How to have user thinking?

Why is user thinking so important? This article focuses on user thinking, explains in detail its definition and importance, and how to have user thinking.

People can only make money within their cognition, but for brand marketers, people cannot only understand users who happen to overlap with themselves.

“Not being understood is the fate of those who express themselves,” but not understanding users should not become a shackle for brand marketers.

01 What is User Thinking?

The teacher said in the article "Oppose Party Stereotypes": "If you really want to do propaganda, you must consider the target, and think about who will read and listen to your articles, speeches, talks, and writings. Otherwise, it is equivalent to making up your mind not to let anyone read or listen. Many people often think that what they write and say is understood by others, but in fact it is not the case at all."

One of the core points of brand marketing is communication, which is to solve the problem of accuracy and efficiency, and is the information transmission between sellers and buyers. Without user thinking, it is difficult to make the company's selling points become user buying points.

In the context of brand marketing, we define user thinking as: not being biased by one’s own labels, having empathy, thinking about product value and psychological value from the user’s perspective, thereby driving their decision-making.

02 Why should we have user thinking

The essence of business is based on the exchange of value and price. Only by having user thinking can we better understand value, thereby allowing product development to have its own value and making brand communication more efficient.

Brand marketing is mainly based on the construction and communication of value.

1. Value Construction

The construction of value can be carried out around the formula of "cost performance = value/price", and value is mainly reflected in products, services and brands. Users buy any product based on the balance of pros and cons, and they feel it is worthwhile after doing some calculations. Of course, monopoly industries are different because there is no choice.

Value is value to certain people, only to users. In fact, there is no such thing as brand premium. This is the context of the enterprise.

As Duan Yongping said, "Brand premium is a misunderstanding. Brand is just about value for money. When a brand is taken for granted that it has a premium, it is easy to make mistakes. Most people do not buy branded products for the "premium". The so-called brand is actually a concentration of some kind of differentiation."

2. Dissemination of Value

After selecting the product value, the next step is to communicate the value.

Communication needs to solve the problem of efficiency, and efficiency lies in the fact that the communication objects can understand it at a higher rate. The communication of value lies in what you define as value.

Communication is an activity based on encoding and decoding. The former is to transform meaning into symbols, and the latter is to interpret symbols into meaning, which is the logic of symbolization and symbol interpretation.

Therefore, only when we have user thinking can we really find something that impresses users, whether it is functional value or psychological value. However, when both parties have a misaligned understanding of value, even if the materials we make look wonderful, it is difficult for the other party to really feel it.

For example, if the user wants to save money, but you focus on saving worry, it may be difficult to impress the other party. If the user pays more attention to time, and you ignore time because of your craftsmanship, it may also make the user choose another store.

Of course, if your product/service is a slash youth that takes all aspects into consideration, users will naturally be eager to get it. However, under the constraints of cost and limited resources, companies are more likely to make choices. After all, strategy is about choice and emphasis.

03 How to have user thinking

1. First Principles

The first principle is essential thinking.

With the goal as the core, starting from the essence of things, gradually analyzing from the outside to the inside, and finally finding a solution to the problem.

At the product level, it is to find the most essential needs of users and the most basic structure of the product under this category, rather than blindly copying existing theories and experiences.

This is also what Xiaomi often calls the "novice mode" when creating popular products. For example, when Xiaomi made Internet TV, it abandoned the previous "expert mode" in the remote control. In the past few decades, TV remote controls were densely packed with buttons. In fact, many people did not understand what they were used for, and it even caused trouble for their use and visual problems.

In 2012, Xiaomi's first generation remote control was so simple that it had only 11 buttons, allowing all users to easily use it intuitively without any learning curve. More professional functions were also provided in the system menu through simple and smooth UI interaction, truly realizing the requirements of "novice mode".

The first principle of a category is to find the rationality of its existence, that is, the existence of demand. The rationality of existence lies in the initial foundation, how it is defined in the beginning.

Munger once said that there is an ancient law in science and business, which consists of two steps:

The first step is to find a simple, basic truth.

The second step is to act very strictly according to this principle.

2. Second growth curve

The second growth curve here is based on the context of user needs, and is the growth in industry and enterprise scale directly brought about by satisfying the size of the user base and the sense of product value.

If the first principle is the user's "real need" (initially), then the second growth curve is the user's "still want" (now/future).

Based on the evolution of user needs, categories will differentiate and merge. The "still want" here is the logic of integration, that is, a certain product combines the attributes of multiple products.

For example, the logic of mobile phones has evolved from making calls to + music + taking photos + N, and finally it has become a smart device. Watches (smart watches) have evolved from telling time to + health monitoring + making calls + N. Some water purifiers have also evolved into heating water purifiers (water purifiers + heaters). This kind of category evolution is the interaction between enterprises and users, but the core essence is still rooted in demand, which is well-documented and reasonable. It is the logic of "in addition to..., but also...", which is the original thing.

3. Time Traveler Thinking

We often hear sayings like "Don't advise others to do good without experiencing their suffering. If you had experienced my suffering, you might not have been as good as I was" and "Why don't you eat meat?"

The problem is that if you are not the other person, you will only see things from your own perspective and ignore the other person's situation. Everyone has their own "infrastructure", whether it is material or spiritual, which determines how they think and what they can do.

In order to make it easier for everyone to understand, we propose the concept of "time traveler thinking".

That is to say, if your soul travels to the user's body, your material conditions and even your knowledge and cultural reserves will become those of the other party. You will only know a code name for yourself. Your education, values, etc. will all change. What will you think and what can you do at this time?

We often say that only we know our own feelings, and it is difficult for others to truly understand ourselves. The thinking logic of RMB players and ordinary players must be very different.

The main reason is that everyone has different income, time, energy, and cognitive levels. The difficulty of empathy is that, first, it is difficult for the user to further think about the other party's conditions under the form. Second, it is easy to bring in one's own identity and concepts when thinking.

Get out of the one-way product thinking, remove your own label, and integrate into the other party's role. Don't be prejudiced and abandon prejudices, and you may be able to open up your own thinking.

4. Find the “majority”

I believe many people have encountered such a scenario. When discussing user insights in a meeting, there will often be a small number of people who often cite some special examples, such as myself and my neighbor are not like this, and then generalize and refuse to listen to other people's opinions.

If we hope that our product can be bought by more people (in a relative sense), we need to consider the common parts. Of course, individuality cannot be completely ignored, but there needs to be some bias, otherwise it is easy to be blinded by one thing.

Summarize:

The root of user thinking lies in the complete thinking of role replacement, rather than simple verbal or partial condition replacement, which makes it difficult to truly put yourself in the other person's shoes.

It is human nature to think with your own labels, but a tolerant attitude can make it easier to find user value.

Author: Zang Feng; WeChat public account: Strategist Zang Feng