0 investment, 0 purchase of traffic, and obtaining millions of accurate users, what is the magic of this promotion strategy?

Last year, I started to coordinate the operation of a content app. Since it is a startup company, the promotion budget is extremely limited. Below I would like to share some of my experiences in accurately acquiring millions of users online with low cost, zero investment and zero purchase.

Friends who have worked in startups know that as long as the product is not profitable, your promotion budget is almost zero. I don’t have a promotion budget, so I can only try all the free ones first. However, Zhihu and Baidu’s official accounts share so many free promotion methods that it is impossible to have the energy to try them all.

To choose the method that suits you best, you must

First, you need to familiarize yourself with who your target group is, whether the user base is large enough, where they are active, and what pain points your product solves for users.

Observe the promotions of competing products or products in the same category, estimate the costs and effects, and choose appropriate ones to try.

After analyzing my own products, I finally chose to focus on promoting them on Zhihu, Tieba, App Store and the latest trend, TikTok, and maintain users through social networks, WeChat and Weibo.

1. Before product launch

Full-time staff: Operations*2

During this period, we have been stockpiling content. First, plan the content template and write a few reference examples; then hire part-time writers and we review them.

A month later, the product design and development was completed, the content was added, and it began to be put on the shelves of major app stores.

In the early days of listing, since our focus was not on the APP and we did not do any special research on keywords and ASO optimization before listing, the work in this area was very rough.

【You ask me, I answer】

▶Q: How did you position the product in the early stages? What are the advantages of your products compared to competing products?

▶A: Our content positioning is very clear: select good content and help users understand and use it. This is an unmet pain point we discovered through research on competing products and based on user feedback, and it is also our advantage.

▶Q: In addition to the operation of this content, what other things did you do before going online?

▶A: No

2. Cold start period

Phase 1:

Full-time staff: Operations*2

In the first few months after the launch, our focus was not on the App, so we simply did three things after the launch:

1. Write soft ads in relevant community forums such as Zhihu (free of charge). Our first batch of high-quality users were basically converted from Zhihu, and there is still a small number of users who downloaded the App after learning about it on Zhihu. As long as your content is helpful to users, users will buy into both soft and hard advertising.

2. Apply for the first release of new applications and special topics (zero payment). We were stupid at that time and never applied for the first release, which wasted a lot of resources. We only applied for excellent new applications from App Store, and the number of applications per day was close to 1,000. Occasionally, 360 would give a special recommendation, but the number was not large, about 500 per day. As a new product, we still felt very motivated.

3. Carry out some activities in the App to promote user sharing (cost 2000). At that time, we tried a limited-time sharing activity for bookmarks. The number of user shares increased significantly, but the additional effect was not very obvious.

ps: Continue to reserve and output good content.

In the first few months after going online, the daily natural additions slowly increased from 0 to more than 100 and then to more than 300 (including recommendations and activities, the average daily additions were around 400). Overall, the effect was relatively slow, but since not much time and energy was invested, this effect is understandable.

The above method is suitable for promotion reference in the 0-1 stage of content products, especially the stage of accumulating the first tens of thousands of users.

【You ask me, I answer】

▶Q: It costs money to be recommended in the app market now. We previously collaborated with Meizu on content and published an excellent case study, and they gave us a free special recommendation spot on the homepage. It seems that it is difficult to apply for other special positions for free. I don't know how you applied for it?

▶A: In 2018, most stores did not bring much volume in their first releases, but applying more often and showing your face in front of the editor more often may help you get recommendations. The first release with the highest volume should be Xiaomi, which is generally recommended on the homepage. It is estimated that it can bring 500-3000 units per day depending on the location. Different types of products will fluctuate within this range.

Phase 2:

Full-time staff: Operations*3

In the early stage, our volume grew steadily, especially when the number of users reached 50,000 but less than 100,000, which was particularly slow. We are absolutely confident in the products we make, but the added effects are not particularly good, which means that the fission we expect has always been just an expectation.

Later, through communicating with users and reading user comments in the market, I found that the reason why people did not share was that they did not want to share good apps and just wanted to keep them for their own use.

We mainly did two things afterwards:

1. We started to promote our app on Tieba (we also did it on Baidu Zhidao Wenku, but we didn’t focus on it), which cost us about 20,000 yuan.

