Strategy for building an APP user incentive system

In product operation, the user incentive system is the basic incentive method, which provides certain guidance and rewards to stimulate users; for example, Weibo’s daily check-in to receive cash red envelopes ensures daily user retention.

1. Why do we need user incentives?

User motivation is the most obvious application of gamification thinking in products. A good game that makes people unable to stop has clear goals, clear rules, a system with timely feedback, and users have the freedom to participate voluntarily. These are the basic characteristics of a good user incentive system .

In other words, the essence of the user incentive system is to convey the product's intention by setting clear and perceptible goals and attractive rewards to guide users to do what is expected of them .

When a product develops to a stage where it needs to provide certain guidance to users, educate new users, or promote user activity, building a user incentive system is a method that can be considered.

2. What are the common methods of user motivation?

I divide common user incentive systems into three types: level system, point system and achievement system.

1. Hierarchy

1) The level of promotion and demotion is strongly related to the main business of the product

Communities such as Xiaohongshu, Dianping, Zhihu, and Bilibili, which mainly encourage UGC content, have a rating system that reflects the extent to which the content generated by users in the community helps other users.

In Xiaohongshu, the prerequisite for each upgrade is to contribute more collections and likes in the community; Dianping will also examine the quality and quantity of the content you create; Zhihu's salt value evaluates the user's maintenance of community order and the amount of contribution to questions and answers.

UGC content community rating system

For community products with UGC content as the core, the quantity and quality of content are the life of the product, and therefore are strongly related to the hierarchical system.

On the other hand, manufacturers that focus on producing PGC content have higher demands on the revenue capacity of their products because of their higher costs; for example, iQiyi, Tencent Video, Mango TV, etc., the grading system clearly refers to the user's consumption capacity on the platform, that is, the length of time for recharge; for users, only by continuously spending money can they move to a higher level.

PGC content product rating system

The remaining players, since users’ willingness to pay is not strong enough, prefer to adopt methods to increase user activity and occupy users’ minds, thereby indirectly obtaining more revenue in other directions; for example: QQ, Himalaya, etc., their rating systems mostly reflect users’ usage time, activity and other content.

Growth level system

2) In different hierarchical systems, users will perceive different rights and interests, which are usually related to the main business

In Zhihu, the increase of salt value will give you a higher status in the community, and your actions will have greater weight than ordinary users; the higher the level, the more functions you can unlock, such as posting pictures in the comment area. Increasing the creator's level can allow you to live broadcast in Zhihu, gain praise, or sell goods, etc.

Zhihu creator level

Zhihu user level

Alipay members will be given different food privileges, shopping privileges, hotel privileges, etc. at different levels, and the business revolves around payment.

Different levels of Dianping will provide users with gift packages of different values, movie ticket refunds and changes, travel discounts, etc., focusing on local life content.

As the level of bilibili increases, users will have more privileges in the community, more advanced barrage and comment functions, and can also invite new users, become members of the discipline committee, spontaneously maintain community order, and be certified as an active part of community construction.

Membership Benefits

In other words, the upgrade of levels is the product's affirmation of the user's quality and ability. A higher level will bring social glory to the user and is an affirmation of his or her identity.

3) The level will basically not decrease

The level will only increase slowly due to the user's behavior. Unless there are special circumstances, such as violation of community order and rules, it will generally not decrease. The more content a user sends in Xiaohongshu, the higher the level will be. The QQ level will increase as the user's login time increases.

Therefore, the difficulty in designing a level system lies in how to set the gradient of the level system to ensure that the user level distribution is in the shape of a pyramid, and that the level increase is both attractive and has a clear path, and is not too difficult.

2. Points system

Points are rewards for user behavior. For example, many software will reward patients for purchasing goods, purchasing services, and continuously signing in with points. The key point of the system is to give users real material benefits.

The points system is usually composed of elements such as points and gold coins, which serve as virtual general equivalents and provide material encouragement to users through redemption and other means. Points themselves are meaningless and only become meaningful when they can bring value to users.

