Private domain customer acquisition is worth doing all the time, over and over again!

In this era, it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract new users through private domain fission. However, the author has tried several times and achieved good results. He has summarized some experiences and shared them in this article, hoping that they can be used as a reference for everyone.

Dear bosses, especially those in vertical industries, please answer a heart-wrenching question: How to increase user growth? How to acquire customers at low cost?

Well, the moment the problem came out, we parted on bad terms!

01 The unspoken pain of user growth: low-cost and accurate customer acquisition

It is said that user growth is becoming increasingly difficult and the cost of acquiring customers is increasing;

As an operation veteran who has been working in the vertical field for 10 years,

In recent years, user growth in vertical industries has been extremely difficult!

Many of the methods that are used so successfully in the general domain fail completely when applied to vertical industries!

That's all.

After much effort, we finally begged and pleaded for customers, but it turned out that they were either freeloaders or had no intention of buying them, and their commercial value was extremely limited.

After all, I can help you recruit 10,000 people and 10,000 people in your industry.

These are two concepts.

That being said, the challenges faced by vertical industry user growth do have their own reasons:

The user base is narrow and the screening cost is high.

The user groups are scattered across major Internet platforms, and it is difficult to start with a big gun.

The industry’s own barriers limit the spread of growth activities and increase the difficulty of acquiring customers

Growth for the sake of growth, without considering the quality of leads and conversion costs in the later stage, as long as the data on the books looks good

Directly reuse the growth method of general traffic, without effective growth technology in vertical fields

In the final analysis, the cost is high (both monetary and time cost), and it is meaningless to make a loss to gain publicity.

02 Failures are common, but there are always surprises

The author has experienced all of the above problems and has been tortured repeatedly.

There was a period of time when the company had considerable user growth thanks to various offline activities and public domain traffic, and its user scale was also at the top of the industry;

However, as time went by, customer growth hit a bottleneck. The company's customer growth in a quarter was less than 5%, not to mention performance growth. It is no exaggeration to say that at one point the boss slammed the table and said that if the work could not be done, the entire department would be dismissed. Everyone knows the general environment in recent years. The takeaway riders have been fully recruited... So the question is, if you don't invest in coins, but just accompany them, how can you increase users?

After I mentally admired my boss's "wisdom", I had to stand firm, because after all, the big knife was in his hands.

After two failed campaigns, I finally had a campaign that I could show off to my boss. Let me first show you the data and then break down the process of these campaigns in detail:

• The activity has added 10,893 new members to the group
• The store received 6,534 new visitors in a single day
• Single-day transaction amount: 147,048 yuan

03 Success after many failures always needs to be analyzed

Let’s review the failure cases first. If we only look at the data, it is not a failure. After all, there are not many people in the industry and the book data is not bad.

Activity 1: Growth through old employees with a 50% churn rate

First of all, I need to explain why we need to have old employees mentor new employees. Our client group at that time was internal training managers of companies. Many people may not have heard of such a job, so it is conceivable that this group of people is very small, and not all companies have this position. Generally, only companies of a certain size will have this position, and even if it is open, there will not be many people.

Therefore, it is very difficult to acquire customers from the public domain. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Moreover, the cost of acquiring customers from the public domain is extremely high. In the end, you are just working for the platform.

Therefore, we targeted the private domain as a channel for acquiring customers. Through the form of private domain fission, we allowed existing customers to reach out to their friends and conduct activities to attract new customers from old customers. Our idea is very simple. No matter how small this group of people is, they have their own circle. Every training manager has a few friends in the same industry around him, so we started our first activity of old customers bringing in new customers.

The specific operations are as follows:

First of all, using the unsaleable peripheral stocks in our warehouse, we carried out a 5-day task to attract new friends, that is, to invite a corresponding number of new friends to add the company's WeChat account through old friends. Different numbers of friends can get different levels of prizes. At the same time, in order to lower the threshold of the activity, the first-level prize only needs to invite 3 people to get the prize (a hero needs three helpers). In the end, the new user data was really good. The activity attracted 1,685 new friends, and the activity fission rate reached 851.01%. On average, every person who participated in the activity brought us an increase of 8.5 users.

