The concept of User Growth (UG) comes from the United States. From the trend point of view, how to detonate user growth and what practical skills are definitely the standard for major Internet companies in the future. In particular, well-known domestic enterprises such as 360, Baidu and Qunar are all in the field of in-depth research. But at present, there are fewer people and companies who have actually done UG, so most books and articles are cases of foreign products. Everyone in the industry knows that foreign and domestic Internet industries are two different things. It's useless to look at foreign successful cases, except for refreshing you. In the future, it will be very popular to pay attention to and study such people in UG field. This article is based on the actual combat summary of UG experts for many years and personal understanding of UG, which may not be comprehensive enough. I hope it will be helpful to everyone.

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The significance of user growth

Many people around me say that this is just a cool concept and has no practical significance. Everything we do is for growth. Yes, in the past 20 years, the domestic internet has been paying attention to growth. From the initial UV and PV to the later DAU and GMV, every iteration of the product and every activity of operation are aimed at improving these figures. Isn't this growth?

Of course not, as detailed below.

The first point: user growth is a methodology.

Some bosses think UG is the key. After getting it, they can open the door to product growth and quickly see the changes in data. This is definitely not right. User growth is a methodology, just like making products and operations, it is not a specific medicine and will not hit the nail on the head. If it is only fragmented individual combat, it is not user growth. Simply put, it is the AARRR model in the picture below. No matter what product, it is an attempt to subdivide on the basis of this main line. Only after repeated optimization and AB testing can we find a better scheme.

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As can be seen from the above figure, UG is not only a novelty, but also a retention and even an increase in income. For UG, closed-loop thinking is a very important quality, which requires a more rational and digital method to pay attention to the whole life cycle of users until commercialization. Suppose you make an app, you need to spend money to launch promotional activities, and it takes 20 yuan to attract a new customer. But the average user can bring you 30 yuan's income, and the ROI is positive. In this way, you can spend money at will, the promotion cost is unlimited, and the only thing that can limit you is the number of users you can get. Because the more money you spend, the more money you earn back. This is closed-loop thinking.

For an extreme example, there is an app for making friends between the two sexes. As soon as the name and icon of the app were changed, dozens of copies of the same thing were made, and the names were all similar to "XXX City". There is no upper limit to their investment, because they can earn back all the money they spend, and this closed-loop model is working.

The above is my understanding of UG, which is summarized as follows:

-User life cycle is the main line

-Data-oriented

-User or revenue growth is the goal.

Integrate products, operations and technologies as a means of implementation.

To put it another way: no matter what method is used, as long as it can drive growth, it is right.

Corresponding to UG is the practice of most Internet companies at present. Although the KPIs of the product, operation, technology, market and other departments are all users, if you think about it carefully, most of the work contents of each department will not directly drive growth, and they are separated from each other, which leads to the second point.

The second point: User growth is a way of teamwork.

At present, the division of labor of most Internet companies is based on products or business lines, corresponding to the roles of products, operations, R&D and design. And usually, this is also the way of team division, that is, PM is a team, and operation and R&D are the same.

This is a very strange phenomenon. There is little cooperation within the PM team, but it is far less than the cooperation between PM and R&D. Most of the time, project managers work with R&D, design and interaction, so why not let a group of project managers form a team instead of those who often cooperate?

There may be historical reasons, or a "bunch of PM" team can find a more senior PM to manage them. In any case, this model has become unreasonable now. More seriously, due to this division of labor mode, there has been a "silo phenomenon" within the company. It's like frogs staying at their own wells, just looking up and waiting for the boss to talk, but the information sharing and cooperation are poor, and the whole company is falling apart.

In order to solve these problems, many companies have broken the traditional division of labor and set up many "well-organized" small-scale project teams. This can solve the efficiency problem by optimizing cooperation, but it is still not enough. UG team is needed to connect all departments of the company in series, break the "silo phenomenon" and really do something with the goal of growth. For example, here is still empty. An e-commerce product wants to improve the purchase conversion rate of new users. Is it necessary to optimize here or there, and is it necessary to make a strong promotion? In fact, none of them are right, that is, the source of the problem has not been found, or the thinking is fragmented.

According to the thinking of UG, to do a good job in the purchase transformation of new users, we must first analyze the source of new users. List several channels to obtain users, such as:

Guangdiantong

myapp

OV shop

Baidu SEM

These four channels cover 80% of the new users, and the delivery characteristics and target user groups of each channel are different, so we should analyze these four channels one by one and break them down into the following questions:

Refined delivery strategy → obtaining user portraits → formulating targeted products or operational measures → forming mature solutions.

