Product strategy for traffic growth from 0 to 1!

As the traffic dividend has peaked and it becomes more difficult to acquire customers online, what should C-end products do if they want to increase user growth and daily activity?

• C-end products no longer have traffic dividends, and it is too difficult to cold start without spending money!
• The mobile Internet has entered the stage of competition for existing resources. How can we compete without resources?
• So many big companies are innovating, but no one has succeeded.

…

The above viewpoints have been mentioned continuously since 2019. The mobile Internet, which once attracted much attention, seems to have suddenly entered a recession. Those C-end product managers who have always focused on users and experience no longer have the opportunity to prove themselves and are facing the pressure of transformation, demotion or even dismissal.

In today's article, I would like to bring some confidence to C-end product managers who firmly believe in user value by using a popular product case that I have personally experienced recently.

Although there are some catchy headlines, the project results are real. As the first step of the review, I will first present you with the final product data:

A small team of 5 people (1 product, 1 designer, 1 front-end, 1 server, and 1 tester) developed it in only 2 weeks without spending a penny. It was launched on December 9, 2021, and as of January 17, 2022, it achieved a DAU of 12.4w, with a new retention rate of 48.9%, 7-time retention rate of 34%, and 14-time retention rate of 26% . As an experimental C-end product, it can be considered a satisfactory cold start answer sheet.

In fact, this product is not complicated. It is just a small tool for recording daily moods. It is called "Time Diary" . It looks like this:

At first glance, there is nothing special. Almost all mood diary products are designed in this way, but the difference is that this is a service card customized for Huawei's Hongmeng platform , which can directly reach users in the desktop scene, so you can also use it like this:

How about it, isn’t it interesting? Yes, it is precisely by customizing an exclusive product on an emerging platform like Hongmeng that has brought us unexpected traffic growth .

Without further ado, I will now give you a detailed account of the implementation process of this project and reveal the ins and outs behind it step by step.

1. Why choose Hongmeng?

As mentioned above, today's mobile Internet is in the era of stock. If we want to achieve growth, we can only find growth from the stock, and the Hongmeng system is a traffic depression we have discovered .

In June 2021, Huawei officially launched the public beta of HarmonyOS, and in August, the number of users upgraded exceeded 50 million. By December of the same year, the number of Huawei devices equipped with HarmonyOS exceeded 220 million. This growth rate shows us Huawei's confidence and determination in the Hongmeng system. According to research, Huawei has a total of 700 million devices in stock, but only one-third of them have been covered so far. This is definitely a treasure trove worth exploring.

So we started to research HarmonyOS and came to the following conclusions:

First, this is a brand new developer ecosystem with its own review and listing mechanism.

From developer onboarding, product design, code writing to listing review, HarmonyOS applications are independent of Huawei's existing AppGallery Connect Android application system. And precisely because it is new enough, it provides extremely strong support to early developers, which makes it very suitable for small innovative teams like us looking for opportunities.

Second, there are additional traffic distribution entrances for HarmonyOS applications.

To highlight its uniqueness, Huawei has specially opened a separate traffic entrance for HarmonyOS applications . When you swipe from the lower left to the upper right (or from the lower right to the upper left) on the desktop, you can wake up an interface called " Service Center ", where you can find all HarmonyOS applications called " Service Cards ". Our products have benefited from the promotion of this location and obtained a large amount of free traffic.

Third, the development cost of HarmonyOS applications is low and the experience is simple and direct.

Compared with traditional Android systems, Hongmeng defines an exclusive product form called "atomic service card" and provides a complete development framework for it. From the interface point of view, it is a bit similar to a widget, which can display cards of different sizes directly on the desktop. But unlike an app, it has its own design and coding specifications, does not require installation, is small in size (less than 10MB), and can be used out of the box. Because it is lightweight enough, it is simple and quick to develop, making it very suitable for product verification ideas in the form of MVP.

2. How did “Time Diary” achieve 120,000 DAU?

After fully researching the platform features, we decided to give it a try. But there are so many types of HarmonyOS applications, what can they actually do? After several rounds of discussion, we decided to start from the following points:

• I have personal needs;
• Refer to existing successful cases (iOS Widget);
• Suitable for desktop presentation;
• It is a supplement to system tools;
• Simple and direct to use;
• Be good looking!

It just so happened that the product manager and designer of the team were all young girls. They suggested that MOODA on iOS was very nice, but they didn’t want to download it because it cost money, so they decided to make a similar product themselves, design some cute icons, and record their moods on the desktop with one click. It would be both ceremonial and clear at a glance, so they finally decided on the time diary plan.