But here comes the problem. Within a week, the fan churn rate reached an astonishing 49.38%. A churn rate of half means that many new friends were invited to join in order to get rewards. Even those who stayed did not have a high subsequent conversion rate. They were basically zombie fans who would not reply to your messages. They did not reply, delete, or disturb you, but just stayed there, which was particularly eye-catching.

There is no doubt that such a high fan loss rate and low response rate means that we have not effectively acquired our target customers, so this event is definitely a failure.

Activity 2: Group fission growth with a 70% decrease in the number of new members

They say failure is the mother of success. Growth must continue. After all, that’s what we do. But I definitely can’t keep sending them out like I did before. Unsaleable inventory also has costs! If I keep sending them out, I’ll have to leave. . .

So we reviewed the reasons for the failure and summarized them as follows:

1. Everyone is looking for the free rewards, so the quality of the new users is naturally poor. They only have requirements for the number of people, not the quality, so all kinds of people come;
2. We only consider self-interest, not altruism, and only consider what the inviter can gain, while ignoring what the invitee can gain. This has proven to be very important, because attraction is always greater than coercion;
3. We did not perform corresponding outreach and activation actions for new customers. Many of them came just to help. The relationship between them and us was very fragile, and they would be easily lost if there was no timely activation and maintenance.

Based on this, we designed the second growth activity: group fission growth based on WeChat for Business.

Because our clients are training managers within the company, they may be teachers within the company. These clients naturally have the need and attributes to learn, so we organized an activity for free learning in the group. The process is as follows:

1. We selected a batch of recorded lessons on topics that customers are interested in on our APP and made a lesson package
2. A number of corporate WeChat groups have been established to share the free learning rights of the course package within the group, and all users who join the group can join the group for free
3. Publish activities, users can learn free courses by joining the group
4. Publish an announcement in the group to inform old users and invite new friends to join the group to study together. They can receive additional course material rewards.
5. After new customers join the group, they are given course learning permissions and are guided to continue inviting them, thus achieving circular fission.

Our idea at the time was that this way, whether it was old customers or new customers who were invited, this community was naturally valuable. Content that would be paid for outside could be free for a limited time in this group, and you could also get extra rewards if you invited new customers. Because his sharing could bring value to others, at least some of the people he invited were his friends in the same industry. This was the same logic as the wool-pulling group, where good things could be plucked together, and the people invited were more accurate.

However, our idea at that time was that if we wanted to get the free stuff, we had to add users to WeChat first, so the path we set for attracting new users was:

1. User A scans the code to generate and save his own poster and share it with friend B.
2. Friend B scans the QR code on the poster and adds WeChat.
3. Reply to the WeChat account to join the group + the activity QR code.
4. Users click the link to join the group and scan the QR code to continue fission.

It seems quite simple and not complicated. You can get rewards as long as you invite 3 people, and the invitees can also get benefits. We are full of confidence in this event and believe that it will be a hit!

Indeed, the retention data this time is much better than last time, the crowd is much more accurate, and there were subsequent transactions. However, in June last year, WeChat required authorization before opening the activity page in WeChat. At first we thought this would not have any impact, but the actual data of 586 new users taught us a good lesson!

We never thought that for a free event, the number of participants would be even less than last time?

Our original idea was that after friend B scanned the QR code and joined the group, he could click on the group link to join the group, and also scan the activity QR code to generate his own poster. But it turned out that we were too naive.

From the user's perspective, we reviewed it and asked, how many clicks does it take for the user to go from A to B? (One action counts as one click)

• Action 1: A scans the code
• Action 2: A authorization
• Action 3: A saves the poster
• Action 4: A shares with B
• Action 5: B scans the code
• Action 6: Point B group link
• Action 7: B authorization
• Action 8: B scans the pop-up group QR code to join the group
• Action 9: B returns to the previous level of enterprise micro-conversation interface
• Action 10: B scans the activity code
• Action 11: B authorization
• Action 12: B saves the poster
• Action 13: B shares with C

You don’t know until you see it, and you’ll be shocked. To invite B to join the group from A, two people need to complete 8 actions. If you want the fission to continue, that is, B starts to attract new members, 13 actions need to be completed!

