User growth operation: How to achieve explosive growth of products?

Due to the epidemic this year, many Internet companies have had a hard time, especially Internet companies that are closely related to the real economy. Both user retention and revenue have declined significantly.

Many companies have also begun to think about how to turn the tide and successfully break through in this difficult year. During this process, some companies choose to expand their scale first, grow and build a traffic pool.

They believe that as the epidemic eases and offline industries gradually recover, the back-end conversion rate will also recover. Before that, what should be done is to build a relatively large traffic pool as much as possible and maintain a large user scale to prepare for the arrival of this moment.

Another group of companies are more concerned about improving the monetization capabilities of existing users and increasing revenue through various value-added services, repeat purchases, and increased average order value.

Which of these two methods is better? Or are these two methods either A or B, or can they be integrated to achieve a multiplier effect?

This article will provide you with an explanation.

Should we focus on user growth or revenue first? It seems that in many companies these are two contradictory or even mutually exclusive directions.

Many companies have a large user base, but their user monetization capabilities are very poor; many companies have good monetization capabilities, but their user base is often small and beautiful. Once it expands to a larger scale, the user monetization efficiency will also decrease.

Especially under the epidemic this year, everyone's life and economy have been affected to varying degrees. You will find that many Internet companies have spent several years gradually improving and obtaining positive income, but it turned negative in an instant within a year.

Therefore, we have to rethink this question in depth: What is the relationship between growth and income?

To answer this question, we first need to think about a question: Is income and growth necessarily a negatively correlated zero-sum game?

01

Learn to find the functional points in your product that have the most social currency attributes or are recognized by users, do paid packaging, and then make full use of partners in the ecosystem for distribution. Only then can the wheels of growth and revenue really start rolling.

Take the example of the particularly popular H5 face-testing game. Some time ago, an H5 face-testing game appeared on the market. As long as the user performs facial recognition, the game will analyze the various features of the user's face, and the analysis looks very professional.

When it comes to some key issues and analysis, users need to pay 2 yuan to unlock facial analysis (a distribution mechanism is also added so that those who share can get a share).

Not only was this activity not disliked by users as a money-making trick, on the contrary it was widely spread and disseminated. Some bloggers and KOLs of public accounts even posted this activity on their own accounts and made money through distribution, further promoting the secondary dissemination of the activity.

If you analyze this activity carefully, you will find that what users really hate is not paying, but paying for something. As long as users get what they want or satisfy some of their spiritual needs, they will not only be willing to pay, but will also be grateful to you.

What this case inspires us is how to balance the relationship between growth and income. The first thing we need to consider is the relationship between growth and income.

If your product itself has high NPS and social currency attributes, then commercialization itself is something that can actually increase your revenue and improve user experience.

Just like the example of facial unlocking in the above article, people are willing to pay 2 yuan to unlock facial interpretation. Many distribution partners within the ecosystem will see it as a money-making opportunity and be willing to actively distribute it, thereby driving the growth of the activity. The growth itself brings more payments, forming positive communication.

It can be seen from this that if your product itself has such attributes, such as social currency attributes such as fun and curiosity, or a certain function of the product itself that users really love and have a good experience, then you must learn to use this point to do paid packaging, and then make full use of the role of "distributor" (can be C or B) to do distribution fission, and give full play to the multiplier effect between growth and income.

At this point, you might say that the case of face testing becoming popular is one in a thousand after all, and my product itself seems to have neither social currency attributes nor any major highlights. How can I do this paid packaging? Let’s look at another example.

02

The best paid packaging is built on the user's deepest mental connection. To achieve this, the most important thing is to first split your product elements and user attributes into multiple dimensions when planning the packaging format, and then connect them in a mesh to find the best "connection point".

There were three salesmen selling combs: all three of them were selling combs. The first one asked a person with an itchy head to buy a comb; the second one sold combs to a total of ten temples, and placed the combs in front of the Buddha for people to comb their hair; the third one also sold all his combs, because he sold combs for good deeds to the temples, and not only did he sell a large number of them, but the unit price was also not low.

Have you noticed that the same product may appear to have the same value on the surface, but has different packaging?

The value in the user's mind can be very different. We may not be able to change some characteristics of your product itself, but we can find the connection points between your product and the user based on the user's psychological attributes.

Combs and temples are two things that have nothing to do with each other, but through the virtual packaging of "accumulating merit", the two are well connected. The fact that a comb can comb hair is the form, but why users comb their hair is the essence. Finding the meaning of users combing their hair is the key to breaking the deadlock.

Similarly, is there a similar connection between your product and the psychological needs of your users? You can think about it in comparison. Here I will teach you a trick to find this "connection point" more efficiently.

Many of us like to make classifications when thinking about something. For example, we divide the ways to achieve something into channels, product design, means, budget, etc., and then break it down to see how each module can be done and what goals can be achieved and then summarize them. Overall, this method is indeed more rigorous and clear in logic.

However, there is also a big disadvantage, which is that this classification is essentially a linear method. The connection between the modules is still too superficial. For example, if you are doing product design, you must consider multiple factors such as the delivery channels and the means used to see how to adapt them.