2. Play the emotional card with users. Write a sensational paragraph in the app to tell users that one-star protection is harmful to developers and we hope to have more five-star protection. This stimulated a large number of conscientious users to go to the app store to write about their experience, suggestions and praise. (In fact, we accidentally did ASO optimization at this time without knowing it)

With the promotion of Zhihu + Baidu, and the guidance of user reviews, the number of new apps has gradually increased to five or six hundred per day. The increase in new and positive reviews has gradually increased the weight of the apps in the app store, and the category rankings have begun to rise. The average daily number of new apps has gradually increased to around 1,000, and the app store has gradually started to give more recommendations, especially for Xiaomi, Meizu and 360.

In terms of the number of recommendations, at that time, there were generally two to three thousand recommendations at the front of Xiaomi's homepage, and 500-1000 recommendations at the back; Meizu's recommendation volume was also very good, around 1000, while 360's was slightly weaker, at a few hundred. If several stores make recommendations together or in turns, don’t be too happy!

(Counting the volume brought by recommendations, our daily increase has reached about 2,000 at this stage. I am really grateful to Xiaomi, Meizu and 360, which are conscientious stores that still provide free recommendations!)

The above method is suitable for promotion reference in the 0-1 stage, especially for the stage where you want to break through 100,000 and quickly reach 300,000.

Phase 3:

Full-time staff: Operations*6

After the National Day in 2017, our new additions began to hit a bottleneck again because the number of recommendations in the app store gradually decreased, and users were selfish and not many people took the initiative to share. In addition, we were short of manpower and were trying some new explorations, so we didn't carry out other effective promotions. It was not until the new version was launched before the New Year that everyone began to recover (but there was a feature in the new version that was severely complained by users and received a lot of bad reviews).

Then we focused on the following effective promotion work:

1. Increased promotion and publicity on Zhihu, created a Zhihu institutional account, and actively answered relevant questions (without paying);

2. The emotional card is also played. Instead of simple words, physical rewards are added to encourage users who are willing to share to continue sharing the App, and they can get some peripheral gifts (within 10,000 yuan);

3. Start focusing on ASO optimization. After the new year, the update frequency returned to an average of once a month.

In terms of ASO optimization, our attempts are as follows:

Keyword coverage and ranking optimization (cost less than 30,000 yuan). We will update it once a month, and select keywords that have a high match with our products, are quite popular, have dozens or hundreds of search results, and are easy to optimize to the top few keywords for the points wall.

User review guide. Because we have tried in the last stage that positive reviews can increase the weight of the app store and bring in relatively large natural additions, we first discovered their new pain points and needs from the users’ complaints about the new features, guided them to add the official account and WeChat friends, encouraged them to comment, and gave them some rewards, such as small props that can be used in the App to meet their short-term needs. At that time, more than 10,000 people were added, and several operations colleagues worked overtime every day to chat with users, including weekends. The new effects brought about were very obvious.

At the same time, we started to study the review ratings and ranking rules of the app store. Although the rules have not been studied very clearly, the effect of guiding positive reviews is undoubtedly very good. Therefore, the demand was put forward to make evaluation guidance a product function to reduce the cost and burden of manual guidance.

The only lists that can be manually operated that I know of are Huawei's favorable comments and hot discussion lists, which are mainly related to the rating and the number of raters, with the rating > the number of raters. The higher the classification list of each channel is, the better the effect will be. I guess the ranking of Xiaomi is mainly based on downloads, and there may also be the weight of ratings and comments. More research has not yet begun, and we can discuss more in the future.

Other promotional highlights include:

In-app user and activity operation: less than 60,000 yuan so far;

WeChat official account: redirect some of the APP users to perform maintenance;

Sina Weibo: redirect some of the APP users to perform maintenance;

Douyin: Let small internet celebrities shoot soft ads, which cost 20,000 yuan so far; also insist on creating corporate Douyin accounts;

I found big Weibo Vs and small Douyin influencers to post soft ads, but the conversion effect was not very ideal (I spent about 30,000 yuan and didn’t see any obvious new changes). The next step should be to invest manpower to focus on the Douyin corporate account. After all, it is the current traffic outlet and there is still a high probability that it will become popular.

QQ group: direct some of the APP users to do maintenance;

WeChat account: maintain high-quality old users;

Mini Program: It is in the testing stage. The dissemination effect is good, but the download conversion rate of the APP is almost 0. It is more suitable to be directed to the official account and needs further optimization.

During this stage, our daily new cases gradually increased to over 6,000, and the cumulative new cases exceeded one million.

The above methods are still applicable to the promotion reference in the 0-1 stage. Our next focus will be on ASO optimization and KOL maintenance. We will also try short videos and mini programs, hoping to see user fission as soon as possible.

Author: Dazhao

Source: Dacheng