5 steps to operate Internet users!

As the link closest to users, user operations are the people who can understand users most deeply. How to achieve the greatest value of operations from users and realize user conversion is a question that operators must consider. The author of this article shares the specific steps and issues that need attention in Internet user operations based on his own experience for everyone's reference and learning.

People often ask me: How to do user operations? Because I am usually busy and cannot reply one by one, I wrote this article today to answer your questions:

1. User operations should be criss-crossed and make friends with users

1. User Growth: Identifying “Real” Friends

As we enter the second half of the Internet, increasing user growth has become an inevitable topic for companies. The most important prerequisite for growth is to identify your target users. If you don’t know where your target users are, there is naturally no way to talk about growth.

When measuring target users, many companies tend to focus too much on the basic attributes of users, but ignore other aspects such as user behavioral attributes and cognitive attributes. We must constantly understand who our users are, what they like, where they usually go, when and how often they are in product-related scenarios based on data changes, and explore the needs of "true friends" horizontally and vertically, which will always be the driving force for business development.

Never use "small favors" as the main means of finding "true friends" and firmly reject red envelopes, welfare, material incentives and other means, as such means often bring in non-target users.

During the operation process, people often have some taken-for-granted misunderstandings: they think that our product is mainly aimed at this group of people, so the users in this group should be our target users. We believe that our product is a tool-type product, so those users who have relevant tool needs are our target users.

In fact, when we hand over the dominance of fine-grained definition of target users to the market, you will find that the market will give you a different answer. The market will tell you what kind of users like your product, what kind of users are willing to spread your product (old users bring new users), what kind of users are willing to pay for your product, and what kind of users are not interested in your product (even if you wishfully believe that they are your users).

• Can you imagine that BMW started out as an aircraft factory?
• Can you imagine that Nokia started out as a wood pulp mill?
• Can you imagine that Nintendo originally made playing cards?

Today, when products and operations are becoming increasingly homogenized, if you make fewer assumptions and restrictions on yourself before designing and operating, you may be able to discover a path that others have not discovered.

2. User stratification: Treat "good" friends:

“Can we allow users coming from different channels to add different customer service numbers?”

This is a question an intern once asked me. After further questioning, I learned that the five customer service accounts often encounter various problems. Some of the questions are only slightly related to the product, some ask a lot of information about competing products, and some are completely laymen...

However, our customer service staff have limited energy and cannot answer every question perfectly at all times, so what we should do is to respond to the most valuable questions within the limited time.

For example, users who directly inquire about products and product prices are the most important, and we must provide high-quality services to these valuable users.

Then, user stratification operations should come into being.

We can set some friends as core friends and set them as starred friends on WeChat; we will reply to their messages immediately and never ignore them. These are called core users, or KOL users. Treat them as childhood friends, best buddies, brothers and sisters.

When dealing with such core friends, you must inform them first if there is any good news, and you must also be available at any time, understand their feelings and know their hearts! This idea is the core user operation, management and user operation idea.

Communities and community products are particularly suitable for such a strategy. If you capture the moderators, group owners, and forum owners in the community, you will essentially capture the tens of thousands of users they manage.

Let's make a summary. The reasons for user stratification can basically be summarized into the following three points:

1. First, when the product user base is small, operators can use emotional means to maintain this group of users. However, as the user base continues to expand, operators’ energy and time are limited. At this time, user stratification is required to improve operational efficiency.
2. Secondly, as the user base of a product grows, users begin to show differences in attributes (such as gender, region, age, etc.). Even users with the same attributes have different product behavior habits. At this time, operators cannot adopt a "one-size-fits-all" approach to operations, but must conduct targeted operations based on different groups of people to meet differentiated user needs.
3. Finally, user segmentation can also help operations personnel better sort out the process status of users, and then formulate different operation strategies for users in different statuses. At the same time, through refined operations, operations are productized, forming a standardized "crowd-strategy-reach-feedback-optimization", making operational resources efficient and controlling each input and output within the most reasonable effective range.

2. Refine the user operation system and allocate resources reasonably

First, let us raise a question:

If you are dealing with a product with over a million users, user growth is slow, and budget and manpower are limited, how can you implement refined management to allocate operational resources efficiently?

In the process of dealing with this problem, the role of user stratification is obvious. We can purposefully formulate more targeted operation strategies - refined operations - based on the differences in user groups at each level. Its greatest value to operators is that it can form standardized population-strategy-reach-feedback-optimization, making operational resources efficient and controlling each input and output within the most reasonable effective range.

