CTO Training Camp Lesson 10: Missing this class will be your last regret in 2016

[Original article from 51CTO.com] A CTO who only understands technology is not an excellent CTO. He must also have a certain degree of control over the business and industry insight. Technology must drive business growth, but how to drive it requires Mr. Xiong Changqing, the founder of Jiuzhilan, to share with us today "The Canvas of the Business Model".

Xiong Changqing , founder of Jiuzhilan online marketing cloud platform; partner of Chunbo fresh food e-commerce; founding partner of Yihe Capital; graduated from Wuhan University and China Europe International Business School EMBA, served as Chief Operating Officer of E-Netcom Group, founder of Youyi Travel Network, CTO of Joyo.com, and CTO of Dangdang.com, and has a deep understanding of the development and evolution of the Internet, especially in e-commerce, tourism, technology products, etc.

Business Model

The so-called business model is how to make money, how to create value, realize value, and harvest value. How to use the business model to make a profit is very critical in entrepreneurship. The choice of business model will also affect the time to market, market acceptance, sustainable growth, investment, capital efficiency, valuation, etc. The perfect startup includes disruptive business models, disruptive technologies, new markets or new entry methods. Today's business models are diverse, such as uTest's crowdsourcing business model, Mobike's shared ownership model, group buying, monthly subscription, on-demand customization model, crowdfunding, Didi Chuxing's dynamic supply and demand fitting model, SaaS, cloud computing and other business models.

How can a company’s business model be as disruptive as technology? In this regard, Mr. Xiong shared the “Business Model Grid”, which allows companies to clearly understand their own situation and which business model they can use to make a profit.

Business Model Nine Grid

Entrepreneurship is the iteration of the Nine-Grid:

• Start-up phase: Customer segments - Pain points and problems - Solutions (Product-Market fit)

• Growth stage: marketing and sales, customer experience, production service stability and capacity expansion

• Mature area: new business, business portfolio, ecosystem

The most important thing to consider when starting a business is how to find effective data to expand your business model and thus make a profit.

Key issues in business models

In the business model, it is important to distinguish what problems are worth solving and not waste too much time on problems that are not feasible or difficult to implement. Unavoidable issues such as finance and legal and regulatory issues are worth solving. When faced with emergencies, the top three issues need to be resolved urgently. When services are inadequate or low in quality, they need to be addressed with high attention.

Problems worth solving

Teacher Xiong shared a formula for customers: CLV>3x CARC . It includes customer lifetime value, which is the CLV (customer lifetime value) in the formula. What value can this customer bring to the business, how much value it brings, and how many times it provides value; CARC (customer acquisition and re-engagement costs) is the cost of customer acquisition and retention, that is, how much it costs to retain this customer. Another consideration is the customer's purchase frequency and the amount of each purchase. In view of these two aspects, it is inferred whether the customer is worth spending time and even economic costs to solve the problems brought by the customer.

Where does the problem come from?

A good business model must include repeatability, scalability, sustainability, profitability, predictability, and valuation. And design products that make the business model of the enterprise successful. If you want to design successfully, you must start from multiple dimensions, such as user experience, customer support capabilities, maintenance, upgrades, cross or upgrade sales. The designed products must follow the "SLIPPERY" principle: simple, low to no initial cost, install easily, prove value quickly, play well with others, easy to use, ROI is obvious, your customer can't live without it. The competitive barriers in the business model are inseparable from the core capabilities. The real core capabilities must be more insightful than others in the industry. After having the core capabilities, you must find where the core value is. The core value can come from software or technology, data, content, user network and services. How to embody the core value after it is discovered? Mr. Xiong believes that enterprises should make full use of their competitive advantages, find the weakest points of their opponents, and play the multiplier effect and leverage role.

From the perspective of enterprises, the multiplier effect and leverage effect are brought into play

The customer perspective plays a multiplier and leverage role

Business Model Summary

Marketing Promotion

After talking about the business model, we need to think about how to go to the market to realize it, that is, the issue of marketing promotion. The essence of marketing is to obtain, retain and enhance customer relationships. Maintaining customer relationships is no longer limited to traditional flyer distribution or PC-side communication. According to incomplete statistics, people open their mobile phones about 170 times a day, and each time takes more than 1 minute on average. It can be seen that if marketing still uses traditional models, it will inevitably lose a large part of customer flow.

Once sales leads are generated, a marketing plan should be planned. Teacher Xiong shared Jiuzhilan's plan here. Sales leads can be defined value propositions → establish awareness and create demand → establish and enrich customer acquisition pipelines. Correspondingly, the marketing in the definition of value propositions should consider its market positioning model, brand element pyramid, brand information stack, etc.

Marketing and Lead Generation

There are three channels in the planning of online marketing, which are paid channels, owned channels, and earned channels. Paid channels include search engine advertising, display advertising, affiliate programs, and native advertising; owned channels include owned websites, SEO, official social network accounts, owned blogs, and mobile apps; earned channels include UGC, word-of-mouth communication, promotional activities, and review ratings. After understanding the customer's activities, analyze which channel to use and then measure the indicators.

Internet marketing planning

Take the United States as an example. The United States relies on its own online media marketing. Content marketing saves 62% of the cost compared with traditional marketing. For example, in this presidential election, Trump used Twitter to post a lot, exerting the power of personality and the masses on social media. During the campaign, he posted more than 30,000 times more than Hillary, which made the masses more aware of his successful campaign. But how to carry out marketing on the own media network? First of all, by providing customers with content that they are interested in during the purchase cycle, attract and cultivate customers, and motivate them to buy and share. Understanding the joys and sorrows of customers and establishing emotional connections are the core of free online media marketing. The theme of marketing content should follow the customer. Don't overemphasize the brand, but let the customer become the hero and create the content that the customer needs.

Customer audience

If you want to successfully use your own online media marketing, you must also understand where potential customers are, go where customers are, and turn potential customers into real customers. When communicating with customers, you must humanize the company, establish emotional connections or provide knowledge and help during the interaction; maintain brand consistency; and respond quickly to interactions or events.

Scenes and interactions of Nine Orchids

2016 is almost over, and the second season of CTO Training Camp has come to an end. I thought the last class would be the most emotional day, but the content is so full that it can't be contained in one article. If you are starting a business, you really can't miss this class. Mr. Xiong Changqing, the founder of Jiuzhilan, not only teaches you how to spend money reasonably, but also uses his many years of experience to tell you how to understand the market and how to make money. The article is not complete, please click on the video ←←← .

The last lesson of the second season of CTO Training Camp has ended, but the CTO Training Camp will not end. Please look forward to the training camp courses of the next season.

[51CTO original article, please indicate the original author and source as 51CTO.com when reprinting on partner sites]