Tips for developing a user growth strategy!

In the early stage, we quickly found several key points of the data model. Let's review them together:

• Addition rate: All the basics, when you can’t reach the users, conversion is just empty talk;
• Reservation rate: there are reservations, classes are attended, and conversions are achieved;
• Business card class duration: iterate courses, improve intentions, and promote conversions;
• Intention rate: precise strikes to improve efficiency;
• Intent conversion rate: Optimize intent conversion strategy.

However, we spent a long time to verify that we had found these key data indicators. Students who have thought about it carefully will find that I did not include the "business card attendance rate" data indicator in the above five data indicators.

After the last article was published, many classmates in my team and other teams asked me: Obviously, improving the class attendance rate and controlling the class attenuation are what we need to do, why didn’t you add them? I told them that it’s not that I don’t pay attention to these two indicators, but they are already included in the two data indicators of “business card lecture duration” and “intention rate”.

The length of class time is determined by the attendance rate and the completion rate. The attendance rate is what operations have to do, while the attendance and completion rate is more on the instructor. Therefore, when we use one indicator to measure the work efficiency of the entire team and implement it to students in different positions, our focus will change accordingly.

1. Strategy Formulation

This part can be divided into six parts, starting from the above five key indicators + user high-value behavior

When formulating strategies, we must deeply experience our products and find out what makes us unhappy in every link; at the same time, we must also consider the user environment (such as the user’s mobile phone, mobile phone system, network speed, user’s product usage scenarios, etc.).

1. Addition rate strategy

Click on the ad - leave a message - QR code will be displayed - save the QR code - scan with WeChat - confirm.

This is a simple path for users to add us. We start to develop some small strategies that can expand the funnel based on the above six points.

Here, I will simply share two strategies with you.

First: Xiao Du has experienced the 2G era and is also experiencing the current 5G era. I have seen a sharing before that when a web page is loading, users will wait an average of 8 seconds before refreshing, or choose to exit the web page after 8 seconds. Now, the shorter the user waiting time, the higher the user retention rate.

User waiting time = loading speed = page size / network speed

We cannot control the Internet speed, we can only try our best to control the size of our pages and reduce the page size as much as possible while displaying some key information.

So when I shared it with my teammates for the first time, I asked everyone to change the format of all images displayed to users to JPG format (lossy compression format) instead of PNG format (lossless compression format).

You can look at the pictures on your computer. The size of PNG format pictures is larger than that of JPG format pictures, but it does not have a significant impact on the user's vision; this greatly shortens the user's waiting time and can also enhance user cognition.

User path optimization:

We have found that many organizations that offer trial classes are facing the following problem: after users leave their information, they do not save or take screenshots of the display page; after users exit the display page, they can no longer find an entry to establish contact with us.

Although we can reach out to others through text messages, when adding a WeChat ID or public account to a text message, it is still very troublesome for users to copy and paste part of the text message content on a large-screen mobile phone.

So can we allow users to return to our ad display page via text message after leaving our display page?

The second strategy: turn the ad display page (or QR code) into a short link and provide it to users via text messages. Users can click the link in the text message to jump directly to the web page, thus awakening their memory of signing up for the trial class.

When using the second strategy, we also found that the number segments used by many SMS providers are easily blocked by mobile phones; so in the end, we will let the team members use their personal mobile phone numbers to send group text messages to users to prevent the text messages from being blocked.

Some students may ask why not use personal mobile phone numbers to send group text messages.

Think about two issues: cost control and personal mobile phone number risks.

2. Booking rate strategy

What I always tell my teammates is: Your job is to chat with users, but the user’s job is not to chat with you.

When users first contact us, their attention is focused on the scenario in which they communicate with you; so at this time you need to quickly and accurately convey what you want to tell users and the action you want users to complete.

One thing to note here is that I suggest that when you contact users, you only let them complete one key action - which I have decided here is "book a course".

Only those with reservations can attend classes: In terms of specific implementation, we give priority to releasing mini-programs so that users can complete what we want them to complete with just one click.

Therefore, after communicating with the product team, we have gradually optimized the user information authorization when logging into the mini program, one-click booking of all live classes, one-click following of official accounts and other functions; in principle it is very simple, users only need to click on the screen to complete a series of actions in the shortest time.