-Analyze channel data and delivery strategy to see if it can be more accurate. To ensure that the channel obtains high-quality and accurate users, subsequent retention and transformation are meaningful.

-Obtaining user portraits and behavioral characteristics of each channel is likely to be a "no matter where". Although channel students need it, they don't have much motivation to promote it.

-For the obtained portrait, do the corresponding transformation experiments through different channels, which is the core implementation item, and the specific strategy is not limited to the product or the operation end. The problem of transforming new customers must not be generalized.

-form a mature plan and then maintain normal operation. UG will not continue to follow up this project, and once it is formed, it will be handed over to the corresponding colleagues.

The above is the general idea of UG to do this. It is conceivable that if this matter is handed over to PM, it must be constantly combing the product transformation funnel, and the focus must be only product-side optimization; In terms of operation, it is estimated that we will continue to do refined promotion activities and use operational tools to promote the products, so we will think less about them.

Which method is more reasonable and thorough? It's clear now. This is a concrete case, but this is roughly the meaning of the difference between UG and the traditional business department.

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How to increase users?

The specific method should be sent again according to the above figure, that is, the AARRR model of user life cycle.

Among these five steps, the first three steps are emphasized: acquisition, activation and retention.

The fourth step, "realizing", belongs to the concern of commercial products, which I seldom involve in at ordinary times, so I will bypass it here first. The fifth step of "recommendation" is an extension of one step, which can be achieved mainly by making the product well and adding some incentives and stimuli.

Let's talk about the specific practices one by one. Due to the limitation of space, we can only talk about it briefly.

Step 1: Acquire users (acquisition)

It's just for innovation. It's easy to say, as long as it's a way to attract new users. However, we need to pay attention to these indicators: adding users, retaining the next day, cost per user, and obtaining user ROI.

These figures actually tell you that it depends on the number of customers, the quality of users and whether the money spent is worth it.

Specific methods can be divided into three categories:

1. Channel delivery

This is the most important way to get customers for companies with promotion budget. There are also many doorways here. I'm not a professional. I only talk about it from the perspective of growth.

Channel expansion and business relationship maintenance, these two points are not mentioned for the time being, but there are still many places to dig deep into the launch strategy.

① Optimize the delivery of materials and improve the CTR of information flow, manufacturers and store promotion resources. This is a process of constantly trying, communicating and watching the results. There are many trivial tasks, especially the communication link.

The ideal state is to replace labor with algorithm strategy. The algorithm can generate and publish materials in thousands of areas, and can quickly change materials, thus improving the exposure and CTR of advertisements. This is another big branch, and I took it in two sentences.

② Refine the delivery strategy and improve the ROI. In other words, make the investment more reasonable and want to "spend money on the cutting edge".

For example, you have to water 10 potted flowers every day, but there is only 1 potted water every day. The 10 potted flowers can be evenly distributed, and each potted flower can be watered with a little water;

You can also look at this 10 potted flower first, which ones need watering and which ones don't. You just need to give this 1 pot of water to the flowers that need watering, and maybe you can save water, so that you can raise 15 pots of flowers in the future, but the water needed is the same.

This is the reason for the refined delivery strategy. It is not a general investment, but an analysis of users, the formulation of delivery strategies, and only spending money in reasonable places.

For example, when advertising information flows, you can choose to acquire new users or arouse old users. For new users, you can choose basic information such as gender, age and geographical interest, and try to delineate the target group suitable for your products to achieve refined delivery; For old users, you can choose to put it on inactive users, such as users who have not visited in the past 30 days, and avoid putting it on users who would have visited every day.

For another example, in a more extreme case, users whose products can't be contacted, or users who have been lost, can be contacted and recalled through delivery. This purpose is stronger, although the order of magnitude may not be large, but the strategy is reasonable.

③ Maximize the use of resources, and maximize the use of pre-installed, manufacturers and third-party shops to promote resources.

This is based on channel business, and it needs to get as much information and resources as possible, do a good job of docking external resources with internal teams, and get more ways to grow.

For example, pre-installed products must have idle inventory. It is a fast and efficient way to acquire new users by using the promotional resources of manufacturers to activate the stock.

