Plan an efficient marketing plan

In recent years, mobile Internet has developed rapidly, PC traffic has gradually shifted to mobile traffic, and the trend of mobile Internet is unstoppable. Various types of Internet companies have set up independent departments specifically for mobile operations. The author has been engaged in e-commerce and website operation for more than ten years, and has been involved in B2B, B2C, third-party platforms (Tmall, Taobao), mobile APP and other types of website operations. Below, I will start from the position of mobile Internet marketing director and explain from several aspects how the mobile Internet department can formulate an operation and promotion plan. As for the empty and vague words such as mobile Internet and mobile e-commerce are major trends, I will not elaborate on them.

The article is long, so let’s make a simple directory first:

1. Competitive product analysis
2. Product Positioning
3. Promotion plan
4. Promotion budget
5. Promotion goals

1. Competitive product analysis

1. Choose competitive products and position them well

1. Search similar product keywords on Baidu. Suppose your product is a travel sharing APP, you can enter the main keyword "travel app", which is generally ranked ahead of the natural ranking. The products ahead of Baidu's bidding promotion are all competing products.
2. Use keywords to search on major mobile application markets, such as 91 App Market, App Store, Wandoujia, etc.
3. Find the latest information on industry websites. For example, for travel apps, you can go to professional travel information websites such as Xinxin Travel Network, Global Travel News, and Jinlv Network to search for APP-related information.
4. Consulting websites such as iResearch, DCCI, Alexa, etc. are relatively reliable channels.

There are other methods, such as obtaining competitor information by participating in industry exhibitions, peer exchanges and other channels, which are not introduced here one by one. It is best to choose two products for competitive product analysis, but three at most.

2. Competitive product analysis and conclusion

Generally speaking, a more comprehensive competitive product analysis should be carried out from aspects such as users, market trends, functional design, and operational promotion strategies. Here we break it down into the following dimensions:

1. Market trends and industry status;
2. Competitors’ corporate vision, product positioning and development strategies;
3. Target users;
4. Market data;
5. Core functions;
6. Interaction design;
7. Product advantages and disadvantages;
8. Operation and promotion strategies;
9. Summary & Action Points.

For the marketing director of the mobile Internet department, he can only care about the market part and ignore the function and design. For example, he can analyze competitors from parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8, and focus on market data and operational promotion strategies.

Take a mobile travel APP as an example. The operational data can be used to conduct competitive analysis based on download volume, number of users, retention rate, conversion rate, number of active users, active time, etc. The operation and promotion strategies can be analyzed from the channel management of competitors, such as application market launch, mobile forums, marketing activities, soft article launch, social media performance, etc.

3. Make recommendations based on the conclusions

Through the above competitive product analysis, we can roughly draw a conclusion that has more market commercial value.

2. Product Positioning

The importance of product positioning is shown by the fact that it is discussed in a separate article. Clear product positioning and target user group positioning are the cornerstones of operation and promotion. The more thorough and clear the analysis of the target user group is, the more critical it will be for subsequent product promotion.

1. Product positioning

Describe your product clearly in one sentence and what kind of product you use to satisfy users or user markets.

like:

• Momo: A mobile social tool based on location.
• QQ Space: A platform for asynchronous information sharing and communication, which is a supplement to the QQ instant messaging tool.

2. Product core objectives

Product goals are often expressed as solving a problem in the target user market. The more thoroughly this problem is analyzed, the more accurate the core objectives of the product will be. like:

360 Security Guard solves the security issues that users encounter when using computers.

WeChat is a mobile application that provides users with smooth voice communication.

3. Target user positioning

Generally, the target user group is located based on age, income, education level, and region.

4. Target user characteristics

(1) Common user characteristics

Age, gender, date of birth, income, occupation, place of residence, interests, hobbies, personality traits, etc.

(2) User skills

Proficient in computer work and strong foreign language skills

(3) Product-related features:

1. E-commerce: shopping habits, annual consumption budget, etc.
2. ** Category: Single or not, mate selection criteria
3. Games: Do you like 3D games? Do you have experience with similar games?

5. User role cards

Create user role cards based on the target user groups and target user characteristics. Here we take a price comparison app as an example to create a user role card:

Zhang San, 30 years old, Internet operations director, annual salary 200,000, married, living in Beijing, likes movies, basketball, singing, games, etc.

