Practical sharing: How to acquire 2,000 precise seed users for free?

The author of this article shares his process of promoting low-cost products and building a private community from scratch. It is suitable for friends who are preparing to start community operations.

1. Experience

In 2019, Taoke was very popular. You can get coupons to buy things on Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo. In fact, I came into contact with Taoke in the second half of 2018. At that time, I joined the so-called "薅羊毛" group to get "internal" coupons. When I got the "internal" coupons for the first time, I thought this group was too good. I could buy things on Taobao so cheaply. At that time, I worked in a gardening company. I thought, if I also create a gardening supplies coupon group and gather gardening enthusiasts in it, then I can also make money in this way, so I decided to start an "internal" discount group in the gardening field.

2. Problems

At the beginning, I was confident and thought this was a very good project, but problems arose immediately. I found that I had no gardening users. The coupon group I created was an empty group, and no one would buy it no matter how many products I had.

3. Solution

1. Product positioning

A community for gardening users to save money, shop and interact with each other.

2. User group analysis

Age: 20~35 years old (primary), 36~45 years old (secondary).

Gender: Females are the majority (65%), males are the minority (35%).

Region: Mainly first-tier and second-tier cities.

Identity: White-collar workers, stay-at-home moms, retired elderly (rarely).

Hobbies: Gardening enthusiast, likes traveling, taking photos, and online shopping.

3. User needs analysis

At that time, I was working in a gardening company as a self-media content editor, so I was exposed to many self-media platforms, such as Toutiao, Baijiahao, Dayuhao, Dafenghao, NetEase, Penguin, Baidu Tieba, etc. I published articles and browsed gardening-related content on these platforms. I knew what users needed and what their pain points were.

For example:

(1) The soil for growing flowers is too expensive. I don’t dare to use the soil I dug outside. I want a cheap and easy-to-use soil.

(2) A novice wants to grow flowers, but doesn’t know how to do it. He wants to buy a cheap flower to practice with so that he won’t feel bad even if the flowers die.

(3) Growing flowers requires the most soil and pots. If I can find cheap pots, I will stockpile them because they will not expire.

(4) I always have trouble growing my own flowers and I don’t know which type of soil is best for growing flowers. Does any flower lover have any recommendations?

The above are just some of the demands that I have received the most feedback from the many gardening users I have come into contact with.

Let me briefly describe my research method:

• Use content to attract traffic and add users to WeChat.
• By engaging in common gardening topics, we can understand the problems users encounter in the process of growing flowers.
• After becoming a "loyal" listener, extend the communication process to topics of daily life.

I won’t go into detail about the specific research methods, but the key is to become friends with users and truly understand their needs.

4. Determine how to meet the need

(1) Newbies don’t know what flowers to grow – flower-growing exchange communities recommend and flower lovers share their flower-growing experiences.

(2) Save money when buying soil and pots - relevant coupons are distributed in the money-saving shopping community.

(3) I always fail to take good care of my own flowers - Flower-growing exchange community shares planting instructional videos and recommends easy-to-grow flowers.

At that time, because we had no plans to invest any money, all operations were based on WeChat communities. Meeting user needs was also mostly based on communities, and we also communicated through private chats.

5. Find the target population gathering place

As I mentioned before, I was working on self-media at the time, so I had access to many platforms. So the target gathering place was the self-media platforms mentioned above, but not every platform has such a good drainage effect. Because one person’s energy is limited, I finally locked on a platform with the best conversion effect - Baidu Tieba.

6. Promotion and traffic diversion

This step is the most core process. After all, only with traffic and users can a product be valuable. There is no cost investment, so the promotion method I choose is to attract traffic through content, that is, to publish gardening-related content on major self-media platforms, focusing on gardening discount comparisons, such as how much the original price on Taobao is and how much it is now with me. Let gardening users see the cost-effectiveness and discounts, so that users will have reasons to choose you.

For example: 10 flower pots, the original price is 20 yuan, now 10 yuan, if you need it, leave a message, follow me and I will reply first. Then you can send private messages and add WeChat to attract traffic.

Don't underestimate the short words. As long as you want something, you will leave a message. At the same time, the shorter the words, the lower the labor cost. Just grasp the core content. Through this method, you can quickly accumulate fans and get a lot of replies, so that the post will always be popular. Get more traffic exposure. According to this method, keep optimizing the words. As long as the number of posts goes up, you will naturally be able to continuously attract new users. The above example is just one of my methods of attracting traffic. I won't give examples of other methods for now.

7. Guide into the group

After using the above methods to attract users to add WeChat, don’t rush to add them to the group immediately, as this is something that users are very disgusted with. You should first solve the core needs of users who add you.

For example, if a user wants a cheap flower pot, you should first send the user a link with a coupon and instruct the user on how to place an order. And tell him that there will be more discounts in the future and he can follow my WeChat Moments (I will also post on WeChat Moments).

When the user's needs are met, their trust in you will be greatly improved, and by engaging in common topics, you can slowly turn strangers into friends. When he becomes your friend, he will help you add people to a group, etc.

8. Active in the group

When users join a community, they don’t just start letting it go. They must maintain the community’s activity. If it’s an interactive communication group, you can post some planting experiences, Q&A, and interesting things about growing flowers every day, and call on users to post their own experiences, questions, and interesting things. You need to use your own water army to interact actively. If it’s a coupon group, select gardening supplies with high cost performance and post them in the group, and ask users what products they want.

For example: I posted a question about how to water a rose in summer. I immediately arranged for the group to interact and deliberately answer controversial questions, which would arouse the active participation of users in the group and express their opinions. At the same time, I could also set up a vote, and the user with the highest number of votes could also receive a reward. (After all, the cost of making coupons is not high).

IV. Conclusion

The above is the process and part of my experience that I have experienced. It is for your reference only. Through the above methods, I accurately attracted more than 2,000 precision gardening users in 2019, and through friend fission, the number of users reached nearly 5,000. Due to time and energy reasons, in 2021, I slowly started to make a rebate robot model, that is, users can query coupons by themselves and place orders through links. During the Double 11 period in 2021, based on the users previously attracted, the transaction volume of users on the three platforms of Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo reached nearly 1 million.

Author: Never forget your original intention