core needs and ever-changing new needs through product or operational strategies.

1. Organize offline theme activities to establish closer links

Fan Deng’s offline city stations hold events and lectures on different themes every month.

2. Launch a knowledge supermarket to meet users’ long-tail needs

Fan Deng Reading initially only released a new book every week, and later it developed a knowledge supermarket. Weekly book lectures have built a moat for Fan Deng Reading in the field of paid knowledge.

However, if you just talk about the book, it will not be able to completely alleviate users' knowledge anxiety. After listening to Fan Deng's book, users will still go to Get or Mantou to sign up for other courses.

Therefore, the purpose of creating a knowledge supermarket is to better meet the long-tail needs of users who love books and retain users.

3. Points system

The points system is an important part of the user incentive system. By setting some reward rules, it guides users to complete certain actions and solidifies their usage habits.

The entrance to the points system is usually set as novice tasks, daily tasks or advanced tasks, and the points exit corresponds to redemption in the mall and game consumption.

However, not all types of products are suitable for a points system. High-frequency, low-intensity scenarios are more suitable for a points system.

Fan Deng's points entrance: daily sign-in (reward 2~5 points), invite friends to join (reward 600 points), join through friends' invitation (reward 60 points)

Fan Deng's points outlet: redeem membership time, redeem e-commerce discount cards, participate in welfare lottery games, special products (books, tea cups, pen holders, T-shirts, radios, etc.)

4. Achievement system

Setting up an achievement system in the product is not only to satisfy users' sense of honor, but the platform also hopes that users will share the medals they have earned with their social friends, thereby bringing exposure and traffic to the product.

For example, the continuous fitness master medal, the bookkeeping master medal, etc.

5. Establish multiple channels to reach users in as many ways as possible

If a product has only one way to establish a relationship with users, namely through an app, then once users become inactive or churn out, the only way to activate and recall them is through relatively simple methods such as push or text messages.

However, if a multi-channel matrix is ​​established to reach users, the user retention rate will be higher and it will be easier to recall lost users.

The following picture shows Fan Deng’s learning manager/book boy, service account, subscription account and community.

6. Periodically expand product awareness through activities, events, marketing, etc. to achieve user growth

By building external promotion channels, establishing internal invitation and sharing mechanisms, and applying some activation and retention strategies, we can turn product revenue generation and cost reduction into some fixed actions, allowing the basic business of our products to run smoothly.

At the same time, we also need to periodically plan some marketing activities, cross-border cooperation, and social events that are not directly aimed at attracting new customers and promoting activation, in order to expand product awareness and enhance product brand potential.

User annual reading report and New Year's reading plan

VII. Some suggestions

Currently, users’ sense of participation is relatively weak. We need to strengthen UGC and promote communication among users. Reading is a noble thing in a sense, so people like to express their opinions and views on the books they read or participate in reading clubs to discuss and exchange ideas with other book lovers. Some people who read very seriously will even take their own reading notes.

At the same time, another group of people like to read other people’s reading experiences and notes, so reading has a natural social attribute.

Fan Deng Reading currently adopts a one-way output model from product to user, where the product mainly talks and the users listen and learn. User comments can only be seen at the bottom of each book page. User participation is very weak and there is basically no interaction between users.

If a dedicated UGC module is established to display readers' opinions and impressions, or a book club is established based on common reading preferences, a group of opinion leaders can be cultivated, and the links and exchanges between users can be increased, it will no longer be a one-way output from product to user. Users can become part of the product and their sense of participation will be enhanced.

8. Conclusion

By combing through some examples of Fan Deng's reading, we make a divergent summary and try to draw a mind map of the operation strategy of a product:

The formulation of operational strategies for a product will have different focuses due to differences in business type, product form and stage, but the underlying logic is the same. There are many growth methods on the market, but not all of them can be reused on your products. There are also many growth paths, but not all paths are optimal. In addition, operational strategies are not set in stone after they are formulated. Operations need to be constantly adjusted and optimized based on data feedback, and should not be mechanically applied.

Author: Kang Yibing

Source: Kang Yibing