3. Business card lecture length strategy

This is very complicated, because there are many factors that determine the length of class time, from adding users, user reservations, waiting for the class start time, actions in the group, instructor courses, pre-class preparation, after-class homework, etc., as well as multiple course information touches.

I won’t go into too much detail here. As an operations colleague, what we need to do is to clarify the different user reach strategies at each time point, as well as the information transmission in different scenarios (it is recommended to refer to the efficiency of information transmission in different scenarios).

Of course, there are also some strategies shared with operations students. For operations students, what we need to pay attention to is the "attendance rate" and "attendance attenuation rate".

We will then communicate with the instructor to include a course introduction for the entire operational process before the class. By having the instructor deliver course information multiple times, we can increase the viewing of recorded courses and users' expectations for subsequent courses. At the same time, we will warm up for the next day's course after class to increase the reservation rate for the next day's course. We will also communicate with the product team to add functions such as "one-click reservation" in the live broadcast room.

At the same time, during live classes, the attractive points in the live classes are broken down into courses within the group to allow more users to enter the live room.

Regarding supervision in the group, I will ask my teammates to send a small red envelope in the group at the beginning of the live broadcast.

The function of red envelopes is to attract users' attention from other scenes to the group, and then click on the mini program to enter the live broadcast room.

4. Intention rate strategy

We used to say: We need to let users complete the actions we want them to complete; a few days ago, when I was reading a book, I found an interesting term: high-value behavior (HVA).

Each HVA will generate an incremental LTV (total lifetime value), which may be applied to what we are doing now, which is to increase the user's intention rate. After all, conversion is still the ultimate indicator at present.

When we ask users to complete HVA, we will formulate a series of rewards to motivate users; just like many APPs use cash rewards during the promotion process, the logic is the same.

Since our team is relatively poor, we give away electronic materials with zero marginal cost, which is also what most operations colleagues would complain about; but from a practical perspective, electronic materials related to the product are often much more effective than cash.

Let me share a case. We had previously considered using cash rewards to stimulate users to attend classes. Users who showed up would be directly given cash red envelopes; but users were still skeptical about cash, so it was better to use packaged electronic materials to attract users to attend classes.

Packaging strategy for electronic materials: Give away materials that make users feel they can use them as soon as they get them, so that a novice user feels that he can use it with this material, similar to a martial arts secret book.

5. Strategies for Intent Conversion Rate

Because it involves conversion, I prefer to use some sales thinking to think about this strategy.

• The atmosphere in the group should be authentic;
• The registration atmosphere should be compact;
• User stuck points need to be resolved;
• The product value must be delivered;
• The interception strategy must be ruthless;
• Follow-up services should keep up;

What needs to be reminded here to most students who are engaged in community operations is that operations themselves will assume the function of conversion, so there is no need to exclude sales.

What we need to do is: ensure the user experience in the operation process, convey the value of the product itself, and then let the users pay; the purpose of users paying is to make themselves excellent and their lives better by using our products; rather than simply killing users through some false propaganda.

6. Selected strategy

Because my company has many distribution departments and users come from different channels, I will analyze the efficiency of each distribution department and users from each channel, and then make some choices and communicate on needs.

Here are some of my current concerns:

• Add costs;
• Cost of first class;
• Cost from the third class to the lesson (conversion will begin in the third class);
• Transaction costs.

2. Conclusion

• Every strategy ultimately comes down to the data;
• The starting point of every strategy is to turn yourself into a user;
• The implementation of each strategy starts with a small-scale test.

Operations require a system. For the training of team members, I will ask them to sort out the existing operation models, and then let them cultivate intimacy with users within the existing operation models.

The operation system will eventually return to the data model, and the data optimization of each small link will have a considerable impact on the overall operation model.

Finally, I would like to share with you a difficulty I am currently facing, and hope you can give me some suggestions.

Currently, the team size is growing rapidly, and the cost of each project is also increasing exponentially. Any small mistake will lead to the failure of the project.

Every student in the team will encounter the same problem. How should I break the deadlock? (Continuously optimize the operating model under the existing cost pressure)

Let me preview the final chapter of the trilogy: "Discovering Problems from Data". The final chapter focuses more on optimization at the execution level and some misunderstandings in the thinking of the team members.