In order to do a good job in this part of user operations, you need to be clear that the user's progress from active to conversion must be dynamic. Moreover, there must be clues (user behavior trajectory) to track the upgrade/regression of user status.

Therefore, we cannot just focus on the user’s current status attributes, but also need to pay attention to why the user upgrades from status A to status C, what “steps” need to be given to the user, and what changes will occur in the user’s behavior on the platform in the future.

In the specific implementation process, we usually define the status of a certain user group, look for users in this status, and then operate in a targeted manner. That is, the hierarchical model is fixed and the users are fluid.

We can perform user segmentation from several aspects, such as user portrait, user behavior, and user life cycle.

1. User portraits tell you who your users are?

User portrait: refers to the basic objective attributes of the user, such as gender, age, region, occupation, etc. The core of portrait creation is to "label" user groups. A label is usually a highly refined feature identifier defined by humans. This dimension tells us: who he is.

2. User behavior tells you what your users like to do?

User behavior: refers to the user's usage behavior process, such as downloading, registering and logging in, clicking and browsing, purchasing and placing orders, evaluating and sharing, etc. This dimension tells us what he is doing.

3. Focus on the 5 stages of your user lifecycle

In the entire user life cycle, there are 5 stages, corresponding to the different levels of user participation and interaction in the product, namely: introduction period, growth period, maturity period, dormancy period, and churn period.

Introduction period: users who have completed registration but have not yet experienced in-depth product-related services or functions (you can set specific login times and access time thresholds to define whether users have experienced in-depth product-related services or functions).

Growth stage: users who have deeply experienced the product-related services or functions and completed their first key behavior (the legendary aha moment, which may be completing a full video playback or making a payment for the first time).

Mature stage: users who have made multiple payment behaviors (the peak of each user’s product value, able to contribute the most active time and revenue).

Dormant period: used to be a mature user, but has not generated any valuable behavior for a period of time (it is necessary to define specific dormant signals, combining the overall product data and the user's past behavior data, such as orders, browsing, interactions, etc.).

Churn period: users who have not logged in or accessed the app for a period of time (clearly define churn and key behaviors, for example: not logging in to the app for more than 30 days).

Operations manage the user life cycle, which is ultimately to maximize user value. The user value is different for users in different life cycles, so operations need to be targeted and refined.

3. The best users are active users

The Internet has developed to this stage, and the early stage of wild growth has passed. All companies have begun to seize users in the existing market. To put it bluntly, they are trying to seize the time users spend using their own apps within their limited time.

There are three core methodologies for user operations: attracting new users, promoting activation and retaining users. Attracting new customers can be discussed separately as a channel promotion, while activation and retention complement each other and can be understood together.

Internet companies have similar definitions of active users, mainly counting a user as one who opens the app once. However, most companies only pay attention to the data reflection of activity, and often ignore the various truths behind the activity data. Generally speaking, the number of active users reflects the market size of the product, while the activity rate reflects the health attributes of the product. The increase in the number of new users will increase the activity level. After the product enters the stable period and has a certain user scale, the active data will not be greatly affected.

1. Understand the different stages of users: Any operation without observing user dynamics is in vain

Users themselves include various types, reflecting the characteristics and ideas of different groups, so user indicators and labels should be defined more comprehensively and meticulously during the product usage cycle. Different stages of user definition:

• Lost users: Users who have not opened the product for a period of time are considered lost users. Based on the attributes of the product, they can be divided into 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, etc.
• Inactive users: Users who have not opened the product for a period of time. To distinguish them from churn, you need to select a non-overlapping time range. For example, lost users are those who have not opened the product for more than 60 days, and inactive users are those who have not opened the product for 0 to 60 days.
• Returning users: Users who have not used a product for a while and then suddenly come back to use it again are called returning users. Returning users are active users who are recalled from lost or inactive users.
• Active users: users who have opened the product within a certain period of time.
• Loyal users: They can also be called super active users, who use the product continuously for a long time, such as four consecutive weeks or 15 days in a month.

2. Learn to use Sankey diagrams skillfully: one diagram can help you understand the cold, hot and user

How to monitor the changes of active data in more detail? We introduce the concept of Sankey diagram.

Using a Sankey diagram to view active data is much clearer than using a simple table, and it is also possible to significantly observe changes in different active layers. Thousands of changes are contained in one picture. With data and trends, we should focus more on how to apply them in operations and business.