1) The tasks of the points system will be more complex and diverse than the upgrade tasks of the level system.

Most of the tasks are to guide users and improve product retention and activity data indicators. On this basis, users are rewarded to a certain extent by setting different amounts of points.

Like most products with a points system, the points system usually includes sign-in tasks, which best reflect the purpose of the points system.

Because the retention rate of a product is an important indicator for judging the user activity of a product, and is closely related to the company's business goals; therefore, many products will deliberately design goals such as 7-day sign-in, and the rewards will increase successively; and, most importantly, after the user reaches the 7-day sign-in goal, an attractive prize will be given, such as video software will give VIP time rewards; for users, after signing in for 7 days, they can get a membership that can only be purchased with money, which is a very attractive goal.

With the goal of continuous sign-in, it is necessary to attract users with rewards after the sign-in is completed.

This system is also the best embodiment of gamification design:

• Clear goal: Get free VIP time rewards;
• Clear rules: just log in to the system and sign in every day;
• There is also immediate feedback: daily check-ins with clear points incentives;
• As the length of time users sign in increases, people will become more averse to losses, making it easier for them to complete the 7-day system, thus achieving the purpose of the product’s sign-in incentives: increasing the product’s 7-day retention rate.

There is also an increasingly fierce ultimate battle for traffic: occupying user time, which is also fully reflected in some product incentive systems; for example, long video software will give users incentives based on the length of time users watch videos every day, so as to promote the extension of the average user's stay time.

There are also short video software and reading software that are competing for the sinking market. They will even directly distribute cash based on the user's browsing time. Compared with the more complicated and tortuous system of points, cash can stimulate users more, and the effect is certainly incomparable. It can be said that the money is spent on the blade, in a place that can stimulate the "greed" of the corresponding user group.

Use money to buy user activity and online time, the effect is outstanding

This expansion strategy is quite popular in the corresponding user group market. Kuaishou's nearly 500 million monthly active users and an average usage time of more than 85 minutes per person are closely related to this operating strategy.

2) Points can be consumed and redeemed, and are a material reward for users who complete tasks.

As mentioned earlier, what is more important than points is how to spend the points. The points mall that goes with the points is an essential part of the points system. If we earn money but have nowhere to spend it, or even don’t make people want to spend it, why should we work hard to make money?

Therefore, in order to activate a points system, we should put some attractive products for this group in the points mall based on the user group portrait of the product as much as possible, so that users can have the desire to participate in the points game. Some products even turn the points mall into a shopping mall to directly guide secondary payments and open up revenue channels.

3) Points generally expire

Alipay points expire 12 months after they are received

Have you ever wondered why points expire? In fact, there are several reasons.

Promote the activity of the points mall and encourage secondary consumption. If points are kept but not used, they will actually become garbage data. Setting an expiration date for points will make users feel a sense of urgency. Points will have practical significance if they are motivated to spend them before the expiration date. Moreover, many points malls now redeem points with a small amount of cash, which actually helps promote secondary consumption.

To avoid accounting risks, points are actually closely related to finance. Every time points are issued, finance actually needs to accrue a cost; when users consume, it will be converted into a real cost expenditure.

Imagine if the points in a points system have no expiration date and users do not redeem them for 10 years, the cost of accruing points will continue to grow. A system without an expiration date may eventually become a financial burden on the company. In order to reduce this risk, it is very important to set a reasonable expiration date for points.

4) Points should be distinguished from virtual currency.

The concept of virtual currency sounds similar to points, but they are actually completely different things; virtual currency generally appears on gaming, live streaming and other platforms, and is a way to recharge with RMB in exchange for platform virtual currency.

For example, the Q coins we are familiar with, and now there are Douyin coins, as well as WeChat beans that WeChat is about to launch, etc., it has a certain exchange rate, which is generally several times that of the RMB, and can be used for rewards, purchase gifts, etc. on the platform; because it is a real recharge behavior, this virtual currency will not expire and can be used all the time.