Not to mention authorizing that page, which clearly prompts you to obtain your public information. Also, because it might have just been launched, for some privacy-conscious people who don’t even know you, why should they authorize it?

In addition, since you can learn courses by joining the group, and the process of sharing to get rewards is so cumbersome, many people have already obtained the course learning rights, and may be too lazy to share, and just learn secretly, so the fission rate has dropped significantly. It's a miracle that this fission can work!

Although the data is not good this time, it also gives us some ideas:

1. The core factor that determines whether fission can run is "self-interest";
2. The core of determining the accuracy of customer acquisition is "altruism";
3. The fission path cannot be complicated, at least it cannot be troublesome for him;
4. First, attract users and attract them sincerely. Your customers will not run away.
5. Atmosphere creation and herd effect are very important. Reasonable use of communities can greatly increase participation rates.

Unexpected activity 3: The number of live broadcast groups watching W games increased exponentially

After two activities with not-so-good data, we have summarized a lot of experience. What remains is to verify our ideas in new activities.

The third activity was a live broadcast group fission activity. As for why we chose live broadcast for group fission, based on our previous activity experience, the same bait reward is not suitable for continuous use, and whether it is physical objects or courses, there are certain costs, which also affect our subsequent product conversions; then is there any low-cost (preferably free) and innovative activities to attract and meet user needs?

Coincidentally, the content department invited several teachers to do a joint video account live broadcast, but because our video account was just starting out at the time, we didn’t have many fans, and we didn’t make good use of private domain resources, our past live broadcast data had a maximum of 1,000 viewers.

Therefore, we did a fission based on this live broadcast, and the effect was quite good. The data is as follows:

Growth data: 5,837 new members joined the group. Compared with the previous period, the group fission increased by 506 people, an increase of more than 11 times!

The focus is on the live broadcast data: through a private live broadcast group of 5,800 people to leverage public domain traffic, the final number of viewers was 11,478, the number of views was 17,705, the number of likes was 49,207, and the number of comments was 5,509.

We were actually very satisfied with this data at the time, and this was also the first time we achieved a live broadcast with tens of thousands of viewers.

The specific process is as follows:

Step 1: Design all the processes and scripts in advance, establish a project list, divide the work into each step in detail, communicate in advance who will do what, and configure all the scripts in the WeChat backend in advance;

Step 2: Configure group live codes. 30 groups have been configured with live codes in advance, and the number of people in each group is limited to 180.

Step 3: Guide existing private domain users to forward the poster to Moments with a script and save it for more than 2 hours without blocking or grouping, and send the screenshot of the forwarding to the group, and you can get rewards directly. Step 4: The friends of the private domain user see the Moments poster and scan the code to join the group directly;

Step 5: After joining the group, the user is informed by @ that he can get a prize by forwarding the poster to his friends circle. The user completes the subsequent forwarding action, and the cycle continues;

Step 6: After the live broadcast begins, the group continues to carry out live broadcast operations: lecturer sharing broadcast, lucky bag announcements, lottery announcements, and distribution of live broadcast courseware PPT materials.

I know you may have some questions here:

1. Why is it 180 people in the second step, and why is it a group live code?

Because if the number of people in a WeChat group is less than 200, people can directly scan the QR code to join the group. The reason for leaving 20 people vacant is that some people may directly invite friends to join the group, which will block the position and prevent people outside from scanning the QR code to join.

The advantage of a group active code is that when a group is full, it can automatically switch to a new group, which is very suitable for this kind of large-scale fission activity.

2. Does it make sense that in the third step, there is no requirement for the number of people or even for likes?

Here we first need to clarify, what do we need users to do for us the most? We need them to help us promote the product the most, so there are three core indicators to consider:

· User participation activity forwarding rate

Imagine if it were you, would you rather save the poster and post it to Moments directly, then take a screenshot and that's it, or would you rather click on the activity link, click on the authorization information, then long press to save the poster, and then find friends one by one to scan the code? Without a doubt, of course it's the former, there are fewer things to do, and more people are willing to help you!