Cheerful, sunny, artistic youth

Skilled in computer operation, proficient in English and product-related features:

① Like online shopping, favorite shopping websites: Taobao, JD.com

② Annual online shopping spending is around RMB 20,000, and shopping is done using credit cards.

③Shop with iPad at home and with mobile phone when outside

6. User usage scenarios

User usage scenarios refer to placing the target user group into actual usage scenarios. Let’s take the price comparison APP mentioned above as an example. Zhang San comes to a sporting goods store in Wanda Mall every day and sees Kobe’s second-generation sneakers priced at 1,400 yuan. He is immediately tempted to buy them. He uses the price comparison APP to scan the QR code and finds that the price on JD.com is 800 and the price on Taobao is 810. The APP actively prompts and recommends buying on JD.com. Zhang San quickly browses the high-definition pictures and product descriptions of the goods. Because the store can provide free shipping, Zhang San gives up buying offline.

3. Promotion plan

In the mobile Internet industry, the startup market is suitable for multi-pronged attack, trying every conceivable approach and method to maximize brand effect with minimal investment. Among the 100 methods that you can think of, constantly test out the most effective one, eliminate 99 of them, concentrate your resources on one point that may explode, constantly magnify it, constantly analyze it, and wait for the outbreak. Ultimately attract more registered users and increase your market share.

1. Channel promotion

(1) Online channels

① Basic online launch - Android version release channels covered by major download markets, app stores, large platforms, and download sites: The first step in promotion is to go online, which is the most basic. No need to break the bank, just maximum coverage.

1. Download market: Android, Jifeng, Anzhi, App Store, 91, Mumayi, Nduo, Youyi, Anji, Feiliu, etc.
2. App stores: Geogle Store, HTC Mall, Liqu, Crosscat, Kaiqi, Aimi, Wochacha, Meizu Store, Lenovo Developer Community, OPPO App Store, etc.
3. Large platforms: MM Community, Wo Store, Tianyi Space, Huawei Zhihui Cloud, Tencent Application Center, etc.;
4. Client: Wandoujia Mobile Wizard, 91 Mobile Assistant, 360 Software Manager, etc.
5. Wap sites: Paojiao, Tianwang, Lexun, Yisou, etc.
6. Web download sites: Sky, Huajun, Feifan, Greensoft, etc.
7. iOS version release channels: AppStore, 91 Assistant, pp Assistant, NetEase App Center, Syncios, Kuaiyong Apple Assistant, itools, limited time free collection.

② Operator channel promotion: China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom

With a large user base, the product can be pre-installed in the operator's store, leveraging capabilities that third parties do not have. If it is a good product, it can also receive subsidies and support from them.

The marketing department should have dedicated channel specialists to communicate and cooperate with operators and come up with plans for project tracking.

③ Third-party stores: The above-mentioned A categories all belong to third-party stores

Due to their early entry and large user base, third-party stores have become the traffic entrance for many apps. There are nearly a hundred third-party application stores across the country. Channel specialists need to prepare a large amount of materials, conduct tests, and connect with the application market. The rules of each app market are different, so it is crucial to communicate with the person in charge of the app market and accumulate experience and skills. If you have sufficient funds, you can place some advertising spots and make recommendations.

④ Mobile phone manufacturer stores

Major manufacturers pre-install stores in their own branded mobile phones, such as Lenovo Music Store, HTC Market, OPPO Nearme, Meizu Market, Moto Smart Parts Park, etc. The channel department needs more operations specialists to interact with mobile phone manufacturers' stores.

⑤ Points wall promotion

The "Points Wall" is a page within an app that displays various points tasks (downloading and installing recommended high-quality apps, registering, filling out forms, etc.) so that users can complete tasks and earn points. When users complete tasks within an application embedded in the offer wall, the developer of the application will receive corresponding income.

The points wall grows quickly and the effect is obvious. Most of them adopt the CPA model, with prices ranging from 1 to 3 yuan. However, considering comprehensive costs such as active users, the cost is relatively high and the user retention rate is low.

Companies in the industry include tapjoy, Weiyun, Youmi, Wanpu, etc.

The points wall is suitable for large teams with funds that need to develop users as quickly as possible.

⑥ Ranking promotion

This type of promotion is an informal means, but it is very popular in China. After all, most Apple mobile phone users will use the APP Store to download APPs. If your APP is directly in the top few positions, it can certainly quickly gain users' attention and obtain a higher real download volume.

