How to effectively drive traffic from mini programs?

Mini programs are a very important battlefield in the second half of the Internet, which is something that Internet people can relate to very well: WeChat is constantly strengthening the position of mini programs, and other giants are also actively launching their own mini programs because they have all seen the mini programs' capabilities and development space in customer acquisition, retention, and monetization.

1. Mini Program’s Growth Closed Loop and RARRA Model

Many product managers and operations staff will encounter the same problem at work: how to effectively guide users from mini programs to apps, and how to allow app users to see the mini programs, thereby achieving a closed loop of mini program growth.

At the same time, we are also facing a current situation that the overall user retention of mini programs is not ideal. Users leave after using them and never come back. User value is difficult to establish, and the previous customer acquisition work becomes futile.

It can be seen that user retention has more growth implications than user acquisition, which is very consistent with the "meaningless growth wheel" proposed by Brian Balfour. The growth hacker model has shifted from AARRR to RARRA (Retention-Activation-Referral-Revenue-Acquisition).

Obviously, user retention can reflect real growth. The core of the RARRA model is Retention, that is, user retention. This question goes back to the original topic of the closed loop of mini program growth. With the help of the RARRA model, it is not difficult to understand:

• How to improve user retention of mini programs?
• How should the mini program be planned to achieve activation, recommendation and conversion?
• The method of efficiently acquiring customers using mini programs can be further improved.

2. User Retention and Value Link

Continuously providing user value will undoubtedly solve the problem of user retention. So, how do we define user value?

Generally speaking, when users come into contact with a mini program, they expect to be able to see the content they want to see and use the available functions. This is the basic composition of user value. If we deeply understand user value, we should think about:

• How to better trigger users to use the product?
• How to find product features that are most likely to realize user value.

For example, a mini program that integrates group buying and distribution has the following functions:

1. Group buying: gather more users and buy products at a low price;
2. Share price reduction: After users share, they can buy at a lower price. This function can guide users to actively share;
3. Real-time payment of distribution: This can stimulate users to actively participate in promotion and dissemination;
4. Exclusive posters: can embed user portraits to increase trust endorsement and promote code scanning;
5. WeChat group traffic diversion: convenient for users to join the community with one click;
6. Jump traffic: Users can access the official account, personal account, and APP on the H5 page of purchase results to further use the product.

These functions are designed based on user psychology. When users see the title of the mini program, they are already tempted to buy products at low prices, so the function of sharing price reductions fully satisfies user needs at the first time. Next, the functions of real-time distribution and exclusive posters further stimulate users and drive them to actively share and spread. Then, group buying, sharing price reductions, real-time payment of distribution and exclusive posters are all active functions.

It can be seen that users have a strong motivation to use mini programs such as group buying and distribution. On the one hand, they can buy goods at preferential prices themselves, and on the other hand, they can use social relationships to conduct distribution and earn commissions. In this process, the value of users is fully highlighted, and at the same time, the mini program can also quickly attract new customers with the help of users.

Therefore, when it comes to triggering users to use the product, we should carefully understand the users’ real needs and potential needs that are worth exploring, and then classify the needs into primary and secondary ones, and finally reflect them in the priority display of active functions .

At the same time, we also have to consider whether these active functions can continue to bring user value. For example, if distribution becomes difficult, it will be difficult to continue to bring user value, and it will be easy to have low retention growth or even growth without retention.

Therefore, on the basis of locking in active functions, we can analyze retention to determine whether the functions can continue to bring user value.

3. Activation, recommendation, conversion and sharing fission

After user retention, we have to consider the issues of activation, recommendation and conversion, which are completely inseparable from the sharing fission of the mini program. So, how can we effectively guide users to share?

Common methods, such as sending red envelopes or guiding through gamification, are relatively simple and direct ways of incentives. In addition, we can also analyze the customer acquisition, retention and sharing data brought by different methods, and test and verify whether there is a compound incentive method that is more effective.

Relying on WeChat's naturally strong social attributes, we need to conduct in-depth operations on existing users, and use data mining and analysis methods to understand which users can bring in more new users through sharing in their friend relationships. At the same time, we need to be good at summarizing the reasons for changes in sharing fission data at each level and extract appropriate operation strategies.

For example: some users share many times, although they do not bring many new users in the end, it can be said that these users are active users and are suitable for incentivizing them with red envelopes; for another example: some users do not share many times, but they eventually bring hundreds of new users, which means that there is an obvious and strong social relationship between these users and their friends, and it is worth intensively operating for these users.

As users continue to share and fission, the retention of mini programs will also increase . I believe this is not difficult to understand.

4. Customer Acquisition and ROI

When it comes to the customer acquisition stage in the RARRA model, we should focus on ROI.

Similar to APP, ROI includes data on new users, cost, and conversion. However, when analyzing ROI, we also need to consider several issues:

• First, what percentage of users have completed sharing?
• Second, what is the total lifetime value of users who have completed sharing?
• The third is how many new users each user brings.

The significance of analyzing ROI is to help the mini program complete the growth loop and help the growth team understand how different channels, scenarios and gameplay have different effects on growth.

Conclusion

After reading this, you may still have some questions you want to know more about, such as: how to improve conversion and retention, how to comprehensively measure the reasons for customer acquisition and conversion loss, how to find ways to refine operations for lost users, etc. I will share some experiences and opinions in subsequent articles, and you are welcome to communicate!

Source: Tahini