For another example, for Android manufacturers, there are many resources and gameplay to explore, some are official and some are private. Even if OV Huami has little space, you can study some relatively small brands, and maybe there is a blue ocean.

2. Task system

Pinduoduo's monthly GMV is said to reach 40 billion, while JD.COM's. COM's e-commerce has reached 654.38+0 billion in six years, and its daily order volume has surpassed that of JD.COM.

Interesting headlines (below) took a year and a half, and DAU has exceeded10 million.

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Task system of interesting titles

These are two products that have attracted much attention at present. Their specific forms and positioning are different, but they all use "profit" as bait to let users do fission.

Through the task system, users can be "apprenticed" and acquire new users; You can also set tasks to promote behaviors such as retention, comment and sharing, and users can get rewards in cash or gold coins after completion. Products gain advertising revenue through user behavior, covering the cost of rewarding users and forming a closed loop.

Gold coins can also be directly converted into cash, and the specific exchange rate fluctuates, which can ensure the stability of ROI.

This is a representative form of acquiring new users, not to let everyone engage in "apprenticeships", but to learn from this fission task system.

3. Activities

There are too many different interpretations of the definition of activity. For example, the promotion of JD.COM Meituan is an activity, the book-throwing in the new world is an activity, the communication of Netease is an activity, and the million heroes in today's headlines are also an activity.

But the activities I am talking about here are all aimed at innovation or promotion, and the benefits such as brand exposure are not included. So among the activities mentioned above, the typical activity in UG direction is the million heroes in today's headlines.

The form of video answering questions, if not stopped at that time, is estimated to become standard soon. This kind of activity has brought good new users to the product because of the low participation threshold, attractive cash reward and the dissemination mechanism of resurrection card.

What kind of activities can bring about user growth? What is the next "million hero"? I don't know now, but there are ways to explore.

Establish a growth-oriented activity project team, including activity planning, products, interaction, vision, front-end and back-end research and development, set common goals, and let everyone sit together and try quickly. You can even copy the verified forms abroad, just like answering questions by video.

4. Grasp the dividend

This is a bit empty, but it is indeed a direction. UG needs to keep an eye on the latest developments at home and abroad, quickly seize the bonus of new technology or new gameplay, land with super execution, and acquire new users for products.

Just to give an example, Alipay sending a message to receive a red envelope (below) is a good way to promote DAU. The cost is controllable, that is, SMS cost+red envelope cost; The operation is simple, copy the message and then open the client. This operation has been educated before and many users know it.

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This novel gameplay emerges one after another, from SMS to video answering mode. UG students must keep their curiosity about new things and the ability to execute them quickly, in order to seize the bonus.

Step 2: Activate the user.

The word "activation" is easily ambiguous. What we need to do in the realization stage is to retain new users. To some extent, this is the most important link.

Because when you get 1 0,000 new users one day, you can only leave 1 0,000 people, and the second time you leave is 10%. Then the cost of losing 9000 people will be wasted. In fact, only 1 000 users will be added instead of 1 000. If we can increase the retention of new users to 20%, we can bring in 1 0,000 incremental active users every day, which is 30,000 a month.

The retention of new users is an intermediate link to acquire new users and active old users. If this step is not done well, traffic will be cut off, new users will be lost and the whole market will not grow.

For example, your small restaurant has just opened, and the general idea is to serve the first batch of guests, let them come back and bring more friends. The same is true for making an app. The first batch of new customers should be served well, and gradually more and more old customers will come.

Specifically, there are the following methods:

1. Optimization of user access path

Sort out the paths of users accessing products from different sources and list them step by step to see which links can be optimized. To ensure that new users use the products smoothly and happily, and leave a good impression, there will be follow-up retention.

Take the path used by new users in mobike as an example. The following figure shows the situation before and after optimization. It can be seen that it not only saves steps, but also optimizes the experience (code scanning speed).

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It should be noted that all aspects of user experience should be considered, such as page loading speed and negative experience brought by advertisements. Users of different models (especially low-end machines) and different network environments (non-WIFI) may have slow loading or errors, which is unimaginable for PM people sitting in the office, so it is necessary to test more, investigate more and analyze more data funnels.

2. Interest stimulation

Let's take a small restaurant as an example. The first time I go, I will give a coupon of 100 minus 20, but I can only use it next time, and the validity period is still within 1 month. This is to achieve new user retention through interest stimulation.

How to define this "retention" is actually not just a narrow "next-day retention", but an "indicator" that can help users retain it.