Number of friends invited by the user

Indeed, in this case, the number of invitations for a single user is definitely not as high as the limit we set for him, but don’t forget that there are many people helping us!

The total number of new members attracted to your event is not only related to how many people you invited as a single user, but also to how many people forwarded it for you.

For example, if the average number of invitations per user participating in an event is 3, and there are 100 users participating in the event, then the data for this event is 3*100=300 people.

This time, each user participating in the event may have invited 1 person, but there are 500 users participating in the event, so the data for this event is 1*500=500 people.

Customer accuracy

Indeed, in this case, the number of invitations for a single user is the most critical point. Customer accuracy. As we said before, in previous activities, in order to get rewards, because there were quantity requirements, the people invited were often not our accurate customers. Not only will it cause customer loss later, but it will also increase our operational pressure during the event! This is the case of good-looking book data, but in fact, it is nothing after all the hard work.

But this problem does not exist this time, why?

We do not limit the number of invitees, only the forwarding. As long as you help me forward it effectively, it will be fine.

The law of attraction, forcing you to join a group and attracting you to join a group are two different concepts. The former not only has inaccurate customers, but may also just want to help a friend get a prize, and customer stickiness is not high. The latter are naturally attracted by the high potential energy of your content, and the customer quality is extremely high.

After all, think about it, under what circumstances would you actively scan the event posters posted by your friends in Moments? Of course, the content is valuable to you! Otherwise, why would you scan the code? Similarly, users who still scan the code to join the group in this case are of course our accurate customers, or at least target customers who are interested in our content!

Therefore, the purpose of this event is clear:

We asked everyone to help spread the word about this event. This was a live video broadcast on a video account. Our video account was just starting out at the time and we had very few fans. If we just posted it, no one would watch it.

Use this event to gain customers and let more people help you attract new friends

Fission customer acquisition requires precision. There is no point in forcing you to come in. I hope to attract precise customers who are interested in this content through activities.

3. Why do users scan the QR code to join the group in the fourth step instead of adding the company WeChat account and then joining the group?

The answer is fission link, the less one step, the better! Our core demand is to circle the target customers first. As for whether it is in your group or on your WeChat account, in fact, as a new friend, it doesn’t make much difference. After all, even if you are added as a friend, you will still be deleted if you should be deleted. As long as you design the operation activation action well, the users of the community will eventually settle on your WeChat account.

4. Some tips for this activity

Guide users to post screenshots in the group and take advantage of the herd effect. Use internet trolls to post pictures in the early stage. With a leader, when others see so many people forwarding them, they will also forward them.

After the user posts a screenshot in the group, he can directly @ him to add you as a friend to claim the prize. This allows everyone to see that the prize is indeed real, and secondly, if he adds you, then this friend will come, right? And he will definitely add you!

After the live broadcast begins, the group needs to continuously perform operational actions, such as informing people about lucky bag draws, organizing useful content, and operating the live broadcast community to increase the potential of the event!

Live playback can be set up for payment, but you can also set up to fill in the questionnaire information and then take the course on the corresponding platform. In this way, the company information, users and APP website daily activity are all here, right? Kill two birds with one stone!

5. Does such an activity really help the business? Are so many customers really valuable?

What is more important than growth is operation! If you only attract people without taking follow-up actions, it is meaningless no matter how accurate these people are. You will waste a lot of customer resources. Customers cannot be converted into sales just by adding them. You need continuous operation, which is the meaning of private domain operation. Successful replication-Activity 4: The effect is 8 times the group fission growth

After talking about Activity 3, many people may say that our case belongs to the education industry, so this kind of live broadcast of sharing training materials is naturally attractive, and it may not work in other industries. In fact, it is the same. The key is to find the needs of your target users, meet their needs, and shorten the path to meet their needs! ! In this way, your activities will naturally spread widely.