However, you generally don’t think about the meaning of this product for users from a higher dimension first. In addition to solving users’ current problems, can it have other expansions, such as spiritual resonance (the highest level of Maslow’s needs). This will ignore the various “possibilities” of users using your product.

Like the connection between the comb and the pilgrim in the example just given, in fact, it is an in-depth analysis of the properties of the comb. The significance of the comb is not only to comb the hair itself.

Another purpose is to "accumulate virtue for yourself and your family", so it is very effective to combine it with a temple scene. Can similar hair combing have other meanings such as doing charity, or be a ritual prop to pray for good luck for yourself? In this way, there can also be some other expanded scenes to sell combs.

Let's talk about how to find the "connection points" more efficiently. Through the above description, I believe you have already understood that a major disadvantage of linear thinking is that when you do something, you often only coordinate and cross-link the modules in form.

A better way is to first split your product elements and user attributes into multiple dimensions, and then connect them in a mesh to find the best "connection points".

For example, the use of a comb as a product can be broken down into use value (combing hair) and ritual value (accumulating merit, doing charity, etc.). Similar modules such as channels and user attributes can be disassembled first, and finally the most suitable scenarios can be found before making the final packaging connection.

This logic actually applies not only to business models that make money from their own users, but also to business models that do not make money directly from their users, but instead make money from third-party advertisers based on serving their users well.

In fact, this type of model was very popular in the past few years of the Internet, and 70% to 80% of these companies' income came from advertising; but if you look at it in recent years, companies with this model are basically not doing well.

This logic is not difficult to understand. Users come to your product mainly for specific needs and values, while advertisers' services are often diverse. Users may not be interested or do not want to know more at this moment based on the current scenario (users are currently in urgent need of solving a problem, so they will come to your app to be active).

This will result in the so-called low user ARPU value, and the natural conversion effect will not be very good for merchants who pay for advertising (because users see the ads passively and their willingness to pay is not that strong). Over time, merchants will find that their ROI is not even close to breaking even, so they will naturally stop placing ads.

If merchants do not place advertisements, the platform's revenue will naturally decline. The platform will then think about how to make more money from the users themselves. However, due to some performance pressure, some weird operations may damage the user experience and lead to user loss, thus falling into a vicious cycle.

This is the underlying logic behind the recent market discussion that you cannot have both revenue, experience and growth.

However, after listening to my analysis above, you must have understood that the real problem is not that asking users to pay hurts the user experience, but whether the paid content itself can truly meet the needs of users or provide some value to users.

If the two are compatible, then in the eyes of users, what you provide is a service, not an advertisement.

The most effective way to achieve this combination of product and user needs is to emphasize the importance and skills of packaging connection in this article.

A butterfly in the tropical rainforest of the Amazon River in South America occasionally flaps its wings, which may cause a tornado in Texas, USA two weeks later. The relationship between user growth and revenue is often a question of how and where the wings flap.

As long as you find the points that are truly worth packaging, user payment will not only not degrade the user experience, but on the contrary it will be your growth point, and will allow more partners who want to make money to actively help you spread and distribute.

Briefly summarize the main contents of this article:

Due to the impact of the epidemic, the revenue of many companies has also declined. In order to maintain stable revenue, they will also adopt some user operation strategies to increase revenue, and the user experience of products has also declined. Therefore, the issue that has been debated in the Internet industry for a long time: how to balance user experience, growth and revenue has been brought to the surface again.

This article first uses the case of face testing to illustrate my view on this issue: what users really hate is not paying, but paying for something. As long as users get what they want or satisfy some of their spiritual needs, users will not only be willing to pay, but will also be grateful to you.

The most important way to balance the relationship between user growth and revenue is to find the most valuable point in your product.

This point can be a point with social currency attributes such as fun and curiosity, or it can be a function of the product itself that users really love and have a great experience. Then package it into a paid point, and use the power of partners to increase distribution, and the positive wheels of income and growth will start rolling.

Then, we used three cases of selling combs to introduce how to effectively package this payment point and establish a smooth connection in the minds of users: combs and temples are two things that have nothing to do with each other, but through the virtual packaging of accumulating merit, a good connection is established between the two.

The fact that a comb can be used to comb hair is just a form; the essence is why users comb their hair. Finding out the meaning of users combing their hair is the key to breaking the deadlock.

Therefore, when we are looking for connection points, we need to first split your product elements and user attributes into multiple dimensions, and then connect them in a mesh to find the best "connection points".

For example, the use of a comb as a product can be broken down into use value (combing hair) and ritual value (accumulating merit, doing charity, etc.). Similar modules such as channels and user attributes can be disassembled first, and finally the most suitable scenarios can be found before making the final packaging connection.

User growth and revenue are not a zero-sum game where one must lose another. Finding the point that users value most and are most surprised about and doing paid packaging will not only not cause a decline in user experience, but will serve as a basis for connecting with more partners in the ecosystem to help with distribution and dissemination, thereby driving overall growth.

The more this layer of packaging "connection points" can be connected to the user's deepest psychological needs, the better the revenue and communication effects will be.

Author: Wang Yuting

Source: Wang Yuting