Didi’s 100 yuan withdrawal and promotional marketing!

Two nights ago, a "wool message" suddenly popped up in my WeChat, the content of which was: Hua Xiaozhu has been upgraded again, and the promotion reward is as high as 5 yuan per person. Just click on the mini program!

Out of curiosity and the desire to explore, I clicked on this mini program. However, the page I saw after entering seemed to be the mini program version of Pinduoduo.

This time, Hua Xiaozhu’s promotion activities are mainly in two areas:

• One is to receive cash every day. Does it sound familiar? Yes, that’s right, it is the routine of Pinduoduo before, inviting friends to open red envelopes to receive cash.
• The second one is the promoter, who can get 5 yuan in cash by promoting a friend to register for the mini program.

First, let’s talk about its first feature, “Get Cash Every Day”.

To be honest, the first button I saw when I first entered was this one, because it was ranked first, and it might also be that Hua Xiaozhu deliberately designed the visual effect this way.

What is different from Pinduoduo is that this version of receiving cash every day does not require downloading any software. You can directly click on the mini program to register on WeChat, which is much "lighter" and simpler in terms of user operation.

Users can attract more people to click on it without having to pay a higher operating cost, and the initiator can also directly generate posters or links and throw them into WeChat groups and Moments to attract more people to enter the page through their own links.

Apart from this, don't imagine how good it is in other aspects, because all its rules and processes are exactly the same as the previous Pinduoduo.

First, new users can click "Get Cash Every Day" and they will get a red envelope of more than 88 yuan. Of course, you cannot receive this 88 yuan directly. You can only withdraw it after it reaches 100 yuan.

So how can you reach 100 yuan? That’s right, you need to attract new customers to Hua Xiaozhu. Only when you put in the “labor” will he give you money. There is no free lunch in the world, you have to understand this principle.

At first, I tried the amount of the red envelope that the invited users could open. I first shared it with three friends to help click the link, and found that each of them could open a red envelope of 2-3 yuan. So if the ratio continues, only 5-6 people will be needed for 100 yuan. There is no need to download any software, just click on the mini program to complete the registration, and the whole process can be done in 10 seconds.

In order to get to the bottom of the matter, I started sending messages to a fourth friend for help, and sure enough, he failed this time. The first few people are given high-value red envelopes deliberately set by the platform to give you an incentive to invite others. Later on, the red envelopes are basically just one or a few cents, which is the essence of Pinduoduo.

I even have a friend who posted it on WeChat Moments and attracted nearly forty clicks, but still failed to make 100 yuan. On a year-on-year basis, perhaps 20 to 30 people at Pinduoduo would have completed the task long ago.

This wave of promotional users has reduced the cost to the lowest level. They are simply free promoters, and the platform is very sophisticated in its tactics.

Let’s talk about Hua Xiaozhu’s promoter.

In fact, when Hua Xiaozhu was first launched in July and August this year, there was an incentive for promoters.

Usually when a new platform is launched, a large amount of money will be spent on promotion. Then this is the time for the welfare of the wool party. I remember that when it was first launched, I directly invited friends to click the link to register for Hua Xiaozhu to get a cash reward of 3 yuan. This amount is directly in the balance and can be withdrawn directly. It caused a wave of screen swiping in the circle of friends at that time.

What is different from the last time is that this time Hua Xiaozhu has made an upgrade and increased the commission for promotion rewards per person to the current 5 yuan per person. That is, when someone enters this mini program through your link and registers an account, you can get a commission of 5 yuan. Nowadays, who doesn’t have hundreds or thousands of people on WeChat? You can get 50 yuan from 10 people or 500 yuan from 100 people. Making money seems to be right in front of you.

So, this leads to the origin of the message at the beginning of my article. There will always be a group of freeloaders in the circle who are always paying attention to the trends of these Internet platforms. Once they find freeloaders, they will start to grab them immediately.

But after experiencing the 100 yuan withdrawal scam, I think it may not be that easy. After all, the platform operators are not fools. Would they leave such a big loophole? Then I clicked on the "Rules".

I saw two pieces of information in it, and I think this might be the reason why there is a promotion bonus of 5 yuan per person.

The rules clearly state that invited users must first be located in a city where the platform is currently open before they can register normally, otherwise they will be judged as invalid users. However, the region is currently not open in some third- and fourth-tier cities, and is mainly concentrated in some provincial capitals and some second- and third-tier cities.