However, the price of manipulating the rankings is relatively high. The price for the top 25 on the domestic list is about 10,000 yuan per day, and the price for the top 5 is more than 20,000 yuan per day. Since this type of promotion is relatively costly, it is usually done in conjunction with news hype, which makes it easy to become famous quickly.

⑦ Social platform promotion

The current mainstream smartphone social platforms have clear potential users and can promote products quickly. This type of promotion basically adopts a cooperative profit-sharing approach with various cooperation methods. Companies in the industry include Weiyun, 9you, Tencent, Sina, etc.

For example, in June 2010, the popular software If You Are the One was self-promoted on the Weiyun social platform, and the number of users reached 320,000 in the first month of its launch.

⑧ Advertising platform

The volume increases quickly and the effect is obvious. The cost is relatively high. Taking the current mainstream platforms as an example, the CPC price is between 0.3-0.8 yuan, and the CPA is between 1.5 yuan and 3 yuan.

It is not conducive to team promotion and use before entrepreneurial financing.

Companies in the industry include admob, Duomeng, Weiyun, Youmi, and Yidong.

⑨ Exchange

There are two main ways to exchange volume:

1. Recommend each other within the app. This method can make full use of traffic to increase exposure and downloads. The scale is not large, but the exposure is good. Applications with built-in recommendation positions can exchange traffic with each other, but this requires a certain number of users as a basis.
2. Buy volume in exchange for volume. If you are unable to bring traffic to a certain app yourself or the traffic is very small, you can look for an ad network to increase traffic in exchange for high-quality resource positions in the app store or convert it into money for promotion. This method is also a relatively practical one. Stores including App Store and Xiaomi can exchange traffic. Through certain agents, you can also exchange traffic with 360, etc. This may have better results than doing CPT directly on 360. Store: CP generally exchanges traffic in a 2:1 manner.

(2) Offline channels

① Pre-installed by mobile phone manufacturers

It exists when it leaves the factory, has a high user conversion rate, and is the most direct way to develop users.

The user ramp-up cycle is long, and it takes 3-5 months from test package submission - passing the test - trial production - mass production - sales to the user.

• Promotion cost: The pre-installation payment price for application products ranges from 0.5 to 1 yuan, and the CPA price ranges from 1.5 to 4 yuan. For gaming products, free pre-installation and subsequent profit-sharing model are adopted, with the CPA price between 2-3 yuan.
• Companies in the industry: Huawei, ZTE, Coolpad, TCL, Bird, OPPO, Meizu, Hisense, etc.
• Operational difficulties: There are many brands, multiple levels of personnel, and many product projects, which require a professional team to make targeted recommendations and maintain relationships.

② Parallel import flashing

The volume increases quickly, and you can basically see users flashing their phones within 2-4 days. The number is large, and basically tens of thousands of phones can be flashed in a day.

The phenomenon of repeated flashing is serious. Basically, a mobile phone will be flashed 3-5 times from the wholesale to the channel to the store. The promotion cost has increased dramatically, the user quality is poor, and it is difficult to monitor.

Basically, the CPA of a single software for flashing the machine is 1-2 yuan, and the price of chartering a machine is between 5-10 yuan.

Companies in the industry: XDA, Coolle, Leku, and Flash Wizard.

③Official store

The users are of high quality and stickiness, the user payment conversion rate is high, and the speed of meeting users is fast.

There are many stores and the training of store employees is complicated, which requires a complete assessment and reward mechanism.

Basically, the CPA price is between 1.5-3 yuan, and the pre-installation price is between 0.5-1 yuan.

Companies in the industry: Leyu, Zhongfu, Tianyin, Zhongyou, Suning, etc.

Case: At the end of 2010, Weiyun and a well-known domestic mobile phone chain store carried out a pilot cooperation, placing the cooperative CDs in stores for packaged sales to users. Half of the 80,000 sets of CDs were activated users.

2. New media promotion

(1) Content planning

Before content planning, you need to do a good job of audience positioning and analyze the core user characteristics.

Insist on producing original content, and keep updating about three interesting contents a day.

Catch the hot spots of the week or day and follow up.

Creativity, creativity, let your product tell a story and humanize it.

(2) Brand-based promotion

• Encyclopedia promotion: Create brand entries in Baidu Encyclopedia and 360 Encyclopedia
• Q&A promotion: Create Q&A pages on Baidu Knows, Soso Q&A, Sina iAsk, Zhihu and other websites.