For example, through data analysis, it can be found that the behavior of new users will be much greater than that of users without behavior. Therefore, doing a good job of retaining new users is to increase the proportion of behavioral users of these new users, which is the dismantling path to achieve the goal. It's a little detour To use a case:

Social products: users who leave personal data retain it, which is higher than those who don't;

Mutual gold products: users who have bought wealth management products retain them, which is higher than those who have not bought them;

E-commerce products: users who receive coupons retain more than users who do not receive coupons;

Information products: users who comment are higher than those who don't;

How are these cases done? Interest stimulation is one of the ways.

During the subsidy war a few years ago, Meituan stimulated new users to place orders by issuing coupons. At this stage, there is no way to get enough portraits of users, so I don't know the preferences of new users, so I can only send coupons in the categories that users browse.

There are also some products that give red envelopes to new users for 7 consecutive days and can be collected every day. This is the most direct incentive, driving users to stay a few days ago. However, the cost of such activities should be controllable. It is unreasonable that the cost of one-time retention or seven-day retention is too high, but reducing the cost will lead users to be unconscious of the red envelope.

3. Resource tilt

Imagine what you were thinking when you sent a circle of friends. Do you expect friends to comment or like you? If there are, or even many, you will get pleasure and satisfaction; If not, it would be disappointing.

This kind of experience, users will also have when using your product.

Suppose you post a piece of content as a new user in Zhihu, Post Bar and other community products. If you can show it in an important position, or get a few replies or likes soon, you will be very happy and have a great possibility of staying.

This is also why the small partners who do community operations will constantly brush posts and reply immediately when they see new people posting content, just to let the other party feel that kind of "pleasure", thinking that there are many users discussing here, which is very lively.

It is said that only a few drivers used Didi during the cold start, so Cheng Wei asked several employees to take a taxi around the city, which would make these drivers who used Didi feel so reliable and attract guests. The effect of this behavior is actually the retention of new users.

Let's go back to the case of the small restaurant. The boss found that this table was the first time for guests, and he might strike up a conversation, get close and send a fruit platter or something. The boss's behavior is also to retain new users.

In the above cases, community operations responded to new jobs, Didi paid for taxis, and restaurant owners made friends, all of which were targeted to invest resources for new users. Therefore, tilting resources to new users is also a way to enhance retention.

Step 3: User retention.

After acquiring users and doing targeted retention work, the remaining users will enter the pool of "old users" and will no longer be affected by the first two measures. Next, we will keep these "old users".

In fact, if the product itself is valuable to the product and is a closed loop that can be operated, then the old users can be retained. But the actual situation is not so ideal, so we still have to do something.

1. Incentive system

This is a big topic, which is not suitable for discussion here. It's just a matter of principle.

We should not equate the incentive system with specific programs, such as points, grades, sign-in, medals, etc. We should combine user needs with product selling points before thinking about solutions. The specific solutions are not limited to the above.

It can be seen that many products that do "check in" only regard this function as a tool to improve retention, and have not designed a complete closed loop, so users have no reason to check in, and there is no timely and effective feedback after doing this operation.

In the same way, most products are decorated, but the more successful products, such as WeChat official account, Zhihu and Douban, do not have these.

For example, as shown in the figure below, Weibo's ranking value is not great, and keep's ranking privilege is relatively insignificant. Medals want pure spirit, but they don't feel in place.

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Weibo and keep's user system

Look at the picture below. Didi's task and members provide preferential prices and priority orders, which are valuable to users. If you don't know the data, the guess will be better than that of Weibo, and keep it in the above picture.

Another screenshot is the task interface of the game "Royal Clash". Users may get cards that can only be bought with money or even can't be bought with money through tasks, which is also valuable to users. Moreover, the setting of multi-task can ensure that users can visit and initiate operations many times a day.

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The mission of Didi and the royal conflict

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Didi's user rights system

The task of interesting headlines mentioned above is also an incentive system for old users. Stimulate the continuous visit of old users through inducements.

In the construction of user system, we must make solutions around the needs of users. Don't be bound by the existing model, or you will make a grade similar to that of Weibo. We must find ways to make something really valuable, so that both users and products can benefit.

2. User access

Old users have knowledge and loyalty to the brand of products, but they still need to "remind" in time to hook users back to the products, which is user reach.

There are four common forms: push, system message, short message and email. The first two can still be used, and the last two are poor in most scenes.