In addition to this regional restriction, there is another rule restriction, that is, the invited user must not only be a new user, but also complete the registration and complete the first use of the platform for travel within 7 days, and the referral reward will be credited to the inviter's account.

Let's try to summarize the rules of this promoter. In other words, to get this referral reward, the friends you invite need to meet 3 conditions:

1. Must be in the platform open area
2. Must be a new user and have not activated the Hua Xiao Zhu APP
3. You need to use this platform to complete your first travel task within 7 days

After reading this, I think everyone is clear about the routines and gameplay. From this point on, I want to say that there is really no such thing as a free lunch.

But in fact, I have seen some people in the circle of friends saying that they earned dozens of promotion bonuses just after sending out the content. I think everyone can verify this for themselves. At least for testing purposes, I shared the link with two of my own WeChat groups and one friend (a new user). Some people in the group clicked on the link and shared it, but there was still no change in the balance in my account.

After seeing this series of operations by Hua Xiaozhu, I also clicked on the mini program page of its direct brother "Chengxin Discount" and found that there was also an activity of "Get Cash Every Day" in it, and its rules and gameplay are exactly the same as Hua Xiaozhu.

This makes me feel that Didi has copied all of Pinduoduo's remaining marketing tactics to its own products, using light carriers such as mini-programs combined with cash red envelope incentives, as if trying to erode WeChat's huge traffic ecosystem step by step.

This reminds me of a previous article that went viral, which talked about how Internet technology companies have a large number of high-tech talents, but instead of developing new products and technologies to improve the country's overall scientific research level, they have been sinking into the market and fighting a desperate battle with the grassroots people in the market.

In contrast, Didi is a market demand tool that focuses on positioning, navigation and taxi-hailing. It calls itself a high-tech company, but now it has begun to move downward, using some popular or leftover marketing methods to continuously trick users into promoting itself at almost no cost.

But in fact, whether it is Hua Xiaozhu or Chengxin Youxuan, they have not occupied a large market share since their launch, but have always been in a lukewarm state.

Hua Xiaozhu was launched in July this year. Although it was all over the news because of the free-to-use service when it was launched, it later became a dull success, probably because of the cost and the fact that the new platform did not completely change users' taxi-hailing habits.

Chengxin Youxuan was only launched this year, but the competition is fierce because major Internet companies have entered the market, including Didi, Meituan, Pinduoduo, Hema and other major Internet companies, and the competition is fierce. In addition, there is another big brother in community group buying: Xingsheng Youxuan, but it was also mediocre in the end. It was even revealed a few days ago that due to the excessive recruitment of marketing personnel, the branch company is now implementing some mandatory rules in an attempt to reduce personnel costs.

Perhaps when these products are finally developed, history will once again turn into the Hundred Regiments Campaign, with major companies starting to provide crazy subsidies, and only those who hold on to the end will have a chance of becoming the dominant force.

Finally, let's discuss the possible results of Didi's series of operations:

1) The influx of freeloaders

Whether it is Hua Xiaozhu or Chengxin Youxuan, if Didi continues to use this promotional strategy, it will definitely attract more people who are looking for bargains. Of course, perhaps these products are positioned in the sinking market, and the bargain hunters will also have some market travel needs. Maybe this will also be a part of the customer base.

2) The traffic is highly consistent with Didi Taxi customers

Looking at the matter at this point, actually, for me, I still don’t fully understand the purpose of Didi launching Hua Xiaozhu taxi-hailing service.

After the previous "war" in China, Didi Chuxing has long been promoted to the leader in the travel market industry, but it has launched Hua Xiaozhu Taxi, which targets people in third- and fourth-tier cities. Perhaps it is also to absorb more market user traffic and not miss any piece of the travel market cake.

3) Didi’s decline

In fact, in the previous battle with Meituan, in order to contain Meituan from seizing the travel market and consolidate its own position as the big brother, Didi launched Didi Takeout to contain Meituan, until the end, the two sides began to shake hands and make peace. Meituan stopped doing travel and Didi stopped doing food delivery, which allowed both sides to return to peace.

Coming to the current community group buying, Didi seems to have begun to be dissatisfied with its market position in the travel industry. However, whether it is the previous food delivery or the current community group buying, its positioning is in third- and fourth-tier cities. The promotion methods are also similar, and they are still carried out in the form of subsidies, and the people in third- and fourth-tier cities and their wool-gathering parties are the ones who fall for this game.

Author: Liu Zhixing

Source: LZX's study notes