(3) Forum and Tieba promotion

Jifeng, Android, Anzhi... You can see many industry forums at the bottom of mobile phone related websites.

It is recommended that promoters post promotional posts in the form of official posts or user posts. They can also contact forum administrators to do some event promotion. After posting, you should regularly maintain your posts, promptly answer questions raised by users, and collect user feedback so that you can update and improve the next version.

• The first team: Jifeng Forum, Android Forum, Anzhi Forum!
• The second team: Moqu.com, Android Forum, Meizu Forum!
• The third team: Storm Forum, Wood Ant Forum, DOSPY Forum!

(4) Weibo promotion

• Content: humanize the product, tell stories, identify the characteristics of Weibo, and insist on producing original content. Follow up on the hot topics of the week or the day on Weibo and maintain a certain level of continuous innovation. Here you can refer to the more successful Weibo accounts in the same industry and learn from their experience.
• Interaction: Follow relevant Weibo accounts in the industry, maintain interaction, and increase brand exposure.
• Activities: When necessary, you can plan activities, forward on Weibo, etc.

(5) WeChat promotion

The operation and promotion of WeChat public accounts requires a certain amount of time to settle down. Here are a few steps for reference:

• Content positioning: Combine products to make content aggregation recommendations. The content does not have to be large, but it must be refined and in line with the positioning of the WeChat account.
• Accumulation of seed users: In the initial stage, a KPI indicator can be given, with a threshold of 500 fans. Seed users can be recommended by colleagues, friends, partners, Weibo, official website, etc.
• Accumulation of small accounts: Open a small WeChat account and import target customer groups every day.
• Use the small account to guide the big account: recommend the WeChat public account through the accumulated fans of the small account, and import the fans to the WeChat public account.
• WeChat mutual promotion: When the number of fans reaches a certain expectation, you can join some WeChat mutual promotion groups. Regarding the sharing of WeChat promotion experience, I will not discuss it in detail here. You can join my WeChat public account yunying-91 to communicate.

(6) PR communication

PR is not hard advertising. It is very important to learn to tell a moving story in the right way. In the Internet age, everyone is a source of communication. Whether it is Weibo Kol, WeChat public account, column of media website or major social networking sites, I have to study how to use these platforms to tell a good brand story. Conversely, these platforms will also be the best channels for users to generate UGC for the brand. In a startup company, as a PR, you need to have a thorough understanding of the direction of the company at every stage, and then learn to convey a strong voice to the market, investors, and users. This voice is not a blunt advertisement, but rather a topic that makes everyone interested in your story and how to draw everyone's interest to your product. It is best to make it a hot topic in the industry.

Here are a few strategies:

1. Maintain steady exposure with daily manuscripts. We will regularly make a communication plan, and decide what message to convey to the outside world every month based on changes in the company and its products. Appropriate expression and continuous content output will gradually increase the company's exposure and industry attention. Maintain existing media resources and actively expand new resources. I will continue to communicate and exchange with the reporters and media that I am familiar with, and tell them what our team is doing. I firmly believe that only through repeated communication can the highlights of a story be polished to capture people's hearts. As a PR, you can also sense the media's interests in a timely manner and make full preparations for the next round of reports. When startups do not have sufficient funds for PR, we need to carefully analyze what channels and resources are needed to support the company's voice and opinions at what stage and progress of development. Therefore, we require ourselves to plan to expand some new media resources every week, so that we can have appropriate channels to support the output of events in the future.
2. The channel chosen determines the effectiveness of communication. What story to tell and how to present it to achieve the best communication effect are particularly important in terms of channel selection. For example, for some interviews with company founders, we may prefer high-weighted print media related to industry and finance, which are conducive to large-scale dissemination; for product voice, we prefer new media in the technology field, which can attract more rapid attention in the industry; and for news about event topics, we prefer to choose large portal websites. In the field of self-media, the strengths vary greatly. It is a good choice to choose self-media with neutral views and strong voices. However, the cost is not the most cost-effective for startups. As for TV media, choosing the right program that matches your potential users is a way to quickly achieve explosive growth of your product.
3. Finally, remember to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing communications. These may include population coverage, clicks, readings, likes, etc. The data from each time will tell you how to make the next content better. As a bridge connecting the inside and the outside, PR should also hide among users and highlight the brand's personality in in-depth communication.