Push the following points:

Content. There are a large number of optional published contents, many classifications, and strong timeliness, which can ensure the effect regardless of the full amount or personalized push;

Channels. Ensure that the push can reach more devices, and try to let more users turn on the push switch of the mobile phone.

Strategy. For which part of users to send it, when to send it, how many articles to send every day, whether to add pictures to the push copy, whether the sound can be adjusted, and so on. , are all things that push strategies should do.

In addition, push should be well managed to ensure that the published content and classification are stable and reasonable. Establish a daily report to monitor the data effect, and review the effect of each item in time so as to adjust the strategy as soon as possible.

Among the four ways to reach users, push is the most effective and the most difficult. Here are a few simple points, and I won't repeat the other three points.

3. Activities

The main advantage of online activities is that old users promote activities and increase the frequency of activities. For example, they come once three days before the activity, and then come every day after the activity. On the contrary, it is difficult to pull new ideas by activities. From the cost point of view, it is better to let the channels go in.

Today's headline "Collecting Zodiac" during the Spring Festival (Part II) not only stimulates new ideas, but also promotes activities. Here we only talk about promotion activities.

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Today's headlines set zodiac activities

If you want to collect the 12 zodiac, you need to start the app every day to encourage old users to keep it through such activities. Of course, this is a multi-dimensional income activity, which can pull new things, socialize and tie cards, but the cost is controllable. From the third-party data, it also has a pulling effect on the overall DAU of today's headlines, which is the effect of a good activity.

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Problems encountered in user growth

After talking about the significance and practice of UG, I finally talk about the common problems. After all, there is a big gap between theory and reality, and this concept has not been widely understood, so there is a lack of soil for rapid growth.

Problem 1: The data base is weak.

Most employees of domestic Internet companies will feel that their product data base is weak, which is normal.

First of all, most of the complainers are people who "use data" rather than "make data". From the perspective of their own needs, I always feel that the data is not satisfactory.

Secondly, small companies have no time, no cost, no need to pay attention to data, and many large companies are not data or technology-oriented. This is the status quo of the industry.

But the problem is that data is very important to UG. We don't rely on data to make decisions, but need data to verify subjective guesses, so that we can do a lot of AB tests quickly and get the final plan. Companies that do well in this field run hundreds of AB tests online every day, have a mature technical platform, and do not rely on the client to distribute versions at all.

It doesn't matter even if the data is weak. As long as judgment is necessary, it can be established bit by bit, even if it takes more time. Although this kind of infrastructure construction is not fast and effective, it will bring great benefits in the long run if we persist in promoting it.

Question 2: Efficiency of internal cooperation.

My feeling is that the hardest thing to do UG is not business skills. As long as the main line is clear, the team is strong, and the optimization is constantly promoted, we will definitely see the effect.

The difficulty is that the whole company has different understandings of UG, which makes it difficult to land. The key is the low efficiency of internal cooperation and poor communication.

Because of products, operations, research and development, channels, markets, etc. , belonging to different departments, managed by different bosses, and even different KPIs. UG just needs to integrate these roles to do things, which will inevitably lead to collaboration problems and conflict with existing businesses.

For example, from UG's point of view, it is necessary to optimize a product module, but this demand conflicts with the demand of the basic product, and it is not UG's classmates who finally land, so this demand must be recognized for sufficient reasons before it can be discharged.

Sometimes, it may not be a question of "demand", but a question of "cake". UG team will touch the interests of the original team, and cooperation will not be smooth.

It is difficult and simple to solve this problem, which must be recognized and promoted by the company and the boss. Only in this way can it be fundamentally solved.

Question 3: Lack of talents

When a company wants to do UG, the first thing that comes to mind is to find experienced people. But at present, there are not many people in the industry who really do this, and some methodologies have settled down. Compared with the demand gap, the gap is bigger.

This is a good opportunity for talents. Students who have done product and data analysis before have an advantage in switching to UG. At least they need logical thinking and data analysis skills, as well as strong communication and promotion skills.

For the company, it is ideal to find suitable and experienced people directly. If you can't find it, you can also dig it from the inside, at least the senior management team is easier to build. The difficult thing is to have a leader who knows UG. This is a big project, and it needs someone to take the helm and coordinate the promotion.

The above is my understanding of UG. The problem is so big that many branch problems can only be solved. Limited to the horizon, it may not be the whole picture of UG, but at least it is extracted from actual combat. I hope it will help everyone.