After the product is finalized, the next step is to solve the problem of where users come from. From 0 to 12w, we did two things right:

The first is that it received official recommendation from Huawei, and the second is that it was self-propagated on Xiaohongshu.

As shown in the picture above, we have experienced 3 official recommendations in total. The first promotion was unexpected, and a serious bug made us miss the opportunity. The second time we regrouped and with the strong support of the Hongmeng Developer Service Team, we successfully crossed the 50,000 DAU threshold.

It was thanks to this boost that users on Xiaohongshu discovered us . The novel experience and cute style made our product spread quickly. A large number of Xiaohongshu note recommendations further raised our DAU to the 70,000 level.

It is also because of the reputation of Xiaohongshu that we can use it as a highlight case and further apply to Huawei for a new round of promotion positions for the third promotion , and finally break through the 10w mark and successfully become a hit!

The most gratifying thing is that the explosive traffic growth is not fleeting. The lovely design, direct desktop scenes, and daily record-keeping habits ultimately brought us good retention data, further verifying the product value and serving as a strong proof for subsequent resource applications and continued investment .

3. What have we gained from this innovative practice on the Hongmeng platform?

Frankly speaking, this success did not happen overnight, and we are not the first to try innovations on the Hongmeng platform. But after a lot of research, exploration, trial and error, and a little bit of luck, I have summarized some experiences here. I will not hide them, but make them public, hoping that more friends can benefit from them.

1. First of all, how to make products on the Hongmeng platform? How is it different from other platforms? I have 3 suggestions

1) Maximize the value of service cards

Although Android also has widgets, the experience is inconsistent across OSes, resulting in low popularity. However, there is a natural demand for desktop scenes, as can be seen from the popularity of iOS widgets. Therefore, the key to retaining users is to guide users to add cards to the desktop as much as possible, make full use of the WYSIWYG advantage of the screen, and develop corresponding quick services.

2) Lightweight and minimalist

The atomic services emphasized by HarmonyOS have strict restrictions on application size and logical complexity, and are more suitable for the functional attempt of "one product only does one thing". If you want to gain user recognition, you only need to penetrate one scenario.

3) Make a layer of adaptation on the code

Since it is a brand-new development framework, various interface updates are inevitable. In order to cope with multiple versions of API, it is recommended that developers reserve a compatibility mechanism in the code to improve adaptation efficiency.

2. Secondly, if you want to increase traffic on Hongmeng, which link is the most critical?

My suggestion is: while ensuring a high-quality experience, you must establish a long-term, one-to-one relationship with the person in charge of Huawei’s Hongmeng developer services.

As of now, the new promotional position of "Service Center" has a very obvious effect . Therefore, gaining exposure in designated areas with concentrated traffic is extremely critical for cold start. When you are invited to become a Hongmeng developer, someone will be in touch with you. What you need to do is to communicate with them in depth and frequently about the design ideas and functional highlights of each product iteration, and strive to get official scheduling recommendations.

The ideal rhythm is that a new version can be released every time, so as to maximize the use of these valuable natural traffic and achieve a win-win situation for you and the platform.

Of course, as a new traffic ecosystem, there are also many problems in developing products on the Harmony system.

• The first is the high cost of migration . The code developed on Hongmeng can only be compiled into its proprietary format and cannot be adapted to ordinary Android apps. That is to say, users can only find your product on Huawei devices that support the Hongmeng system.
• The second is that growth measures are highly dependent on official recommendations . At present, Hongmeng cards can only be obtained through service centers, and this scenario is difficult to wake up (the understanding cost of sliding out diagonally is high), and the location is limited. Without official support, it is difficult to let users know where we are.
• The third is that the development environment is unstable and new problems continue to emerge . Many bugs can only be resolved through official updates, which leads to high development adaptation costs and further affects functional iteration and user experience.

But then again, as a new thing, it always has to go through a certain adjustment period. We are just like the “early adopters” in “Crossing the Chasm”. While reaping the benefits, we also work with the authorities to optimize the ecosystem, cross the crack and usher in the mass market. This is also the attitude we should have!

Finally, I hope to share with you my experience on how to innovate through this hot product practice, which is:

Taking advantage of the new traffic platform, we can quickly verify demand from 0 to 1 at low cost, accumulate seed users, and achieve efficient cold start.

Taking Hongmeng as an example, I drew a spiral growth curve like this:

I won’t explain this picture in detail. Those who understand it will understand it. I believe that this curve can also be reused on other platforms. I hope this method can provide new ideas for today’s increasingly declining C-end product managers. Let’s encourage each other!

Author: Shen Yue

Source: Internet Reading Notes (ID: pmboxs)