(7) Event Marketing

Event marketing is definitely a physical and mental job, which requires the entire team to maintain a keen sense of the market. In addition, it requires strong execution capabilities and certain media resources so that the event can be launched as quickly as possible. The premise of event marketing is that team members need to be exposed to a large amount of fresh information every day. In order to integrate this information, they also need to develop the habit of recording some flashes of inspiration and creativity at any time and share them with other members in a timely manner. For creative ideas that can be applied to the product, we will immediately brainstorm and reason about the events. If we determine that the plan is feasible, we will immediately make a communication plan to match it, start making a project budget and prepare channel resources.

(8) Data analysis

Spend some time every week to carefully analyze the data behind every Weibo, WeChat, and every channel, and you will definitely find the connections and correlations behind the highly disseminated content. This will greatly help improve the quality of content on your official Weibo and WeChat accounts, and make operations more down-to-earth.

3. Offline promotion

Use publicity funds to print paper leaflets and various posters for publicity.

1. Introduction posters: Post posters in places with high traffic and free publicity
2. Flyers: Discuss with cooperating merchants to expose flyers in places where merchants come into contact with users.
3. Ground promotion flyers: Make exquisite flyers and distribute them in places where office areas are relatively concentrated and shopping malls.

4. Promotion Budget

According to the above promotion plan, allocate budgets to each channel and finalize the first phase budget with the boss.

5. Set goals

An APP should pay attention to two indicators

1. Product operation stage

• Seed stage: The main purpose is to collect user behavior data, compare it with the user model during product design, and make targeted adjustments. The main data of concern include: page path conversion, button clicks, number of launches, launch time period, length of stay, etc. At this stage, the amount of data does not need to be large, but it must be true. As for the source of users, you can start with free channels. It would be even better if you can have some first-release resources.
• Promotion period: The main purpose is to expand the influence and attract users. The main data of concern are: new, active, retained and channel data. At this stage, it would be best if we could coordinate various resources in a multi-pronged approach to achieve an explosion in user volume.
• Revenue period: The main purpose is to generate revenue through various activity operations and value-added services. The main data to look for include: number of paying users, payment amount, payment path conversion, ARPU, etc.

2. Product Type

For example, for tools, the number of launches is very important; for communities, active users and UGC are important; for games, the number of online users and arpu value are key; mobile e-commerce mainly focuses on transaction conversion rate, including order conversion rate and amount conversion rate. Formulate an APP data indicator assessment table based on the APP product type and the operation stage

About data indicator analysis:

(1) User retention and retention rate

Retained users and retention rates usually reflect the loss of users acquired in different periods. Analyzing this result is often to find the specific reasons for user loss.

After an APP gains a certain number of users, there will be more users at the beginning. As time goes by, there will be a continuous loss of users. The retention rate will gradually decrease over time and generally reach a stable level after 3 to 5 months. Among them, reading information, social communication, and system tools are the three types of applications with the highest retention rate, and the retention rate stabilizes at around 10% after 4 months. Only when the retention rate is improved will more users stay and more and more users will actually use the APP.

• Next-day retention: Since they are all new users, we analyze the reasons for user loss based on the product’s novice guide design and new user conversion path. Through continuous modification and adjustment, we can reduce user loss and improve the next-day retention rate. Usually, if this number reaches 40%, it means that the product is excellent.
• Weekly retention: During this period of time, users usually go through a complete usage and experience cycle. If users can stay at this stage, they are likely to become more loyal users.
• Monthly retention: Usually the iteration cycle of a mobile app is 2-4 weeks for one version, so the monthly retention rate can reflect the user retention of a version. The update of a version will always affect the user experience to a certain extent, so by comparing the monthly retention rate, we can determine whether each version update has an impact on users.
• Channel retention: Because channels come from different sources, the quality of users will also vary, so it is necessary to conduct a retention rate analysis for channel users. Moreover, after eliminating the factors of user differences, comparing the next-day and weekly retention rates can help us more accurately identify product problems.

(2) Active users

Users are constantly added and lost every day. If you only look at the number of daily active users, it is difficult to find the essence of the problem, so it is usually combined with the activity rate and the entire APP life cycle. The activity rate refers to the ratio of active users to total users. This ratio can help you understand the overall activity of your users. However, as time goes by, the user activity rate will gradually decrease. Therefore, if after a long life cycle (3 months or half a year), the user activity rate can still be maintained at 5%-10%, it is a very good performance of user activity. Of course, it cannot be fully applied and depends on the product characteristics.

Author: Product Stories

Source: Product Stories