3. Achievement system

The achievement system is the data formed by the interaction between users, and the incentives generated thereby, such as the number of followers, views, favorites, likes, rewards, etc.; it emphasizes the recognition of users' contributions by others, because producing popular content will gain popularity on the platform, which is the best encouragement for creators.

Ever since the "Like" feature appeared on Facebook, the content of this social sharing platform has seen a blowout trend, and UGC content has sprung up like mushrooms after a rain; the circuit for producing its effect is so simple, but very effective; upload - get likes - upload next time, the closed loop of UGC begins to operate; the joy of instant feedback makes dopamine burst in the mind, which not only made the "Friends Circle" a product, but also gave birth to a large number of opinion leaders and Internet celebrities, and created an industry.

And all of this started simply because users gained recognition and motivation from others; humans are social animals, and this kind of social level motivation is difficult to match with general motivation methods.

Creators are the wealth of each platform, and where the leaders are, is the home of the flock. Only by building an attractive achievement system for creators and retaining good creators can the vitality of the platform be maintained.

3. So, how to build a user incentive system?

(Here we mainly take building a points system as an example)

1) Clarify the current problems of the company's products, the direction of development, and the goals to be achieved

This is the question of the functional value of the product. Functions are not created just for the sake of creating them, or because we see competitors doing them; they are created to solve problems. Is it because the company's product activity has reached a bottleneck, and the market has requirements for improving the product's activity indicators? Or has the product become more complex and requires some guidance for users in terms of usage? Can these goals be achieved by other means? In fact, user motivation is not necessarily enough to achieve the goal; have you ever done user research? What are the issues that bother users the most? Are other projects more important?

In fact, the user incentive system is most suitable for products with a certain user base, a relatively complete product architecture, a clear development direction, and users who have a clear understanding of the main functions of the product. For example, a video product must have a good enough function of finding and watching videos, but the user activity is not high, or some new functions outside the main process have been added and need to be guided. In this case, it is a good time to consider a user incentive system.

If you finally decide to provide user incentives, then think about how to set up a complete task system around this goal.

2) Sort out the basic characteristics of the product: product positioning, profit model, user needs, and the goal of building an incentive system.

Source: Products I am responsible for

3) List the solutions that can solve the existing problems, and break them down into specific behaviors that you want users to perform. For example, to increase activity, you can set up sign-in rewards, stay time rewards, etc.; to promote consumption, you can set up order rewards, purchase rewards, etc.

In short, the task must be carried out around the goal.

Source: Products I am responsible for

4) Grade the importance of each behavior. Different behaviors will have different reward intensities. This involves understanding the key goals and how to distinguish the key points to achieve the goals. The data indicators brought by sign-in may be more important than improving user information. Purchase orders may be more important than retention time. For each stage of product development, the focus is different. It is more important to distinguish the before and after and the strength of things.

5) How to check whether the incentive has achieved its purpose? How to modify and iterate the incentive system? What should we do if the incentive system reaches a bottleneck?

The most basic thing is to check the data of the buried points. After the system is launched, check whether the growth and activity indicators set at the beginning have been achieved. If not, how to optimize the path design? Is the entrance too deep, or is it stuck at some step? Or is it that the design of the incentive is not attractive? Funnel analysis between various tracking points can help us find the problem roughly and further adjust the data indicators.

A complete patient incentive system should have a complete data background to indicate what level of users at each level has reached and whether there are users with an abnormal number of points. When the incentive system reaches a bottleneck and is no longer challenging and meaningful to users, the system needs to be upgraded and more difficult system goals set.

The target players are quite loyal - many veteran players have already passed all the levels of the game. In order to retain the players, the manufacturer will update more difficult levels every week to attract users to get deeply involved; thus ensuring that it is a living system that runs through the entire operation process of the product.

A dynamic user incentive system that can guide users in the long term also requires the same operation and maintenance.

Author:Annika

Source:Annika