As mentioned earlier, the data of Activity 2 was not ideal, but we concluded after reviewing that with such a long link, it can still bring about user growth, which shows that there is nothing wrong with the selection of bait. In addition, there was a long period of time in between, and there was also a live broadcast fission activity. Based on this, we combined the successful experience of Activity 3 and redesigned a group fission growth. The same prize setting and learning group, but the path was referenced to Activity 3, that is, you can receive the prize as long as you share the poster to your circle of friends, which eventually brought 4096 group users to grow!

Compare it to the second activity, from 506 to 4096 people, an 8-fold increase in data, just by optimizing the fission process! These two activities directly increased the number of people in our private domain community by 10,000 people, and because these two activities are word-of-mouth content attraction activities, users are naturally activated by our products (live broadcast/courses/materials), eliminating the ice-breaking process. The most intuitive change is that every time we plan a large-scale live broadcast, we throw it into the group, leverage the public domain through the private domain, and invest a little money, we can easily break the W level.

Moreover, because our company also does enterprise TOB business, not only has the C-end performance improved significantly, but the number of B-end lead flows has also greatly increased. The B-end leads that could not be bought with money before can now be obtained for free through subsequent private domain operations. The key is that we can repeatedly reach this group of users for free in the future!

04 An effective and replicable customer acquisition model - REV model

Finally, to sum up:

• Activity 1: The traditional microblog uses rewards to attract new members to expand. The newly added data on the books looks good, but most of them are invalid data. This not only wastes company resources, but also increases operational pressure.
• Activity 2: Content-based word-of-mouth fission. Although the customer acquisition is accurate, the process is too complicated and people are too lazy to share the good things after they get them, which limits the dissemination.
• Activity 3: Content-based word-of-mouth fission + simple process, the mountain will always stand there. As long as your product potential is high enough, users will naturally be attracted to you, and all you have to do is let more people see you and make the dissemination process simpler and more direct~
• Activity 4: Verification of the fission idea of ​​Activity 3. The same products and community as Activity 2, but it brought 8 times the group fission growth of Activity 2!

Therefore, through these four activities, I came to a conclusion that an effective user growth activity should be designed like designing a product. It requires not only an increase in quantity and wide dissemination, but also accurate and high-quality customers. For this, I have summarized a set of REV models for user growth by borrowing product design.

That is, effective user acquisition/growth (Acquisition) = meeting requirements (requirement) + optimizing experience (Experience) + commercial value (value)

1. Satisfy user needs

The core of whether fission can run is "self-interest"; the core of determining the accuracy of customer acquisition is "altruism"; no matter the former or the latter, there is a "benefit", so your fission bait should be attractive enough, and you should make your drainage products with the attitude of making regular-priced products, and even make your drainage products better than regular-priced products! After all, without the former, how can there be subsequent transaction conversion?

Therefore, analyzing user portraits and exploring user needs is a prerequisite. What are the needs of your target customers? What products do you have that can meet their needs? Will they be attracted to your product?

2. Optimize user experience

The core factor that determines whether private domain fission can work is "selfishness". Human nature itself is selfish and lazy. Your stuff is good enough, but if you don't have a good process to induce sharing, he may be too lazy to share it, and use such a good thing secretly. Only when he does not need to invest too much in sharing and it can bring him better benefits, will he spread it.

And because we must take ROI into consideration, we are destined to not be able to invest unlimitedly to meet user needs. Therefore, it is crucial to optimize the user participation experience, let more people help you share, bring in more customers, and lower your average customer acquisition cost.

3. Explore business value

The core of determining the accuracy of private domain customer acquisition is "altruism". The growth of users in terms of quantity is just a string of numbers. The growth of relatives and friends will only increase your operational pressure and waste your resources.

First, you need to be accurate in acquiring customers. The ideal situation is that new customers are attracted by you rather than just to help your good friends.

The second is to do a good job of activating and reaching new customers. Here I have previously shared a very useful seven-day activation method for new customers. First build trust, then talk about other things. After all, leeks must be raised before they can be harvested~