• The increase in returning users over a certain period of time, is it due to product updates, market promotions, or event marketing?
• This week, more users have become inactive than before. Should we conduct a user interview to find out the reason?
• Is it a good idea to use Push marketing for active users and SMS marketing for lost users?
• Observe loyal users and find out what characteristics they have and why they love using our products?
• By the same token, where does the problem of lost users lie?
• Loyalty or churn, are there significant differences in promotion channels (combined with newly added retention data)?

Operation is the process of interacting with users, dealing with people and making friends. If you want to operate well, you must learn to observe the user's emotional dynamics and user needs. All of the above are things that user operations need to consider, and they also need to be solved in collaboration with various departments to implement the operational direction of the entire product life cycle.

4. User growth system: customer needs as the core

The user system is a huge scope of product design.

Product managers not only need to understand functionality, but also need communication and understanding of product planning, data operations, and product operations.

1. What is the user system? What is the meaning of its existence?

The user system is based on user needs. It forms a complete set of operational mechanisms that drive user growth by finding the key paths and core driving forces of user growth, building incentive channels for user growth and access channels that connect user behaviors.

For the platform, the growth system is a means of refined operation. It separates users into levels according to different data labels, which plays a huge role in improving product user stickiness and realizing the transformation of users from general users to core users.

2. What key points must a complete user system include?

A complete user growth system should include "entry", "sequence", "frequency increase" and "activation promotion" .

• Entrance: It is actually the process of understanding the product;
• Sequential: Improve users’ second purchase behavior through benefits, privileges, rewards, discounts, and coupons;
• Frequency increase: Frequency increase itself is based on the premise that the entry and sequence have relevant usage awareness, and we operate users in a meticulous manner. At this time, there are levels, points, regular discount coupons, usage cards, monthly packages, hourly coupons and other means of increasing frequency, the purpose of which is to cultivate loyal fans and loyal users;
• Activation promotion: Encourage repeated use by settled users. Returning gift packages and rewards for old customers are common means of activation. It should be noted that we need to clarify the rigid needs of users. Many settled users do not have rigid needs, so there is no particular need for in-depth marketing.

3. User-level marketing: remind your users and stimulate them to buy

The original intention of marketing is to remind and stimulate users. "Reminders" are the so-called high-frequency reach, which makes one's own app, WeChat, levels, and welfare system more valuable, and reaches users at a high frequency throughout the day. "Stimulation" refers to the behavior of winning over value-sensitive users through user operations and maintenance, stimulation of the welfare system.

5. Develop a deep connection with users: Build a complete user growth system

1. Plan user behavior interaction space and task system;
2. Define the importance of various interactions and user operations according to the operational goals and assign weights to behaviors. The weights can be directly used as the growth value obtained by the behavior.
3. Based on the growth value obtained by the behavior calculated in step 2, calculate the upper limit of the daily growth value;
4. At this stage, the system can use time calculation (for example, 3 years) to allocate the time required for each level, and the proportion of each level can be determined according to the exponential function, power function or Fibonacci sequence;
5. Use the level duration and the upper limit of the daily growth value calculated in step 3 to find the experience points required for each level;
6. Divide users into several categories according to their activity level (such as KOL, active users, and users with a low sex drive), analyze their behavior data and user portraits, and conduct user interviews if you have the ability to determine their upgrade demands and motivations, so as to determine the user privilege system;
7. Plan the coupons, peripheral products, etc. for the points mall according to the budget, and then find suppliers to make them. Creating a cute mascot may become a popular IP, such as the QQ penguin doll. If the budget is insufficient, BD can negotiate for traffic replacement resources;
8. Operational rewards are generally expressed in points rather than growth values. This is to prevent users who frequently participate in activities or brushes from quickly reaching the top and ignoring their continued contribution to the platform. Based on the value of user traffic to the platform, for example, the active value of one comment is 0.1 yuan (find a brush on Taobao to find out the general prices of brushing rankings and likes, etc.), and comments can earn 2 coins, then the intangible exchange rate of virtual currency and RMB (because it cannot be withdrawn directly) is 20:1. Of course, you can also consider more precise estimation methods.
9. With the value conversion of RMB and virtual currency, it is possible to define how many points can be exchanged for what goods. This is the core element of the points mall.
10. Basically, a user growth system has taken shape. Of course, it will need to be dynamically adjusted according to development conditions in the future, and the growth value generally remains unchanged.

Author: Zhang Bancheng

Source: Zhang Bancheng

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